We have the wonderful typical answers at the side when we start to type a question. That helps a ton. We have a nice search feature here, google, and in SAP support. I'm sure somewhere out here is a blog or paper on how to search. And yet we still have questions without answers. How can that be? Surely someone has asked the our question before.
Well - a standard answer - it depends. Someone may have asked the question in a different way. So how to find the answer? It should be as simple as typing in your question and searching. Good news - sometimes it is. Bad news - sometimes it isn't.
Searching - where?
I always just type in my question. Where? Google is always a good place. Another really good place is SAP support. It's so nice that it shows possible answers from the community now.
Searching - what?
- The SAP Transaction always helps. Soon it may not. As we move to non-transaction type world. But for now a transaction and then what I want from it helps.
- Read the text for the transaction. For example sales order create. That's always something nice to have in your search.
- The program. The program name could inspire some great responses.
- I start specific and gradually move out to a less granular question.
An example of something that took me in many different directions. This one is a recent example for me.
I wanted to be able to create a program that would give me the same results as OPD for billing.
- SAP OPD - not much to do with custom code
- SAP OPD billing custom code - It didn't bring me back the information I wanted. I wanted to duplicate it in a program. (It did point me to BRF+)
- SAP OPD billing ABAP - not quite what I wanted. BW, some more BRF+., and new output determination
- SAP Output Determination ABAP billing - I went backwards with that search
- SAP HANA Output Determination - Sigh. Still not a good answer for me.
- SAP BRF+ OPD - AHA! I found a blog. My learnings in BRF+
I also wrote a blog at the end of all this searching for OPD and what I did. BUT the above blog helped me a lot. It pointed me in the right direction and got me started. I'm sure I also searched via some other key words. So now you see the search that actually helped me had BRF+ in it. That was something I didn't know. I would have never thought to search on it.
The entire process took me around a couple of hours. I read a lot of the information that was returned based on the searches above. The information that I didn't need, and thought was something I might later need I bookmarked. Sometimes that saves me from searching. I know I've seen it somewhere so I look at my bookmarks.
I could have started with a question to the community. I also could have stopped my search earlier and asked the question. Yes, people would answer. In other places in the community there are guides to write a good question. I would have explained what I looked at.
I've also found that just starting to type in my question can help. See the first paragraph. That really was a great add to our community features. I type it in and then never ask the question. I click on the links that are displayed, and find my answer there.
Sometimes I come across questions, and I think to myself didn't they search? Then I remember times like this one. I searched, but I really didn't know what I was asking for. Usually, I'll try to answer with the keywords that would have found the answer. Honestly, I haven't had a lot of time to answer questions lately.
Connecting the dots as suggested by
ervin.szolke#overview.
Here are some great resources on searching:
Thank you
coleti#overview for the top 3 links. The rest and there is more search by SAP questions, SAP bad answer.
😉 Or not.
So - my question to you.... What do you search on? What gives you the best/worst results? If you've already found or written a blog on searching, please share. I'd love to be better at searching
