FAQs
What do I need to do to choose the privacy setting for my profile?
To participate in SAP Community, you will need to change your account settings and opt in to continue to display your profile publicly. Please follow the instructions in this video to learn how to change your privacy settings.
What does the Privacy Setting in the Account Settings page do?
This setting allows SAP to show your profile information publicly, such as your name, biography, content contributions, and badges. Note: Visibility of some information, such as your company and location, can still be set individually by visiting your private view at https://people.sap.com and clicking the Edit button in that section.
What happens if I do nothing with my profile's Privacy Setting?
Your profile display will be set to private by default. Your profile will no longer be visible publicly. Your previously contributed content will no longer be publicly attributed to you in the SAP Community. You will still be able to view your content in your private profile view, but across the SAP Community, it will be attributed to a Former Member with an anonymized profile image and no link to your profile. You will be able to read SAP Community content, but you will no longer be able to ask questions, write blogs, or participate in any other way in the SAP Community.
What happens if I choose not to allow public display of my profile by turning off the Privacy Setting?
Just as if you had taken no action, your profile will no longer be visible publicly. Your previously contributed content will no longer be publicly attributed to you in the Community. You will still be able to view your content in your private profile view, but across the SAP Community, it will be attributed to a Former Member with a anonymized profile image and no link to your profile. You will be able to read SAP Community content, but you will no longer be able to ask questions, write blogs, or participate in any other way in the SAP Community.
What if I change my mind later?
You can change your Privacy Setting as many times as and whenever you like. Should you choose to change your Privacy Setting to allow public profile display, you will be able to participate in the SAP Community again and your content will be re-attributed to you, showing your avatar and your name as the author.
If people didn't update their privacy settings to public, why are they called Former Member? Shouldn't they be called something else, such as Guest or Anonymous Member?
Because for all intents and purposes they are a Former Member. In order to remain active members, people must set their profile settings to public. If they choose not to, then they are signaling that they no longer want membership to SAP Community -- as they are opting out of the actions associated with membership and disassociating themselves from all previous mentions and contributions made during their membership. That makes them a Former Member. Any other title would imply ongoing participation, and from a privacy perspective, we must assume (and respect) that they no longer wish any active association with the community.
Does my profile's Privacy Setting affect my ability to use the SAP Support Portal and SAP ONE Support Launchpad?
While the SAP.com profile is connected to other systems throughout the SAP infrastructure, it will not impact your ability to utilize the SAP Support Portal or SAP ONE Support Launchpad to contact our product support teams, as these do not require a public profile display for usage.
What happens to my linked profiles?
Your linked profiles will share the same Privacy Setting, based on the last change you've made on any of them. To manage your accounts' Privacy Settings separately, you must unlink them. You can learn more about linked accounts in this blog post.
Will the content of former members be deleted?
No, we will not delete the content submitted by former members, as it still provides a valuable service to our community. It will, however, be anonymized -- attributed to a Former Member with an anonymized user image and no link to a member profile.
Will the "likes" and "votes" of former members also be deleted?
No, likes and votes will not disappear, even if users become former members or their accounts are deleted
Why am I required to have a public profile display to participate in the SAP Community?
The SAP Community has always been built around interactions between individuals, so we expect these interactions to involve members with public identities. This is not a new expectation of SAP Community members, employees or otherwise.
What happens if I stop visiting SAP Community?
In compliance with our data protection and privacy policies, we regularly anonymize the SAP Community contributions and delete the personal data of inactive members who haven't logged in to SAP.com for several years. Once this anonymization occurs, inactive members permanently lose the ability to edit their content, including blog posts, questions, answers, and comments. They also lose any progress that they've made on missions, their karma credits, and any other SAP Community history related to this profile.
This is a permanent erasure and cannot be reverted.
To ensure that this anonymization doesn't occur to you, you simply need to log in to your SAP.com profile occasionally. If you go several years without logging in, you run the risk of losing your content and contributions to SAP Community, which will be permanently attributed to Former Member.
How can I find out what personal data SAP keeps on me?
Section A of the Privacy Policy at https://sap.com/about/legal/privacy.html details your data subject rights and how to submit such a data request.
How does SAP collect, use, and store personal data?
Please visit the Privacy Policy at https://sap.com/about/legal/privacy.html to learn how SAP collects and processes your personal data, and how you can obtain an overview of what SAP stores and uses.
How do I delete my personal data?
To delete your personal data in SAP Community, follow the steps below.
- Sign in to https://people.sap.com.
- In the left menu, choose "Account & Settings"
- Select "Privacy" in the submenu.
- Select the tab "Privacy settings"
- Choose the "Request account deletion" button and make the selection there.