SAP Notes, Wikis, KBAs, Discussions, Blogs, Documents – Do they fit your needs?
Which SAP knowledge sources do you check first when searching for a resolution to a product issue? Is there a difference between a SAP note and Knowledge Base Article (KBA)? What do you think about the quality of the content that we publish? We’d like to know!
We have developed a short 5 minute survey so we can learn about your awareness, usage, and satisfaction with the knowledge created by SAP Product Support.
By participating in this survey, we will have a better idea of how you are using the knowledge we create, if that knowledge is meeting your needs, and what roadblocks we may be putting in the way of your success. We will then be able to use your feedback to ensure our future knowledge creation activities are meeting your needs!
The survey is open until August 16th, and can be taken here.
We thank you in advance for your participation, and look forward to turning your feedback into action!
Thank you for having this question. I have always felt that SAP Documentation was very good in making sure that every point is covered. The major problem I have always had with it was that the documentation severely lacks any kind of context ( pictures or dialogue) to help explain and understand the process. It seems at times this is purposely left out? Sometimes it's also obvious there are translation issues. Also, because of the lack of context I am constantly needing to have to rely on many, many, sometimes fruitless conversations about a topic to hope and find the context I need.
Just ONE example to be specific would be information on the flagging of cardinality on Line Item Dimensions. So much context could be added to this topic and should be. I found some context from one of our community users. It would be so nice if the documentation could cover items like this for us. http://scn.sap.com/thread/1222795
I feel if the documentation was thorough and had lots of context then the forums would be primarily used to communicate new information and ideas to the community as well as how to use the technology and tools in different environments. This would be time better spent.
I feel SAP notes are fairly good in that they are timely and cover many detailed issues. These could also add some context. The rest of the community is great when it comes to discussions, spaces and wikis. Keep up the good work!
I always find myself wishing that SAP Documentation could be more like IBM documentation. They always add thorough graphics and context to their documentation. I remember way back in the day even reading their TECHNICAL Manuals and they had context as well.
P.S. You can reference IBM's document on BW for a good idea of how their documentation contains context compared to SAP. "Best Practices for SAP BI using DB2 9 for zOS"
www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246489.pdf
Hope this helps,
Hi Kenneth,
Thank you so much for providing your thoughts on this. I will make sure your comments are captured and brought back to our knowledge management team.
Again, I appreciate your response.
Best regards,
Kristen
Kristen, thank you for sharing. Just thought you might want to broadcast this to other spaces (maybe even 'About SCN') to get more response. It's a good survey. Didn't expect a "pop quiz" at the end, but hopefully I did OK. 🙂
It was tough to make a choice in some questions because SAP Support Portal and SCN kind of have different purpose. If I believe there is a bug in SAP and I have an error message or short dump, I'm most likely to go to look at the notes. Otherwise I'd reach for Google and search other SAP sites.
I agree with Kenneth that documentation leaves a lot to be desired. If it was very thorough and easy to understand, SCN would probably be half empty. 🙂 SAP Help wasn't part of this survey, but I believe it has a big effect on the rest.
Thank you.
Hi Jelena,
Thank you for your input, and I am sure you did just fine 🙂
Great thoughts on the differences between the portal and SCN. Really glad that you captured this!
Will make sure to get your thoughts back to the team.
Thanks for the idea of sharing in different spaces too!
Best regards,
Kristen
I think the most valuable improvement to SAP Notes & KBAs would be the possibility to send feedback to the author. With the current process (opening a customer message) it takes hours of valuable time to get corrections to SAP Notes & KBAs. Corrections are sometimes needed because of translation mistakes, misleading/incorrect information, technical details wrong, oversight of impacted versions, etc. Because of the time required with the current process, I for the most of time don't even bother to report problems with SAP Notes & KBAs.
Hi Samuli,
I absolutely LOVE this idea! I will definitely bring it on board and see if there is a way for us to develop something like this. I know that you as a customer can rate KBA's, but it does not capture the feedback that customers may have.
Thanks for sharing!
Kristen