Learn about the Key Components of SAP Work Zone and the Experience for the End User

Disclaimer: note that this blog was published prior to the re-branding related to SAP Build portfolio, which was announced at SAP TechEd 2022. SAP Launchpad service and SAP Work Zone come together under the SAP Build Work Zone brand, with two editions: standard edition (formerly SAP Launchpad service) and advanced edition (formerly SAP Work Zone). You can learn more in this blog post by Aviad Rivlin. See also the announcement for SAP Build.

SAP is strengthening the UX integration capabilities of SAP Business Technology Platform (multi-cloud environment) with the SAP Work Zone offering. It is one of the digital experience services on SAP BTP (together with SAP Launchpad service) for building branded digital workplaces which connect people to business processes, information & business data. It also enables a consistent digital experience for end users across all digital touchpoints.

In this blog I would like to give you a short overview on the key components of SAP Work Zone which are relevant for the end user. We define end users in this blog as the employees (internal users) of a company using SAP Work Zone to do their daily work, and they have also the permission to create their own workspaces.

Why is SAP investing into a unified intelligent workplace experience that increases engagement and productivity of end users?

When asking employees about the primary operational challenge that they encounter when trying to accomplish their day-to-day work activities, you will often get the answer that it is too hard for them find the data that they need, that they need too much time by switching between applications and finding the right applications to accomplish the tasks. The work experience is fragmented between multiple tools, tons of systems, repositories and applications.  If we look at a typical SAP customer system landscape, the end users often need to access multiple SAP systems cloud and on-premise with multiple user experiences via desktop and mobile devices.

Key Components of SAP Work Zone

Have a look at this screenshot, it shows the top navigation bar with the main components of SAP Work Zone: Homepage, My Workspace, Applications, Workspaces and Tools:

Let us now move step-by-step to the different parts:

1. Home tab: The Home tab is the landing page when you as an end user opens SAP Work Zone. It is the first menu item in the top navigation bar. Home pages can only be created by company or area administrators and could for example be used to create pages with company-wide information, announcements and news for the employees. There could also be area homepages, and their content might be different to the end users, depending on their roles and permissions. Within the home tab, there are options for the admins to create several pages:
2. My Workspace: If enabled by the administrator, end users can create their own personal workspace to which only they have access to. Other users cannot be invited to My Workspace. My Workspace allows users to design their personal dashboard-like experience by including their favorite business apps, unstructured content, and other required information to best support their day-to-day work. For the end user it is easy to personalize with a page builder and various standard cards and widgets which can be added:
3. Applications (= central launchpad): SAP Work Zone includes a built-in launchpad. It enables the access to different business applications (SAP and non-SAP) for the users of the digital workplace – all in one place. This built-in launchpad provides the same capabilities that you already know from SAP Launchpad service: a centralized access to SAP and third-party business apps, tasks, notifications and processes under a single point of access.
4. Workspaces: Workspaces are one of the most important building blocks of SAP Work Zone, which enable various use cases and provide a broad range of features, including content management, forums, and flexible page design. Depending on the system setup, every end user can create / design the workspaces needed to solve a given business problem and to interact with colleagues. There are four types of workspaces available:

Public workspaces
These are workspaces that are public in a company and every internal user in the SAP Work Zone environment can view and join. Typical use cases for public workspaces: sharing company-wide information, provide central access to an IT help and support center, or provide a central place to learn about the corporate strategy.

Private workspaces
Private workspaces are not available for all users, but instead require an invitation or role-based assignment to see the content or contribute to it. By default, private workspaces are hidden and cannot be found via the search tool or workspace repository – unless you are a member. Private workspaces are typically used for providing a central place for an internal project, planning a marketing campaign, or collaborating around a strategic topic (which is not yet intended for broader visibility).

External workspaces
For engaging with external parties like key suppliers or partners, users can use the third option of external workspaces. These work very similarly to regular private workspaces, with the key difference of providing the ability to invite external users (i.e., non-employees) to become members. Furthermore, it should be noted that external workspaces are always hidden and can neither be found via the global search nor the workspace repository, unless you are a member.

For the creation of a new workspace, you click on New Workspace:

Then you choose a template and you also set the privacy level of your workspace (private, public or external):

By clicking on “Options”, you can define further parameters for your workspace such as invite policy, collaboration level for content, upload policy etc.

Click on Create: The new workspace opens, you can now add pages and content to the workspace. When finished, you can activate the workspace and invite members:

Last, not least there is also the Tools menu: SAP Work Zone provides you with tools to organize your work and your interactions with other users. From the Tools menu you can for example create tasks, bookmark content items, view your recommendations, share knowledge and much more.

The Header Bar

The last key component I would like to mention is the header bar at the top of SAP Work Zone, which looks like this – also depending on the configuration made by the administrator:

The header bar gives you access to various features, for example:

• your user profile
• the app finder
• a list of notifications to inform you of important updates
• all tasks from SAP and non-SAP workflows
• the SAP Work Zone search

Additional Material:

• SAP Work Zone End User Guide 
• SAP Community Page
• Product information on sap.com
• Discovery Center
• SAP Store
• Roadmap
• Videos and product demos
• SAP Help Portal
• SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone

Hands-on Tutorials: 

• Create Your First Digital Workplace Using SAP Work Zone
• Design Your First SAP Work Zone
• Enrich Your SAP Work Zone With Applications and Data from SAP Gateway Demo System

You can also register for our quarterly SAP Portal & Digital Experience Newsletter to get the latest news and updates.