“Knowing key statistics about your users’ portal behavior allows you to draw the proper conclusions, make better informed decisions, and keep your portal competitive.”

Yet there are many companies with SAP Portals whom have no idea what their usage is. And the ones that do know are certainly well ahead of the pack. Would you benefit from having more insight into what is happening inside your portal? Would it help you to know what content your users are keen on and what pages they don’t use anymore?

Read this brief article to find out more.

• Download PDF version
• SAP Insider Online

**P.S. – If you have not seen it already and want to know why you should be tracking the usage in your SAP Portal, read this special report, “What Makes a Successful SAP Portal?”

Choose from multiple languages to make voting more friendly to your users.

Sweetlets worked together with one of our key customers to seamlessly integrate these two new languages. This option really helps portal administrators to get a better response from an even broader audience, thus improving overall relationships and greater involvement from their users.

Keep in mind we are always open to client feedback, good or bad. Many of our enhancements are as a result of customer request. So if you see a feature or functionality that is missing, just let us know and we can work together to find you a solution.

Drill down to specific country, departments or cities by adding your own custom UME attribute into Pretty Poll voting iView.

I also wanted to mention for those that are not aware of how you can really drill down your results. For statistical reporting, the standard UME (user management engine) attributes are already included in Pretty Poll such as country, city, languages, etc. But don’t forget to tap into your very own UME and add your own UME attributes. Really specify the exact locations, departments and more from within your company.

These are just examples of two great features offered in this SAP NetWeaver Portal business package. What do you want to ask your users?

Pretty Poll

Pretty Poll voting iView for the SAP NetWeaver Portal is an ideal method for gathering feedback, opinions and to simply create more interaction with your end users. Just deploy this business package in your SAP Portal and start asking your users for their opinion. Pretty Poll instantly tallies up the votes submitted – which in turn, provides you with very valuable feedback.

•    Immediate feedback from your users via real time reporting
•    Get your users more involved through teamwork and education
•    Add excitement and fresh content in your portal on a regular basis
•    Results can be displayed via iView or hidden
•    Multiple polling iViews can be deployed
•    Enhanced reporting tools: custom UME (user management engine) attributes
•    And now, multiple language option

Try Pretty Poll today in your SAP Portal. Download the free trial here.

What Makes a Successful SAP Portal?

Business 101: Take a look at your business or the business down the street. Ask yourself, “What makes any business successful?” Customers – you gotta have people buying what you’re selling. And the more people buying, the more profitable your business!

Your SAP Portal is no different. What it really boils down to… your SAP Portal is all about your SAP Portal users. Without users, you don’t have a successful portal (and of course you don’t have a job). Give your users what they want and need and you’ve got the makings of a winner. This is, in a nutshell called, “relevance.”

Relevance is the reason for Google’s popularity on the internet – simply giving people what they are looking for. And Google accomplishes this mighty task by processing user feedback via complex algorithms.

And for the SAP Portal, relevance is portal usage. Broken down, the two key pieces of information needed to establish a thriving SAP Portal are:

1. What your users are doing?
2. What content is most relevant to your users?

And you get this information by analyzing usage feedback. Yes, you can gather user opinions with tools such as Pretty Poll or surveys, but you need to know what your users are actually doing on a daily basis, not what they think they want to do. Just so we are on the same page, this measuring of behavior from the user visiting the portal can be defined as SAP Portal analytics.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure, but you don’t have to go to the extremes like Google does to analyze your data. The least you need to know is how many people have logged in, when they log in, what pages they visited, what pages they don’t visit, and the list goes on.

Content is King

So what is the problem? The majority of IT departments are focused on content that doesn’t matter. They are simply not listening to their users and evaluating usage data. They get caught up in design, layout and technology rather than the content that really connects with what their end users want. Or they get caught up in content that just doesn’t serve a purpose in the portal at all!

“Yeah, but if it doesn’t look good, no one will use it,” is an all too familiar remark. Take a look at the top sites in the world – Amazon, Facebook, Craigslist and the list goes on. These sites are not all that pretty (especially Craigslist), but millions of people go to these sites every day. They thrive because of the value they offer to their users and their relevancy to what the users are doing and want.

Your IT department is the face behind the portal. What is their focus? Are they working on the most relevant content for your users?

Active Pages vs Total Pages

Typically when we set up our analytics application (Click Stream) in a portal for the first time, the client is always quite surprised at the results. One report in particular, the dashboard overview displays Active PCD pages (pages being used) vs Total PCD pages (total pages in portal). At many clients, this report typically shows only 12-15% of pages are active within their portal.

