Luke Marson(Successfactors)

The SuccessFactors Employee Central Position Management feature Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Mar 12, 2015 3:16:40 PM inShare99

In my previous SuccessFactors Employee Central blogs, I had discussed the Organization Structure and Pay Structure. The third element to managing the enterprise is the Position object and the Position Management feature. In this blog, I will provide an overview of the Position object and how it works in Employee Central, as well as cover the Position Management feature and how it impacts organizational management. In addition, we will look at some of the standard reporting options and integration points. SAP provide a very detailed Position Management handbook on SAP Service Marketplace (S-user required) that I recommend reading if you want to learn the full details of Position Management, since it contains the wealth of information on the Position object, using and configuring Position Management, and the system behavior for the various scenarios of Position Management. Since this information is readily accessible to SAP customers I will not repeat any of the details provided in the handbook. In addition, I will not be covering Metadata Framework-specific features such as permissions or creating scenario-based workflows. A quick note about hyperlinks in this blog Please note that throughout this blog there are many references to handbooks and implementation guides on SAP Service Marketplace. Since SAP are regularly updating and modifying handbooks and implementation guides to include the latest features and releases then over the course of the lifetime of this blog some links may change. Wherever I have referenced a handbook or implementation guide I have also included a link to its parent folder with the text “SAP Service Marketplace”, which should change less frequency. Please let me know if you find any broken links! Now let’s take a look at the Position object. Position object The Position object is a Generic Object, meaning that it is built and configured in the Metadata Framework. This brings many benefits, such as: 

Easy configuration of the Position object fields

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Creation of rules to meet a variety of scenarios

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Scenario-based workflow

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Rule-based data propagation

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Auto-creation of Position Code

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Showing pending workflow data or not

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Associations with other objects

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Robust, granular, and structural-based security options Various functions are provided in the Rules Engine so that rules can be built to query Positions and their incumbents, such as Get Incumbent by Position, Get Next Available Manager By Position and Get Number Of Child Positions. The Rules Engine can also be used to create rules to trigger different workflows based on different scenarios, such as approving changes to positions that have or are above a certain level of grade or approving a change in To Be Hired status. A standard Position object definition is provided, which a customer can adapt to their own needs using the standard Metadata Framework functionality. This object definition can be seen in the screenshot below:

Positions are assigned to an employee in Job Information, above the Organization Structure section. If configured, thePosition Entry Date and Time in Position fields are also displayed. The screenshot below shows a Position assigned to an employee:

Positions can have a parent Position, so that a tree structure can be created and visualized in the Position Org Chart. This is known as the Position Hierarchy. The Position Hierarchy in the Position Org Chart can be seen below:

Position Management Position Management provides standard and configurable behavior in the system to manage positions across the enterprise. While a customer does not need to use Position Management in order to use the Position object, it does provide many features and benefits. Let’s take a look at some of the key features provided in Position Management and then at some of the general configuration settings. Shared Positions Employee Central supports sharing of positions by one or more employees. This must be set for each shared position individually by setting the Multiple Incumbents allowed field value to Yes. Capacity Control Capacity Control enables the FTE of the incumbent(s) of a position to not exceed the FTE value defined for the Position. This feature is particularly useful for retaining stable headcounts and for budgeting. The system checks the FTE value of the incumbent(s) against the FTE value of the Position in the following scenarios: 1. 2. 3. 4.

During the New Hire transaction A new Position is assigned to an employee or the FTE of an employee is changed The FTE value of the Position of an employee is changed Either the Position or the employee’s FTE value is changed on an historical Job Information record

5.

During a Position transfer or Position reclassification takes places and the system searches for a suitable position This must be set for each position by setting the Capacity controlled field value to Yes and defining a value for theTarget Capacity (FTE) field. Matrix Relationships An employee’s Job Relationships can be inherited from a Position when the Position is assigned to the employee. On the Position these are called Matrix Relationships. The holder of each Position defined under the Matrix Relationshipssection of a Position will be synchronized to an employee’s Job Relationships. This enables Position-based Job Relationships to be maintained on Positions rather than individually for each employee and thus enables consistency across the enterprise. It also enables additional permissioning for incumbents of Positions that are defined as Matrix Relationships of another Positions.

For more details on the exact behavior of Matrix Relationship assignments, please see the Matrix Relationshipssection of the Position Management handbook on SAP Service Marketplace. Position Types The Type field can be used to identify different types of positions, for which standard system behavior can be modified. The system comes with two standard Position Types (Regular and Shared Position), but custom Position Types can be created in the Manage Data UI. This feature is particularly useful if certain types or groups of positions require different types of changes to other types or groups of positions. For example, shared positions may require different types of manager re-assignment if the manager leaves the parent position, since the two incumbents may have different managers or matrix managers. There are three types of system behavior that can be modified for each Position Type: 1. 2. 3.

