SAP Knowledge Warehouse

From TechWriter Wiki

SAP Knowledge Warehouse (often abbreviated to simply KW) is a Document Management System offered by SAP. It is a separate SAP product that can be installed independently of any other SAP product (such as R/3, APO, or BW), but is normally implemented along with other SAP products, to provide documentation for those products.

The key strength of SAP KW is its tight integration with other SAP products, in particular in its ability to link directly from the help menu in (for example) SAP R/3 directly to the KW. This link is context sensitive which means that KW can be configured so that if a user selects Help from within a specific transaction, then they can be shown the document in the KW that describes the use of that specific transaction. Context sensitivity can be configured down to the individual field level.

KW provides all of the basic functionality of a document management system, including:

• Check in/check-out functions;
• Workflow;
• Web editing;
• Content delivery (via a Web server).

SAP claim that it is only possible to link from SAP R/3 menu option Help > Application Help to content in the Knowledge Warehouse, and not to any other Web server. This is technically correct, but it is possible to link from a custom sub-menu under Help to another Web server. OnDemand and RWD Infopak both provide patches to do this.

SAP no longer seem to be promoting KW (they don't seem to be particularly keen on supporting it, either...).