SAP is introducing a whole new approach to certification for its cloud solutions – Freya Purnell finds out how the new program will work, and what you need to know, whatever your certification status now.
Earlier this year, SAP began the process of migrating the SuccessFactors certification program into its own program. Initial announcements included the introduction of Associate and Professional SuccessFactors certification, and new options for taking exams. This raised questions, and frankly, some uproar from more vocal members of the consultant and partner community. But what was not public information then, but we can reveal to you now, is that this was actually only the beginning of a significant revamp of the SuccessFactors certification program, and in fact, a new approach which will be used for the hybris and Ariba certification programs.
Sue Martin, global senior director of certification, SAP, says the need to reinvent certification for the cloud became apparent as SAP began to integrate the SuccessFactors certification.
“We noticed with the SuccessFactors program that the way we do things in the old ERP world, and the idea that you can get certified and then go and do customer projects for three or four years and still be pretty well up to date, just doesn’t work when we get to the cloud,” Martin says.
“The technology is changing so quickly, and it’s so much more important to our customers and partners that they have people doing projects who are up to date and have current knowledge around the latest release.”
The partner feedback made it clear that the program needed to be global, holistic, transparent, affordable, flexible, and fast.
So a new framework for cloud solution certification was born, featuring the following key components.
Associate and Professional levels
The initial level of certification will be the Associate level, for which the candidate will need to pass a core exam. This is already in place, and validates that the candidate has the necessary skills to be a consultant and to implement or support a solution. Areas such as cloud project methodology and project planning will be covered in this exam.
Once the candidate has passed the Associate level exam, to maintain certification, they will need to undertake regular delta exams that test the consultant on the latest functions and features in a release, how they are implemented, and what benefits they bring to the customer.
While SuccessFactors does have new releases on a quarterly basis, there will not be a delta exam for every release. Instead, if a release satisfies certain criteria to qualify as a significant change, then delta enablement content and a delta exam will be made available for it.
Just how many delta exams will be required in a 12-month period depends on the maturity of the solution – for example, for SuccessFactors Employee Central, there may be one or two delta exams next year; but other solutions which do not have substantial change, may not even have one delta exam in a year, according to Martin.
Specialty exams will also be available – for example, a consultant with an Employee Central Associate certification may undertake a specialisation in reporting, and be able to sit an exam to be certified in that area.
System provisioning linked with certification
Martin says one of the features of the former SuccessFactors certification program that SAP felt strongly about maintaining was linking system provisioning to certification – so uncertified consultants cannot work on customer systems. This aspect will be retained and enhanced.
However this requirement also presented the SAP Education organisation with a significant challenge – how to ensure consultants could be quickly provided with enablement content and exams for each delta, without having to spend time in a training or testing room.
“If you are going to link it to system provisioning, you need to make sure that consultants have the ability to get enabled, get certified and hit the road running on projects more or less in parallel with the software release. So we needed to speed up the whole process,” Martin says.
The answer is to provide enablement content for deltas via learning rooms in SAP Learning Hub, and to conduct exams using remote proctoring.
“Where there is a lot of education done currently via classroom trainings, we will basically only have between six weeks and two months between the first release notes and actually having that learning content out there,” Martin says, adding that learning rooms would make the information accessible very quickly.
“We are working with a more collaborative model, with a higher number of subject matter experts, but also with external consultants, partner employees, and more of a SAP Jam environment where consultants can book time with one of the experts. We will have daily review sessions, and the rest of the time they can do it on their schedule – they can still do projects and get on with their day job.”
This will be offered over a four-week period.
SAP is also moving to cloud-based authoring tools, to streamline and simplify the process of engaging with subject matter experts.