Trigger a workflow for changes to an employee’s Job Information that change a Position and if those Position changes need to be synchronized to one or more incumbents When a manager leaves their position, determine to which employee the direct reports of the manager should report to If the Position Hierarchy is changed, specify how the reporting line should change In addition, rules can be setup so that they respect the Position Type and could therefore drive different behavior in data synchronization, workflow triggering, etc. The screenshot below shows the settings for a Position Type:

For more details on the available settings, please see the Position Types section of the Position Management handbook on SAP Service Marketplace. Right to Return On the Position, it can be determined whether an employee who goes on a Global Assignment or a Leave of Absence has the right to return to that Position. This feature can only be used if Time Off and/or Global Assignments are used in the system. The feature is based on two rules that are used to determine: 1. 2.

If the incumbent remains in their Position while on Global Assignment/Leave of Absence If the incumbent can return to their Position when the Global Assignment/Leave of Absence ends Right to Return is also visualized on the Position Org Chart. For more details on the exact behavior of Right to Return and the available settings, please see the Right to Returnsection of the Position Management handbook on SAP Service Marketplace. Position Transfer or Position Reclassification

When a Position Transfer or Position Reclassification takes place, information maintained on the Job Information for an employee will be synchronized to the Position object assigned to the employee. The fields that are synchronized are defined by a rule that can be assigned in Position Management Settings in the field Rule for Synchronizing Position after Job Information Change. In most cases the system determines a Position Transfer as a change of manager for an employee, although in the case of a promotion an employee would move to a new position without a change to the existing position. The system determines a Position Reclassification as changes to an employee’s Job Information by a manager. These are technically defined on the relevant Event Reason Foundation Objects by setting the value of the Follow-Up Activity on Position field to either Position Reclassification or Position Transfer. When a Position Transfer takes place, the system searches for a position under the employee’s manager’s Position that has the To be hired field value set to Yes and assigns the employee to this Position. If no Position is found then a new Position is created and the employee is assigned to it. The Position’s FTE value will be taken from the employee’s FTE field. The To be hired field value of the “old” Position remains as No and the To be hired field value of the “new” Position is set to Yes. In addition, direct reports of the employee are transferred to the employee’s “old” manager. When a Position Reclassification takes place, the system changes the Position of the employee as per the rule assigned in Position Management Settings. In the case of a shared position the system will perform a position transfer instead. The system can be changed so that it does not search for a new Position. This is done by setting the Search for Position in Position Transfer field value to No in Position Management Settings. Data Propagation and Synchronization Although Employee Central supports propagation of data to or from the Position object, Position Management can define specific data propagation rules for certain Position Management scenarios so that objects and employee data can be kept synchronized when changes are made. There are three scenarios where data propagation is used: 1. 2. 3.

Propagating Job Classification data to a Position when a Job Classification is assigned to or changed for a Position Propagating Position data to an employee’s Job Information when a Position is assigned or the employee’s assigned Position is changed Propagating Job Information to a Position in the chase of a Position Transfer or Position Reclassification Rules are used to determine which fields are to be propagated and these rules are assigned in the Position Management settings. For propagation of Job Classification data to Position many of my clients typically propagate data such as Job Title, Job Level, Employee Class, organizational data (i.e. Company and Department), and FTE. Future-dated propagation (called Forward Propagation) is a standard feature of the system and is typically used for Right to Return. Configuration Settings There are various configuration settings in the system that determine the overall behavior of the system and thus how Position Management works. Some of these are related to the features that were discussed above. These configuration settings are accessed in OneAdmin in Employee Files > Position Management Settings. The user interface of Position Management Settings is split into 5 tabs:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

General Hierarchy Adaptation Synchronization UI Customizing Right To Return The General tab is where the following types of features are configured:

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Whether Position Types are used

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How the To Be Hired field should behave during assignment and unassignment of an employee to a Position

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How an employee’s Position assignment should be validated (for multiple incumbents and capacity control) when employee data is imported via a Job Information import

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If the Position code should be automatically generated The General tab can be seen in the screenshots below:

The Hierarchy Adaptation tab defines which hierarchy – Position Hierarchy, Reporting Hierarchy, or neither – the system leads with. This means that the other hierarchy is adapter based on changes to that hierarchy. For example, John Smith moves to a vacant Position that has 3 direct reports and so the manager of the new employees will change to John Smith. Also in this tab, the behavior of the hierarchies during a Position Import and Job Information import can be defined. The Synchronization tab determines the behavior of the system when synchronizing data from a Position to an employee’s Job Information, and vice-versa. This includes the rules for defining fields used in synchronization of Position to an employee’s Job Information and vice-versa, as well as whether a Position is searched for a reclassification or transfer of a Position and which area of the organization should be used for retaining a stable headcount. The UI Customizing tab defines:   

The rule used to specify which fields of a Position that are copied to a new Position when one is created in the Position Org Chart In MSS, whether the list of Positions should be filtered by Company Whether to display the Positions Under Employee field in the New Hire screen, Job Information screen in MSS, and in the History screen The Right To Return tab determines the rules and event reasons that defines the behavior of the Right to Return feature. Position Profiles in Job Profile Builder Job Profile Builder enables Job Profiles to be created for Position objects and not just Roles. These can then be used in creating requisitions or in skills management. It makes a lot of sense to have Job Profiles for Position objects, since many organizations will have some positions have specific competencies, skills, or other requirements that are unique to that instance of a position. Regional or country-specific positions are a great example of where local skills or qualifications can be needed for what is otherwise the same position across each region or country. The screenshot below shows all of the Position objects assigned to the Maintenance Manager Role:

