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Author's profile photo Sajid Amir

Use the Activity Stream Like a Boss

While there may still be a lot of improvements that can be made to the Activity Stream in our new community, understanding the features & capabilities that we already have may be helpful for many users.

On SAP Community, users can Follow different types of questions, blogs, and primary tags. They also have the ability to follow other users. Relevant updates from these subscriptions  can then be viewed from the Activities section of the Activity Stream. The Activity Stream is comprised of two services – Notifications and Activities – and can be accessed by clicking on Notifications or Followed Activities respectively from the main user drop-down:

I will explain how to make the best use of the Notifications section of the Activity Stream in a future blog post (now available: Use Notifications Like a Boss). However, this blog will focus on the Activities section. As shown above, clicking on Followed Activities will take the user to this page: https://activities.sap.com/#/activities. Here, the users are shown all relevant updates from questions, blogs, primary tags, and other users that they have followed throughout the community.

Given that a user’s subscriptions may generate hundreds of new activities on the Activity Stream, I have personally found the Filter on this page extremely helpful in isolating activities even further according to my interests. The following explains the different filter options that are available:

  • All Activity Types: All activities in a reverse chronological order
  • Blogs: Recently published blogs, blog comments, & content updates
  • Questions and Answers: Recently published questions, answers, Q&A comments, and content updates
  • Profile Updates: Profile updates from other users
  • Social Activities: Social activities and feedback such as Likes, Up Votes and Follows

Therefore, if I would like to see all new questions, answers, and comments that have been published in all the primary tags I follow, I simply apply the Questions and Answers filter. This would show me only the new questions, answers and comments that were published instead of a list of ALL other activities that had been posted. The Blogs filter option also helps isolate other important activities such as new blogs published and blog comments posted in primary tags that I am currently following. Alternatively, activities that may be of lesser importance to me such as likes, up votes, and other follows can be seen by applying the Social Activities filter.

I will concede that SAP Community currently lacks the capability to notify our users exclusively or via email notification when new content is posted in their subscribed primary tags. We are currently working on refining such an idea (in addition to many other Activity Stream bug fixes and updates) that will make this possible. In the meantime, I hope the information shared here will help some users utilize the Activity Stream more efficiently, or as it is said these days, “Like a Boss!”

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      16 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Mustafa Bensan
      Mustafa Bensan

      Hi Sajid,

      I hope the email notification feature you have mentioned in your conclusion is not limited to just posting of new content in subscribed primary tags but also includes email notifications for comments posted to an author's blog posts or responses submitted to a question, as was the case with the old SCN.  Such email notifications triggered prompt engagement in the old SCN, whereas now because community members must make the time and effort to periodically log into the SCN to check activity streams the triggers aren't as frequent.

      My feeling (and my own experience) is that the lack of email notifications is a primary contributor to the noticeable drop in the level of activity in the new SCN as compared to the old SCN.

      Regards,

      Mustafa.

      Author's profile photo Joachim Rees
      Joachim Rees

      I know e-mail notification is important to a lot of users here, but I haven’t used it in the past, so I don't need it here.

      I do periodically check SAP community, and like it just that way!

      ...just letting you know...

      best

      Joachim

       

      Author's profile photo Christian Bartels
      Christian Bartels

      As a matter of fact, customer activity in my area has been significantly reduced since switching from the "old" SCN to the new community. In the meantime, customers start asking their questions through the DSAG (or similar places) because they don't think this works.

      Just because you don't need e-mail notification does not mean no one else needs e-mail notification.

      Regards, Christian.

      Author's profile photo Joachim Rees
      Joachim Rees

      Hi Christian,

      Just because you don’t need e-mail notification does not mean no one else needs e-mail notification.

      Hi Christian,

      Just because you don’t need e-mail notification does not mean no one else needs e-mail notification.

      certainly, I never tried to say something different!

      I just gave my view, one vice out of thousands. Others have different needs, therefore my initial statement "I know e-mail notification is important to a lot of users here".

      Sorry for any confusion!

      Best

      Joachim

      Best

      Joachim

      Author's profile photo Sajid Amir
      Sajid Amir
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts Mustafa. I am happy to let you know that we are on schedule to roll out Email Notifications soon. Users will receive an Email Notification when they receive a comment (such as this one) as you mentioned. You can read more about Notifications and Email Notifications in my other blog Use Notifications Like a Boss

      Author's profile photo Joachim Rees
      Joachim Rees

      Hi Sajid,

      congrats on getting your blog feature on the community overview page!

      To me, it provided nothing new (I found out all that you explain by tiring out or assuming) , and I don't use the activity stream a lot anyway, but it sure might be helpful for others!

      best

      Joachim

      Author's profile photo Sajid Amir
      Sajid Amir
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks for letting me know that his blog got featured on the Community Home Page Joachim. I wasn't aware of that!

      Author's profile photo Nelis Lamprecht
      Nelis Lamprecht

      Hi,

      To me and probably most, the Activity Stream will only be useful once you can first isolate individual interests or tags before applying the already mentioned filters. There is still far too much information if you combine all of your interests or tags with these filters applied.

      Nelis

      Author's profile photo Sajid Amir
      Sajid Amir
      Blog Post Author

      This functionality is in our roadmap Nelis. Similar features will also be available in different parts of the Community where users can isolate/filter content based on their subscribed primary tags.

      Author's profile photo Jim Becker
      Jim Becker

      Since I just received the first email regarding this post, on 1/25, ot shows the reason fpr lack of participation. We have many forums to capture our attention. This one needs better communication with the users to engage them and make the forum worthwhile. It is hard to understand the reasons to roll out an poorly performing platform to replace an effective one.

       

      Author's profile photo Sajid Amir
      Sajid Amir
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Jim,

      I am glad you made it to this blog regardless! Please feel free to share the information here. I am also working on creating a Tip in a Minute video explaining all of this so more users can understand our current functionalities. We are continuously upgrading and improving the Activity Stream service and I will share upcoming and newly released updates as they become available.

      Thanks,

      Sajid Amir

      Author's profile photo VINAY REDDY
      VINAY REDDY

      Hi sajid,

      thanks for your update,

      in addition to this i would like to see following options in the coming days,

      1). Book mark option under avatar,

      2). importing bookmarks from old community,

      3). Helpful answer option in addition to correct answer in (Question and Answer section)

      thanks ,

      vinay

       

      Author's profile photo Sajid Amir
      Sajid Amir
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Vinay,

      Thanks for your suggestions. Please feel free to create new entries for these ideas here:

      https://ideas.sap.com/sapcommunity

      We will consider new ideas which have received substantial support (positive votes) from the Community.

      Best,

      Sajid

      Author's profile photo VINAY REDDY
      VINAY REDDY

      why do we require a voting for helpful answer ,bookmark option,

      these features were widely used in old platform.

      its been one year the new platform has not given import bookmark option.

      designers should know all these things,

       

       

      Author's profile photo RAJESH SHARMA
      RAJESH SHARMA

      Today is my first communication with all of you members so I wish to greet all of community and accept my wishes for compliting learning hub 5 years.

      Thanks with best regards,

       

      Rajesh Sharma

      Author's profile photo Amaury VAN ESPEN
      Amaury VAN ESPEN

      Hello

      I would like to know if there is a way to get RSS Feed or an API to request the Activity Stream an filter it

      Regards

      Amaury