Remote proctoring
Once consultants have consumed the enablement content, and feel confident in the material, they can book a remote proctor to undertake the delta exam. This means candidates can sit exams, at work or at home, virtually. They will need to be alone in a quiet room and have books and smartphones packed away before the remote proctor comes online for the exam, and the proctor will both check their photo ID before the exam commences, and have the ability to terminate the exam if any conditions are breached – for example, if someone else enters the room and will not leave. The candidate’s computer will also
be locked down using a secure browser for the duration of the exam.
These security measures were particularly important for SAP, to ensure the integrity of the certification process.
“We do have a lot of problems with questions being available on the internet. So it was really important to us to make sure that we got that compromise between flexibility and the same level of security that we have now,” Martin says.
Managing certifications
Certification will be managed through SAP Credential Manager, which will enable the link with system provisioning.
Though there are already 40,000 active members in SAP Credential Manager, Martin says driving users into this program will be a priority, as it will allow for automatic notifications of new exams, expiring certification, and other benefits and discounts. Certificates will be made available electronically, and partner managers will be able to check certifications of team employees and contractors.Pricing and availability
In designing the program, SAP has also been conscious of making certification affordable, particularly if consultants will be required to take exams more frequently.
“The price point cannot be such that a partner is investing more than they would have done in the previous model,” Martin says.
SAP will introduce a subscription model, which will be valid for 12 months, and cover a maximum number of exams. This number is not yet available, but Martin says it will be based on how many exam attempts a candidate might reasonably need during the year if they have learnt the enablement content.
The new certification will begin rolling out for SuccessFactors in Q1 of 2015, and the entire solution suite for SuccessFactors should be available by the end of Q2. hybris and Ariba will follow as soon as possible (although Ariba has no existing certification program), though the launch of these programs may not be until Q3 or Q4 2015.
Creating a new certification program founded on speed and agility is a huge challenge, but Martin says it has also provided a positive impetus for change.
“It’s a golden opportunity to actually make our program much more customer-friendly, more affordable, more flexible, more streamlined and more consistent,” she says.
While Martin would not be drawn on whether these new aspects of certifi cation delivery such as remote proctoring would be applied more broadly to SAP’s whole certification portfolio, the response to the program from the partner and consultant community, as well as the Certification and Enablement Influence Council, has reportedly been extremely positive, and so it would make logical sense for SAP to do so – to provide greater flexibility, efficiency and broader reach.
For the moment though, Martin will only say they are hopeful the new cloud certification program will be a huge success.
“We could envisage it becoming just as useful in other areas – for example, HANA,” she says.
FAQs: New certifications and grandfathering
What if I want to be certified in SuccessFactors now?
SAP Education is offering SAP Associate certifications for SuccessFactors (including Employee Central and Compensation) through the first half of 2015, and SuccessFactors will continue to offer Associate Level Certifications under the current program until the equivalent exam is available under the SAP certification program, at which time the SuccessFactors program will be retired. If there is an SAP Associate exam
available, the exam needs to be taken in an SAP Education Centre or Pearson Vue Test Centre, along with the training. The price of the exam is bundled with this training. If there is not yet an SAP Associate Exam available, SuccessFactors Virtual Live training can be booked, with an assessment held within the training.
What if I am already certified with SuccessFactors?
One of the controversial areas under the changes announced earlier in the year was that consultants certified under the previous SuccessFactors program would have to take thecore exam in the new program. Partners were unhappy about this, particularly given many consultants had been certified only recently. SAP rethought this approach and is now providing grandfathering for previously certified consultants.
If they were already Associate certified, consultants simply need to register in the program and continue passing delta exams to maintain that certification. For the Professional certification, again there were aspects of the previous SuccessFactors program that SAP wanted to maintain.
“We like what SuccessFactors does at the moment in terms of validating project experience, measuring customer success, and looking at customer ratings,” Martin says. While the finer details of how this will apply are still being nutted out, it will remain alongside the delta exams as the key requirements for Professional certification.
“Principally we want to keep that validation process, and we want to keep the linkage between customer satisfaction, project experience and being the Professional.”
This article first appeared in the Inside SAP Yearbook 2015.