The highest we have ever seen this is 25%. This means that 75-85% and more of the pages in the majority of portals are not utilized. And to make matters worse, more pages are continually being added thinking this will fix the problem of increasing usability. These pages then get buried, creating a ton of overhead. A never-ending battle unless you know and can process what is happening in your portal!

Two Main Reasons for a Struggling Portal

Below here are the two main issues we witness first hand every day in the SAP Portal space on why this content excess and wasted pages happen:

1) Information under load

Information under load is not having enough information to make good quality decisions. According to CIO magazine, 40% of major decisions are based on gut. Why?

“…no good data was available on which to make decisions.”
Thomas Wailgum, CIO.com

“Most portals teams don’t collect solid numbers to estimate the return on investment from their project. As an exception, Dell computed annual productivity gains of $36 million from its portal. Dell’s ROI number comes from its standard process improvement methodology, based on Six Sigma.”
Nielsen Norman Group, Usability of Intranet Portals 3rd Edition

Which leads us to the second problem:

2) Not having the proper tools to do the job

Not all tools are created equal and not every tool is right for the job. Chances are you know portal usage information is available within your SAP Portal. SAP already offers both the Portal Activity Report (PAR) and the Activity Data Collector (ADC). Each may take a bit to dig up the facts and figures through unscrambling flat files, but the main numbers are there. It just may not be all that much fun and require ongoing work if you can handle it.

Google Analytics, Omniture, WebTrends or other web based solutions are exactly that, web based solutions. These may work for some, but you really have to weigh the cost of development time and maintenance efforts? Not to mention, these web based tools are still quite limiting in what data can be extracted from the SAP Portal. They don’t live in the SAP Portal space and hence cannot use the API’s.

Sweetlets does offer an alternative, Click Stream which simplifies the whole process from start to finish. With this SAP certified business package you can really get to the depths of your SAP Portal usage. Click Stream does this by leveraging the User Management Engine (UME) and Portal Content Directory (PCD) API’s as well as any LDAP attributes from your Active Directory.

But regardless how you get your information, just get it. Explore your options and do what is right for you and your company so that you can analyze the data in your portal on a regular basis (if you are not already).

And don’t forget, without the right information at people’s fingertips, they won’t do it – either too lazy or too busy. You know the feeling. Set yourself up with easy access to the right information you need to make the right decisions on your SAP Portal roadmap.

In Summary

Your SAP Portal is about your users and you must have them in mind at all times. A simplified process for a successful SAP Portal is essentially this:

1. Gather data on your portal usage
2. Analyze this recorded data
3. Evaluate results
4. Make educated decisions…based on proof!
5. Repeat steps 1-4 again and again…

And by analyzing this data within your SAP NetWeaver Portal, here are your main breakthroughs which you will, without a doubt uncover along the way:

• Discovery of what really matters to your end users
• No more wasted efforts on unrelated content
• Less dollars spent on irrelevant content
• Higher portal ROI
• Dedicated content for casual and advanced users
• A leaner portal with relevant content
• Optimized use of real estate
• Uncover sweet spots for portal maintenance
• Portal monitoring can be achieved with virtually no footprint
• Higher user satisfaction

We hope this article helped.

For additional resources, see Simon Kemp’s white paper on SAP Enterprise Portal Usage Analytics or visit the Click Stream SAP Portal analytics website.

While we won’t have a booth, we are certainly keen to meet you there in person. Face to face is always the best way to do business and great to have more in depth discussions. If you are open to the idea, we can easily make arrangements and fit you into our schedule. Simply contact us via email at or pick up the phone and call +49 89 59 08 37 0.

Sweetlets will make the trek across the pond all the way from Munich, Germany to the infamous Las Vegas. The great Oktoberfest will have just finished here and we will be looking forward to a much needed rest before hitting up the sights on the strip. The crew here will be taking part in the hands on workshops and detailed lectures from SAP gurus and industry experts, absorbing as much information as we can.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Here are the event details:

SAP TechEd 2010

The Venetian/Palazzo Congress Center

October 18-22, 2010

Sweetlets has been busy getting prepared for the DSAG‘s fast approaching annual meeting. We have committed our involvement on many levels including a booth, sponsoring wireless internet, and bringing our top SAP Portal developers for you to meet face to face.

Here is a summary to keep your eyes open for:

SAP Portal Experts at the Sweetlets booth (R1):

This is your chance to meet our SAP Portal experts in person. Take this exclusive opportunity to get one on one, in-depth advice for issues in your portal. Sweetlets will be happy to exchange ideas and answer any questions or concerns you have on portals or the latest developments mentioned below.

SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.3 Insider information:

We have been chosen along with a small handful of SAP Partners to participate in the beta program for the SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.3. Our developers have been working extensively on the much anticipated release.  Get the hard to find 7.3 details here at the show and take notes on how we have successfully deployed our applications into the new platform. (Additional details on NetWeaver Portal 7.3 here.)

The Latest on SAP NetWeaver, enterprise workspaces:

Sweetlets attended a special workshop recently at SAP HQ focusing on the latest introduction from SAP, enterprise workspaces. Our developers have already successfully integrated Sweetlets applications too! This new collaborative service is all about giving more flexibility and personalization to its users through an array of new features like drag and drop modules. If you would like to stay ahead of your colleagues or just want the inside scoop, the Sweetlets booth is definitely the place to visit. (See news item here)

Presentation: The benefits of understanding SAP Portal usage:

If you are keen on witnessing how a one man team runs a profitable, efficient and one of the most successful SAP Portals in the IT community, you don’t want to miss this presentation! Watch the live demo and listen as Daniel Stasiak from Mundipharma Pharmaceuticals describes how he analyzes data provided by Click Stream to maximize ROI in their portal. Arguably the most informative, real life results presentation you will attend this year and you don’t want to miss it. (If you have not read the success story yet, download it here beforehand)

Presentation (English):

• Title: Partner Lectures – First Hand Benefits from Portal Usage Analysis (P30)
• Date: Wednesday September 22, 2010
• Time: 17:45-18:30
• Daniel Stasiak of Mundipharma Pharmaceuticals
  Frank Heinrich from Sweetlets SAP Portal applications

Präsentation (Deutsch):

• Titel: Partnervorträge – Vorteile der Portal-Nutzungsanalyse aus erster Hand (P30)
• Datum: Mittwoch, 22. September 2010
• Zeit: 17.45 – 18.30
• Daniel Stasiak von Mundipharma Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG und
  Frank Heinrich von Sweetlets

Live demos of Sweetlets SAP Portal applications:

And last but not least, take this unique opportunity to get a free live demo of any Sweetlets SAP Portal applications and our latest enhancements (some not even released yet). Get just a taste of what these easy to deploy business packages can do for you and your SAP Portal – faster results, less wasted time and less wasted money. And no worries, our long time SAP Portal experts will be on hand to guide you the whole way through.

The Sweetlets team looks forward to meeting you at the DSAG 2010 annual meeting. Swing by our booth or look for us around the show, we will be the ones wearing the orange shirts.

Sweetlets Booth: R1

For more details on the DSAG 2010 annual meeting, go to their site here.

Ramp-up for the SAP NetWeaver Portal, enterprise workspaces was July 19th and this unique workshop at Walldorf was for SAP Partners to learn, have access to, and use the latest NetWeaver Portal collaborative add-on. Also, SAP was looking for valuable feedback from the diverse group of people who attended.

Sweetlets took full advantage of first access to enterprise workspaces along with having SAP representatives on hand to help with any questions or concerns. Josef immediately built a module out of our RSS Express iView and integrated this Sweetlets business package with great success.

“A fresh look for SAP! Enterprise workspaces is truly a more user friendly NetWeaver Portal plug-in. Simple, easy to use and can be managed by end users without difficulty.”
Josef Minde, Sweetlets developer

Check out the RSS Express/SAP enterprise workspaces screenshot below. (Click image to enlarge)

Sweetlets RSS Express successfully integrated in the latest addition
from SAP, the SAP NetWeaver Portal, enterprise workspaces.

And for those that don’t know, the SAP enterprise workspaces is an add-on of SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.0 which allows end users a higher level of content personalization for both them and their team. End users can now easily arrange pages by dragging and dropping a selected icon to their chosen page using this new addition.

Sweetlets is always trying to stay ahead of the curve to help you and our clients better. Our team makes regular attendance at SAP Portal events and continuously implements the latest SAP releases for R&D such as the brand new SAP enterprise workspaces. We invite you to contact us if you have any questions, concerns or feedback regarding SAP Portal, enterprise workspaces or the NetWeaver Portal in general. We look forward to working with you on this new venture from SAP.

For more insight on the new Sap NetWeaver Portal, enterprise workspaces add on, go to the SAP EcoHub: SAP NetWeaver Portal, enterprise workspaces

• Performance boost using Ajax in front-end – Only the current month’s events will be loaded initially. If a user wants to see the previous or next month events, they will load upon request using Ajax.
• HTML Editor: Now you can personalize descriptions for get-togethers.
• Search filter in administration: Allows for easier maintenance on many events.
• ICS export for events
• Print button added to overview screen

A customer commented before the release, “It is pretty slick and fast already”, but we are always keen on improving. Speaking of which, future additions to this planning calendar tool include:

• Holiday export from R/3: If you are currently using the company holiday’s information in SAP R/3, stay tuned to be able to automatically extract this information and then easily import to Events Calendar?
• Recurring events: Also coming soon, the option to maintain reoccurring events within Events Calendar.

