SAP Companion - Simple vs Complex Model

[Andrew86]

In aligning workareas to act as SAP Companion to both Dev/QA and Live instances of technologies such a SF, C4C, S/4HANA, what are some of the issues you may face if you go for a Simple Model (1 WorkArea used for both a Dev/QA and Live instance) VS Complex Model (Separate WorkAreas for Dev/QA and Live instance)?

Is it just the content migration or are there other issues such authentication/permissions, look and feel, broken links etc

[DirkManuel · Accepted solution]

Simple model: All application instances pointing to the same SEN instance:

• You can create/publish content in Dev and it is instantly available in Prod (f/ex)
• You don't need to (and generally don't want to) create help content directly in prod
• You need to control who can publish carefully.

Complex model: Separate SEN instances (or Workareas) for each application instance

1. You need to copy content from one instance/Workarea to another. That's always prone to error/missing things.
2. You could potentially have the Dev & Prod applications showing different content which can get confusing for support
3. You have potentially better security as you can control who can move content to / publish in the Prod SEN instance/workarea. Some people like that.

Personally I advocate the simple model unless you have specific security reasons for making the release of help content a two-step process (I have clients that want to mirror a 'transport' / change management process for help content. Again, just my personal opinion (and I'm sure Anton has others...).

[Andrew86 · Accepted solution]

I think you have clarified the two options and I think based on the resources available to develop and maintain content the Simple Model is what I think we will go for. I think key in this is determining the control needed in the creation and publishing steps which is where I will focus my efforts next.

Very much appreciated. Andrew