The screenshot below shows skills mapped to a Position object:

The screenshot below shows a Job Profile for a Position object:

Reporting SuccessFactors offers two types of reporting for Employee Central that can be used to report on Positions: 

Detailed Reporting

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Employee Central Advanced Reporting Detailed Reporting provides reporting capabilities for Metadata Framework objects, which of course includes the Position object. Through this reporting type users can build reports using any array of fields on a Position. In addition, the calculation capabilities with Detailed Reporting can be used to perform functions such as data aggregation or if/then/else statements. Employee Central Advanced Reporting provides over 70 out-of-the-box reports that customers can use or re-use as templates for their own reports. It is technically a sub-component of Detailed Reporting. Three exist that can be used for Position Management reporting purposes:

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Position Overview

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Position Details

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Disparities between Reporting Line and Position Hierarchy The Position Overview report provides a list of all positions in the company with the pre-defined position fields, such as Name, Code, Status, Start Date, End Date, Job Code, Job Level, Employee Class, Company, Business Unit, Department, etc. A screenshot of this report can be seen below:

The Position Details report is a more detailed version of the Position Overview report, and thus provides a more detailed overview of all positions in the company. It displays all fields shown in the Position Overview, along with details of the incumbent like First Name, Last Name, Person ID, Employment Status, FTE, etc. A screenshot of this report can be seen below:

The Disparities between Reporting Line and Position Hierarchy report identifies any differences between the reporting line (the reporting Manager whom an employee reports to) and the position hierarchy (a position-to-position reporting structure). It lists all positions with the incumbent, the incumbent’s manager, the incumbent’s manager’s position and the parent position of the incumbent’s position. Any differences between the incumbent’s manager’s position and the

incumbent’s position’s parent position are highlighted in the Discrepancy column with a description of the discrepancy in the Comment column. In addition, Positions can be shown in reports made on employee data in Ad-Hoc Reporting. The Job Information (Date Range) domain enables reports to be created using data from Job Information (e.g. Position or Position Entry Date fields) as well as all fields of the Position object that an employee is assigned to. However, Ad-hoc Reporting is not the optimal solution for reporting on Position object data and it is not recommended to use it for Position reporting. Integrations The Position object is integrated with both Recruiting Management and Succession Planning. Additionally, the SuccessFactors OData API enables Position object data to be integrated with other systems. Recruiting Management Naturally there is integration with Recruiting Management, as one might expect. Requisitions can be created (for both current date and for a future date) from Position objects in the Position Org Chart, with an assigned requisition visible on the Position in the Position Org Chart (both for current and future-dated requisitions) and navigation to the requisition is possible. A candidate can be automatically assigned to the Position in the requisition in the “Pending Hires” transaction in Employee Central. The Rules Engine offers two functions: the ability to derive a requisition template to be used for the Position object and the ability to define field mapping between the Position object and the new requisition. The flow diagram below – taken from the Position Management handbook – shows the flow of the Recruiting Management integration.

More details can be found in the Position Management handbook on SAP Service Marketplace. Succession Planning For Position-based succession planning, Succession can leverage the Position object from MDF and share the same Position Org Chart that is seen in Company Info. This changes the way that various succession planning processes key off the Job Code; when not leveraging the MDF position object

then the position incumbent’s job code drives succession planning processes while with the MDF position object the position’s job code drives succession planning processes. More details can be found in the Succession Planning w/ MDF Positions implementation guide on SAP Service Marketplace. Job Profile Builder As mentioned above, Position objects are integrated into Job Profile Builder to enable Job Profiles to be created specifically for positions. Integration with external systems The SuccessFactors OData API enables query, insert, update, and upsert of Generic Object data, including Position object data. Data is not deleted, rather it would be date-delimited. This enables Position data to be integrated with any system, so long as the system or middleware supports the OData protocol. Exposure of a Generic Object via the OData API can be controlled on the Generic Objects object definition by setting the appropriate value (Editable, Read Only or Not Visible) of the API Visibility field. More details can be found in the Metadata Framework implementation guide on SAP Service Marketplace and theHCM Suite OData API User Guide on help.sap.com/cloud4hr. How does this all compare to SAP ERP HCM? In SAP ERP HCM the position is a mandatory object that – like in Employee Central – can be independent of a Job. However, Position Management in Employee Central adds a significant wealth of functionality that I have not yet seen used significantly in SAP ERP HCM. Features such as position control, position types, position transfers and reclassifications, and matrix relationships add significant value to the system. The Position object is also much more flexible than in SAP ERP HCM, so customers can define fields and rules for the Position object, as well as configure settings and create rules to define how the system behaves in certain employee lifecycle scenarios. SAP ERP HCM customers should find that Position Management is much more robust in Employee Central than they might be used to in SAP ERP HCM and therefore have much more control of how the system behaves in relation to how Positions are managed within their organization. This would certainly be a benefit to most of the SAP ERP HCM customers I have come across in my career. Roadmap SAP are committed to continued enhancements for Position Management. In the b1508 release they are planning to introduce mass changes functionality for positions and incumbents (focused on organizational entities that need to be applied in positions and job information) and adding Pay Ranges and related attributes to the Position object definition. The image below shows some of the public roadmap items that have recently been delivered and are planned over the next 6 and 6-12 months.

