Future Feature
We recently introduced a new video series, Feedback Talkback, to demonstrate how we are improving the community platform by implementing features that address members’ concerns. To complement this video series, we are kicking off a new blog series: Future Feature.
While Feedback Talkback looks at something available now, Future Feature shares the direction of our road map — examining features already in development and others to be delivered later.
Here is a brief sampling of features and bug fixes we are working on. Some will be available at launch. Some will be available by the end of the year. The rest are on the road map for 2017.
Available at launch:
- Single sign-on (SSO) will go into effect across several areas within the community experience, so users won’t always need to log in again when navigating to Q&A, blogs, the activity stream, and direct messages.
Available by the end of the year:
- A tag browser will allow users to find available tags more easily.
- The new mission set (part of the community’s new reputation/gamification program) will be unveiled.
- The member-only view of his or her mission progress and mission achievements will be available with this new set.
On road map for next year:
- The blogs landing page will highlight featured posts (instead of just listing the most recent content).
- The community homepage will rotate features to give greater visibility to the latest and greatest content.
- Members will be able to take action (such as liking content or replying) directly from their activity stream.
- A more intuitive interface will make it clearer how to create content, like content, and add comments.
- The activity stream will refresh automatically.
This list barely scratches the surface. Every two weeks, we post new release notes spelling out all new features and bug fixes. And in the coming weeks, we’ll also publish more videos and blog posts about features that have come — and that are coming further down the road.
Through Feedback Talkback, Future Feature, and other updates, we want to show that we take your opinions very seriously and we are trying to prioritize based on your concerns. And although we may not always be able to make all the changes you want (even when we absolutely agree with your spot-on insights), we do read and review every discussion that members have opened during open beta. So please continue to test the beta platform and provide your feedback following the instructions in the SCN Open Beta Space.
Working with you, we are committed to offering the very best community experience. Thank you for helping to make that possible — and please keep an eye out for upcoming editions of Feedback Talkback and Future Feature to see how your ideas become reality.
Hello Jerry,
Is there any timeline for Identity merge with new SCN?
Merge multiple SCN ID in to one willbe very helpful for all other SCN members.
-Yogesh
Thanks for reading and asking your question, Yogesh.
This has been a very tricky topic...and one that comes up frequently.
I'm afraid that, at this point, the answer is no different than the one you received back in May: Consolidation of User Accounts
I see that you also opened this topic again as a new conversation within SCN Open Beta space. I believe the experts who responded last time will respond there if there is anything new to report.
Sorry that I couldn't provide more details (or better news)
Best regards,
--Jerry
Hi Jerry,
Would you mind creating a blog, or adding to this blog, short descriptions of what each section is for, what it entails? What is its general purpose, and maybe a small example?
I for one have only ever used blogs and discussions (Q&A), so I am interested to know what the other sections are for. This will also help testing them, as currently I don't know if certain functionality (or lack thereof) is by design.
Regards,
Johan
Hi, Johan:
That's a good idea. Thanks for the suggestion!
For now, you may find the Beta Resources at SAP Community beta helpful. I can work on that blog post in the meantime.
Best regards,
--Jerry
A really basic question: when exactly is the launch expected?
The blog mentions features available at launch, features available by the end of the year and features available at some point next year. I am trying somehow to position these three points in a meaningful timeline and understand which features actually will be available at launch and which won't. The blog wording is too vague to provide this useful information as well.
How exactly the survey results changed the list of the new SCN features available at launch- can you provide specific examples for that? Can you explain how re-prioritizing happens - who initiates it and how, based on what criteria the priority change is done, how the team ensures that the priority change of one feature does not break another one or makes it too hard to use?
At some point in time - next year, we are going to have:
Now I am going to be a little harsh, but instead of publishing blogs on how to use the site functionality, it makes more sense to me to push the development and internal testing of a coherent and meaningful UI earlier and avoid more confusion for new and old SCN members, when the forum changes (assuming that this will happen post-launch).
One of the opinions, expressed in similar blogs, was on the lack of transparency in the process. Unfortunately this blog does not deliver the transparency I hoped to see.
During one of my current projects we received a lot of changes to the original scope in a later stage, so we needed to choose what can be delivered at go-live and what - a few months later - with a separate initiative. I explained to the business the implications of every single feature request: how long it takes to deliver it, what kind of expertise is needed to develop the feature, what dependencies exist between the feature request and parallel projects, what it means for the business if a certain feature is not available at go-live etc., and asked for their opinion on my suggestion for re-prioritization. Can't the SAP team, working on the new SCN, do something similar? In a broader sense, SCN members are end users, but we are also one of the main reasons the forum exists as a place for professionals to share experience.
The launch is on Oct 10 - read it here - sigh....
How can scoring 3 out of 5 in SAP be considered good enough for a go-live decision?
It is the equivalent of '60% of the stuff works' or 'things work 60% of the time'.
It is like getting into an university with a C grade at the exam.
I think, my expectations were too high...
Exactly my thoughts... perhaps we live in an alternate universe....
i'm starting to wonder if we are too... dinosaurus and it's just our problem into not accpeting the changes.
But i'm just and old grumpy developer...
Somehow I managed to miss this blog. However, this little item caught my eye
Seems to be a bit out of synch with
As well as
Looking kind of cloudy at the moment considering that a tag browser should be considered somewhat necessary for tags to be the main focus for the new world order. Since we really have no way of following these tags or even (as pointed out in Jerry's blog) seeing a complete list of which are available, it seems that our achievements are very limited against the rosy picture painted 18 months ago.
@Simone, I'm just grumpy (well, old too).
@Eng Swee,
I could only wish, but it would probably be worse there.
Cheers, Mike
Probably the first blog to be published to inaugurate the new platform after the launch would be "1DX tags (without a tag browser!) for Dummies".... any takers? 😛
Hmmm, beta testing was a community effort, such blog ought to be a community effort, too (unless you expect to see it published later).
My small contribution:
On the more serious side, I could share a few tricks, which I discovered, while playing in BETA. Unfortunately these are not of the type "for Dummies", but more like "for nerds, geeks and random people, who seek pleasure in suffering".
Sadly, I am yet to find a blog dedicated to the new SCN, which explains how to overcome the lack of essential functionalities, such as search and filter with and/or/not for multiple primary, secondary and user tags; or give some ideas how to decipher the activity/notifications stream; or share a sample userscript to mass clear notifications; or a blog providing a list of all primary tag IDs with their meaning and how the technical tag IDs were mapped to the old spaces for migration purposes.