Welcome to the New SAP Community, Welcome Home

I admit, as with many moves, it has been bittersweet the last few days. Within the Community Experience Team we had to complete certain tasks before turning out the lights officially on SCN – we noted these special moments within the team. They included:

• Deciding what content to put on our last homepage
• Honoring our last Member of the Month on SCN (and truly unique since its also the first in the new home)
• Noting the final list of our top 20 lifetime contributors (Top 3: Juergen L, Tammy Powlas & Gordon Du)
• Accepting that lifetime points have come to an end (I was bummed not to have made diamond)

Today however is exciting. Our team has been preparing for this day for so long, the day we launch our new platform. To help commemorate this event we have also launched a new name: SAP Community.

A new platform and a new name call for a new URL too. You can now access our new home at sap.com/community/ .

This home is incorporated into the larger SAP.com experience. It is mobile-ready, a must for today’s on-the-go members. And it’s composed of best-of-breed solutions that deliver long-awaited conveniences, such as type ahead features and tag-based content that should cut down repetitive questions and cross-posts.

And yet, with every new home, there will be adjustments as people settle in. For those of you who were active in our months of open beta, I encourage you to help us support the wider community with the knowledge you developed during testing. We’ll be working to support you and them as well. You’ll find plenty of useful information about Getting Started in the lower right of the new SAP Community home page, including a quick-start guide. You’ll also find helpful resources on the About SAP Community page.

To complement this information, we have published several blog posts and videos over the last few months to provide guidance, cover important developments, and highlight new community features. Jerry Janda has consolidated them for you.

Blogs and videos can’t always replace a conversation, so we will be holding 90 minute open line calls three times this week to accommodate different time zones. Please join if you have questions.

While we have taken many steps to explain the new community and how to use it, we are also aware that members want to know what features and functions are coming in the future. Oliver Kohl wrote a wonderful post about our platform and the road ahead in which you can further learn about changes and what we’re targeting going forward.

Some community members have asked for more details about these forthcoming changes. We have focused on specific items based on your feedback (provided in beta and through our survey), which we plan to address first, such as easier filtering and searching for content, tagging, and moderation elements. There are also elements of gamification on the way. Please understand, however, that we need to be flexible and may need to shift priorities due to items that may arise (a critical bug, for example).

That doesn’t mean your feedback won’t guide us strongly. We invite you to share your thoughts. Be sure to read Moshe Naveh’s post about how you can continue to provide us with your valuable insight into how exactly we can improve your experience.

We want to hear from you. More importantly, we need to hear from you. Together we built this new community. Together we will make it even better.

Welcome to day one in our new home. We look forward to working with you in the weeks, months, and years to come.