I also understand that SAP are considering to build a more robust position budgeting module that is likely to be called “Operational Workforce Planning”, although this is not a commitment by SAP and

the usual disclaimer applies that this may never be released and that you should always make plans based on existing functionality only Summary Position Management provides flexible, configurable, and robust functionality to manage Positions within the organization and maintain stable position headcounts (and therefore budgets), as well provide a wealth of functionality to support position assignments and propagate organization information to employee records. It enables job classifications to act as the source of positions and for positions to influence manager and matrix relationship assignments. Position Management is an important part of SuccessFactors Employee Central and will be further enhanced in future to provide additional functionality and value to customers.

SuccessFactors Employee Central & Recruiting: configuring the New Hire process integration Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on May 28, 2015 4:23:50 PM inShare86

Like any integrated system, customers using both SuccessFactors Recruiting and SuccessFactors Employee Central can have seamless integration between the applications. Application, Requisition, Offer, and Candidate data from Recruiting can be mapped to Employee Central fields in the New Hire process so that data is pre-filled for the end user. In this blog, we’ll go through the steps to configure the mapping and how to operate the integration.

Prerequisites Before mapping the fields, the Hirable status needs to be added into the Base list of statuses in Recruiting. The steps for this can be found in the SuccessFactors Recruiting Management Implementation Guide on SAP Service Marketplace in section 16.1.1 Employee Central (RCM to EC Integration).

The consultant(s) doing the mapping should be familiar with the Employee Central data model and/or the Recruiting data model.

Whoever will perform the hire in Employee Central needs to have permission to access the Manage Pending Hirestransaction.

The mapping template The process of hiring an employee in Employee Central that has originated in Recruiting is called Candidate to Employee Conversion. The mapping of the Recruiting fields that need to be used in the New Hire transaction in Employee Central is made in the transformation XML template, which can be downloaded from Provisioning using the Import/Export Candidate to employee integration template option under the Managing Recruiting heading, as seen below:

The transformation template is made up of one main XML element (), which has two child elements that represent the two major sections of the template. The element has 3 mandatory attributes that must be applied. It should look like this:

The two child elements within the element are:

 

: this element is for mapping the fields : this element is for mapping roles

The element contains a number of elements that represent each mapping. We’ll look at these shortly. The element contains and elements, which we’ll discuss a little later in this blog.

A basic example of the transformation XML can be seen here:

Configuring the mapping The mapping itself is fairly straightforward. There is an element called that has two child elements: and . Each element represents one field mapping. The child elements have attributes to define:

 

: source field and source element (Job Requisition, Application, or Offer Letter) : target HRIS element and field

This is formatted as such:

To look at a practical example, let’s look at the mapping of surname:

This tells us that the Recruiting fields is lastName and it comes from the Application (application). It will be mapped to the Employee Central field last-name that is in the personalInfo HRIS element (Personal Information portlet on the Personal Information screen).

The three entity types used for the entity-type attribute are:

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Application: application Job Requisition: jobrequisition Offer Letter: offerletter

The following target HRIS elements can be mapped to:

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personalInfo

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personInfo (only field date_of_birth is supported)

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emailInfo *

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phoneInfo *

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imInfo *

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recurringPayComponents *

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nonRecurringPayComponents *

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addressInfo (only address type home is supported)

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jobInfo

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compInfo

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employmentInfo

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emergencyContactInfo

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nationalId

Those marked with * can have multiple values sent to Employee Central by mapping a different keys for each entityType. Let’s look at Phone Number as an example:

Here we can see that both phone numbers (homePhone and cellPhone) are mapped to the same field in Employee Central (phone-number). However, these are differentiated by the Picklist external code of the value: H for Home phone and C for Cell phone.

Role Mapping Because the candidates in Manage Pending Hires are not yet an employees, the permissions of the user cannot be applied to them. In order to apply permissions to enable the user to view and hire them, target roles are mapped with the element within the element. Typically the user can only view candidates in Manage Pending Hires where at least one requisition operator is in the Target Population that is subject to the Permission Role containing the Manage Pending Hires access permission. However, mapping different roles (using the element) enables additional permissions to be available to the user that accesses Manage Pending Hires. There are five roles available:

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O: Recruiting Operator

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V: Requisition Approver

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R: Recruiter

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T: Sourcer

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G: Manager

While many customers do not change the recruiter role (R), some customers do re-use the Sourcer role (T) for another purposes (e.g. HR). Some caution should be applied when using the Requisition

Approver role (V) as approvers can be added to a requisition on an ad-hoc basis and therefore it reduces how secure access to Manage Pending Hires can be.

In addition to mapping permissions, the manager role can be mapped using the element within the element. Again, the element is used to map the role, although only one value can be mapped within the element. Typically, this would be the manager role (G).

