For Administrators, Key Users and Curious C4C Business Users
Would you start using an application without a clear view of it? Even if you do, would you be efficient exploring or be confident to use it? Why would you keep in that application without understanding What is in it for you?
In Cloud for Customer we have thought about the user experience and therefore a home page has been created to provide them benefits such as:
- Improved User Experience: A well-designed home page can provide users with quick and easy access to the information they need. This can help users navigate the system more efficiently, reducing frustration and improving their overall experience.
- Increased Productivity: By having key information and tasks easily accessible on the home page, users can quickly perform their daily tasks and make informed decisions. This can help increase productivity and efficiency, leading to better business outcomes.
- Customization: SAP Sales Cloud allows for home page customization, so you can tailor the page to fit the specific needs of the personas (note: is everybody familiar with this term?). This means you can add relevant information and features that are specific to your business and user needs, making the system more valuable and efficient.
- Visibility and Control: With a comprehensive home page, users can gain a quick overview of their work items and notifications, allowing them to prioritize their tasks and take action as needed. This can help increase visibility and control over business processes, leading to better decision-making and outcomes.
- Reduced Training Time: A well-designed home page can simplify the user interface, making it easier for new users to navigate and learn the system. This can reduce training time and costs, enabling faster onboarding and adoption of the system.
In this blog co-authored with my colleague luciano.monteiro13 we will try to help you think, and understand the challenges and opportunities when setting the stepping stone of your users' adoption journey. Let's start by understanding the different components of the home page
Anatomy of the Home Page
The home page in Cloud for Customer is comprised of 3 different elements:
User Role - when creating a home page you need to do it selecting first which role will it apply to
Cards - an object that will provide specific value for the user (we will explain in detail the different types of cards that administrators can leverage for their users
Groups - sections that you can create in the home page to organize cards in a logical way and have them grouped.
Now that we see how easy the home page is constituted let's review 10 different recommendations we have come across while helping some of our customers to be ready to provide a delightful experience for their end users
1 - Home Page Make it Default!
Applications are everywhere, we spend most of our days consuming content from them and producing activities on them. When opening an application the first thing a user expects to get is an overview of what they can do or benefit from using it. If the benefit is not clear users tend to abandon and resist to adopt, leading to a poor adoption. This is why, whenever launching a new application you need to set a starting point for the users - The Home Page. A Home Page is a mandatory requirement for any application and Cloud for Customer is no exception.
To make home page as default an administrator needs to decide:
- Will your users have the home page as the start page of cloud for customer?
- Will the experience be the same for all users or some will have home page as default and others not?
2 - Home Page Performance
Once you set the home page as default you need to make sure it is performing well, no one starts using an application which gets thinking in the first screen. Because you may find the home page is not performing we want you to understand what to do in those cases. Please read the following blog if that is your case: https://blogs.sap.com/2017/12/13/sap-hybris-cloud-for-customer-troubleshoot-high-load-time-of-home-p...
When it comes to limitations to set up home page, here some considerations to have in mind:
- Max 4 report cards per home page
- Max 10 kpi cards per home page
- Up to 10 links in quick links card
- Max 2 Kanban card per home page, if detailed format between 2 to 5 values will show, if vertical, between 2 to 8 values will be displayed
- English is the default language, and the English text shows up for all the different languages until changed to a specific language
- More can be found here
3 - Define the Value Proposition for a Home Page
The Home Page is how a user is welcomed into an application and a mean to help users focus on what is most important to them. Once you start defining the Home Page for your users in Cloud for Customer your initial questions should be: What is in it for the users?
- It offers functionalities to perform their job and run their processes
- It offers features to help make them more effective in their job
- It offers features to help them review their performance and discovery what they can do to improve it
- It provides a central place to manage customer relations and where sales and service teams can work together to build an understanding of the existing or potential customers
4 - Define Personas
Based on that answer you will most likely understand each role will have its own needs and expectations from Cloud for Customer and for that reason as an administrator you want to set a different but consistent experience to your users, which means define a Home Page based on their business role.
Start by understanding the different categories of end users in cloud for customer. There are only three types of end-users (excluding IT):
Operational level users These are front-line employees such as customer service or sales reps who use the system to perform their daily tasks and follow-up on them.
Managerial level users Managers and supervisors use the system to perform their management and supervisory tasks, make data-driven decisions, and track progress toward business goals.