“The implementation of the Sweetlets applications (WorldTimes and Events Calendar) has transformed our homepage and we have received many positive comments from our employees.”
- Thomas Breant, Bombardier Transportation

And in case you missed it, we also wanted to mention the Events Calendar application can be used in a variety of ways – personalized for each individual area of your SAP Portal. For example, have a main planning calendar or team calendar designed specifically for your company page… then display a separate calendar created solely for your HR department or Finance group.

For additional information, check out our Events Calendar page and if you want to download and try in your SAP NetWeaver Portal, simply go to our downloads area.

Further links:

• Events Calendar Download
• Events Calendar Preview

After being at the show for a couple of days, below are a few key points we would like to share with you. Some of these thoughts may be of interest to your business now… or in the future:

Mobile Solutions

A big push for mobile solutions on all levels:

• The iPad has a huge interest in everyone’s current business and future roadmap
• Utilizing the iPhone for BI reporting in sales
• Super nice, rich interfaces

Environment

Keynote speakers Sir Richard Branson and former vice president Al Gore expressed their concerns for the environment and how we, as IT can make a difference.

• Finding solutions with less impact on the environment through technology
• Reducing our current imprint on environment
• And a great lesson from Sir Richard Branson, there are always opportunities in any market.

Portal Sessions ASUG

• Attendance was certainly up for SAP NetWeaver Portal sessions over last year with many even being full
• Quality was up on these sessions too – valuable content and great insight from a wide variety of portal backgrounds.

Overall

Just a few things key points we could not help but notice:

• Attendance was up over last year according to the ASUG staff we talked to and our observation
• The SAP Portal space seems to be gaining some momentum since the start of 2010. This is good news for us!
• Good to see companies being more focused on the end user experience rather than technology

And there you have it, the inside scoop on the ASUG SAPPHIRE Now 2010 conference in Orlando. If you were there, we hope you had a great time. If not, now you’re caught up with all the details. Feel free to drop us a line if you would like to know more or feel we missed something.

And as many IT people know, one of the big new developments in the NW 7.3 is the AJAX Framework page. While this was initially a concern, our team was able to get Click Stream up and running with no issues at all.

This is a big step for us and as one customer commented, “It is very important that Sweetlets as vendors are on top of technology and taking the steps necessary to keep their products current and on the forefront of the latest releases.”

To back up a touch for you just in case you have not heard, we confirmed our participation in the SAP NetWeaver 7.3 beta for Portal a few weeks ago (see news item here). And within a few short weeks our team of developers launched perhaps the very first third party application, World Times on the yet released SAP NW platform with great success (see news item here).

Want proof! Here is your own sneak a peek into the much anticipated SAP NetWeaver 7.3 with our very own Click Stream portal analyzing tool installed.

Till next time…

Click here to learn more about ‘Click Stream’ and how to apply portal usage monitoring …

The new SAP NetWeaver 7.3 Beta for Portal version has been in our hands for only a few days and already our team of developers has successfully deployed our existing World Times application. While we are not 100% sure if we are the very first to install a business package into the new SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.3 beta, we are easily among the top! We even have a screenshot below for your viewing pleasure and to get a sneak peek into the new 7.3 SAP Portal!

Just to get you up to speed in case you missed it, check out the official news release on Sweetlets involvement in the beta release of the new SAP NetWeaver 7.3 here from April 20th. To quickly recap – Sweetlets was chosen as one of an extremely small handful of SAP Partners worldwide (reports of only in the low teens) to participate in providing SAP with valuable feedback on their upcoming 7.3 SAP NetWeaver Portal release. This beta version is now plugged into our systems and running smoothly in our test environments.

But today surely is one for the records! Our developers effectively deployed an existing business package, World Times into the SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.3 beta with great success! And as far as we know, we are the very first among participating beta partners to deploy an existing Business Package into SAP’s much anticipated 7.3 Portal release.

“We will eagerly monitor the new SAP NetWeaver 7.3 platform and work closely with SAP to give test results and anything else we observe,” mentioned developer Josef Minde.

This presents such a great opportunity for Sweetlets customers. Having the extra confidence in knowing Sweetlets applications are compatible with the latest releases and the added secure feeling of a smooth set up and installation in their SAP NetWeaver 7.3 Portals. Not to mention the comfort of already talking to someone with SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.3 experience under their belts.

Keep in touch for regular updates and for probably the most inside information into the new beta SAP NetWeaver 7.3 Portal.