Yet another blog on SAP BASIS Certification

Hello,

Welcome to my blog on “SAP BASIS Certification”.

Who should read this? Both types of people:

1. New to SAP (and the IT scene).
2. Experienced in SAP BASIS.

Whoever you are, if you have spent enough time tipping your toes in BASIS Certification pond and finally decided to take the plunge; this blog is for you. It will give you a heads up on what you will be getting in to and how to prepare for it.

“So it is just another blog on basis certification” I can hear you say. Yes, it is, but please be assured I’m trying to address few points that are not covered in other blogs. Some points are big, others puny. Having said that, I’m forced to repeat 3 points that is already mentioned in other blogs:

1. SAP BASIS IS NOT EASY.
2. SAP BASIS IS NOT EASY.
3. SAP BASIS IS NOT EASY. 😉

Okay…..Without further ado..…let me start….

What you learn for SAP BASIS Certification will set a very good foundation for your job and also for advanced learning in future. So consider your learning to be a marathon and not a sprint. That way you will stay focused for a long period of time and what you learnt will be with you for many days, even after the marathon is over.

Few points to consider before starting:

1. Fix an end date for 2 things: When to start and finish the course? When to sit for the Certification? If you don’t fix these days, you might spend more time in the course or more time studying after the course. As a result, before you knew it, you would have lost good few months (sometimes a year, especially if you are already working full-time).
2. Once you have the dates in mind, be prepared to lock your toys away and sacrifice your play time. Sacrificing completely and passing the certification first time is far better that mixing play & learning and ending up doing the certification twice or thrice.
3. If you are experienced, brush up (if new, learn) the basic computer concepts. Like servers, clients, protocols, firewalls, Java basics, Databases, printers in a network etc.., which will help you to quickly delve in to SAP Concepts. Once you start, it is very hard to go back and spend time on these concepts.

During ClassroomTraining:

You will soon realise that it is exciting and equally challenging to learn Basis. You have to make the best use of classroom training. Here are some tips:

1. Extract as much as possible from the Trainer. Due to the nature of the course and the volume of content to be covered, trainers will always be running on a tight schedule but somehow find time to go back and clarify things that you didn’t understand.
2. Play around the training systems as much as possible. You can read the theory in books even after the training is complete but you can’t get similar systems at home or office.
3. Try to finish all the exercises behind each lesson. If you aim to do all, you might do at least 90% (Yes, there are so many).
4. The SAP training systems are refreshed every weekend. This means when you are learning a particular module each week, you will get time only during that week to do your exercise and try out new scenarios. After that you can go back the next week but some of the exercises may not work as the settings have been reset in preparation for the next module.
5. Sometimes the order of the lessons will have to be changed for better understanding. For example, a beginner might find it easy to read lesson 12.1 first and then 10.1. That way the concepts are a bit clearer. Trainers tend to jump between topics to fit their teaching style. You will have to keep up with them and ensure you are not missing anything.
6. The books you get in classroom are most likely to be in black and white, making it hard to understand the diagrams. We raised this in our Feedback forms to SAP but I think it has been raised by many students in the past and nothing was done about it.

After training, if you are preparing for certification exam, please bear these in mind:

1. Develop the discipline to patiently read and thoroughly understand the concepts. I say this because when you read some basic computing concepts, you will quickly relate it to what you already knew but sometimes SAP might a take different approach to the same technical concepts.
2. Read the books at least twice. You’ll be surprised how you read between lines the second time. Some of the concepts will be directly opposite to what you understood the first time. (I found this to be case when learning about Background Job statuses and Operation modes. They were quite tricky).
3. I might get in to trouble for this point, but I’m going to say it anyway: The English used in the SAP Books is not very good. (Gasp!!!!! 😯 ). At various places in the book, you will be asking the author: “Is that what you were trying to say all along? You could have said it in a better way”. Also there are ambiguous statements at various places. Anyways, it might be just my view or may be the books are like that because some of the content has been translated from Deutsch (German). You will notice some diagrams have German words in them. Anyways, yet another reason to read the books AT LEAST twice.
4. Finally, take care of your health and remember to take breaks. Couple of hours away from the books would refresh you a lot. So sneakily watch TV every now and then but remember to get back to your books. 🙂

Hope this was helpful. Thanks for reading.

Work hard and win the certification with Pride.

Good Luck folks!!