SAP BUSINESS ONE blogs

[Former Member]

Hi all,

I want to raise the SAP BUSINESS ONE blogs issue here? Does anyone consider those blogs issued for each and any patch of B1 to be useful?

I don't question the value of the info per se but isn't this to be found on the marketplace anyway? And if this info is to be expexted on SDN, wouldn't a WIKI space be enough? Or a sticky forum?

The problem that I have with those blogs is the fact that they clutter the Most Recent page, which is my favourite entry point to read interesting things all across SAP. Patch annoucements is one of the few things I am definitely not interested to see HERE. Now, I could filter out B1, but I want to read new stuff/content about B1 too.

What do you think?

As a proof of my argument, I conider to build a service marketplace grabber, which collects information from service.sap.com on each of the following components:

• SAP application components (SAP APO, SAP ERP, SAP R/3, SAP R/3 Enterprise, SAP CRM, SAP SCM, SAP SRM, SAP SEM)

• SAP industry-specific components (SAP Banking, SAP Discrete Industries, SAP High Tech)

• SAP NetWeaver and the components SAP BW, SAP Web AS, SAP Enterprise Portal, SAP KW, SAP MDM, SAP Exchange Infrastructure, SAP Mobile Engine

• SAP Technology components (SAP Solution Manager, SAP Marketplace Connector)

• SAP XApps (SAP xApps for Mobile Business, SAP XEM, SAP XPD, SAP XRPM)

• SAP Solutions for Electronic Marketplaces (SAP MarketSet)

• Country Specific add-ons (SAP HR-CEE, CCIS, C-CEE, HR-CIS)

• Supplementary Components for Cross Industry Solutions (ABC Connector, BackWeb Infocenter, SAP PLM Recipe Management, SAP Records Management, SAP Workforce Management)

• SAP front-end components (SAP GUI, SAP ITS, SAP IGS)

• Plug-Ins (SAP Plug-Ins, SAP Solution Tools Plug-Ins)

• Additional Components (SAP SPAM/SAINT Update, SAP DB, MaxDB, SAP Kernel, SAProuter, SAP Exchange Connector)

I'll (autmatically) create a BLOG announcing each and every patch of the afore mentionend components (correctly tagged of course).

Will anyone of you consider this to be a great service of mine? Do you mind if you have to search for real content really hard between all the patch announcements?

Feedback welcome. anton

PS: Is 'SAP Manage Israel' ment to be an imperative?

[MichalKrawczyk]

hi,

I wonder when we will have a new blog per each business one "SAP note" ....

Insane...

Regards,

michal

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<a href="/people/michal.krawczyk2/blog/2005/06/28/xipi-faq-frequently-asked-questions"><b>XI / PI FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions</b></a>

[Former Member]

One of the problems of the "Most recent" page...

Subscriptions for B1 RSS feeds increased from 12 a day to 70 a day within 3 weeks of the B1 team using the blogs to update customers.

I understand you 3 have a problem with them but I'm left with a hard decision do I tell those 70 people "sorry" this data is no longer wanted?

I understand your point and I understand the "annoying" factor it's like that Snap preview bloggers are using all over the place - nice idea but too "in your face" but how else can I deal with this here?

I mean this service is useful to that "community" and annoying to several who view the "most recent page" - open to suggestions but I can't just tell them to stop when the B1 community seems to be finding it useful and more are subscribing each day.

I'm open to suggestions - but they need to practical and ones that don't require me making development requests otherwise they won't happen very quickly.

I was tossing around the idea of moving them to the "news" area of the B1 Wiki space and piping the RSS out that way but then I'm stuck telling all the B1 folks they have 2 RSS feeds now and two places to go find their data - another option (which requires development) is to have an option to filter blogs out of the most recent page (for each individual user) - not likely to happen until Q2/Q3 (in 2008 not 2007) a WYSIWYG editor for the blogs takes precedence over everything else and that's a huge effort for personalization (although a very cool feature it would be)

The is the biggest problem with that "Most recent" page that everyone seems to be so found of - it shows everything entered into the system, of course with you 3 it seems that even viewing the B1 topic page would be the same problem as you just don't want these updates. But again how can I make 3 people happy without making the 70 subscribing via RSS and the other several hundred pulling those blogs via the topic page unhappy

[Former Member]

well,

I think the 70 subscriptions are not a valid argument. did (or do) you count those who cancel their subscription for the general list?

if I did that promised automated all-patches-from-everywhere blog there would be some more subscriptions from 'patch people'. but it would completely change the face of the blogosphere.

why not blog about each of the SAP conference announcements some of us are spammed by email already?

