Introduction
It’s now been just over a month since the 2406 release of SAP Enable Now was deployed into Production and I can genuinely say that I still consider the release fondly. The release includes many great enhancements, including several that have the potential to significantly improve the efficiency and productivity of SAP Enable Now content authors and users. It also includes enhancements that extend far beyond the use of SAP Enable Now, enhancements that have the potential to increase the adoption of all SAP systems. I encourage everyone interested in SAP Enable Now to explore these new features and take advantage of the enhanced capabilities.
The rest of this post focusses on the key enhancements included in the release.
2406 Release Notes
The 2406 release notes are available from https://help.sap.com/. After accessing the site, log in using your SAP Universal ID, and navigate to the What’s New area on the SAP Enable Now site. Many of the enhancement descriptions in the release notes contain links to useful resources, e.g. Simulations/tutorials. Be sure to check out these resources when you go through the notes.
If you are interested in learning more about some of the key enhancement included in the 2406 release, watch this recording of a 2406 Release Overview session. It is also worth going through the New in 2406 content in Info Center.
My Top 5 Enhancements
Whilst there are many great enhancements in the 2406 release, my top 5 enhancements for the release are:
- Deploying customer-specific content through SAP Companion for SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) - With this enhancement, it is now possible to create and deploy customer-specific SAP Companion content for SAC. This feature ensures that users of SAC can easily access useful information as they work in the platform, enabling them to continuously learn and improve their skills as they work.
If you are interested in using custom content in SAP Companion, refer to the webinar recording from a recent session on this topic.
- Using SAP Companion with SAP GUI for HTML and Web Dynpro apps – It is now possible to use SAP Companion with hybrid SAP applications that include a combination of Fiori, GUI for HTML and Web Dynpro apps. This feature allows customers using these hybrid technologies to deploy SAP Companion for their entire end to end processes, improving productivity and adoption of those applications.
For more information about using SAP Companion with SAP GUI for HTML and Web Dynpro apps, refer to the Features and Configuration > Help for SAP GUI for HTML and Web Dynpro section of the SAP Companion Integration Guide or to the What’s New in SAP S/4HANA 2023 guide. (Don’t forget, you must log into https://help.sap.com/, using your SAP Universal ID, before you can access content on this site.)
- Managing Business Role information in Enable Now - In the previous release of SAP Enable Now (2311), Business Role functionality was introduced that allows content authors to limit access to content objects to specific user groups. In the initial release, content authors had to manually created Business Roles in Manager, from corresponding User Roles; this could be time consuming.
With this release, Business Roles details can now be imported into Enable Now Manager from a customer’s Identity Provider system, through the SCIM API. This significantly reduces the manual effort associated with creating and maintaining Business Roles in Enable Now Manager.
Whilst the majority of the configuration of the SCIM interface is performed in the Identity Provider system, there are some instructions on the use of this interface with Enable Now in the Manager (HANA) Operations Guide.
- Generating eLearning content - This release enables content authors to automatically generate eLearning content, such as business process descriptions, using Generative AI (genAI) capability. This will significantly reduce the time and effort associated with authoring new content and allow authors to create useful content on topics they may not fully understand.
The full genAI capability is now in Enable Now Production, however, it is currently necessary to request that this capability be activated in your SAP Enable Now environment. Hopefully this will only be necessary for a short period of time. The instructions for activating the genAI capability in your Enable Now environment are available from this SAP Note.
- Sharing information between SAP Enable Now and SAP Cloud ALM - SAP Enable Now is now integrated with SAP Cloud ALM, allowing ALM business process details to be shared with Enable Now users and Enable Now content, such as Simulations, to be shared with ALM users. This integration reduces the time and effort required to provide both user groups with relevant information. When it comes to Cloud systems, these types of integrations significantly reduce the time and effort to deploy changes, which are constant, so an important part of every implementation methodology.
Instructions for integrating SAP Enable Now and Cloud ALM are available from the SAP Cloud ALM Integration Guide.
Other Significant Improvements
Outside my top 5, which I’m sure that you will agree are wonderful enhancements, there were a significant number of other great improvements introduced in the 2406 release. In general, many of these enhancements can be categorized into two areas:
Web-based authoring enhancements
Unless you are new to SAP Enable Now, I’m sure that you will have noticed that many improvements have been made to the Manager content authoring capability over the last two years. These changes have the potential to simplify the authoring process for ‘part-time’ content authors, such as Subject Matter Experts, and also enable content authoring on Macs.
In the 2406 release, the enhancements are focussed on improving the web-based recording capability. It is now possible, using the new capability, to add audio to Enable Now Simulations, during the recording process, and to record the content author, rather than the active application on your PC screen. This capability allows content authors to record snippets of video of themselves, potentially introducing a topic or discussing a non-system topic, such as changes to business processes. Both of these enhancements should result in higher quality, more flexible eLearning content so are welcome improvements.
If you are interested in learning about some of the recent enhancements to web-based authoring in Manager, the section on Web Authoring in the Info Center is a great place to start.
And finally on this topic, if you are wondering whether the enhancements to web-based authoring are a fad or a sign of things to come, take a look at the Enable Now Roadmap. There are more of these changes in the pipeline so I’d spend some time on this topic if you haven’t already.
SAP Companion enhancements
The second major category of enhancement that occurred during Q2 2024, was continual improvements to SAP Companion. I mentioned the release of the improved integration with SAC and the support for GUI for HTML and Web Dynpro apps earlier in the post, which are both significant enhancements in their own right, but there were others. These included the ability to control access to SAP Companion content by date and improvements to the stability of content in SuccessFactors, which makes it easier to assign SAP Companion content to the objects on SuccessFactors screens. In short, SAP Companion now works better with SuccessFactors.
The last SAP Companion change that I’d like to highlight from the last quarter is centered Callouts. This functionalilty provides yet another means for SAP Companion customers to push critical information to their application users, as they use the corresponding functionality, so that they can be kept informed of changes to that functionality. Sounds like something that would be useful to every SAP customer, particularly those with Cloud applications, if you ask me.
Further information about SAP Companion enhancements can be accessed through the SAP Companion Release Notes.
Summary
So, there you have it, another wonderful release from the SAP Enable Now and SAP Companion product teams. If that doesn’t excite you, you’re a tough audience.
My final advice to anyone that is interested in SAP Enable Now and SAP Companion is to spend some time keeping abreast of the changes. SAP Enable Now and SAP Companion are both maturing quickly so if you blink, you might miss the best thing since sliced bread.
Remember, our goal is the same as your goal; happy productive SAP application users. I look forward to hearing about how you’ve used some of the new capability to make the life of your SAP users better!