A sample code might look like:

Notes on the integration There are a few notes to consider for the integration, including:

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The country used to determine country-specific fields for address, Job Information, and Compensation Information is derived from the address of the candidate

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If the country is passed over from the address it will be overwritten by the country of the Company if the country of the Company is different from the country passed from Recruiting

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The National ID country and type are not stored in Recruiting and therefore no values are transferred to Employee Central, although the values can be selected during hire

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A single frequency is used for all Pay Components sent to Employee Central and it must match the Code of the corresponding Frequency Foundation Object

For more details please see section 16.1.1.3.3 (Configuring Transformation Template) of the SuccessFactors Recruiting Management Implementation Guide.

How the integration works for the end user

In order for a candidate to be hired into Employee Central, a candidate must go through an approved Offer Approval process and then have their status set Ready to Hire in Recruiting.

Candidates are hired into Employee Central using the Manage Pending Hires transaction in OneAdmin, seen below:

The Pending Hires screen shows all of the candidates that are in Hirable status in Recruiting, as seen below:

To hire a candidate, the user simply selects the Hire button and this will launch the New Hire transaction in Employee Central. In this example, I’ll select the Hire button for Caroline Matthews. As we move through each stage of the New Hire process, we can see different data that has been pre-populated from Recruiting. For example, the employee’s address:

And Job Information:

And Compensation Information:

Once the candidate is hired in Employee Central then the User ID is sent to the Candidate Profile and the Candidate Profile background elements synchronize with the Employee Profile. We can now see the employee in Employee Central!

Summary With a simple knowledge of XML – the staple of most SuccessFactors’ consultant’s weaponry – and a knowledge of Employee Central HRIS elements it is possible to quickly configure the transformation template that defines the field mapping used for the candidate to employee conversion between Recruiting to Employee Central. The robust integration is already in place, so simply configuring the transformation template should get the integration running quickly. This is another example of cross-suite integration in the SuccessFactors HCM suite at work.

4179 ViewsCategories: Personnel Administration and Organizational Management , Personnel Development and Performance Management , SuccessFactor IntegrationProducts: sap_erp_human_capital_management Tasks: integration Tags: sapmentor, cloud, hcm, successfactors,human_capital_management, hr, consulting, talent_management, talent, mss, recruiting, recruit ment, employee_central, hiring,hire_employee, hire, recruiting_management

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Comments

 Michael Fernandes May 29, 2015 4:17 AM

Luke, Thanks for the excellent article, Knowledge of XML & Employee Central HRIS elements really enables us to give robust Integration solutions to clients. Like (1)

 Vasily Baranovsky May 29, 2015 11:42 AM

Thanks for sharing, Luke! Do you know, is it possible to configure the Internal Hire screen - visibility of pay components from offer, for example? Like (0)

o Luke Marson May 29, 2015 6:04 PM (in response to Vasily Baranovsky)

Thanks Vasily. I've not seen the Internal Hire screen at any of my customers or in my demo systems. I'll look into it. Like (0)

 Vasily Baranovsky Jun 1, 2015 3:20 PM (in response to Luke Marson)

Hi Luke! The Internal Hire screen appears when hiring existing (active) EC employee. The standard event-derivation and workflow rules are used at this case and the process looks like transfer. But there are some problems with data from the offer - I'll open the ticket. Like (0)

 Luke Marson Jun 2, 2015 4:44 AM (in response to Vasily Baranovsky)

Interesting Vasily as I've not seen it and I also reached out to a consultant with 4 years of implementing EC and she has never seen it.

Time Sheet in SuccessFactors Employee Central: demonstration Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Feb 19, 2015 4:40:49 PM inShare35

SAP recently released the Payroll Time Sheet functionality for SuccessFactors Employee Central. Last year, I recorded a demo of the Time Off functionality in Employee Central and so I decided to record a demo of the Time Sheet functionality. Some technical details of how the Time Sheet functionality can be found in the Payroll Time Sheet handbook (S-user required) and in the blog SuccessFactors Employee Central Time Sheet and Time Valuation byRamanjaneyulu Dodda.

The Payroll Time Sheet is typically only used by the employee. It does handle standard system workflow approvals that can touch many people, including managers and HR administrators among others. The result of time valuations are designed to be sent straight to payroll.

Demo In this video I am logged into Employee Central as Emily Clark where I look at the Time Sheet module and enter some regular time and overtime, as well as look at how the time valuation data looks.

Summary The Time Sheet functionality is simple and easy to use. It handles positive time management and overtime calculation and the valuation data can be sent to payroll. Since it is built on the Metadata Framework it means that configuration and maintenance of the system is straightforward, as well as there being scope for improvements to the solution. 4136 ViewsCategories: Personnel Administration and Organizational Management , Time Management , SuccessFactor IntegrationTasks: integration Tags: sapmentor, cloud, hcm, successfactors, human_capital_management, payroll , hr, consulting, ess,timesheet, time_management, employee_central

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 Ramanjaneyulu Dodda Feb 19, 2015 11:46 PM

Hi Luke,

Great demo on time sheet functionality. Like (1)

 Neha Sham Desai Feb 20, 2015 5:17 AM

Hi Luke,

Very informative demo.can you tell me where the time evaluation happens in SF? I mean is there separate screen where you perform the time evaluation activity like PT60 in sap hcm?Logic is more or less same i believe. No of hours are divided based on time type which can help configure separate rules for payment.

