You Asked for it, SAP Delivers: Twenty-Four (24) Cool New CRM Enhancements!
My grandmother once gave me some valuable advice about not being too shy to ask people for what I wanted, “Don’t be afraid to ask. The worst that can happen is they’ll just say no.” In my case – as a seven year old – I wanted a cute puppy dog. (Note: I eventually got that puppy dog – and he eventually chewed up all my shoes, clothes, and toys. Strangely though, I could never convince him to eat my school homework.)
SAP also provides a way for customers to ask for things. The SAP Influence Programs offer three channels for customers to provide direct input to help influence SAP’s products and solutions.
- SAP Advisory Councils invite lighthouse customers and thought leaders to work with SAP to shape the future direction of SAP products and strategy.
- Customer Engagement Initiatives offer SAP customers the chance to collaborate with SAP on the development and testing of new products and solutions in the pipeline.
- Customer Connection topics invite customers to help improve existing SAP products that customers are already using by suggesting and voting on ideas for improvements.
SAP typically has multiple Advisory Councils, Customer Engagement Initiatives (CEIs), and Customer Connection focus topics running in parallel.
SAP recently wrapped up a Customer Connection focus topic dedicated to Usability of CRM WebClient User Interface(UI). Customers from around the world submitted thirty-eight different ideas for improvements, of which twenty-four were recently delivered. Among some of the cool new enhancements are things like:
- Automatic “save”
- Cancel a running search
- Ability to include colors in result lists
- Custom logos for business roles
- Improvements to the email editor
- And many, many more…
And the best news? All of these features are available for immediate use (via SAP Notes) for select existing CRM versions! No need to wait for a future enhancement package.
Check out the presentation and/or watch a recording of the presentation showing all the new features!
And don’t miss your chance to participate in the next round of enhancements in the next cycle for Customer Connection for CRM to begin at end of August. Click here to sign up for the Aug 28 kick-off meeting!
Follow me on my blog at http://scn.sap.com/people/john.burton/blog
I thought SAP forgot its CRM product and i was looking into other technologies, but now these improvements will give me some confidence to face our customers.
Thanks for sharing otherwise we never get to know about these enhancement unless we get the time to go through release notes for all new upcoming versions.
You are welcome Shobhit! And certainly I would encourage you, and others customers and partners, to participate in the next round of the Customer Connection program from CRM starting this month on Aug 28th! Don't miss your chance to have a say in what cool new enhancements we roll out next!
Very usefull information,will help to offer new enhancement to clients.
Thanks for sharing.
Regards,
Harish Kumar
Great!!! Very useful!!! Good to know about new features and improvements on product 🙂
Thanks for your work & definitely gonna join Customer Connection program from CRM on Sept 2 India.
Cheers 🙂
Glad to hear it Sumeet! I look forward to working with you!
We always have to face clients who compare SAP CRM with SFDC and it is really difficult to convince them it terms of features. Such enhancements and making them available to clients without additional charges will really boost the confidence of customers.
Rgds
Hari
Really good initiative towards CRM by SAP.Thank you very much indeed to many SAP CRM customers.
Thanks John!
Cool Enhancements. Is the Customer connection program still on? I want to participate in it 🙂
Keep up the good work !
Regards,
Neha Gupta
Hello Neha,
We are currently in the middle of the current CRM2015 focus topic for the Customer Connection program. We have already closed the customer-participation roll-in period and are now evaluating the enhancement requests that received the most customer support. In early January we will announce which enhancements requests SAP has committed to delivering, with the goal of delivering all selected enhancements by Q3 later in the year.
Warm regards,
John
Hello John,
Thanks for the info 🙂 Looking forward to it.
Regards,
Neha Gupta
Great news for customers & consultants. Cant wait for the next round of enhancements..!!
Regards,
Nisha
Hi @John Burton ,
First of all thank you so much 🙂 Although not a good space to ask question but I need some help 🙂 there is a new feature which shows : Countdown clock for Time out and before time out like 2mins the pop up comes , for keeping the session alive... for that i had implemented the note 2092893 and some supporting notes described in the note. This feature works like a charm! but now the issue is if we use IC Webclient this clock is not coming up even if we maintain the parameters.
Now according to me IC is the place where this feature can be highly usefull , do you have any idea how can we activate this functionality for IC?
