SAP user groups and community events

Written by an SAP Finance & Treasury practitioner working with SAP since 2008 · how the guides are written · Updated 10 October 2026 · facts checked against the user groups' own sites and sap.com, October 2026

SAP user groups are independent, not-for-profit associations of the organisations that run SAP software. The best known are DSAG in the German-speaking countries, ASUG in North America and UKISUG in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and most countries with a sizeable SAP customer base have one of their own. Their leaders coordinate through SUGEN, the SAP User Group Executive Network. You join through your employer's membership, and several groups also admit independent consultants. SAP community events are the conferences and meet-ups around the groups, from SAP TechEd and SAP Sapphire to a city's evening gathering. Together they are the ecosystem's social infrastructure, and the quickest way to become known for an area.

As of October 2026, the largest groups are DSAG for Germany, Austria and Switzerland (dsag.de), ASUG in North America (asug.com), whose annual conference is held together with SAP Sapphire in Orlando, UKISUG in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and VNSG in the Netherlands — each with an annual congress, working groups by area and industry, and a formal channel for influencing SAP's product decisions.

What is an SAP user group?

A membership organisation, usually a non-profit, whose members are customer companies rather than individuals — though partners and consultancies typically have their own membership category, and the people who turn up are employees of both. The groups are independent of SAP: they negotiate with it, criticise it publicly when they think it necessary, and are taken seriously precisely because they are not part of it. The best known are DSAG, whose home market is described in the Germany guide, and ASUG in North America; UKISUG, and national groups in the Netherlands, France, Spain, the Nordic countries, Australia, Japan and elsewhere, follow the same model on their own scale, and the groups coordinate with each other through an international network of their executives.

Which SAP user groups exist, by country?

Twelve are listed here, each checked on the group's own site in October 2026. Membership is almost always held by an organisation, and the people who take part are its employees. The list is not exhaustive: SAP's user groups page has a finder by region for the countries not shown.

What is SUGEN, the SAP User Group Executive Network?

SUGEN is the SAP User Group Executive Network, the body through which the leaders of the national user groups work together and speak to SAP with one voice. It was established in 2007 to share information and good practice between the groups and to coordinate their work with SAP on strategic topics. UKISUG, one of its members, describes it as a network of autonomous, non-profit organisations that support the exchange of ideas, the education of their members, customer participation and the shaping of SAP's strategic direction. SAP's own description is shorter: leaders from user groups worldwide, in an open dialogue between members and SAP. There is no single global SAP user group, and SUGEN is the closest thing to one. It has no individual membership. A practitioner takes part through a national group, which carries its members' concerns to SAP at a global level. On SAP's side the counterpart is its Global User Groups organisation, which supports the groups.

How is an SAP user group different from SAP Community?

A user group is an independent association that organisations pay to join. SAP Community is SAP's own online community, which SAP describes as the place to get answers, discuss best practices and keep learning about its solutions. Most practitioners end up using both.

What do user groups actually do?

• Influence. They collect member requirements, vote on priorities and put them in front of SAP's product organisation through formal channels. Product decisions, licensing terms and maintenance policy are all shaped by this, which is why membership is worth something to a customer company.
• Working groups. Standing groups by area — finance, logistics, HR, technology, security, a given industry — where the people responsible for that topic at member companies meet regularly, compare notes and produce guidance. This is the layer most relevant to an individual: the working group for your area is where the experienced people in it, in your country, already know each other.
• Events. An annual congress or conference, technology days, regional meetings and topic days: presentations by members about their own projects, sessions from SAP, and the corridors where most of the value is exchanged.
• Education. Publications, surveys of the membership, and guidance documents on topics from licensing to upgrade strategy, often more candid than anything SAP produces.

Which SAP events and communities are worth knowing?

Five, in two kinds: SAP's own conferences and community, and the practitioner-run local events.

What are SAP's own events?

SAP runs two flagship conferences. SAP Sapphire is the business-facing one: strategy announcements, customer stories and executive keynotes, aimed at the people who decide what to buy. SAP TechEd is the technical one: hands-on sessions, road maps for the platform and the programming models, and the place where developers, architects and Basis people learn what is coming and meet the people building it. Each runs once a year, in person or online; as of October 2026, TechEd 2026 is set for 27 to 29 October at Messe Berlin, with a virtual edition on the same dates. For a consultant, TechEd in particular is where the vocabulary of the next year of projects is set — the sessions on the platform and on clean-core extension tend to become the following year's job descriptions. SAP also runs smaller hands-on developer events in many cities and an online community where practitioners answer each other's questions and publish what they have built.

Where do the local meet-ups fit?

Below the formal institutions is a layer of practitioner-run events: evening meet-ups in a city, community-organised one-day gatherings with talks by local people, developer groups around a technology, and informal regular tables where SAP people from different employers eat together. They are free or nearly so, they need no company membership, and they are where a junior meets a senior from another firm, where freelancers hear about the next programme before it is posted, and where someone relocating finds their first local contacts. The geography of SAP work shows up here directly: a city with a dense SAP community has a full calendar, and one without has a gap somebody could fill.

Why does participation matter for a career?

Because SAP work is staffed through reputation more than through advertisements. Programmes are staffed by delivery managers asking colleagues who they know; freelancers get their next contract from someone they worked with; senior functional people become known for a topic by speaking about it. A working group, a presented project, a regular meet-up attendance — each puts your name next to your area in the memory of the people who staff work in your city. For someone trying to get in, events are also the most honest source of information about what the work is like, and one of the few ways to get near a project before having one.

How do you get involved for the first time?

1. Ask whether your employer belongs to the national user group, and who represents your area in its working group. If it does, register under the company membership, which in most groups covers every employee at no extra charge.
2. Go to one local meet-up, whatever its topic, and say what you do.
3. Follow SAP TechEd once, in person or online, and read the session catalogue as a list of what the market will ask for next.
4. Then contribute: a short talk about a problem you solved, an answer in SAP Community, a working-group paper. Contribution is what turns attendance into reputation, and it is far rarer.