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge with everyone.

Neha Like (0)

o Volker Ruof Feb 20, 2015 12:49 PM (in response to Neha Sham Desai)

PT60 is old fashioned ;-). Time evaluation happens immediatly upon time recording. So online time evaluation, no specific job necessary for this. Like (3)

 Neha Sham Desai Feb 20, 2015 8:08 PM (in response to Volker Ruof)

Oh Thats interesting How about the days where no timesheet is submitted by employee till the time of payroll. What will system consider for those days? Will those days be paid or considered as Leave without pay? and next period when back dated timesheet is filled by employee it will consider as Retroactive accounting? Might be a stupid question but i am new to SF timesheet.

Thanks, Neha Like (0)

 Volker Ruof Feb 23, 2015 4:43 PM (in response to Neha Sham Desai)

For days where the time sheet is not submitted and sent to payroll nothing is paid. When back dated time sheets are sent there is a retro calc by payroll. Data is stored in IT2010 in the EC Payroll / SAP onprem payroll. Like (1)

 Volker Ruof Feb 20, 2015 12:45 PM

Hi Luke, good video. If you configure the time valuation results as "UI component" then the Overtime pay types as well as pay types for paid absences / holidays etc. are displayed directly in the "Totals section" and in the Submit-pop up.

If employers don´t want to bother there employees to differentiate between working time / overtime than there can be a setup where the employee only records working time time type and after a certain threshold (8hours per day / 40 per week or whatever) the system calculates automatically the overtime portion. Like (1)

o Luke Marson Feb 22, 2015 1:13 AM (in response to Volker Ruof)

Hi Volker,

Thanks for adding this valuable information for readers! I maybe should've configured multiple scenarios and done 2 or 3 demos to show all the functionality, but time isn't always on my side ;-)

All the best,

Luke Like (0)

 Paulo Vitoriano Feb 21, 2015 8:43 PM

Hi Luke, Thank you for the nice video. What I am bit confused about, is that being familiar to CATS the purpose for time reporting is also to allocate time between different projects for cost accounting. In this video it looks like a Payroll purpose only. So, can both purposes be covered in one go? I cannot imagine an employee being happy to fill in time report twice and for different purposes.

Thanks, Paulo Like (0)

o Luke Marson Feb 22, 2015 1:11 AM (in response to Paulo Vitoriano)

Hi Paulo,

They key purpose is for payroll, but I believe it could also be used for cost accounting.

Best regards,

Luke Like (0)

o

Ramanjaneyulu Dodda Feb 23, 2015 7:59 AM (in response to Paulo Vitoriano)

Hi Paulo,

Now time sheet can also be used to allocate time to different projects/ cost centers.

Like (0)

o Volker Ruof Feb 23, 2015 4:53 PM (in response to Paulo Vitoriano)

Hi Paulo, CATS is cross application. EC payroll time sheet concentrates rather on HR and feeds only payroll. Hence no projects or WBS elements. However, time recording to devianting cost centers can be done. There is a cost center split and an algorhythm that applies even for the weekly overtime calculation. The hours, pay type and cost center are sent to Infotype 2010 in the EC Payroll or SAPonprem Payroll and Payroll does the rest. Cost Centers are available in EC via a standard integration.

Best regards Volker

Like (1)

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Aadil Bhat Apr 28, 2015 8:12 PM

Hello All,

I am trying to configure Time Sheet in the instance, however I am cannot find the Employee Time Sheet object in the Configure Object Definition. Am i missing on something. Is it a custom object that needs to be configured.

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards, Aadil Like (0)

 Volker Ruof Apr 29, 2015 8:57 AM

Hello Aadil, have you switched on the time sheet in provisioning? Make sure you switch on the EC time sheet, there is another provisioning switch that deals with 3rd party time providers.

Best regards Volker Like (0)

 Aadil Bhat Apr 29, 2015 9:10 AM

Hello Volker,

Thanks for your reply, I have checked this now without changing the provisioning settings. Now The Employee Time Sheet object is showing in the Configure Object Definitions.

I guess that it takes time for all the settings to appear in the system.

Thanks for your reply again.

Kind regards, Aadil Bhat Like (0)

 Omprakash H Nov 2, 2015 7:03 AM

Luke,

Does Integrating Time Sheet with Biometric or third party application is available at this point of time through API or ODATA or CSV import through webservice?

Thanks. Om. Like (0)

o Luke Marson Nov 2, 2015 10:24 PM (in response to Omprakash H)

Hi Om,

Integration is possible through the OData API. Whether it can be integrated with a biometric application depends on the scenario.

Best regards,

Luke

S/4HANA: What's the impact on HR?

Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Feb 17, 2015 4:30:49 PM inShare292

On February 3rd 2015, SAP held a launch event at the New York Stock Exchange to announce their next-generation replacement for R/3: SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA, known simply as S/4HANA for short. CEO Bill McDermott, co-founder and Chairman of the Supervisory Board Hasso Plattner, and Member of the Executive Board of SAP, Products & Innovation Bernd Leukert presented what they envisage as the future of enterprise software. You can watch a replay of the event here and watch some post-event interviews in this YouTube video: What is S/4HANA? To put it simply, S/4HANA is SAP’s next generation of R/3 and the SAP Business Suite. It leverages new SAP user experience technology (SAP Fiori) and in-memory processing and database technology (SAP HANA), as well as introduces a new concept of guided configuration. As such, it improves simplicity, reduces processing times, and offers greater functionality than is available in R/3. The focus of S/4HANA is on Finance and ERP (CRM, SRM, SCM, PLM, and BW), with the Finance component consisting of SAP’s recently released Simple Finance application. Further functionality currently available on SAP ERP is being built out. For more broad definitions I would recommend this great Q&A by John Appleby and for analysis and commentary I recommend these articles:     

SAP's S4/HANA master plan: The lingering questions (ZDNet) SAP Clarifies S/4Hana Release Dates, Licensing Terms (Information Week) SAP S4/HANA – the user, analyst and partner views (Diginomica) First Take - SAP launches S/4HANA - The good, the challenge & the concern (Holger Mueller) S4 HANA: It’s not R/3, and it’s not 1992 either (part I) (Joshua Greenbaum) And let’s also not forget the S/4 HANA website.

What’s in it for HR? Well, in the short-term there is not a whole lot of difference. Customers will use either SAP ERP HCM or SuccessFactors Employee Central for their HR processes; they can also connect with nonSAP Core HR systems. While S/4HANA can be deployed in multiple ways (private cloud, public cloud, or on-premise), SuccessFactors can still only be deployed in a public cloud.

S/4HANA will feature a simplified HR mini-master but no HR data management features so the HR data must be replicated from whatever HR system of record the customer chooses to use (for example SAP ERP HCM or SuccessFactors Employee Central). This is similar in the way in which SAP ERP HCM and SAP ERP FICO integrate now, so for most customers it’s not really a change; it just highlights that the HR data model can more easily and natively store data from Employee Central, which makes sense given that it is the next-generation core HR system from SAP. SAP are planning productized packaged integrations between SuccessFactors Employee Central and S/4HANA in Q1 2015 to populate the mini-master, although they have no plans at this time to provide productized integrations between SAP ERP HCM and S/4HANA. However, an open SOAP inbound interface in S/4HANA allows employee and employment data to be sent to S/4HANA from any system – including SAP ERP HCM. Since Simple Finance is part of S/4HANA, it will leverage the packaged integrations used to integrate Employee Central and S/4HANA. So what does this mean for HR? HR can continue to use their existing SAP Core HR software – whether SAP ERP HCM or SuccessFactors Employee Central – but will most likely need to migrate to SuccessFactors Employee Central in order to get the benefits of productized packaged integrations. Although there is no direct migration path package (e.g. process maps, field mapping, permissions mapping, etc.) available at this time, there is a Rapid-Deployment Solution (RDS) for data migration from SAP ERP to Employee Central and SAP’s Side-by-Side deployment model is aimed at enabling customers to slowly migrate HR processes to the cloud without disrupting core HR processes or discarding significant investment in SAP ERP HCM. Additionally, some partners are able to support cloud migration efforts. SAP ERP HCM customers will be able to continue to leverage their investment in core HR when they move to S/4HANA, but the thought of building integrations that might only last 2 or 3 years might be enough for some customers to consider a move. Since SuccessFactors plans to be available leveraging Fiori designs this year, this means that from a user experience perspective S/4HANA customers can maintain a common user interface across their business applications, whether on-premise or in the cloud. This will improve and align the user experience, which will already be enhanced for users of S/4HANA by the improved processing times of the underlying SAP HANA technology. Unfortunately HR customers will not benefit directly from the guided configuration of S/4HANA for HR processes, although some related processes – such as timesheet, project staffing, resource management, and time confirmation on projects – will be part of S/4HANA and thus leverage the guided configuration. Employee Central users can still leverage the GUI-based Metadata Framework-based configuration that is being rolled out across Employee Central’s core object model. What the industry thinks I reached out to several industry experts to get their thoughts on how S/4HANA may impact HR. I spoke with David Ludlow at SAP who said: “We look forward to continuing to support customers on their migration to the cloud – at their own pace – and to provide innovative solutions for HR and Finance, leveraging the power of HANA and the benefits of cloud. Employee Central will remain within the SuccessFactors product area and will connect with S/4HANA to help ensure each functional area can innovate quickly and independently.” I reached out to ASUG’s HR subject matter expert SherryAnne Meyer for her take on how customers might look at leveraging S/4HANA for their HR operations. She told me: “With SAP ERP HCM, HR was able to solve the administrative challenges of having consistent data and processes available to propel business in a global economy. S/4HANA takes the best of SAPs strong capabilities to deliver globalization and localization of HR and payroll processes and marries that to a superior user experience (with Fiori) and real time analytics (with HANA). The hope is that HR can move out of the "weeds" and into the fertile ground where decisions can be made rapidly, and predictively getting HR to truly be a strategic business partner. Moreover, SAP is delivering choice for customers – on-premise, cloud or a hybrid approach, allowing HR to move along a continuum for innovation with the latest technology as they desire. This is good stuff!" I also spoke with Jarret Pazahanick, who explained that:

