Three Guiding Principles of SAP ONE Support Launchpad

In the second of our series of articles about the SAP ONE Support Launchpad, we examine the principles of “Know Me, Guide Me, and Help Me,” how they are applied in the Launchpad, and how they benefit SAP support users.

More than 15,000 SuccessFactors users began using the SAP ONE Support Launchpad in April 2015. Later this year, on-premise and on-premise/cloud hybrid SAP customers will be able to join them with freshly updated on-premise services and support applications accessible from a simplified user interface, driven by three guiding principles: know me –guide me – help me.

As a part of the SAP ONE Support program, SAP is simplifying access to all service and support applications by consolidating support into a single, centralized entry point. The company started with early collaboration with SAP users and implemented feedback throughout the development of the Launchpad, ensuring customer-driven features and the most intuitive and user friendly experience. Following the 15,000 SuccessFactors users who began using this simplified, user-centric entry point at the end of April 2015, on-premise and hybrid customers will follow suit in October.

Benefiting from a user interaction model based on the award-winning SAP Fiori and the know me – guide me – help me principles, the Launchpad offers an intuitive support experience for each individual user by providing context-specific access to service and support applications immediately upon logging in.

Three Guiding Principles

1. Know me

The personalization of the SAP ONE Support Launchpad and new support applications are based on customizable user profiles. These are available for both the Launchpad as well as all new SAP service and support applications. User profiles contain information on which SAP solutions a support user administers and which applications they need access to in order to perform their daily tasks. They also provide details about which application authorizations a user has; whether, for example, a user may be authorized to manage other support user authorizations, report incidents to SAP, and download software. Another user may only be authorized to report incidents for a particular product.

The profile records a user’s Launchpad behavior, so it is able to differentiate between systems for which the user simply has authorization and those in which he or she has actively worked. The user profile also knows which legal change notes the user is interested in and for which country or countries. Similarly, the system knows the user may be interested in a certain product, such as SAP CRM, because he or she has searched for SAP Notes relating to it. When a user interacts with the SAP ONE Support Launchpad and the new service and support applications, the user profile tracks his or her behavior and preferences and dynamically adapts to any changes. The profile is transparent for users and can be personalized manually at any time.

In addition to guiding the user through everyday service and support tasks, the user profile is also used to make important process recommendations. By combining it with process knowledge, SAP can now inform support personnel about relevant tasks that they need to perform, such as how to update their SAP system to a new product version.

In addition to guiding the user through everyday service and support tasks, the user profile is also used to make important process recommendations. By combining it with process knowledge, SAP can now inform support personnel about relevant tasks, such as how to update their SAP system to a new product version, that they need to perform.

2. Guide Me

The SAP ONE Support Launchpad interface was built on a visual dashboard of tiles grouped by topic for easy reference. Key information is displayed on the Launchpad tiles to provide an at-a-glance view of the current status of individual tasks, such as: incidents requiring urgent action, “HotNews” waiting for confirmation, and more. In addition to indicating the current status of tasks, the tiles also provide one-click access to the relevant support applications.

The user interface of SAP ONE Support launchpad — *The user interface of SAP ONE Support Launchpad*

Based on the user profile data described above, the tile view is precisely customized to the individual’s needs and role. This makes the user’s job easier by hiding irrelevant information. For example, a power user with incident management authorization will only see the tiles that are required for their role.

But what happens if a user’s role is extended and he takes on responsibility for user management too? No problem. Once he receives authorization for the new task, he simply selects the appropriate access tile and adds it to his Launchpad. If a user works as a system administrator for an on-premise solution that has been extended with SuccessFactors, the SAP ONE Support Launchpad will provide an end-to-end overview of all the tasks that are associated with this role and access to the relevant applications. Depending on the application authorizations, users will see immediately, for example, whether a new “HotNews” relating to the products he or she is responsible for has arrived since last logging on. Or if there’s a new legal change note for a relevant country.

In the same way that the SAP ONE Support Launchpad refers to the user profile to expose the applications needed for a role, the applications also use it to guide users through individual tasks. To take an example, the system operation and maintenance section on the Launchpad contains a list pre-generated by SAP of a user’s favorite systems. Because these favorite systems appear in one’s user profile, the license keys application also uses this information to guide a user through the license-key management tasks that are relevant to his or her role.

3. Help Me

SAP product administrators know that when new and unpredictable situations occur in the course of operation and maintenance of system landscapes, they sometimes need to reach out to SAP for assistance. With the SAP ONE Support Launchpad, whether searching for a relevant SAP Note or reporting a support incident, relevant applications use the information stored in the user profile to provide personalized support. For example, the new search function will only return results relevant to the products a user administers. Similarly, when an incident is reported, the new incident application uses the keywords in the problem description to suggest an appropriate SAP component.

In a nutshell, the SAP ONE Support Launchpad aims to provide users with simplified access to all the service and support applications that are relevant to their roles via a centralized access point. We have achieved this objective by combining an intuitive user interface based on SAP Fiori with the know me – guide me – help me principles: recognizing the user’s profile preferences, and behaviors, guiding the user through support tasks, and offering targeted assistance where required.

The next article in this series takes a closer look at how SAP cooperated with customers in jointly developing this solution.