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Almost every SAP Enable Now customer knows that the SAP Enable Now Manager offers helpful functionality to track and monitor your learning content throughout its lifecycle. Yes, I do mean content statuses and workflows. But how many of them actually use it extensively? Drawing on my 7 years of consulting experience with SAP Enable Now, I would politely say, that not every customer is using it. When I'm asking why the most popular answer I'm getting is because of the complex Task approval UI of the SAP Enable Now Manager.
Lucky content developers who are using Producer on the daily basis can change the content status and workflow stage easily in the Producer. But what about Subject Matter Experts, Business Process Owners, and other stakeholders who are not familiar with the tool, and, normally, intend to spend there just 10% of their time reviewing and approving tutorials coming from the developers? What if they can get a tool that looks very simple, and performs only the task they require to do:
Make the decision on the content, so it could move forward or backward within the workflow
Change the status of the content that doesn't follow any workflow
Provide an optional comment to explain the decision made to the content developer.
Today I'm excited to announce, that this tool has become available! It's called the SEN Workflow Approver and could be downloaded from the Google Chrome Web Store, however, works in both Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers. It currently supports SAP Enable Now Cloud systems only: with the domain names ending with *.enable-now.cloud.sap. Without further ado let's look at it a little closer.
Once you install it in your Chrome or Edge browser, feel free to pin it to the extension panel, so that you can always see its status. If you are on the valid SAP Enable Now page, i.e. navigating through the library view or watching a simulation or course, its icon will turn orange. On non-SAP Enable Now pages the icon will turn to gray, indicating that the extension is idle.
How does it actually work? Once the person who needs to review the particular tutorial or a bunch of tutorials opens them in the Google Chrome or MS Edge browser using the published or authoring link (depends on content reviewer permissions in Manager), the extension will turn itself on, however, won't do anything. Only when the reviewer is ready to make a decision and clicks on the extension icon the SEN Workflow Approver will:
Check whether the content that is selected or currently being viewed is assigned to a workflow or not.
If the content is assigned, then it will validate whether the user has permission to perform a workflow transition, and will display the list of possible actions.
If the content is not assigned to a workflow, the SEN Workflow Approver will display the list of active statuses available for assignment.
Below you can find actual screenshots and a small video demonstrating how the SEN Workflow Approver makes the content review process look so user-friendly and so easy that even my 12-years old son can handle it.
Case A: The learning tutorial is assigned to a workflow.
Current status of the learning tutorial that's being reviewed
The name of the workflow the content is following.
List of available decisions (workflow transitions) based on the reviewer permissions
Comment field (BTW, this is not available in the SAP Enable Now Manager UI for workflows, but in the SEN Workflow Approver we can't leave you without this useful option)
Case B. The learning content is not assigned to any workflow.
Current status of the learning content that is being reviewed (while being played in the demo mode, actually!)
New status selected from the list of the available active statuses in Manager.
Reviewer's comment (optional, but always appreciated).
Doesn't it look really simple? OK, once again: open the SAP Enable Now content or library view, click on the SEN Workflow Approver icon, make a decision, then click Submit. Bingo!
A short video as promised 😉
Summary
The SEN Workflow Approver browser extension is not a part of the official SAP Enable Now product. It was developed by the SAP employee on his own initiative. The usage of this extension is absolutely voluntary.
The SEN Workflow Approver browser extension currently supports SAP Enable Now Cloud systems only (that is, where the domain name ends with *.enable-now.cloud.sap)
The SEN Workflow Approver extension DOES NOT collect any customer data. All data flow is happening between the SAP Enable Now Cloud Manager and the workstation where the extension is activated.
The SEN Workflow Approver extension DOES NOT store any user data. To interact with the SAP Enable Now Manager on behalf of the reviewer it uses the existing user session. If the user is not authorized in the SAP Enable Now Manager (SSO or basic authentication), the SEN Workflow Approver won't be able to read/submit any data.
To allow the SEN Workflow Approver extension to submit the data on behalf of the logged-in user to the SAP Enable Now Manager, the parameter DISABLE-CSRF-PROTECTION must be added to the Manager's Supported Features. This could be found in the Administration > Server Settings. Without this parameter, the extension will only be able to read the content and workflow information.
Should you have any feedback or ideas on how to make the extension more useful for your organization, please feel free to send it to the email address provided on the SEN Workflow Approverpage in the Google Chrome Web Store.