Why not allow blogs on job offers?

It all raises traffic to the blog pages. Is this the only measure you are looking at?

I simply believe that this doesnt belong to the blog pages but to the wiki, forum or service marketplace. period.

anton

[Former Member]

I understand Anton, I do.

In terms of the blogs I watch (as of September with Feedburner I have better stats) what people are reading in our blogs, what they click on what pulls them from the feed to the site - a lot better than the simple "views" in the Top Blog Posts link which everyone complained about last year as being not the most accurate.

I see on a daily basis how many unique people subscribe to all of the feeds (except the comments feed, the "ranting" feed) and the overall clicks, views and which people came to the actual site.

I also compare the numbers overall to the general list to see how many subscribe there in comparison to the individual ones (what way do people use it the most) which is why the thought about the "most recent" page came up at all because it's a huge difference most subscribe only to the topic areas and not the overall.

XI and BI having the most.

However I then have to take into account the traffic to the pages themselves directly then filter out those referred from the RSS feed - still the topic areas are a lot more than the "most recent".

Those are the metrics I have to work with and I honestly think that's a pretty decent way of analyzing traffic.

Also the B1 folks surveyed their customers and found the ones that use SDN, then asked them about this feature - they wanted it. Another group I think it was MDM found they didn't want it. Target audience won. And I just looked and the B1 area in general has increased in activity with those subscriptions so what do you want me to do?

Now your automated all in one patch idea - actually kind of cool and if you could avoid the legal issues of the screen scrapes and all of that it'd be kind of interesting to see - we could maybe even apply it to all of SDN then you could check SDN out from your Google Homepage in a module or NetVibes if you wanted. So I know you were being sarcastic but honestly it's kind of a cool idea.

The topic of the announcements did come up as they found a better response via blogs than emails everyone wanted less "spam" you might say in their inbox but they've never approached us about it and we've never offered.

Job offers (again I know you are venting and being a bit sarcastic) well blogs don't cut it there but a job board would - one's being on the request list for a long time... but again a different topic.

So in all honesty I'm not sure where I started going with this when I started writing and I'm too lazy to go back but I will close it with this:

I respect you and your comments but until more of the B1 community steps up and says "please stop the madness" I can't do much about it - despite everything we still go by majority and in many cases that means looking at the individual "mini" community and not the whole big one.

[Former Member]

Hello Craig,

I very much appreciate your efforts to explain your point of view spending some time on a sunday. Actually, it's my hobby to hang out at SDN for some time on the weekend, but for you it's the job (though I think that it's your hobby too ).

We won't agree on the issue in question but I think everyone has made his point clear so it's time to leave it as it is and see what it turns out to be.

Just one note, I haven't intended to be sarcastic or ironic with anything said in my post.

Between us PHPers, I would automate blog creation like this

1) grab some URL on marketplace

[code]

$url = "http://some_server/some_url";

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);

$page = curl_exec($ch);

$lines = explode("\n", $page);

foreach($lines as $myLine) {

// parsing here

}

[/code]

2) parse the html page for some patterns using regular expressions; basically searching for patch release dates

3) write the result out nicely formatted for a SDN blog

4) approve the outcome 'manually' and copy/paste it to SDN

(5) be happy about my 300+ blog points per day)

I don't believe there are any legal issues because I would access marketplace with a legal account, just automating reading to say so.

well, case closed for me.

anton

[Former Member]

I'd love to branch this off but that tends to cause a problem in this version of the forums (they are working on it).

Nice clean code! But legally you would reproducing information from the Marketplace available only via a sign on - but besides that it's nice code

As for this point the B1 folks just responded and have asked about possible additional means of sharing the information - see you guys say something and those responsible look and poor me in the middle takes the outcome

[former_member583013]

Hi Anton:

I agree with you...It's nice to know that Business One is having updates -:) But come on....It has been like 10 blogs...and one for each update....That's insane for me....Can they just made one single blog with a "News" section or something??? Can they do an PDF document??? I have never used Business One....So I don't like having that mass blogs....But don't get me wrong....If it happens to be 10 consecutive blogs about R/3 updates....I would be angry as well...

Greetings,

Blag.