One of our SAP Learning Hub members, Oona Flanagan, has recently written an article about using Learning Hub, covering real user experiences, useful advice and handy tips to help you get the best out of SAP Learning Hub. We're currently offering a massive 64% discount on SAP Learning Hub licences, sign up today!
I’m a freelance FICO Consultant and SAP is also a bit of a hobby as well (I spend a lot of my free-time writing SAP E-Bites), so I really want to keep up my knowledge of new SAP functionality and I have found that my favourite way is via the Learning hub, which I first purchased in March 2015.
Even back then it was quite overwhelming, and it has come on quite a bit since then, for example if I do an open search in the Learning Hub, it brings up 4,503 results! I thought if I wrote an article about how I use it, it might help both people who are thinking about buying it and those who have bought it and don’t know where to start.
There is a lot of help available in the form of videos and user documentation to help you get started on the very first page, so I won’t go into details on how to get into it. You can also get a Discovery Edition for free that contains a few samples to try out.
People study better in different ways, so this style of learning may not be for everyone. If you can’t (or don’t want to) spend time away from family and friends to study in your own time, you do need to be able to set time aside at work without interruptions. That said, if you can set aside the time, it is excellent value for money. A single classroom course for 2 days can cost more than the entire Learning Hub (especially with UKISUG discount).
I use the Learning Hub in several different ways, sometimes I might dip in and out of different subjects to check specific topics, or browse the Learning Rooms. Sometimes, for example for a larger topic or certification I might follow a Learning journey. Learning journeys tell you all the courses you need to take for a specific level of knowledge and what if any certifications are available.
Typically, a learning map might suggest a Learning Room, where you can interact with other users and ask questions, as well as various E-Learning courses usually accompanied by a Handbook or an E-book in flipbook format. Many of the courses include exercises as you go through them and some include a free post assessment at the end (for which you can print out a certificate if you pass). This is different from the official online certifications which you have to buy a separate subscription for and are invigilated by web-cam.
You can search for a particular subject, by description, or by area as well as by level (Academy, delta knowledge, detailed, foundation, learning journey, overview) or delivery method (assessment, E-book, E-learning, handbook, learning map, learning room, sap live access, webinar) and so on.
Each course will give an estimate of the duration which can be anything from 1 to 40 hours from what I have seen, although of course you mostly go at your own pace, (except for the videos – which anyway you can stop/start repeat etc.). When you search for a specific subject, you may see, in addition to the specific courses title, a tab of social learning, which again includes a variety of features, webinars, pdfs and other links. You could easily lose a day just exploring the Learning Hub without even starting a course!
If you have the course code to search on, you may see several different types of learning, for example E-learning, E-books, exercises for the live access and sometimes you may see several versions e.g. S4F10e_EN_Col05 and S4F10e_EN_Col03. I think the “Col” stands for collection and therefore Col05 is a later collection (newer version of the course) than Col03 and sometimes if you select the Col03 it may tell you that the course will be retired on a certain date.
I would recommend joining one or two Learning Rooms, which are usually by generic subject – the two I use most are the Finance and the S/4 HANA Overview Learning Rooms. They typically contain an overview with related Learning Maps which are a mixture of blogs, videos and links to relevant courses, as well as things like questions, events (live sessions), community videos, forums, missions etc. You can also choose whether to get email notifications of new posts and what frequency.
To go with the Learning Hub, you can buy separately Live Access for a specific group of courses. I did briefly, but it took a while to set up each time I wanted to login, and usually I can access test systems elsewhere. However it is a great idea if you are working with ECC6 but want to see and S/4 HANA system for example.
Another area I found particularly useful as the new S4 HANA courses come out, is the Learning Content Catalogue on the home page (SAP icon at the top left), which I use to check not only which course have come out in the current month but also which are expected in the coming months. You can incidentally rearrange the home page to suit, and now I think about it, I may have (in settings at the top right) set my start page to automatically be the Learning Content page rather than the Home page or Learning Rooms.
At the time of writing the mobile access via Android devices is very poor, but the Apple IPAD access is much better. I find I prefer to use my desktop with its double monitors so I can make notes and also log in and look at things on SAP at the same time.
Bookboon, (see Figure 3) also included in the hub, is worth a mention if you are interested in small non-SAP courses, such as MS Office and managerial books. Also, fun things like Missions are available to motivate you, if you like collecting badges.
At the moment, I am following a series of expert sessions on S/4HANA 1610 which are recorded webinars of an event that took place last October and which are brilliant for the latest news on S/4HANA.
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