It’s Official – Phase 1 of the new SAP Support Portal has launched!
Some interesting facts
Did you know the Support Portal is used every month by half a million SAP customers? About half of those customers use the Support Portal every day and the infrastructure needs to support 5 million knowledge base searches and 1 million downloads a month for starters.
Drum roll please
It is an exciting day for users of the SAP Support Portal. Phase 1 of the new SAP Support Portal is now live!
I am thrilled to be announcing this. The road to a new SAP Support Portal has been filled with unexpected turns, but thanks to the passion of you, our customers, and our project team, we have reached this very important milestone.
You can access the new SAP Support Portal at http://support.sap.com.
**Please note, the Japanese site is expected to become available early in Q2**
https://youtube.com/watch?v=PY5zj3Veth0
The redesign is based on years of customer research and feedback, conducted by the SAP Product Support Customer Experience team. Through close collaboration with customers in interviews, usability studies, and online collaboration activities, we’ve defined and designed a new SAP Support Portal focused on your needs.
Here are some of the highlights you can expect in this Phase 1 delivery:
- Simplified navigation structure
- New homepage
- Logon with an email address
- Clearer, consistent and up-to-date content
- Easier access to applications through ‘tiled’ landing pages
- Better search results
- Unique URL for every HTML page
- No logon required for most content, you can find us on Google!
Got Feedback? Good!
We hope you start utilizing the new SAP Support Portal today, and we look to you for your feedback and suggestions. We want to hear what you think! There are a couple of ways to provide feedback.
- Each HTML page within the SAP Support Portal has a Feedback icon on the right hand side of the page (in green). Please utilize this area to tell us what you like, what you don’t, and provide suggestions and comments.
- If you are interested in getting involved in future activities regarding the SAP SupportPortal, you can contact our Usability team to express your interest. They will notify you when a study becomes available.
- Of course, you can also use the comment area below this blog to let me know what you think. I look forward to it!
Finding your way
For seasoned veterans of the SAP Support Portal as well as newer members, we have developed a tutorial that you can access from the home page at http://support.sap.com
This overlay highlights and describes each of the new areas found on the home page. We are hoping to use this feature when applications are revamped as well.
The Journey Doesn’t Stop Here
Our journey has just begun. Application areas such as software download, user management, and incident wizard will be completely modified, with a focus on your experience as our customer. Personalization is another hot topic that you have brought up, and we agree! How nice would it be to personalize what you want and need to see? Finally, most of the applications (ex. License keys, software download, and Incident creation) are currently running on legacy systems, so when you access an application in the SAP Support Portal, it will ask you to log in. We understand this can be extremely frustrating, and it is something we are aware of and are focused and dedicated on improving for you. In the interim, you can install a browser certificate for your log in. This will help minimize the login pop ups. For information on the browser certificate, please check this link > https://support.sap.com/support-programs-services/about/help-index/passport-help.html
To be continued
I want to personally thank you for your continued support. I look forward to hearing your feedback and suggestions on how we can continue to improve your experience.
DON’T FORGET! Follow SAP Product Support on Twitter: @SAPSupportCE and @SAP_gsupport and like us on Facebook too!
Okay, in the second attempt it worked, I am sure I get quick used to it, the navigation was easy. The search and especially moving to the next 10 results was much quicker.
In the first attempt I got numerous pop-ups for my certificate, and the page was then refreshing in circles, but I am confident that such teething troubles will be sorted out in a short time.
Hi Kristen,
I like the feature, that I can log out now 😆
It is a great step forward and the performance is better than before. The feedback-option will increase the speed of developing. Now everybody can report bugs smooth and easy.
Good job and keep doing so.
~Florian
Hi Kristen,
do you have a date, when the "old" SAP Support Portal will be shut down?
My bookmarks in the browser still open the "old" Support Portal.
Good job! The new SAP Support Portal looks great!
Kind regards,
Stephie
Hi Stephie,
We do not have a firm date for shutting down the old portal. We will be adding migration announcements and redirect links from various pages in the current portal to the new portal over the next few months.
Most bookmarks that customers have stored/favorited will be re-routed to new URLs as well.
Hope that helps!
Thanks,
Kristen
The new page has such a nice features! I can not wait to see what is next 😆 !
Very good.. the new page it´s easier to work with.... and it´s more intuitive...
Good job!!!
Hi,
has anybody got any content in the new popups for something when using FIREFOX?
I always get a blank/empty popup. Even the Feedback is empty 🙁 . And with that popup in front, the navigation on the site is no longer possible. I think this really a step backwards in usability.
