Hello Folks,
So how would you like it if you went to Help >> About and saw
14.0 SP1 or 12.0 SP4 instead of
14.0.2.v20110603-0364 or 12.0.2.v2010xxx-0xxx
Please take a moment to vote here…
https://cw.sdn.sap.com/cw/ideas/5898
Naresh Ganatra 
(BOB member since 2004-04-09)
I remember there was a time I used to get confused with their “numerology”. So I can symthaize with you. 
katullus (BOB member since 2009-08-21)
Thanks !
Give me your vote… and maybe some day we do not have to learn the numerology -
Naresh Ganatra (BOB member since 2004-04-09)
I back your revolution general! It’s time for change!
RGeurts 
(BOB member since 2006-12-29)
Thanks Rim and others for your votes !
Naresh Ganatra (BOB member since 2004-04-09)
Agree to the idea and voted…!!
smruti.panda 
(BOB member since 2011-11-11)
Absolutely agree with this. I know sometimes internal version numbers can be quite complex. But for customer-facing interfaces, a simple and clear version notation would be much more user-friendly. 
edante (BOB member since 2011-11-03)
Hi Naresh,
I would go a step further than your post on SAP and say that not only the Service Packs need to be called out, but the main version itself. So instead of 14.xxxx it should state, “BI 4.0 SP1” or equivalent.
Good luck with the revolution…
Judy
JMulders (BOB member since 2002-06-20)
I know you’re frustrated, but referring to their product as snot isn’t going to help make your case.
Joe
joepeters (BOB member since 2002-08-29)
…Thanks , corrected
I agree, kindly do add your comments in Idea place while voting.
Also, Thanks Smruti and Enrique !!
Naresh Ganatra (BOB member since 2004-04-09)
I applause your creativity on this site to rally votes. But I am still not completely convinced on Idea Place being a viable venue to influence SAP.
substring (BOB member since 2004-01-16)
Hands up anyone who has actually had an ‘idea’ implemented. Or if not at least had it go further than some folks voting for it.
Nick Daniels (BOB member since 2002-08-15)
Nick,
How about you help me raise my hand by giving your vote to the idea -
Simon,
Let me know the other venue -;), in the mean time appreciate your vote
Naresh Ganatra (BOB member since 2004-04-09)
I believe SAP is really looking for new ideas for new functionality/product. All my ideas are for enhancing the existing product. None of my ideas has changed status even though some of them have a fair number of thumbs up votes… and I have never referred to the product as snot
tmcd (BOB member since 2005-10-02)
…lol… come one…
you folks will put me in trouble…
I have corrected the spelling mistake…
Naresh Ganatra (BOB member since 2004-04-09)
In my humble opinion, the ASUG’s Influence Council is more viable because you are working directly with the product manager and any action item will be held accountable.
substring (BOB member since 2004-01-16)
Good to know.
I can’t tell you how many of my support cases have been closed with the support tech suggesting that I submit an Idea. Why do I have to submit an Idea to have a function implemented that was removed via a service pack? Or to fix a problem inherent in the product (that Support agrees with me on)? But I digress…
joepeters (BOB member since 2002-08-29)
The Support Staff are SAP employees. It is natural for them to promote their own product. For example, it is more likely for them to mention the SCN forums instead of BOB forum, right?
I challenge SAP to show me a major enhancement of a product that is spawn from Idea Place.
Seriously, if you have any enhancement request that you think the product is sorely missing, please work with ASUG to form an Influence Council on that. A customer company will be assigned formally as the Chair. Product Manager will be assigned to the Council and progress will be documented and tracked. It is a proven way to influence SAP through a formal process and channel.
substring (BOB member since 2004-01-16)
Thanks again, I will keep that in mind for enhancements.
But what I was complaining about is that SAP (Support and/or Product) seem to be using Idea Place as a dumping ground for issues that they don’t want to address. a good case in point is the “Open/Save” dialog after saving a WebI report in Excel format. The dialog box is extremely useful, but it was removed in XI3SP4. I opened a support case and was told it would be put back in SP4.1. It wasn’t, and now I’m being told to submit an Idea (although someone else already did).
[i](I’ve got an Idea – how about not removing useful functionality??)[/i]
I agree. I looked through the Ideas marked as Accepted or Delivered – seems that most of them were already in the works at the time of the submission, so it’s difficult to identify which ones were actually implemented as a result of Idea Place. (incidentally, none of my Ideas have made it passed “submitted”).
joepeters (BOB member since 2002-08-29)
I’ve seen a few comments on Idea Place, I’ll aim to address all.
First Idea Place is a new channel to provide ideas and feedback to SAP. The challenge we’ve discovered, is that it’s not in person meetings or an online process that will get more ideas into the product… like any product there is simply limited time and resources. And this is a challenge that product managers have.
The goal of Idea Place is to leverage social practices that enable product managers to scale while allowing more customers to have a say on the product direction. Onsite visits, customer meetings, focus groups, single customer submission systems, are time consuming activities for both parties and they only allow the product manager to talk to a select few customers. Now this is not too say, face to face or focus groups are not effective, they always will be but these meetings are much more effective for qualitative activities, where Idea Place strength is more quantitative.
re: any ideas implemented
It will take time, Idea Place is starting out. Ideas can take 1-3 years to get into the product. With that said, WebI had quite a few ideas in 4.0.
https://cw.sdn.sap.com/cw/community/ideas/businessanalytics/sbowebi
click on the delivered tab to see over 40 ideas delivered. I expect to see more come in 2012.
re: accepting ideas for new versions vs existing versions
Idea Place was initially planned for ideas on future releases. However, it is up to the product owner how they wish to manage. We have product owners who are taking ideas on existing releases too. This is not really an Idea Place challenge; fixing items in older versions take away from the ability to deliver new versions and vice-versa. I am open to suggestions on whether we should encourage product owners to take more or less for existing versions. Or perhaps this is better for existing feedback channels???
re: Support using Idea Place as a dumping ground
The problem is simply resources here, again. I would ask if you noticed more of the ideas submitted to Support got through before? Not that I have seen. The challenge with submitting ideas to support is that the ideas are interpreted by someone other than the owner, duplicates are encouraged, no one owns the idea, there is no way to see anyone else’s idea and to get an update you need to call in.
Idea Place does aim to address these issues. By have a public central place, you can submit ideas and see what other ideas people have. Instead of creating duplicates, customers can vote on an idea. Not only does this save the product manager a lot of time trying to review ideas, it also adds a prioritization for them to look at popular ideas. And if you want to see how your idea is progressing, the stage describes what is happening or not happening.
In some capacities, I would even think that ideas submitted through the various channels at SAP could appear on Idea Place. Even to track the status and see whether ideas are being reviewed, that way the product owner doesn’t have to update in multiple places.
Cheers
Kuhan
kmilroy 
(BOB member since 2008-10-24)