Making Forum More Useful As an Archive

[Former Member]

In several discussions, especially in the Coffee Corner, there has been complaints about the questions in forum discussions that have been answered before.

Here are some suggestions to help leverage the archive of information in forums.

1) Have a way of rewarding people who look before asking.

- Any way to give points to someone who searches for an answer before starting a new thread/question?

2) Having a better tagging system for threads.

- Guiding authors to write clearer Subject lines for threads

- Having additional tagging functions for threads for especially excellent and useful information.

3) Including a "Finding Answers First" Thread

- Although that is the first point in the Rules of Engagement message, you have to click Twice before you see it, First clicking the thread Welcome and Rules of Engagement, next clicking on rules of engagement hotlink in that message. Since you are looking at Outcome - people using this as an archive, I believe a "Finding Answers First" thread may have a real impact on usage.

4) Feedback from people who actually use this as an archive of information.

There are plenty of people who object to seeing the same questions repeated in the forums. I have to wonder if they also use this as an archive?

Regards,

Bob

[OttoGold · Accepted solution]

From my point of view:

- easy and hopefully a fast step would be to offer "Favorites" like we have in the browsers

- be able to publish the links list as a part of my profile

- be able to easily add a thread to my favorites (don´t have to work with all types of content, for me to add the forum questions/ threads would be enough) - add to favorites link in every thread header

- extra: in the thread/ the actual content add a bar where a stranger who arrived there through SDN search/ google can see how many people do "remember" this thread/ content what would mark the content as "useful" (at least for some people)

I could come up with many more "features" and suggestions, but the above would suffice for 95% of the users and will improve the usability and hopefully the behavior of the community a lot.

In my opinion the above mentioned "features" would be "easy" for me to implement on my websites. But I do understand how "easy" works in SAP.

Regards Otto

[zal_parchem2]

LOL - Well, now that I see Marilyn's name here I know why someone asked me to go to this forum to add in my humble (and sometimes illogical) suggestions.

About a year ago or so, Paul Finneran posted a question on the SAP Business Forum and there developed a rather lively discussion about the usage of the SAP B1 Core forum (it was titled something on the order of "Have You Seen What We Have Done Lately" - I don't know what the exact title was, ask Paul - he will remember). The summary gist of what Paul heard was as follows:

1. It was difficult to "zero in" on what someone was looking for. A real business person has the time to maybe read ten postings and then they have to get back to work.

2. It would be great if the information was more centered around the way users look for information. I have tried to get some business personnel to use forums and portals, but rarely do they take into it.

3. Users were really perplexed by the crytpic and sometimes baffling error messages they received in the application and then could not copy that error into the search function and have it pop right up.

4. The search function itself seemed to be rather difficult to use. I think someone asked why you could not put quotes around a phrase and have that exact phrase display (for example: "user-defined fields") instead of the myriad of listings with "users", "fields", etc. I believe (not certain) Paul said some team was working on updating the search. Maybe done now?

5. Someone had the impression that business users (our customers) could not get to all the documentation and some documentation was reserved only for partners. They were not talking about sales and promotion items, more of manuals and guides - I cannot confirm that since I can get just about everything.

Now to answer the main thrust of your posting - I find the forums extremely useful for several reasons. One, I get the chance to learn while I am between "gigs" like now. I am mainly interested in trying to work out those questions folks have to see if I understand how something can be done. These are real, honest-to-goodness business situations! Two, I get a chance to help others along and it can be fun seeing how various people pose their questions. Since June 1st I have somehow gathered a good number of rewards and was even "top three of the forum" - nice to have and all, but, hey, learning and helping are much more important to me. And, finally Three, I am a "copy and paste" monster with the forums - on my PC I literally have hundreds of pages of what I have copied, pirated, snitched, borrowed or whatever term you like to use. And all of those documents are actually organized the way that seemed to make most sense (module, screen, etc) to me with nice naming standards and all. Maybe that is a form of archive?