Or is the whole thing just a design study, as many functions don´t show any of the results that can be seen in service.sap.com?
Dirk
Hi Dirk,
Thank you for bringing this up. What version of Firefox are you using?
Thanks,
Kristen
Hi Kristen,
I am using Firefox ESR 24.4.0.
Has anybody fixed some of the issue over night? Today it seems it's (slowly) working.
But how can we get rid of the popus? They are blocking the navigation. In the service.sap.com/support portal it is possible to navigate cross applications with one click in the menu.
There still are some workspaces using keyboard, monitor, mouse; and I think for a longer time without tochscreens.
Regards
Dirk
Hi Dirk,
Thanks for the feedback. I will bring this to the team for follow up.
Appreciate you getting back to me with regards to Firefox. Glad to hear it is working for you.
Thanks,
Kristen
Hi Dirk,
have you installed a browser certificate (SAP Passport)?
Browser Certificate (SAP Passport) - Help
A browser certificate will simply the multiple logons that you might experience. We are working hard on improving the logon situation this year.
Regards,
Miles
Hi Miles,
I have a browser certificate (SAP Passport) installed.
Hope the "old" SAP Support Portal remains completly functional so it will not be necessary to use the new pop-up windows (modal windows)!
Regards
Dirk
I´m having the same problem as you in Chrome... Dirk Weigelt...
I always get a blank/empty popup ....
empty popups in Chrome often have to do with the zoom factor, try to change yours, I had no issues yesterday evening when working from home with Chrome
I looked at zoom but doesn´t work... I think that it´s something about security... now that I saw an icon in the right corner... the message says that there are a malicious script in the popup.. i changed the option to always execute scripts from support.sap.com... and it´s working fine now..
Txs...
Hi,
I noticed with IE9 that the new SAP Support Portal pages obviously use secure and insecure content. I.e. in
https://support.sap.com/kb-incidents/inbox.html I get a security warning
“Only secure content is displayed” notification in Internet Explorer 9 as described in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2625928/en-us. After consulting our network security staff we as LVR think this should be fixed by SAP and not by accepting *.sap.com and *.sap-ag.de as Trusted Sites in IE.
Regards
Dirk
Hi Dirk,
Thanks again for the feedback. Bringing this in to the team to test. I did try on my PC and didn't get this message, but may be because I am using internal system.
Many thanks,
Kristen
Hi Dirk,
we had identified an issue with SSL in some of the links used on the site, including the feedback link. The feedback link should be working on all common browsers now.
Thanks,
Miles
finally! a new version...
The old one lacks of dozens of features.
Can't wait to work with the new one 😀
I noticed when using IE (IE 9, Windows 7) to search incidents it is returning no results.
Knowledge Base & Incidents-->Search Incidents-->Search (using default values) -->No search results found.
If I use Firefox for Chrome, I get search results as expected.
Tried clearing browser cache and Compatibility Mode but still no search results in IE.
If I search incidents starting from the old support portal using IE, I get search results as expected.
Regards,
Mike
Hi Michael,
Thank you for your feedback. Would you mind sending me some screenshots of what you are getting in IE? I tested it with my system (same as yours), and got results.
I will send you a message with my email.
Thank you,
Kristen
Had a quick look round and really disliked the modal popups. 🙁
As had been said earlier they make navigation very difficult and I don't know of any other major site that uses them. I'm interested in the content and shouldn't be distracted by its unique(?) use of popups. I would rather links default to opening in a new browser tab or at the very least have a user option to set this as default.
I tried to use feedback option to say as much and like others here got a blank screen. Right clicking on the feedback button and open in new tab (was prompted for certificate/sap passport) allowed me to see and send feedback.
Had a look to see what was going on using various browsers.
Using Firefox (version 28.0)
Blocked loading mixed active content "http://service.sap.com/~form/alko/..."[Learn More]
The Learn More links to https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Security/MixedContent
Using Chrome (version 33.0.1750.154 m)
[blocked] The page at 'https://support.sap.com/home.html' was loaded over HTTPS, but ran insecure content from 'http://service.sap.com/~form/alko/...: this content should also be loaded over HTTPS.
Using IE (version 11.0.9600.16521)
Gave me a prompt "Only secure content is displayed" and an option to click Show All Content.
Hi Paul,
we have identified the same issue with the feedback form and will be correcting that shortly.
In order to give access to the older support applications from the new website it has been necessary to use the pop-up windows (modal windows). This has been unavoidable.
