Online SAP Certification – From Rejected Idea to Successful Completion

Once upon a time, may be 3-4 years back or a little longer, Idea Place was a popular space in the community (I’ll have to find out if it’s there now as well). There were ideas which were up-voted and taken to execution based on the reaction from community. However, I did not keep track of that space and can’t really comment on the lifecycle. Not to mention, I have not written many blogs or participated actively with the community in the last couple of years.

I happened to post an idea back then regarding SAP Certifications to be made online so that users can take it at their convenient location and time. The idea received many sceptical comments from the developers regarding malpractices that could potentially gain advantage with online certifications. I don’t remember even 1 comment which supported the idea.

Fast forward to few years ahead, I completed an online certification on SAP Cloud Platform scheduled at 5:30 am London Time. How cool is that!

I gave the certification from my home and in a quiet room. Both my husband and kid were in the house and sleeping in another room. Well, this was obviously not thought upon as a possibility few years back. Just to give a parallel view, my spouse is already doing online Masters from Georgia Tech. and all the tests are to be given from a remote location.

Just to share the experience of giving online certification, I had a very satisfactory experience. The online manual shares all the pre-requisite, installing Questionmark Secure being the most important. The online tools provided verify most of the things needed for smooth experience like – internet speed, webcam of laptop, microphones etc. There is a bit of navigational intelligence required to reach to the certification exam from training.sap.com. I got it right after 3 times. Well, the purpose of this blog is not to guide how to take the online certification and hence few details are omitted on purpose. E.g navigation to exam dashboard, scheduling appointments etc. This will come after the certification access hub is taken. There are plenty of user guides shared and are easy DIY steps.

Once login is made to online certification hub, exam dashboard gives the overview of the attempts made, results of tests taken so far. Most importantly, tests can be scheduled and re-scheduled. I had booked the date for 30^th December and then re-scheduled to 1^st January and changed the time as well. I’m not aware if there is a timeline restriction before which reschedule must be done if needed. However, the button to ‘Launch Exam’ appears exactly before 15 mins. from the time of the exam.

I was surprised to actually see how Proctor monitors the candidate. After the exam was launched, I was made in contact with a lady (human and not robot) assigned to monitor remotely while I was taking the exam. She made me show the entire room (glad she ignore not-very-organized room), the table and myself with id proof. This was quite relaxing as I knew if anything happens, she would help. She monitored my activity for the whole duration I answered 80 questions.

Just to add a little turn to my whole experience of online certification, when I tried submitting the exam, an error message – ‘Check your internet connection. Javascript error’!

Panic!? Well, after I clicked on ‘Submit’ button 7 times with the error, the lady monitoring my activity herself intervened and suggested to give her control which I happily did. She tried few tricks and none worked. I was suggested to check internet connection which I knew was working very well. This was an interesting situation to be in. I can’t open any other browser on laptop to verify internet and no mobile phone to check the connection, can’t even see the task bar at the bottom of the laptop as QuestionMark hijacks the whole laptop screen and activity.

I was suggested to restart the laptop and connect again with the lady with a zoom meeting number. I was definitely a little nervous by then. What if I have to give the test all over again? I had almost made up my mind for that. Thankfully, after I restarted the laptop, I could connect with the zoom meeting number with Proctor assigned lady. I could not be happier than to be able to talk to her. After that she took control and went to history tab to bring back the exam in the same status in which it was lost. I submitted again and boom – You’ve passed the Exam and the detailed topic wise distribution of scores. I’m obviously not sharing my marks here J

To give some suggestions, it is advisable to give exam from personal laptop and always use chrome for Certification Hub Access. I had initially opened the exam site from IE and then went to Chrome. Not sure if this caused the issue at the end.

I’m not sure if there will be a hard-copy of certification sent to me like was done with offline certification but a badge with the certification done is sent to me and it can be shared on social websites.