I do not know how SAP could ever harness the amount of information coming in to be able to organize it the way I have or even to have it the way some others might suggest - look at all the forums you have! And don't forget in this wild west of the Web, personalization is to be the hallmark.

OK - nuf said - Hey Marliyn - nice to see you again - take care all - Zal

[marilyn_pratt]

Hey Zal,

Good to see you here. You always do add zest to a conversation.

I'll answer a few of your questions.

Paul said some team was working on updating the search. Maybe done now?

Some of my colleagues and fellow employees are at work improving the search and they look for input.

In fact they did a webinar at the NSQ SAP Inside Track this Friday and were very interested to engage.

Their names are Christine Merten and Trevor Carlow.

Christine works with our team on SCN and I'm sure would be very interested in your input.

The idea of a search engine bringing back MORE than one has in quotes is meant to be a convenience where if you search for BPX for example you also get a return set that includes "Business Process Expert".

Someone had the impression that business users (our customers) could not get to all the documentation and some documentation was reserved only for partners.

Historically SDN did have certain contents (and certain navigation nodes on the left-hand navigation) only visible and accessible to certain authorizations.

There were contents accessible to all (including non-logged on users)

Content viewable to customers (and by extension partners and employess)

Content viewable to partners (and by extension employees)

Content viewed only by employees

Lot less of that going on here now.

Not sure about your number four comments. Will need you to expand.

Best,

Marilyn

[OttoGold]

My opinion:

- would be cool if the SAP sites would be able to follow the typical data retrieval "find me documents like this one"

- such functionality would be called after the user has finished his question and BEFORE the question is asked/ published

- an extra screen would offer the search result of a search which used the "questions text" as a "patter" or "template document"

In my opinion that would help A LOT.

Regards Otto

[Former Member]

The "full monty" would be search results also returning an additional "pattern" to help refine the search further, for example:

> Users who searched for "Infotype 0044" also searched for:

>> 94% - Message number RP 017

>

>> 88% - Cricket

>

>> 65% - etc ....

Cheers

Julius

[JPReyes]

I think SCN should implement the same strategy here as they use in SAP Marketplace....

When you click on "Post new thread" it should take you to a new screen that ask you to search for existing threads (Maybe with all the search options) then if you don't find the solution you can proceed to create a new one.

Simple and effective

Any thoughts?

Regards

Juan

[Former Member]

> When you click on "Post new thread" it should take you to a new screen that ask you to search for existing threads..

The only downside I see with it is that it has been mentioned very often for some time already...

Cheers,

Julius

[former_member184657]

The only downside I see with it is that it has been mentioned very often for some time already... 

That's not the downside. The downside is that no SAP offiicial is ready to comment on its feasibility.

pk

ps:

Edited by: kishan P on Jun 24, 2010 5:08 PM

[JPReyes]

The only downside I see with it is that it has been mentioned very often for some time already... 

Where have I been?? 😄

[Former Member]

Martin Lang seems willing to lean out the window a bit. Perhaps he'll take this one up and commit to some feedback as well

Jokes aside: Some things do get done or officially declined, but this one is not amongst them

Cheers,

Julius

[martinlang]

Am listening and thinking about this. Will post a reply in a bit...

[Bob_McGlynn]

Juan,

If there is going to be something encouraging people to search before beginning a new topic, what about also something short that encourages better use of the Subject name? Something that might say something like:

"To better the Forums experience in searching for information, please use a Subject topic that can be easily recognized and as much as possible specific to an area or operation. Doing this provides a way to better facilitate an immediate answer as well as helping others in the future with a similar question."

Regards,

Bob

[marilyn_pratt]

To dovetail on Bob's comment - perhaps "encouraging" is the lead word here. Many of us suggesting/looking at forum improvements are often focused on preventing abuse, preventing redundancy, cutting noise, making it harder to misuse the forums. And much has been implemented driven by those kind of requests.