Over the next year, we will begin replacing those applications and their pop-up window style delivery with a HANA-powered framework. The newer applications will be embedded directly in the webpages and the pop-up windows will be no more.
We think that this small, temporary compromise is more than made up for with the new navigation, content and other features of the new Support Portal and hope that you would agree.
Regards,
Miles
Hi Miles,
Thanks for explanation. I would beg to differ on the unavoidable use of pop-ups. For example using the old quick link notes give a pop-up but if that's dismissed then the screen behind it has this text:
You are being redirected
SAP Note & Knowledge Base Article Search is opened in a pop-up window. Click here to open it in a separate browser window instead
Doing just that works fine opening in a new tab in my case. I just wish that this was the default behaviour or could be made to be default. Its a small issue and I have the above open-dismiss-click workaround so I'm going to continue using the new site.
Regards
Paul
Yikes... have to say I'm really not sure it works.
- The design means I only get 70% of the usable space on my screen
- It's not mobile or tablet optimized
- I still get constant popups either for certificate or user/password
- It works much better without a certificate even on my iPhone, BUT then you get password popups. So there's no good way to work it.
- I don't at all like the modal popups either
But maybe it's just because it'd different. Not sure that's right though - it reminds me of Windows 3.0 - a wrapper around MS-DOS.
Hopefully there's a strategy around this and this is a stepping stone to awesome stuff, like Windows 3.0 was to Windows 95!
Hi John,
we ran some extensive analysis of the monitor resolutions being used by our users and selected a site resolution that permitted all of the our current users to get a good experience of using the site.
A liquid layout brings a raft of its own problems with it and it is also not the SAP standard.
The site is not mobile optimized...yet. Again our research showed that only a miniscule amount of the traffic to the site is via mobile devices. We do have a lot of mobile improvements planned for the coming 18 months though.
We are working hard on improving the logon situation this year, that will include hopefully developing a browser certificate for mobile devices.
Regards,
Miles
Hi John,
I was wondering if you have also tried out our mobile application for SAP Support called Support Desk?
You can download it here for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sap.supportdesk_android and here for iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/hu/app/sap-support-desk/id451139131?mt=8
Thanks,
Miles
First impression with new Support Portal was good.
- Lot Changes in User Interface design.
- Quick Navigation links
- Nice fature- Can login with our mail ID and SSO with SCN account
thanks,
mahesh
Like others, I'm getting used to the new layout, but I think I like it.
I'm quite interested in the underlying technology. Is this running on NW 7.4 Enterprise Portal, or something else?
ie. Is this the type of look we can expect for our next Portal rollout.?
Regards,
Thomas
Hi Thomas,
there is a very wide mix of technologies being used to deliver the Support Portal.
Currently the One Digital Experience (1DX) project is standardizing the web portal technologies (and much more) used across SAP web properties.
What aspect of the technology are you most interested in?
Can you perhaps explain what you are referring to with 'our next Portal rollout'?
Thanks,
Miles
My consulting client is currently running NW 7.01 SP14 for their Enterprise Portals. However, we are about to do a datacenter move, along with an OS and DB migration. During all this, we plan to retire the existing Portals and build new NW 7.4 based Portals. So, I'm interested to see examples of the NW 7.4 Portals in use.
I'm not familiar with the "One Digital Experience (1DX) project". Can you provide more information on this? Could it affect our next Portal strategy?
Hi,
I like the new look and features of the new support portal.
While looking around I'm missing the link to "My favorites"
I can add a note as favorite but after that I cannot find the saved favorite notes..
Will that be implemented in future releases?
Regards
Dietmar
Hi Dietmar,
Thank you for your feedback!
I am checking with the development team on your question.
Thanks,
Kristen
Hi Dietmar,
It is being considered for future release.
In the interim, you can add it as a browser favorite by utilizing the http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/xxxxx format, where the xxxx is the note number.
Thanks,
Kristen
Hi Kristen,
thank you for your informations.
Regards
Dietmar
Hi Kristen,
The new look and feel is same end user experience as SCN Portal. I am big fan of using alias. I could not access alias "/guidefinder" which I fequently use in service.sap.com instead of going through multiple click navigation. Are there any plans to migrate all quick links to new Portal.
Bhavin
Hi Bhavin,
Thanks for your comment!
We are going to be migrating some of the most frequently used quick links from the old portal to the new one.
I have a document here: SAP Support Information You Can Use
that I will be updating with corresponding links as they become available.
Many thanks,
Kristen
Hi Kristen,
Nice job. The portal is beautiful.