Business key users These are “power users” responsible for enabling and coaching of other users in the system, monitoring user adoption and data quality.
Regardless of their specific business role or persona, all users can benefit from a well-designed homepage that offers:
- easy access to frequently used functions, tasks lists, etc… in SAP Sales Cloud
- visualization of key metrics and analytics in real-time
- links to external tools and information sources
5 - Define Extended Roles as Individual Roles
However when you set your users and their business roles it is very common to have some of them with multiple roles assigned. If those business roles represent different personas that can pose some challenges to define the Home Page. In this case here some best practices on setting up users and business roles.
1 - typically in C4C you have users with a limited role and users with a more extended role. Those extended roles should be seen as individual roles as well, which essentially will allow you to have a home page with direct correspondence to a singular user experience. A similar thing happens also with the page layouts. Here an example:
2 - The administrators in C4C may also consider to create a schema governance file (a document which will structure the business roles and corresponding accesses) to support the maintenance of the roles, homepages, page layouts, code list restrictions and much more. We recommend to set a document where you can maintain, Business roles and their different dimensions:
- Home Page and Cards to be included
- Master Layout and Page Layout and Business Object/Work Center, Work Center View, Tabs View, Visible fields/sections/panes, rule properties, Code List Restrictions
How to define the Business Roles:
- Structure your Business Roles considering the dimensions in the schema governance file
- Avoid Business roles with a high percentage of overlap (Do you really need this business role? Reduce the roles when possible and create global roles or merge roles when needed)
- Follow a strict naming convention for your Business Roles (Golden Rules)
- Page Layouts (Maintain a layout view for certain business roles and/or object type) is only one part of adaption methods – avoid overlap and make sure the Page Layout is really crucial and needed for specific persona
- Try to keep Page Layouts to a minimum
Think about this example and why you need to have the above best practices in mind:
Imagine a case of role A with 10 cards in the home page organized in 4 groups, and a case of role B with 10 cards organized in 3 groups. What happen if you have a user with assigned role A and role B together?
- The Home page would try to combine tiles from both roles, in case of duplicated (same tile in both roles), the system will consider only one tile
- The Home page would try to combine groups from both roles. In case the same name is considered in the group and the same tiles, the system will consider only one group, but if the group has the same name but different tiles in the group, the system will duplicate the group as a result
- Users can easily end up having too many tiles and too many groups in the homepage, affecting the performance of the homepage and frustrating the user experience.
6 - Use cards which ease the access to most used work centers
After defining your personas you will now think about the framework for the home pages so it is good you know up front what features does the Home Page provide to set the framework. These frameworks are organized by cards (an overview of the different type of cards can be seen below) and Groups which include a combination of different cards with a specific title (groups are optional but they help to organize the home page better).
7 - Promote efficiency with cards that adapt to user data
Kanban provides a good usability experience, to explore more of this capacity check this here.
8 - Provide performance perspectives any user can relate to
9 - Set relevant and regular messages
10 - Provide flexibility for users to adapt their home page
The last thing you need to think when defining the home page is: users are not all the same, some will follow strictly what you offer others will like to make their experience more in line with their wishes. In such case here is our next recommendation
Personalization can only be done if enabled by administrators in company Settings. Company Settings can be defined for the general audience and for specific business role, the later overwrites the earlier.
If Personalization is active your users will be able to adjust the home page in the following way:
- Hide or make visible cards which were made available by the administrator to the user specific business role
- Create new groups (if made available by admin to organize cards by groups)
- Set home page as start page
- Revert to the original default home page
As you have seen a home page is a great way for a user to become confident with the sales and service process. As a user you expect a home page to help you focus on what matters the most during your working day, there are different options that can be configured and some others that can be personalized, discuss with your administrator those options to have your sales and service processes to run better!!
Additional resources:
| Home Page Solution Guide Solution guide for Home Page configuration |
| Access control guide Special Access Control Topics - Access Determination: Conflicting Role and Page Layout Privileges |
| DIY Home Page Card | SAP Blogs - |
| How to create HTML mashup for News | SAP Blogs |
| How to Create a Data Mashup in SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer | SAP Blogs |
| KBA 2712606 - Homepage Filter Navigates To Different Query (sap.com) |
| KBA 2585268 - Custom KPI or Report Missing When Adapting/ Personalizing the Home Page (sap.com) |
| KBA 2384543 - Tickets Assigned to Me in Home Page Display Different Results as Displayed In My Queue Fil... |
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