What Newbies get after registration
We see every day new users and some of them behave as if there were no rules, so I tried my luck with a new user to see if they are really left alone after registration. I was quite surprised and I like to share with all who might not have seen this mail or do not remember if they got such information when they registered in old days.
Are you also surprised now and wonder?
"Dear Vio Later..."
🙂
Ok, that is a good introductory/welcome email, and no, I don't recall receiving one of those (but, I think I'm now at 12 years here? surely it has changed since then!).
Who reads emails these days? We need something more interactive! 🙂 Shrek - Welcome to Duloc - YouTube
okay, hopefully they do not expect that I dance the solution
Just be sure to shine your shoes and....
Should have a short questionnaire after each step and award newbie points for all right answers 🙂 or trigger a authentication mail only if all answers are right. This is a fool-proof approach until some fool comes along and posts a question in his status 😆 . Then we shall think of a new approach.
The sad truth is SCN has made (and enabled) some "newbies" (who are also claiming to be senior consultants" so lazy they dont even do basic google searches or read SAP Help before asking questions so the odds that they read the "rules of engagement" are very low 🙂
I like the mail content. Pretty much every important information for a good start is in there. But Jelena is right... obviously (if you look how a lot of newbies start here) the email is not read. They get it, they put it away and done.
Maybe it would help to include in the subject line a "Important information included!", so more people actually read it.
Steffi, this might backfire for the US users who are probably used to the fact that any truly important information arrives in the plain white envelopes and whatever is in the envelope marked "Important" or "Open immediately" is spam. 🙂
I managed to dig out my Welcome to SCN e-mail.
I think it would be nice to have also a translated version (with a link to translated ROE) in other languages - German, Spanish for example, just in case somebody really wants to read that, but his English is not that good.
Still, if an English speaker struggles both with site navigation and with using search engines, what are the chances that he/she can handle some of the less user-friendly transactions like OBYC or WEL1 (without a step by-step guide with screenshots)?
So we discovered the hot water here, pointing out people are lazy? 😀
No names listed, no clan way either as we have plenty newbies who can read.
Just meant to purge our assumption that SCN is too complicated, that the rules cannot be found and hence not be read and followed.
I did not know about this mail until I created my test user for moderation tests in beta and to compare some system reaction between now and then.
To be honest, i found the new Open Beta more complicated than this one, but I'm not a millennial so i like things somehow structured instead of playing with tags, hash tags and references 🙂
I did some mistakes and broke the ROEs a couple of time, more because I was (and still I am) lazy enough to shrug and going on instead of taking a couple of minutes to investigate better.
But SCN is not complicated imho.
It could be redundant or with too many hints when you search something, but not complicated.
I am planning to make another test on site usability and use my 11-year old niece as a test subject this time (I think I will have to bribe her somehow) and see if it is just me being old or the new SCN is indeed more confusing than the current one.
Well, you're not alone in the confusion. ^^ Or not so much confusion, but the feeling, that in the new SCN everything is ripped apart and put away in different boxes depending on their type instead on their content. So that's the main issue I have. 🙂
The welcome email is good. It's just that my experience is few will read (or read to comprehension) such emails. Case in point: In my own company, yesterday I sent an email out to our SAPGUI Upgrade beta testing group (non-IT users who sometimes help us in testing in our QAS system, and thus also get patches and upgrades to the client early). In the email, I included instructions on what to do if they have problems with the upgrade, and a link to a "reset" script that solves most problems.
And I got people writing back saying "I keep clicking the link in the email but it doesn't log me on, it just resets everything."
Obviously I need to simplify my communication and make relevant points even more blindingly obvious.
It would be easy to blame the user and say they are too stupid, or too lazy, or too whatever, to take time to properly read the instructions. But these are otherwise smart people, accountants and such, folks who should know what they are doing, and who have to be detail-oriented in their jobs, but they still didn't really follow the instructions in the email.
Maybe they are too lazy, but I'm not going to be able to change that, and one way or another I have to work with them, and I have to enable them so they can do their jobs. The only element I can change is what I deliver, how I deliver it, and how I communicate about it. So, I focus on that, keep trying to refine my communications and delivery methods, keep trying to make them more and more foolproof (the perfect word, eh?). Nothing will ever be perfectly foolproof, but that doesn't stop us from continually improving.
The same goes here on SCN. It's not perfect, it never will be, but that doesn't stop us from trying to continually make it better. One of those ways is to keep hunting for that "silver bullet" that helps new users to be productive community members right away. We'll never find it, but in the attempt we will get better at what we do.... slowly.
It's just that some newbies arrive with silver-bullet-proof jackets.
Matt, you have a good point. These days we are bombarded with the emails, so unless the email tells me right in the subject line there is an action needed from me (or else!) it's likely I won't even read it. I never read "welcome" emails we get from the web sites we have to sign up to at work (benefits, insurance, etc.). Come to think of it, if something says "welcome to..." in the subject I just delete it without reading ("yeah, yeah, thanks"). 😳
We have a similar situation at work with the emails from the ticket system. Some requests (e.g. new SAP user) require approval and must be entered differently than the rest. When someone enters them as a regular incident (and people still do that even after new procedure has been in place for 3 years and we sent out several reminders with step-by-step instructions!) we just type in "please re-enter this ..." and attach the Word document with instructions. But the ticket system only allows to "resolve" incidents. There is no way for us to cancel them or otherwise let the person know it's not actually resolved. So the user receives an email with subject "Your incident 12345 is resolved" and don't even read what's in the comments. Then after 2 weeks we get an angry email "I still have no access!!!" because, naturally, it was never re-entered properly and user was never set up. Can hardly blame the person though, it's just our stupid over-optimistic ticket system. (And yes, we tried to change that but were told "it's the design".)
So back to the main subject - I think the "wipe your face" song would be very helpful. And we even have some aspiring songwriters here on SCN. 😉
Well, I just had to create a new user ID for real and received no such emails. Actually of all the websites I've had to register at recently so far SCN (or rather sap.com as it's all the same now) has been the least pleasant experience.
There is absolutely nothing welcoming new community members. It's not a problem for me because I've been here for years but if I was really a newbie I would not feel welcome in this "community" at all.
I'll try to find time to post in more detail about this but just wanted to get it out for the moment.
Hmmm...there is a welcome letter. It's not just for SAP Community -- as you're technically registering for SAP.com, so it includes tips for using different areas of the site -- but community is a prominent part of it.
Let me see why you didn't get one...
--Jerry
Hola
I also didn't get any welcome message from SAP community / SAP.com etc but I was motivated by a SAP moderator to ask questions/write answers/blogs etc.
All I got was an activation link to confirm my email address 😀
Also, I am reading posts that old SDN had lots of missions and badges. When SCN is starting those again.
Cheers
Sushil