I made a tour in it and found everything necessary and related to SAP support (for a functional consultant, at least). It will be very useful.
Regards,
Etore Santos
Hi Etore,
Thank you so much for your feedback! We agree that it is much easier to find what you are looking for.
Cheers,
Kristen
It is greatly improved, but I looked all over the main page for OSS notes.
What do you suppose is the most common reason that people go to the
portal page? I will bet it is to find OSS notes.
Thanks,
James
Hi James,
you'll find the "Note and KBA Search Tool"-link on the right side. First entry beneath the topic "Technical-Planning".
Regards,
Oliver
Hi James,
you will have noticed that the new homepage has a large search bar that can be used to search all support resources, including SAP Notes. However in response to customer feedback, which we are always keen to hear, we will be adding a dedicated SAP Notes / Knowledge Base Article search field this week.
You can see a preview here:
Regards,
Miles
the field "Enter note/KBA Number" does not permit to search for sap notes with a description of the problem but only with a number...this is not useful....
I suggest to you permit this possibilities....
Thank's.
Hi Antonio,
if you want to search for a solution to a problem you should use the main search window just to the left. You can then filter on SAP Notes and Knowledge Base Articles specifically.
Regards,
Miles
Hi Miles, There are many of us who use this page primarily for searching for SAP notes. The history is that we had this capability and when it went to the portal, the search was expanded to areas other than SAP notes. This cluttered up the response of the search with information other than SAP notes. It works the way you have it, but it would be ideal to have a box for 'search SAP notes (number or string)' where we could enter either a note number or e.g. a program name. We had this in the antiquated system called OSS and it has been a thorn in my side ever since it was replaced. In fact, until now, I simply ignored the portal and used CSS to perform this search. Thanks, James
Hi James,
we are working on a new HANA-enabled SAP Notes and KB Search that will fufill your requirements and I am sure exceed your expectations.
That new search has been in development for a while (the HANA technology is developing very quickly) and recently completed a new round of customer testing. We expect to make it available to customers this year.
If you would like to get involved in testing that and more enhancements please register here: https://sapci.brightidea.com/ct/s.bix?c=70DE5C6A-F9E3-46A9-8D05-D597A434EDA7
Regards,
Miles
Hi miles
yes thank's , but the SAP Search tool is different from the sap notes search , they give you differents results search, also if you filter for sap notes only in the sap search.... I think the 2 tool use 2 different engine search....
Hi Antonio,
you're right, we have two different search applications on offer in the Support Portal, which in fact use the same search engine but different indexes.
We are working on new search technology as I mentioned above, which will unify the applications and provide consistent and very thorough results with powerful filters and search logic.
Regards,
Miles
Thank you Miles , that's will be beautiful and very appreciated!
Best Regards!
Hi,
I have question. I've downloaded Netweaver Trial version > installed on a Win7 computer. I start SAP Management, It looks like everything is working fine, but when I start SAP Logon I can't logon. There is no logon part, it blended, and I can't see any item.
Can anybody give some idea what can be the problem?
Thank in advance. Kind regards: Csaba Nandori
This seems very, that you are not having a saplogon.ini
You know, you need to have a .ini. That is the file which includes all of your connections...
~Florian
Hi Kristen,
I was using new SAP Portal and created new SAP Incident. When I click on report incidents, font size of new pop-up window is too small. Inspite my browser view setting is 100%. I am not sure if this was reported prior by somebody. This is just my opservation with Portal.
Bhavin
Hi Bhavin,
Thanks for the comment!
What browser are you using out of curiosity? I have heard this mentioned.
Thanks,
Kristen
Hi Kristen,
I am using IE 9 Update Version 9.0.23. It works fine on Google Chrome Version 31.01847.131.
Bhavin
Hi Bhavin,
Thanks for your response. I believe this has been raised and that there is an upcoming fix that will be delivered, but will follow up on this for you.
Many thanks,
Kristen
Hi Bhavin,
The issue you reported should be resolved now. Let me know if it is not.
Many thanks,
Kristen
Hi Kristen,
I was investigating issue and used search functionality "Search for SAP Notes, Knowledge Base Articles and more". It did came back with result from SCN Discussion as status "Solved for author: ......." When I check that SCN thread, it's status was "Assumed Answered.". I have notice it happens every time. This is misleading search result or it is issue displaying data in SAP Portal.
Bhavin
Hi Bhavin,
Great feedback! I will bring this into the team that is working on search to see how we can reflect this properly.
Cheers,
Kristen