Explaining the Key Product Capabilities of SAP Build Work Zone

After exploring the overall product positioning and use cases, the integration capabilities are the first aspect that will be looked at more closely as it is key in achieving a unified (SAP) entry point as outlined in earlier lessons. This includes both the integration of SAP and 3rd party business applications into SAP Build Work Zone as well as vice versa. On a high level, the integration scenarios covering both SAP & 3rd business applications in cloud and on-premise deployments can be categorized into the following areas:

Aside from having different technical and functional approaches for realizing a given integration scenario, there are also other purposes behind them. On a high level, they cover one or multiple of the following aspects:

• Allow access to a full application or relevant parts of it within the SAP Build Work Zone experience.
• Connect to other SAP (often SAP BTP) services in the area of creating a central entry point.
• Connect SAP Build Work Zone with other solutions available in the IT landscape, for instance, in the area of existing document repositories.
• Expose SAP Build Work Zone data via secure interfaces to an external system, for instance, to support gamification or advanced analytics scenarios – via ‘push’ & ‘pull’ mechanisms.
• Integrate with LoB-specific processes where SAP Build Work Zone capabilities help enrich the overall user experience.

Workspaces are an essential part of SAP Build Work Zone, specifically the advanced edition. You can add so much to your workspace, including flexible page design to help you get your work done, bring together data, best practices, and enable you to communicate and interact easily with your colleagues and teams.

Only a workspace administrator or a workspace member can create and manage the workspace by adding content, use planning tools to plan and coordinate projects, add business applications, cards, widgets and more. They can also create blog posts, wiki pages and links. To work with other users in a workspace, one must join the workspace as a member. The members of a workspace can communicate with each other using the workspace feed or forums and use the workspace pages to share information and content.

While the features enabled will vary per workspace, there are four types of workspaces determining the overall experience in SAP Build Work Zone:

While the features enabled will vary per workspace, there are four types of workspaces determining the overall experience in SAP Build Work Zone:

Until now, you have learned about the different types of workspaces and their key role within SAP Build Work Zone. Let’s now dive deep into the different page types in workspace that help to create an engaging experience in SAP Build Work Zone. These page types can be used across all the different types of workspaces, be it public, private, or external.

The workpage page is the face of any workspace and uses the no-code page design experience to add business and unstructured (web) content via different widgets.

It is designed by the person who created the workspace, better known as the workspace administrator. It is the default landing page for the workspace. It is used to display content and feed of the workspace which is shared only by the members of the workspace.

Note

Once created, additional members of this workspace can be assigned to (also) become an administrator of this workspace.

When user interaction is a key requirement, the feed update section can be enabled to provide a chronological feed view of comments, posts, and other user actions in a workspace. Workspace members can share documents, blogs, videos, and photos, as well as address other workspace members using @mention or include tags in a feed to help other workspace members find their posts. Feed items can also be created outside of the workspace context and workspace-level feed items will appear in the company-level & home feed for the users if enabled.

Membership Section

The membership section allows managing access to the workspace, for instance, inviting new members or granting administrator rights for the workspace.

Recommendations Section

To provide an effortless way for users to browse trending or recommended content within the workspace, the recommendations section has everyone covered.

Sub-Workspaces Section

While workspaces with their different sections and the ability to create different overview pages already allows for great ways to structure content, the ability to create nested workspaces – so-called sub-workspaces – provides even greater flexibility. One level of sub-workspaces is supported, with independent membership, content, and feature control.

Whether it is about storing detailed information about a described business process, posting how-to videos, or simply sharing a presentation, the content section provides the required capability for structuring/managing content within a workspace. Content can be easily referenced from this section on your overview pages, specifically via the content widget.

Events Section

The workspace calendar helps display the current month's events or share upcoming webinar details. Members can scroll the calendar or change their view to week, day, or list, set the time zone and first day of week for the calendar, and create or import new events.

Knowledge Base Section

The knowledge base section allows workspace members to create and store knowledge-base articles. In contrast to the content section which focuses more on uploading content assets created outside of SAP Build Work Zone, the knowledge base provides a form-based method of sharing knowledge with your workspace members. If this feature is disabled after the knowledge base articles are published, the articles will no longer appear in the workspace.

In contrast to the feed section, a workspace's forum(s) section supports a very structured and more detailed approach for user interaction – for instance, to create question and answer pages or to discuss an idea or a topic.

A collaborative task management feature is provided in the workspace to list current, overdue, and completed tasks like when planning for a new customer event and much more.

As highlighted in the previous lesson, workpages play an important role in SAP Build Work Zone as they combine the different content artifacts into an engaging user-facing experience. They are used in workspaces as well as the default landing page(s) of opening SAP Build Work Zone, the so-called home pages. These are available as the first menu item in the top navigation bar and cannot currently be hidden.

All workpages across the different scenarios within the product share the same, grid-based layout options and a powerful "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) page editor. Designing workpages requires no programming or extensive IT knowledge. Instead, this is an activity which regular end users or citizen developers can perform. To support external stakeholders and scenarios, for instance suppliers or customers, both workspaces and home pages can be made available externally as well. Also in these cases, the same workpage capabilities are being utilized.

As part of the workpage editor, a rich widget catalog is offered, providing the different building blocks to be added onto the grid-layout. This can be a combination of out-of-the-box widgets, integrated business application (tiles), and SAP delivered & custom created UI integration cards.

SAP Build Work Zone is a platform that allows for the integration of SAP and third-party business applications, both in cloud and on-premise deployments. There are various categories of integration scenarios, including Business Apps, Central Services, APIs and Webhooks, Content and Collaboration, SAP SuccessFactors, and Digital Supply Chain. These integration scenarios serve various purposes, such as allowing access to full applications or relevant parts within SAP Build Work Zone, connecting to other SAP services, connecting SAP Build Work Zone to other solutions in the IT landscape, exposing SAP Build Work Zone data to external systems, and integrating with line-of-business processes.

Workspaces are a key feature of SAP Build Work Zone, specifically in the advanced edition. There are four types of workspaces: Public, Private, External and Personal workspaces. Public workspaces are viewable and joinable by every full-access user in the company, while Private workspaces are only accessible to those who have been invited. Workspace administrators and members can add content, business applications, and other features to the workspace, and can communicate with each other using the workspace feed or forums.