Customer Connection call – SAP Workflow 2015 Update!

In case you did not know it, SAP has opened up a Customer Connection for SAP NetWeaver Workflow.  The initial call for this Customer Connection will take place February 13, 2015 (10:00 AM Eastern).

So, what is a Customer Connection?  Well, SAP has basically three paths for ‘influence’.

The highest level, ‘Vision’, is organized by industry or strategic topic.  Strategic customers and thought leaders are organized into advisory councils and work on strategy and roadmaps of solutions.

The middle level, the Customer Engagement Initiative (CEI), allows SAP customers to work closely with SAP development teams to help create products and solutions that best meet the customers’ needs.  There is currently a CEI going on about the Unified Inbox, Mobile BPM, and Process Orchestration on SAP HANA.  You can find more info about this particular CEI at Influence.sap.com – and search for ‘unified inbox’ but please note, you may need to log in using your SCN credentials.

The final level of Influence is the Customer Connection – allowing SAP user groups and other special interest groups to collect and submit improvement requests.  Then the improvement requests are evaluated by SAP development.  Those that are supported by the most customers and are most feasible to develop may be released to all customers (not just those who participate in the Customer Connection) usually via Support notes or Support Packages.

You may recall several years back that SAP re-introduced the SAP Workflow Certification, and that a list of additional enhancements was also released.  I started blogging about this initiative here:

SAPMentors + ASUG +VNSG +SAP = #winning!

Special thanks to Martijn Wever, Stephane Haelterman (and of course, Ginger Gatling, Tammy Powlas, Mike Pokraka, Thorsten Franz and Matt Harding)

With the help of various user groups and passionate people, SAP did release some notes to upgrade our development and admin environments.

Some of those notes are listed here –   SAP Shows some love for SAP Business Workflow.  You may have been using this functionality and not even known that it was something that SAP customers requested.

Well, here we are again, with a brand spanking new Customer Connection!  Thanks to Ronen Weisz for his diligence!  And it is currently in the ‘collection’ phase, where YOU can submit your requests for improving the workflow development, runtime, administration, and user experience tools.  Sure, I know, we should all be using Fiori or UI5, but for those of us who are not there yet, this Customer Connection is an opportunity to relieve some pain points.

Today there are 217 people registered (on influence.sap.com) for this Customer Connection.  There are 53 ideas, and 250 votes (so far).

I could list out all of those 53 ideas here.  But I think it’s more important for you to go and register for this Customer Connection and check them out for yourself.  (See, teaching you to fish, right???) And maybe while you’re there, you’ll also create your very own request.  And someday, maybe your request will become a reality.

And of course after that, workflow developers all over the world will praise your name.  😛

Well, maybe not that, but you never know.  It could happen, right?

ASUG Members may register for the kick-off call by clicking on this link:

https://www.asug.com/events/detail/NetWeaver-Workflow-Kickoff-2015

And those who are not members of ASUG may still register (of course, by logging in to influence.sap.com and following this project).  Failing that, please do send a message to Volker Stiehl or Daniel-Alexander Heller.

Because if we, the customers and partners who use SAP Workflow day in and day out don’t sign up to help make it better, then…

“What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.”

  ― Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

Looking forward to hearing your suggestions,

Sue