SAP Certification Update from Today’s SAP Mentor Monday

Today SAP’s Susan Martin and SAP Mentor Tom Cenens gave an update of SAP Certification. Save the Date: April 28 SAP Mentor Monday SAP Certification Update

Figure 1: Source: SAP

Figure 1 is the agenda

Certified community survey came from Jon Reed

Figure 2: Source: SAP

Credential manager came from the community, driven by the Mentors

SAP saw a need for more community benefits, more self-service scenarios, and registry capability

SAP community said it was difficult to verify someone’s qualification/certification

SAP tried 4 years ago to develop a tool; reinventing the wheel

SAP tried to get it integrated into SCN business card; delayed by Jive migration

SAP decided to go to an external platform – Pearson Credential Manager

SAP wants to ensure benefits that it is certified – “where’s my certificate, where’s my logo, can I put it on my business card, can I carry over?”

In the past this was very much driven by SAP education in their region

SAP wants to offer a more simplified way now for the certified individual

Figure 3: Source: SAP

Figure 3 shows that the Credential Manager launched in October and started with English-speaking countries for the sake of simplicity

Now have 6,000 members

A question was asked whether you can add to Linked In profile – you cannot at the moment, something they would like to do

In February they published the consultant registry

They can opt in separately to Credential Manager

SAP expects at end of 2014 40-70K credential manager members

SAP is expecting 5K people in the registry list

Reason for 70K is primarily data cleansing

Figure 4: Source: SAP

As an example, for HANA certification, you  get an e-mail, receive a logon to credential manager.  You get a personalized page, which certifications you have, you edit information, and at the bottom decide whether to show the data in public registry

Figure 5: Source: SAP

Request a support at the bottom – to ascertain what sort of issues people have

Figure 6: Source: SAP

For credential manager, see below:

https://training.sap.com/shop/content/Credential-Manager

You can search for those certified individuals who opted to be included in the registry:

https://i7lp.integral7.com/durango/do/pr/prSearch?ownername=sap&channel=sap

Figure 7: Source: SAP

Figure 7 shows updates regarding global partners

Wave 2 is to show global listing of certified resources by 5 markets

In the future they will create regional listings

Figure 8: Source: SAP

Figure 8 shows crowdsourcing certification questionnaire.  Sue said they developed with CEIC

This started in July of last year, initially for HANA exams

SAP wants to increase the question pool

SAP looks at make sure questions do not get exposed

They want to keep refreshing exam questions and need huge question pools

SAP needs help in terms of getting exam questions

Some people have reached bronze, which gives you a free voucher.  See Rewards Program: SAP Crowdsourced Certification Questions

See SAP Crowdsourced Certification Initiative: “Rules for Success” Video Series for video tutorials, rewards programs, different levels

Figure 9: Source: SAP

SAP is in the process of finalizing; going out in a few weeks

SAP wants to find out what did it do for your career, what should it give you for your career, compared to other certification programs

SAP will have results by mid-year

It will cover program quality, organizational culture – are you getting certified because your boss, does it help your self-esteem?

Figure 10: Source: SAP

SuccessFactors and Ariba are working with SAP Certification team

This is planned for the July-August-September timeframe

Looking at certification roles in Q3 for e-learning curricula

Question & Answer/Discussion

Q: When update professional level exams?

A: SAP is reviewing whether professional level should be on a stringent schedule of levels.  It makes sense with associate level as it is tied to training content.  Professional is more about broad picture, knowing your way around it.  The CEIC may discuss.

When SAP updates an exam, from example 7.0 to 7.3, SAP tries to address important features/functions that are specific to the newest release, if it’s applicable to an item that should be tested. We also review all 7.0 items for compliance to 7.3 release, for example

Tom Cenens gave a live demo of the Learning Hub demo.  Next set of Learning Rooms opens mid-May

Our thanks to Tom, Sue for a great update today.  Additionally thanks toRob Phillips Sheri Schaaf for answering questions.

Pictured from the webcast: Ali Samieivafa Susan Martin Mark Finnern Tom Cenens