But encouraging users (not just discouraging bad behavior?). In this case how do those extra warning clicks impact usability for the users (not just moderators)? What does it mean in terms of time, effort, patience, when before every post you need to perform extra clicks and see extra content? Would folks that ignore Rules of Engagement and moderator warnings be deterred? Would we wind up just annoying those who anyway behave in a community-minded way? Would this really improve the forums? I'm not passing a judgment. I'm listening, thinking, and as always seeing who we can engage with to provide answers.

Does someone have some statistical metric from a usability perspective how this flies when we speak of the volumes of activity we have here on the forums (upwards of 3,600 message posts a day)?

Sorry, but there aren't any fast and easy answers and that may be one of the reasons that these suggestions aren't immediately implemented.

You guys want some looks behind the curtain as to how we work and think?

I remember Craig and I entering into a debate with Mark Finnern (way back years ago) about forcing further categories on the forums with uber folders (separating contents even further as in technical from business/solutions) and we lost that battle because Mark F. trumped our additional folder "logic" with a usability issue of how many clicks the user would need to perform to get to the granular place he/she was looking for in the first place.

How many of us are usability experts? How many of us know the quantified impact?

I know I'm not certified in this despite my experience here. And we do have folks like that on our team. And that's some of the process that I'm making more visible here.

I reached out to Martin, who is very technically savvy and is digging into the entrails of Jive to step it up in the conversations around technical capabilities and implementations.

I reached out to Christine Merten and to Trevor Carlow who respectively are our internal experts on taxonomies and knowledge portal search.

I will also reach out to Keith Elliot and Audrey Stevenson both of who have vast professional knowledge in access and usability.

It would not be professional of me to just throw around opinions here without substantiating the responses.

Does it make the process slower? Yes.

But I think with Martin on board you will see some examples of moving agilely. Just don't expect instant results. That won't happen.

I think we can be rather proud of the enhancements we already have here on this Jive platform. Most of them the product of you guys pushing and pushing for more. But take a look at the technical forums in other very large ERP vendor websites (especially those using Jive) to get a reality check going as to what YOU have accomplished and what we have implemented and changed and customized and yes (GASP) improved.

Do we need to keep moving forward? Yes.

Do we need to do that more transparently? Big yes.

Do we need to implement every suggestion? I doubt it.

Do we make everyone happy? Probably not.

Do we try? .......(yours to judge)

[Bob_McGlynn]

Great feedback Marilyn!

There are two goals at work here on the Forums.

The first goal is to encourage usage, foster discussion and have that happen in as close to a real-time environment as possible.

The second goal is to have a readily available archive of information and answers, a knowledge store so that a user might find an immediate answer to what drove them to the Forum.

It is the individual user that ultimately controls the experience of the group and usage is voluntary. I don't know how you spread the word to motivate users, since users have different motivations (and deadlines) when they come to the Forum. Certainly any additional steps or procedures someone has to go through will be ignored by those these were aimmed at and create annoyance for a vast amount of others.

Maybe there should be points given to Questions/Subject. Unfortunately for those interested in personally amassing points, the points wouldn't go to PEOPLE, but the Question itself. Then you could set an optional "look" of the Forum ranking of Questions/Subjects by their points. Goal 1 provides points for people, Goal 2 is met by providing a scoring system for Subject/Questions.

Regards,

Bob

[martinlang]

Let me come back to the "Search before post" or whatever you want to call this feature. Within the SCN collaboration team, but also neighboring teams on the SCN or the technical side this is one that came up quite a few times already in internal discussions from various angles. I think it would be fair to say, that we agree, that this is something we'd like to get to. The benefits are obvious.

Here's the thing. Well let's called it my interpretation of parts of the story that explain this a bit. The current forum Software is essentially Jive Forums as many of you know. We run basically the latest version, Jive Forums as a product though has run out of maintenance. It's supported on a basic level, however the product is not improved further as Jive focussed their efforts primarily on their new product called Jive SBS.

