Innovation Discovery 2.0 - launch of new User Interface on December 17, 2015

Since February 2014 the Innovation Discovery service does offer a one-step access to both business as well as technical information on SAP innovations.

The following information is offered for an optimized innovation adoption process at customers´ site:

- full-text search on innovations and features

- business context filters for selection of Industries and Lines of Businesses

- additional filters for any result list, via products/product versions, topics like user experience, SAP S4/HANA etc.

- detailed information on single innovations, i.e. key benefits, screenshots/videos if available, links to release notes and to other information sources like           the Product Availability Matrix etc.

- system-specific insights mapping innovation content available to productive SAP Business Suite Systems by using SAP EarlyWatch usage data

So why a new user interface?

• Focusing on SAP Business Suite related innovations and features in the beginning we wanted to expand the scope of information to a wider range of the SAP product portfolio. In order to do so backend data model as well as user interface needed to be adjusted.
• In addition to this the new User Interface of the Innovation Discovery has been part of the 1DX (Digitial Experience) project for harmonization and unification of customer-facing web appearances (i.e. sap.com)
• And taking into account already provided user feedback concerning the look-and-feel and usability of the service

Already testing a beta version of the Online service during DSAG (German-speaking user group) yearly conference in late September 2015 we received valuable feedback and insights into desirable features.

Central aspect to the new User Interface was personalization in order to guarantee easy and quick access to exactly the information that might be of interest for your business and area of responsibility. This comprises the following features:

• saved selections & notifications*:
  Whereas on Innovation Discovery 1.0 the filters set on your latest logon were persisted and preset for the next logon you can now actively decide on the filters and/or search tags to be persisted for future logons as 'saved selections'. In addition to this multiple of these can be created for different use cases or filter sets that might be of interest.

       For your saved selections you can activate notification services so that you will be informed
       in case of any new innovations / product features matching the set of filters and/or search
       tags of your saved selections.

• customizable landing page of Innovation Discovery:

Following a personalized welcome message on the landing page of this service, the user can define which tiles shall show up at every future logon via customizing of the following sections:

• hot topics: SAP does offer a pre-defined filter (set) on specific topics of high interest great at the very time being, i.e. SAP S4/HANA.
• my interests*: if saved selections have been defined by the user logged on these can be defined to show up at every future logon for quick access to the filtered list of innovations
• system-specific insights*: if SAP EarlyWatch usage data is available for any productive SAP Business Suite systems and the referent user does have sufficient permissions for these mapping categories (i.e. high business impact) and thus tiles can be chosen to show up on the landing page
• favorites: you can easily define and organize favorites on Innovation Discovery service

As every innovation adoption process is based on decisions to be taken by various stakeholders we support the collaboration of these via the following: providing business AND technical information on the innovation/product features, i.e.: key benefits screenshots/videos links to release notes, help portal etc software product version & software component version via which this innovation is available if applicable: Support Package via which this innovation is available if applicable: Business Function that needs to be activated for using innovation if applicable: Support/Feature Package Stack via which this innovation is available share (innovation): in case you have found an innovation of interest you can forward the link to this innovation via mail share (saved selection)*: given that the same set of filters and/or search tags might be of interest to i.e. colleagues you can share these via the saved selection section download*: for offline usage of innovation / product feature information you can easily download a result list or single innovations to a spreadsheet

*Please note that these features are not part of the launch on December 17, 2015, but will be delivered in waves during first quarter of 2016. For more detailed information have a look at our Innovation Discovry 2.0 documentation or contact us via our mailbox innovation-discovery@sap.com.

Feature Package information now available on Innovation Discovery 2.0

A Feature Package is a dedicated shipment vehicle for non-disruptive delivery of continuous innovation for generally available software product versions.Feature Packages can replace Support Packages in the first phase after general availability of a given software product version, bundling new functionality with software corrections and legal changes. From a technical point of view, they are treated like Support Packages.

With the concept introduced at the beginning of this year and all referent tooling established the information on Feature Packages - if available - can now be viewed in Product Availability Matrix and Innovation Discovery 2.0.

Information on Feature Packages is visible in Innovation Discovery 2.0

• in the product filters (4th level) on any result list of innovations (if available for beforehand done selections)
• in the technical view of product features - if applicable