Every document should have a unique number.

[Former Member]

The layout of SDN and service.sap.com changes seemingly daily. The location of documents changes to an extent that it is often not possible to find things any more. Many documents refer to other documents that no longer exist or at a location that no longer exists.

The search functionality yields 'creative' results many times.

This could be easily rectified by giving each document a unique number. This way, all documentation would only have to have a reference (e.g. See document 123456789.99) so that we could always find what we want.

Some smarts could be applied to the document number format.

E.g. XXX99999999.999, where XXX identifies the type of document, 99999999 is the document number, and the .999 is the version number.

Some examples,

SNO000012345.027 would be version 27 of SAP Note 12345

SNO000012345.999 would be the latest version of that document - this is important. Can you imagine how easy it could be to find a document? In the search field you just type the document number with a version of .999 and you would be guaranteed to find the latest version of that document!

The potential time and money saved for SAP and customers would be enormous.

[Former Member]

Dear Philip,

thanks for your feedback.

Let me introduce myself first. My name is Martin Rink, I am a Product Manager in charge of the SAP Service Marketplace.

I want to answer you with a focus on SAP Service Marketplace. The SAP Service Marketplace today hosts various portals, that are dedicated to specific audiences. So it is correct, that the one or the other portals change its layouts from time to time.

Hence a change in layout never changes the ID of an asset. This is true for the whole SAP Service Marketplace and for SDN as well.

We do not offer versions of documents, you will always receive the latest version of a document. That means, as soon as a reworked document is available it replaces the outdated one and will be available with the given Object-ID.

You mentioned SAP Notes as an example. There is a unique URL available that will bring you to a given SAP Note --> https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/NNNNN where NNNNN is the Note number.

SAP Note have indeed one specific option, you can compare the latest version with a previous version, in order to crosscheck if it is necessary to apply a change and what was changed.

Hope this answers your questions.

Best

Martin Rink

[Former Member]

Hello Martin,

Thank you very much for your response. It is gratifying to know that the appropriate people read and respond to our comments.

It is true that only the latest version of a document is available on the Service Marketplace. However it is very typical for me (and I assume others) to have my own copy of a document. For example, instructions on performing some technical task.

When I next want to perform that task I might check to see if there is a newer version of that document. I frequently encounter the situation where the structure of the service marketplace has changed and I can spend considerable time trying to find the location of that document. I used to keep instructions on where to find particular documents but I gave up because the locations seem to change more quickly than I can keep up with.

Another common situation I encounter is when one SAP document refers to another document, with navigation instructions for the Service Marketplace. However, again, due to the dynamic nature of the layout of the site the instructions are no longer valid.

SAP also frequently change the names of products. e.g. Solution Manager 4.0 is now known as Solution Manager 7.0. Netweaver 2004s has become Netweaver 7.0. This can make searching difficult as I may be searching for product 'X', but unknown to me it has become product 'Y'.

These situations, combined with the sometimes slow speed of the Service Marketplace can result in much wasted time trying to find a document. Again, please imagine being able just type in a document number and instantly be presented with that document? Across the large number of users this would save many, many hours.

Do you ever trace the usage of the site? If others are like me you would see that we spend a long time navigating in many directions trying to find the desired document. A short method like I describe would remove a considerable burden from the site if people could instantly find what they want.

The search engine has improved immeasurably over recent years but it still can be frustrating at times searching by keywords alone.

Thanks for posting the URL shortcut for SAP Notes. I have been using something like this. Is this publicised at all? I think many people would find it useful.

Cheers.