In support of the SAP Open Documentation Initiative, as of QRC 3/2022, you can now contribute to select SAP HANA Cloud guides.
User experience insights and feedback are essential to the quality of SAP products, including product documentation. The SAP Open Documentation Initiative enables (encourages!) users to contribute directly to documentation in the SAP Help Portal.
For more information about why SAP has prioritized this initiative, see Introducing the Open Documentation Initiative.
To make use of this feature, you need a GitHub account and a general familiarity with using GitHub.
Note that GitHub offers managed user accounts (so-called enterprise-managed users, or EMUs). With such users, collaboration is restricted to organizations of their enterprise, see official GitHub documentation. With such users, you can neither open issues nor propose changes through pull requests. In such a case, creating an additional personal GitHub account is the only way to collaborate in SAP repositories.
When you contribute for the first time, you'll also need to sign the Contributor License Agreement (CLA) in GitHub. See The Contributor License Agreement Process.
Finally, you'll want to familiarize yourself with the SAP Open Documentation Initiative - Contribution Guidelines.
Not all SAP HANA Cloud guides support contributions via GitHub. In fact, most don't. The capability is gradually being introduced in guides that specifically target the developer community. As of the creation of this blog post, this capability is provided as of the QRC 3/2022 versions of the following guides:
There are two ways you contribute to the documentation in SAP Help Portal: by editing the content (Edit control) or by leaving helpful feedback (Feedback control).
1. Navigate to the topic that you want to contribute to.
2. Choose Edit to open a Markdown version of the topic in the GitHub editor.
3. Choose the pencil icon to edit the Markdown file.
4. Add a comment and propose your changes by choosing Propose changes.
5. Follow the standard GitHub workflow for creating a pull request.
1. Navigate to the topic that you want to contribute to.
2. Choose Feedback at the top of the topic to open an issue window in GitHub.
3. Enter your feedback and choose Submit new issue.
Your contributions are reviewed by the SAP HANA Cloud authors and may be accepted, modified, or rejected, depending on whether the changes are accurate and consistent with the documentation conventions in use. See What to Expect.
It may take some time before changes appear in the SAP Help Portal version of the topic. This is because your suggestions may need additional reviews. Also, some guides are only republished at scheduled intervals.
In the meantime, to keep track of your contributions, you can use the standard GitHub tracking functionality. See Finding information in a repository.
What is the SAP Open Documentation Initiative?
User experience insights and feedback are essential to the quality of SAP products, including product documentation. The SAP Open Documentation Initiative enables (encourages!) users to contribute directly to documentation in the SAP Help Portal.
For more information about why SAP has prioritized this initiative, see Introducing the Open Documentation Initiative.
What do I need to get started?
To make use of this feature, you need a GitHub account and a general familiarity with using GitHub.
Note that GitHub offers managed user accounts (so-called enterprise-managed users, or EMUs). With such users, collaboration is restricted to organizations of their enterprise, see official GitHub documentation. With such users, you can neither open issues nor propose changes through pull requests. In such a case, creating an additional personal GitHub account is the only way to collaborate in SAP repositories.
When you contribute for the first time, you'll also need to sign the Contributor License Agreement (CLA) in GitHub. See The Contributor License Agreement Process.
Finally, you'll want to familiarize yourself with the SAP Open Documentation Initiative - Contribution Guidelines.
Where can I try out this with SAP HANA Cloud documentation?
Not all SAP HANA Cloud guides support contributions via GitHub. In fact, most don't. The capability is gradually being introduced in guides that specifically target the developer community. As of the creation of this blog post, this capability is provided as of the QRC 3/2022 versions of the following guides:
- SAP HANA Cloud, SAP HANA Database Developer Guide for Cloud Foundry Multitarget Applications (SAP We...
- SAP HANA Cloud, SAP HANA Database Developer Guide for Cloud Foundry Multitarget Applications (SAP Bu...
How do I contribute?
There are two ways you contribute to the documentation in SAP Help Portal: by editing the content (Edit control) or by leaving helpful feedback (Feedback control).
Edit Content
1. Navigate to the topic that you want to contribute to.
2. Choose Edit to open a Markdown version of the topic in the GitHub editor.
3. Choose the pencil icon to edit the Markdown file.
Figure 1: Edit content in the Markdown version of the topic
4. Add a comment and propose your changes by choosing Propose changes.
5. Follow the standard GitHub workflow for creating a pull request.
Provide Feedback
1. Navigate to the topic that you want to contribute to.
2. Choose Feedback at the top of the topic to open an issue window in GitHub.
Figure 2: Provide feedback in the New Issue window
3. Enter your feedback and choose Submit new issue.
What happens after I submit my contributions?
Your contributions are reviewed by the SAP HANA Cloud authors and may be accepted, modified, or rejected, depending on whether the changes are accurate and consistent with the documentation conventions in use. See What to Expect.
It may take some time before changes appear in the SAP Help Portal version of the topic. This is because your suggestions may need additional reviews. Also, some guides are only republished at scheduled intervals.
In the meantime, to keep track of your contributions, you can use the standard GitHub tracking functionality. See Finding information in a repository.
You can also stay informed by using GitHub notifications. See Setting up notifications.
Additional Information
- SAP Help Portal: SAP Open Documentation Initiative - Contribution Guidelines
- GitHub.com: Get a GitHub Account
- Blogpost: Introducing the Open Documentation Initiative
- Developers.sap.com: Open Source Programme Office
- GitHub.com: SAP on GitHub
- GitHub.com: SAP-docs
- YouTube: Introducing the Open Documentation Initiative
- YouTube: GitHub mechanics for the Open Documentation Initiative
- Blogpost: Collaboration missions for the Open Documentation Initiative
- Blogpost: SAP BTP Documentation Goes GitHub – New Collaboration Process
- SAP Help Portal: Contribution Recognition in SAP Community
- SAP Managed Tags:
