SAP Education Cloud Certification Program Update

A key to SAP’s success in executing on its cloud strategy is to ensure skilled SAP practitioners are available throughout our ecosystem of customers, partners and consultants. SAP Education contributes to our cloud strategy in a variety of ways – most recently through our cloud-based SAP Learning Hub platform built on SuccessFactors Learning and SAP Jam. Critical to our mission is to ensure that we continue to support the professional learning path of professionals who will need to become certified in our cloud solutions.

Historically, SAP Education’s certification program was based on SAP’s on-premise solutions. But SAP’s move into the cloud solution space requires some fundamental changes to our existing certification program. Cloud requires a significantly more agile and accessible enablement and certification model in order to drive customer adoption and increase customers’ confidence to engage with the SAP ecosystem. 

Changes to the Certification Program

SAP Education is still defining several aspects of this new program in collaboration with several stakeholder groups, and so there are still some moving parts. I recognize that the communication around these changes has not been optimal, and I’d like to take this opportunity to clarify some aspects of the upcoming changes to the existing SuccessFactors certification program and provide a high-level summary:

• All existing SuccessFactors and Ariba learning content has been added to SAP Learning Hub (which now counts nearly 60,000 learners). Learners have 24×7 access to all content.  There are now 20 live Learning Rooms, to include SuccessFactors and Ariba, and 30 more planned to start over the next few months.
• Learning Rooms have been established to provide instructor facilitation and guided learning to the learning community as an alternative to the engagement that is provided with a traditionally instructor-led course
• The first Associate level core exam has been released for SuccessFactors Employee Central; additional Associate level core exams will follow. While future exams are being created, we will use online assessments as an interim alternative to the instructor validated case study
• Starting in Q1 2015, delta exams, as well as the core Associate exams, will become available through the new Certification subscription and the
  new remote testing solution. Delta exams will be introduced when warranted based on scope of change across release cycles
• The availability of delta enablement content and delta exams will be synchronized with the release cycle The SuccessFactors Professional Certification is expected to continue; details are still under evaluation, as is the scope of the ‘grandfathering’ policy for existing certified SuccessFactors consultants.

Webinars Planned to Engage Further

Understanding that this is just a high-level summary of a rapidly evolving program, SAP Education will be providing more details in upcoming blog posts. We are just one quarter away from the initial launch of the new program, and have many actions in process. And similar to cloud solutions, we expect to deliver enhancements on a continuous basis to further drive customer adoption and ecosystem capability of cloud solutions.

SAP Education is aware of the feedback from the SAP community, whether here in SCN or across other channels, and we continue to welcome the open discussion on changes and improvements to our certification program; one example are the regular meetings we hold with customers, partners, consultants
and SAP Mentors who are members of the Certification & Enablement Influence Council. But we want to widen the net to include further opportunities to
engage with you, so SAP Education plans to hold a series of live webinars for this very purpose. We will communicate the dates, times, and registration
details as soon as they are finalized.

I am aware that there are some burning questions which need to be addressed in the interim, so I hope these can help to clarify; these will be added to the broader SAP Certification FAQ document in SCN:

What does re-certification mean in the context of SAP’s cloud certification program?

Cloud practitioners will need to continuously update their skills with the latest release enhancements.  When the scope of change between releases warrants a delta exam, the certified community is expected to successfully complete the delta exam. So in this context, re-certification is not repeating a core exam; rather, it means remaining current with the release and completing the delta exams. SAP Education has specifically designed SAP Learning Hub to suit this very purpose – to create the least amount of inconvenience for our customers and partners by providing the possibility to learn, practice and complete a delta exam all remotely.

What will happen to the current SuccessFactors Professional Certification? Will this disappear, and if so, why? What will replace it?

Professional Certification will not disappear, but we are working with SAP’s Global Partner Organization to harmonize the SuccessFactors Professional Certification with the existing SAP Professional program, with a particular focus on retaining key elements such as documented project experience. 

Thank you for your patience as we seek to resolve issues around this important topic, and please know it is not too late to have your voices heard and that SAP Education is listening!

Related Resources on SCN

• SAP Certification for SuccessFactors Employee Central NOW AVAILABLE!
• Frequently Asked Questions about SAP Certification