Technical Articles
SAP Enable Now Web Assistant – Working with extended content
Dear community,
the Web Assistant provides in-app help where learners need it and when they need it. SAP has made lots of standard content available for solutions like S/4 HANA, SuccessFactors, and SAP Marketing – to name just a few.
This contextualized help content can also be extended with custom content and this is what I would like to explain in more detail in this blog article.
Introduction
The Web Assistant displays content from a workarea defined in the parameters. If you set it up to show content from the SAP Education workarea, it will show the standard content. If, however, you want it to show only custom content, you enter your custom workarea.
In most cases, customers want to show a mix of standard content and their own custom content – this is what we call the extended content scenario. You can find videos showing how to set this up in the Infocenter (topic Enhancement of the Learning App).
Once you have set up a connected workarea for the standard content references and an extended workarea to enhance this standard content, your workarea overview will look something like this:
Connected and Extended Workareas
Now you are ready to work in the extended workarea and add your own content as well as change the extended standard content.
Preparing the workarea
Your extended workarea has its own root group, like any other workarea. What I would recommend is to create two groups underneath named “Extended Content” and “Custom Content”. Your own content tree can then be located in the Custom Content group. The Extended Content group will be where you see the content coming from SAP.
The extended content is marked by an orange dot. You can find this content in the Unsorted group. Start editing the Extended Content group and drag the extended root group up into it.
Sample Structure
Please be aware that you don’t need to (and probably shouldn’t) do this in the Producer. Set this up in the Manager instead, that way you don’t have to download all of the extended content into your Producer.
You can then start to build your own library, which can include objects of the standard content like projects or book pages.
Library Sample
This doesn’t have to be a library, this is just a sample.
Fetching Data
If you want to use some of the standard content and add you own explanation bubbles or more steps, you can fetch the data. I’d recommend to create an “extended content” user which is used to manage this so that your personalized Producer is not too cluttered and takes long to synchronize.
To do this, select the object in the Manager and click on “Fetch Data”. Or you can go into the Producer and start to edit the object. You will be asked if you want to fetch it or not.
Fetch Data
You can also fetch data for more than one object in Producer by starting to edit whole groups.
If, later on, you decide to go back to the original version of the data – the extended content – then you can roll back your changes. To reset the changes, you need to delete your locally edited object from the Manager interface. Once you delete it, the original object is restored and you see an orange dot in front of the object name again.
This is covered in the section 12.5.2 Reusing Content from Other Workareas in Producer Manual.
And if there is standard content that you don’t want to use you can hide it. For this you need to start to edit it and then hide it.
Tips and Tricks
Besides the use case of using the standard content provided by SAP, there are other use cases for the extended workarea.
You could, for example, set up a base workarea which hosts all of the templates – and also resources – for the extended workareas. Different projects could use their own extended workareas which pull the templates and resources from the base workarea.
If you have more use cases to share, please use the comment function below.
Also be aware that the product version, which is part of the Web Assistant context, is important to maintain. If the target application rolls out a new version, the product version of the help objects needs to match this. It is maintained by SAP for the standard content. In your own content and the objects which you have fetched, you need to maintain this yourself. You can do this in the producer, also for more than one object, by going to Tools > Web Assistant > Context Maintenance… You can add additional product versions or replace existing ones.
Context Maintenance
The PDF SAP Enable Now Web Assistant Supported Applications in the Info Center gives you a great overview about supported applications and the kind of standard content we provide.
I hope this overview helped you learn about the extended functionality for workareas. Leave a like if you liked it!
Take Care,
Kristina
Hi Kristina,
I'm coming to this blog some weeks/months after you posted it.
I'm struggling to understand "standard" and "extended" content and write this for confirmation.
SAP provides common content, help and guided tours via the web assistant on S4 (and other deliveries).
As I currently understand what is delivered for S4 and how...
"standard" doesn't require SEN Manager on Hana DB but only brings help functions?
"extended" requires SEN Manager On Hana DB and brings SAP built guided tours and the possibility of customer created guided tours?
Thanks for helping me with my confusion on this.
Best Regards,
Wallace
Hi Wallace,
sure, let me try to clarify this topic. All the content delivered by SAP is "standard" content, it can include Guided Tours, Context Help and Simulations (projects).
Consuming this standard content without any custom changes is possible via Web Assistant integrated in the target application (like S/4 HANA). This doesn't require the SAP Enable Now Manager on HANA DB (actually not a Manager at all).
The extension then takes this standard content and replicates it to a customers Manager. There it can be changed, adjusted, hidden etc. And in order to use this extension feature, a SAP Enable Now Manager on a HANA DB is required.
I hope this is more clear and sorry for the confusion. Take care,
Kristina
Thanks Kristina!
for both the quick response and good answer!
Wallace
Hi Kristina,
I have one question? How to setup my S/4HANA on-premise system using the extension content instead of SAP Standard content. thanks.
BR,
Peter Yu
Hi Peter Yu,
thanks for your question. If you want to use the extension content (SAP standard content + custom content) you first need to set up a connected workarea and an extended workarea. Please see this Infocenter section for a how-to guide.
Please then also see this blog about getting Web Assistant set up for S/4 HANA On-Premise without a Web Dispatcher. You will find information about setting up the parameters, also for the extended option.
And you can also find information in the official Web Assistant Integration Guide.
Hope this helps and take care,
Kristina
Hi Kristina Kunad ,
Thanks for your reply.
I do have created a remote workarea in my Manager(we purchased SAP Enable now cloud). and I have followed the blog to setup my webdispatcher(my s4 is 1909 fps02), but all the parameters was tell me point to sap WA, and I do see my Web Assistant works. which parameter can let it point to my own Enable now Manager?
BR,
Peter Yu
Hi Peter,
Ok, I see. You would need these parameters:
ServiceLayerVersion=EXT
dataUrlWPB2=https://customer.enablenow.cloud.sap/wa/<workareaID>
Replace the parts of the URL that are bold with your own. Please check page 29 of the WA Integration Guide which lists the steps and input necessary.
Take care,
Kristina
Hi Kristina Kunad ,
Got it, that's what I want to know, thanks you very much!
BR,
Peter Yu
Hi Kristina,
first of all, thank you for being so clear and exhaustive in your posts. I too come back to this article after some months, because I'd like to understand better what you mean by the following:
"I’d recommend to create an “extended content” user which is used to manage this so that your personalized Producer is not too cluttered and takes long to synchronize."
You mean you'd suggest to create a ad hoc user who cares for custom content by adapting/adding tiles, hotspots, guided tours or are you referring to roles and permissions within Manager? Sorry if my question is not too clear. I'm registered for a session about Standard Content anyhow, maybe this topic will be covered there as well.
Best regards,
Marna
Hi Marna,
thank you for your feedback!
What I meant with this sentence is that it makes sense to create a manual user in Manager who has the author role. You can then sign in with this user (instead of your "SSO" user) to open Producer and fetch the relevant data.
The point being that there is a lot of standard content and if you use your "normal" user to download all this to Producer to fetch it, then your local workarea will be quite fill and synchronization as well as library and book page preview will take longer to be assembled.
If you want to create your own content, you can use your own user. And it would also be a possibility to use your own user, download the standard content, fetch it, and then remove it from the local Producer view (while keeping it in the Manager).
There are many ways - it's a matter of convenience and personal preference but it's all aimed at not having a huge local workarea.
Hope this helps and take care,
Kristina
thanks Kristina, now I get what you mean, have a nice day and weekend.
Marna