Our forum is surely not the largest, yet it has a significant size, here's some numbers from a couple days ago:

Total Number of Threads: 1,657,700

Total Number of Messages: 7,431,654

Total Number of Registered Users: 798,512

While we are not afraid to tackle this, we are in fact eager to do so, however it's still not exactly an easy and straight forward task either to determine the next best steps to get us where we want to be, not just for the forums and considering much of all of your great feedback. Maybe more so (not exactly easy and straight forward) when you think about and throw in some of the other things we would really like to get to, to improve collaboration capabilities on SCN over all (better blog system, more integration between the various collaboration tools and content areas, a more powerful user profile/Business card, which by itself is integrated back to user contributions anywhere on SCN etc.

Going forward one of the main places, where we would like to work with you to raise, vote on, discuss, question, critique or support ideas around SCN is Idea Place ([https://ideas.sap.com/community/community_and_services/sapcommunitynetwork|https://ideas.sap.com/community/community_and_services/sapcommunitynetwork]).

Sure the solution currently has a major issue with S-Users not being able to logon, let's not talk about that in this thread either as it is being worked on with high priority.

However we believe, this tool through it's collaborative nature with the voting etc. will give all of us (that includes you) the ability to better gauge which improvements and which larger or smaller ideas are most desireable from a community perspective. Doesn't mean we can implement all ideas that are very high rated, but it definitely gives us a better tool and some more data points for consideration. I can only encourage all of you to participate there, well at least once the S-User issue is resolved.

To come back to the "Search before Post" kind of approach. I would love to have it myself, but it won't happen on the current forum solution. Which basically means, it won't happen very soon, but it is something we are looking into.

Really loved how Marilyn put this!

>

>Do we need to keep moving forward? Yes. 
>Do we need to do that more transparently? Big yes.
>Do we need to implement every suggestion? I doubt it.
>Do we make everyone happy? Probably not.
>Do we try? .......(yours to judge)

[OttoGold]

Hello Martin,

I like your post very much, but there is a thing, I may not understand:

The current forum Software is essentially Jive Forums as many of you know. We run basically the latest version, Jive Forums as a product though has run out of maintenance. It's supported on a basic level, however the product is not improved further as Jive focussed their efforts primarily on their new product called Jive SBS.

1) Does that mean SAP use the outdated software? With "limited" maintenance (what means something like "sorry, pal" on my project and it is the way how "limited maintenance" is understood by the people around me... or something like "we fix only fatal errors").

2) ....we can expect a revolution instead of evolution (if we would get this SBS, whatever it is, instead of "our" forum)?

This part of your message is not very clear and can lead to the unwanted consequences:))

Regards Otto

[Former Member]

Thank you Martin and good luck with the upgrade when ever that time arives!

Cheers,

Julius

[martinlang]

@Otto et al: Yes a revolution instead of an evolution is what we need! We are evaluating a couple of options currently, our team (Marilyn, Gali, Moshe, Laure, Jason and I) are not leading this initiative, but we are very involved. Absolutely we want nothing less than a revolution, but don't expect it to happen tomorrow or next week, not next month either, but it'll happen and we'll be in touch throughout the process sharing information, but also we'll continue to very active listeners to you too to make sure your and our community voice is heard and taken into account.

[Former Member]

> 4) Feedback from people who actually use this as an archive of information.

I have an access DB as a "box of tricks" which I collected over the years, but now have a lot of information on SDN which I find it easier to access anywhere from the web if I cannot remember some of the details, or OSS Note numbers, or "gotchas", etc.

Unfortunately the search terms to find some of these gems are not easy either.

For example, I know exactly what I am looking for if I enter "John AND Cleese" or "Wellness" or "Audiots" etc, but cannot expect anyone else to know these gems.

In the security forum I maintain a "sticky thread" of usefull and memorable discussions, but the correct medium for this is actually a wiki.

I have started using the wiki a bit now as well, but it is not as much fun as the forums to be honest.

Cheers,

Julius