SAP Community is a great place for SAP professionals to connect, collaborate, and build their reputations. For the best collective experience on SAP Community, we ask that members adhere to the rules of engagement. These rules of engagement are not intended to provide any legal advice, nor do they replace the terms of use. However, these give a good SAP Community overview of how to behave.
1. Log in to fully participate, giving feedback to those who help you through likes and comments. Use your real identity to build your own personal brand.
2. Be yourself. The idea of SAP Community is to represent yourself authentically. Provide as much information as you can in your profile. Using someone else’s contact information is prohibited. It is also strongly recommended that you post a photo of yourself. Do not post photos of others or graphics. Such content could be subject to moderation and removed.
3. Search before you post. There are many answered questions and helpful postings already in the SAP Community. Before posting a new question, please search the community to see if it’s already been asked /answered. That’s the fastest way to get your information.
4. Avoid slang. There are many languages and cultures represented in the SAP Community. The main language of SAP Community is English.
5. Share expertise transparently. We are a community based site that encourages public knowledge sharing. Be open about your knowledge and how you obtained it.
6. Avoid solicitations. Avoid marketing your company’s products and services. If you want people to know your affiliation with your company, put those details in your profile to make the information available to the community. Do not embed links to ads in your posts. The same applies to email solicitations and advertising. If you want someone to trust you enough to buy what you offer, share your expertise and they will seek you out.
7. Be professional and courteous. Temper negative emotions, keeping communications professional. Do not berate other members for asking questions or posting something you don’t like. The SAP Community is intended to be open on a variety of topics.
8. Be responsive. If a community member has answered your question, please mark the answer as “accepted.” By doing so, other members can find the answers more easily.
9. Don’t copy / paste other people’s content. Make sure your content is original and unique. Don't cross-post (create multiple copies of the same content using different primary tags).
10. Report rule violations. Click the alert moderator button if you believe an SAP Community member is violating the rules of engagement. Provide as much information as possible.
11. Avoid external links. Using links to market your company or products is prohibited, as is adding links to closed content or content that requires subscription fees to read.
12. Provide support feedback through the correct channel. SAP Community is a place for conversation with SAP and each other, but it is not an official support channel. For escalations to SAP support, contact the Customer Interaction Center.
Do not publish identifying or private information related to your Support experience. To protect the privacy of customers and support employees, the following will result in immediate removal: screenshots of support incidents, incident numbers, personal information, or other sensitive information.
13. Don't hijack questions. Don't post a different question in an existing question as a reply, especially if the question has not recently been active. If it is related, please create a new question and link to the old/existing question.
14. Don't resurrect questions. Don't reopen a question that has already received an answer that was marked as "accepted" by the author. If your problem looks the same and the posted solution does not work in your case, then you have a different issue and you need to create a new question referencing the existing one. You are allowed to “resurrect” a question only when the link in the answer is broken and you want the author to fix it.
There are a few things you cannot do in SAP Community. These are actions that could lead to removal of your content. Please be diligent and avoid these behaviors.
1. Defaming another member: Posting content that discriminates against members based on any perceived differences, including but not limited to differences in culture, race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and physical ability. Read more on SAP’s diversity values.
2. Copyright infringement: The Terms of Use require that all content submitted to SAP Community be original content created by the author or reproduced with the permission of the copyright owner.
More about Copyright
Copyright gives authors and creators the exclusive right to make copies, license, and/or otherwise exploit content, regardless of the media.
See www.copyright.gov for more information. Copying someone else’s work into your own post may violate copyright laws. Please do not copy other people's work without first gaining written permission from the original author or source. This includes SAP help files and training materials.
There are three general categories of copyright issues that typically occur in SAP Community. The table below describes these common scenarios as well as actions SAP may take:
| Scenario | Action |
| Someone copies another person’s content (from inside or outside SAP Community) and posts it as their own content in SAP Community. |
SAP may take action and remove the content in question. SAP Community Global Moderators may notify SAP Legal when the original content owner complains. |
| Someone copies a member’s content from SAP Community and posts it as their own content to another website outside of SAP Community. |
SAP is not authorized to take any action on behalf of individuals who are not SAP employees. Only the copyright owner of the material can take action when someone has copied content without permission. In the event that another site is copying SAP’s content from SAP Community, SAP Legal may be notified and may take action to protect SAP’s content. |
| Someone copies SAP-owned content (Help files, training materials, product documentation, etc.) and posts as their own on SAP Community or another website. |
SAP may take action to defend its copyrighted materials. This may result in legal actions against the member. SAP Community Global Moderators may notify SAP Legal about SAP content being copied without permission. |
| Action | |
| Someone copies another person’s content (from inside or outside SAP Community) and posts it as their own content in SAP Community. |
SAP may take action and remove the content in question. SAP Community Global Moderators may notify SAP Legal when the original content owner complains. |
| Someone copies a member’s content from SAP Community and posts it as their own content to another website outside of SAP Community. |
SAP is not authorized to take any action on behalf of individuals who are not SAP employees. Only the copyright owner of the material can take action when someone has copied content without permission. In the event that another site is copying SAP’s content from SAP Community, SAP Legal may be notified and may take action to protect SAP’s content. |
| Someone copies SAP-owned content (Help files, training materials, product documentation, etc.) and posts as their own on SAP Community or another website. |
SAP may take action to defend its copyrighted materials. This may result in legal actions against the member. SAP Community Global Moderators may notify SAP Legal about SAP content being copied without permission. |
If you are a copyright owner and someone has used your content without your permission please follow the instructions at SAP’s Copyrights and Copyright Agent, Disclaimer and Trademarks page.
Click the Alert Moderator button if you believe an SAP Community member is violating the rules of engagement. Select the appropriate type of alert when you report it, and provide a comment so that the moderator knows how to handle it.
