Contributor Recognition Program FAQ

Your contributions are a vital part of the SAP Community Network, which includes the SAP Developer Network Community (SDN), Business Process Expert Community (BPX), SAP Business Analytics Community (BAC) and University Alliances Community (UAC).

To reward our most active members, we've developed the Contributor Recognition Program (CRP), which awards points to community members for each technical article, code sample, video, wiki contribution, eLearning contribution, forum post, and weblog authored (weblogs must be accepted for publication before points are awarded). The same awards go for creating rich media such as videos, podcasts or eLearning content. Points may also be awarded for other types of contributions, at the discretion of Community Managers and Moderators. These are categorized as "additional points."

As you participate and contribute on SCN, you will accumulate points over a 12-month rolling period that also count toward lifetime points. Active Contributors are those members that are active enough on SCN to accumulate at least 250 points in the last 12 months, at any time of the year. You can see the details of our recognition program here. Points may also be removed or deducted at the discretion of Community Managers and Moderators.

An Active Contributor is an SCN member who has accumulated 250 points and more in the last 12 months, on a rolling period. Active Contributors enjoy enhanced recognition on SCN with a badge that shows their current level of contribution: bronze, silver, gold or platinum.

A Topic Leader is a member who is among the three leading contributors in a topic area on SCN. Points are considered for the current calendar year. For more information, read the announcement blog.

• In the forums, the original poster gives points to the answers provided by the community.
• SCN Moderators (SAP and external moderators) assign points for blog posts.
• SCN Moderators (SAP and external moderators) assign points for wiki contributions manually or on a quarterly basis.
• SAP assigns points to articles, white papers and eLearning content.

At this point, there is no appeal process. Your content submissions will be judged by SAP and external Moderators who are experts in the specific area where you contribute. They take great care in making their final decision.

Forum threads that are unanswered questions are marked with a question mark icon next to them. Like those below:

Threads marked as questions that remain unanswered are indicated by a question mark icon.

Threads marked as questions and that have been marked as answered (and points awarded) are indicated by a blue, closed-star icon.

The new topic form defaults to "Mark this thread as a question." You need only to submit your topic as usual. If you do not wish to have your topic marked as a question, simply deselect the "mark this thread as a question," checkbox. After posting, you'll have 15 minutes to change the option chosen.

It is because you have reached 10 open threads without closing them. Review the questions you asked and work to get them answered. Once they are answered, close the threads.

To award points, go to your user profile and select the relevant thread from the list of Recent Messages. Click on the hyperlinked title. You will be directed to a page that shows all the responses to your original post.
Click on the star icon next to the response for which you wish to reward points. A popup window will appear. Use the radio buttons to mark a response "Solved My Problem," "Very Helpful," or "Helpful."
You are allowed to grant only one 10 point "Solved My Problem" award and one six point "Very Helpful" award, so evaluate all the replies carefully. You may designate an unlimited number of two point "Helpful" awards.

The Contributor's Corner, located in the left-hand navigation of the SCN pages, indicates your current number of annual points and the date of your last contribution.

You can see your lifetime points, your annual points, as well as your points over the last 12 months in a detailed archive of points earned per area of contribution (forum posts, weblogs, articles, additional points, etc) by clicking on "Total of Annual Points." To check for your Active Contributor status (250+ points over the last 12 months), make sure to select a 12-month period from today's date.

You can also access this information in two places in the Forum:

1. By clicking on the link showing your forum points
2. In your own dashboard and control panel, under "Your Rewards Points."

We have implemented a 2-day waiting period after everyone reaches a new recognition level before showing the corresponding Active Contributor badge in SCN. We implemented this waiting period to allow our moderators sufficient time to review points contributions and confirm there are no problems with recent point allocations. (As you may know, points can be adjusted in the days following assignment if moderators find any problems or irregularities with the contribution. For example, other community members can notify moderators by using the "report abuse" button in the forums.)

Yes it is possible. You need to decide which user ID you want to keep, then send an email to sapnetwork@sap.com, provide the user ID and ask for the consolidation to be done.

Your blog and forum contributions will all be moved to your single user ID and the points will be consolidated. For the wiki, your points will be brought to your unique user ID but unfortunately, we don't have the ability to move your Wiki contributions to another user ID at this time.

If your company is not listed, it is most likely because you haven't maintained your email address under your company's domain. Please write to sapnetwork@sap.com and ask to change your email address in your account information. Once it is done, wait 24 hours to ensure replication and check the list again.

We consider not only forum contributions, but also contributions in blogs, in the wiki and articles, when we list the leading contributors.

Another reason that you're not listed may be that points were not assigned to the category you desired. Check the archive of your past contributions and points by going to the Contributor's Corner in the left- hand navigation and clicking on the "Total Annual Points" link. Select the period of time you want to consider: points over the last 12 months, points in the current calendar year, etc. Contact sapnetwork@sap.com if you would like to change a specific point assignment.

We used to recognize the top three contributors in each area on SCN, the period that counted for the contest was August 1 to July 31. We've changed the program and now recognize the 3 leading contributors in a calendar year. You can find these contributors by searching for a calendar year and a category of contribution. These are called the Topic Leaders in the designated area. For more information, review our SCN Contribution Program page.