Sorry for posting the question here , I have already posted question but no answer still
Question : Time out clock and notification does not work for IC
looking forward for new blogs and new features from SAP!
Again apologies if i have posted the question inappropriately 🙂
Regards,
Dhruvin
Hello Dhruvin,
SAP notes 2119701 and 2092893 are for the non-IC standard CRM WebClient business roles. To use the new timeout features in the Interaction Center, you need to apply SAP Note 1877120.
I am currently working on a new blog post about this very feature actually 😉 .
Regards,
John
Hi Mr. Burton,
I have already implemented the note you suggested , are there any more steps or something which needs to be followed in order to view this clock in Header area of IC like change of paramter or technical profile or something 🙂 i am shooting arrows in blank but it would be great if you can help us on this!
And yeah thanks for the information you are providing this is such a great help for technical consultants! 🙂
Regards,
Dhruvin
Hello Dhruvin,
Ok, I will check with the Development team. The IC WebClient role is obviously more complicated than the other non-IC business roles as you have to worry about additional factors like multiple sessions, SAM polling, etc. Do you know if you have SAM polling enabled and what the polling frequency is for example? This might help the Development team diagnose the issue better. Also, if you have not done so already, perhaps you could log a support ticket, as that might be a better way to trouble shoot this issue than via the comments section of this blog post.
Best regards,
John
Hi John,
Thanks again for the information about the thread and this, but there is no SAM polling CTI or multi session is enabled in the system its a simple IC Webclient ....
Regards,
Dhruvin
Hi Dhruvin,
Please check this other thread (15770632 )that contains some helpful hints.
For example, make sure you are not using compatibility mode in Internet Explorer.
Regards,
John
Hi John Burton,
Thanks a lot for the help, I have i think discussed with Ralph who is the developer of this feature but i think for IC it is not feasible
however we are trying to create this clock manually ( which seems not feasible as the code is written is with condition profile type) but i sincerely wish this feature is a very customer friendly for IC role.
Regards,
Dhruvin
Hello Dhruvin,
The feature should also work in the Interaction Center. Ralph, the developer you spoke with is from the CRM WebClient Framework team and is therefore not responsible for the implementation of this feature in the Interaction Center. There is another team for the IC who have taken Ralph's work and implemented it for the IC. As mentioned, please log a support ticket if it is not working and ask that it be routed to Alexander Pilz.
One last thing to check first however:the feature does only depend on logic defined in conjunction with the HIDEENVIEW.HTM. SAP inserts two fields here to send timestamp information to the browser during a roundtrip. If you have modified / enhanced the CRMCMP_IC_FRAME UI component and in there the HIDDENVIEW.HTM, the two fields will be missing because the page enhanced goes to the new Z-BSP application which is getting created during the enhancement.
Warm regards,
John
Hi John, Thanks a lot for the detailed information.
And and IC we are getting a Pop Up for keeping the session alive like below. But no Timer...
Now my second concern is the pop up does not look like a SAP Standard it looks like some custom developed things because it does not look so good... but although feature is very useful..
And yes we have enjhanced the component CRMCMP_IC_FRAME UI but not the view which you are suggesting that is not changed.
so shall i delete the enhancement? i have also tried using wcf ignore enhancement ALL but stilll no timer 🙁 !
Asking if the Modernize BTF Editor (improvement request D2196, D5053, D5067 w planned delivery Sept 2014) has any related OSS notes? About to upgrade to EhP3 SP09 and hoping that is a high enough to take advantage.
I assume CRM_INF_1 needs activated. Any help on what is required to implement is greatly appreciated.
Hi Glenn, I assume EHP3 SP09 should be fine, but let me check with the colleagues from the Development team in Montreal to confirm.
Hi Glenn,
We confirmed that EHP3 SP09 is fine. The new rich text editor is delivered with SP08 (though by default it comes hidden behind a business function that needs to be switched on).
Here are a few key notes:
Regards,
John
Hey Everyone. If you would like to have a voice about what areas SAP should focus on next for SAP CRM on Premise, please consider joining us for this design-thinking workshop at the ASUG / SAPPHIRE Now conference on May 7 to brainstorm about the future of SAP CRM on Premise!
Also, feel free to submit your topic ideas in advance if you are planning to attend via this survey.