“While I applaud SAP for starting to build the next generation solution to R/3 and the frankness of founder Hasso Plattner on S/4’s importance, it is obvious that this is more a marketing message than actually solution for HCM customers at this point in time. It will be important for both SAP ERP HCM and SuccessFactors customers to keep a close eye on the roadmap as well as work internally within their organization to ensure they are aligned with the other SAP teams. From SAP’s side I will be watching to see if they can deliver on their roadmap and promises in a timely manner as well as provide customer business cases to justify an additional investment required to make the move from R/3 to S/4.” Summary In short, there are not a host of changes for HR customers. The focus of S/4HANA is firmly on the ERP and Financials area, with added functionality for HR coming from existing HCM solutions. A simplified data model and planned packaged integrations are going to make it easier for Employee Central customers to integrate with S/4HANA, but SAP ERP HCM customers are going to have to build their own integrations or consider a migration to SuccessFactors Employee Central. There are still some questions about the long-term impact of S/4HANA on HR that may not be revealed for some time yet, such as whether Simple Finance will be integrated – and how easily – with Employee Central or whether SAP ERP HCM customers are going to be given more migration path support to get onto Employee Central. I don’t expect answers to come immediately – since the rest of the S/4HANA suite needs to be built out – but I do expect them to be put into a long-term roadmap in the coming months. On an ending note, I think this quote from Geoff Scott Geoff Scott, CEO of ASUG summarizes the situation very well. “…This is a significant announcement for SAP and continues the vendor’s progress on both the HANA and simplification fronts. The ASUG team was in New York for the launch and heard SAP's vision first hand. The word vision is important to use here, because at this point there are more questions than there are answers. The vision makes sense; how we all get there as SAP customers is still a little cloudy. Rest assured answers will be forthcoming quickly, and by the time we all get to ASUG Annual Conference and Sapphire Now 2015, I am sure the fog will have mostly lifted.” ASUG members can keep up-to-date on S/4HANA and learn more in the new ASUG S/4HANA Community. For all things SuccessFactors, check out the SAP and SuccessFactors LinkedIn group.

SuccessFactors Employee Central Embedded Analytics for Compensation Information Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Apr 14, 2015 4:13:50 PM inShare25

In the Q1 2015 release SuccessFactors introduced Embedded Analytics in the Compensation Information portlet of Employee Central. The analytics – which can be viewed in this YouTube video – provides four different chart so that managers and HR administrators can view the following information graphically for employees. These charts provide users with an easy-toconsume way of scrutinizing salary information and salary history information of employees. There are four charts available:



Range Penetration



Compa Ratio



Salary History based on the Pay Component Group used for Range Penetration



Salary History based on the Pay Component Group used for Compa Ratio

This information can also be viewed in the history for Compensation Information.

The screenshot below shows the Range Penetration chart for an employee.

The screenshot below shows the Salary History based on the Pay Component Group used for Range Penetrationchart.

The screenshot below shows the Compa Ratio chart.

The screenshot below shows the Salary History based on the Pay Component Group used for Compa Ratio chart.

These charts display data in real-time and therefore update automatically when data is changed.

Steps to configure Embedded Analytics I recently set these Embedded Analytics up for a customer. The following steps can be used to configure the Embedded Analytics:

1. In Provisioning ensure that “Dashboards 2.0 (Youcalc) Framework” under “Analytics and Dashboard Tabs & Misc Reporting” is enabled 2. Ensure the administrator user has all permissions enabled in the permission category “Manage Dashboards/Report”

3. In OneAdmin, navigate to Reporting > Manage Dashboards 4. Click on the link “Manage Standard Dashboards and YouCalc Files” 5. Click on the “Add From Success Store” button (or if you have the .epix file click the “Upload Custom YouCalc File” and upload the file) 6. For the dashboard “Employee Central Embedded Tile” click the “Add to Instance” button in the “Get Model” column

7. Make any changes to the name or description of the dashboard if required and click Save

8. Return to OneAdmin and navigate to Employee Files > Configure Charts for Key Figures in Compensation Portlet 9. Select the “Visualize the key figures on the compensation portlet” checkbox and select the dashboard in the Modeldrop-down

10. Select which of the widgets should be displayed and click Save

The Embedded Analytics are now enabled.

3145 ViewsCategories: Authorizations, Queries, and Workflow , BP Integration , Personnel Administration and Organizational Management , Personnel Development and Performance Management , SuccessFactor IntegrationTasks: integration Tags: sap, sapmentor, cloud, hcm, successfactors, human_capital_managemen t, analytics, payroll, hr,talent_management, dashboards, talent, mss, charts, compensation, employee_central, employeecentral, salary_data, salary,compensation_information

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 Cristiana D’Agosto Aug 13, 2015 6:15 AM

Hi Luke, this is really cool! One question though: is it possible to restrict who can see the dashboard/widget or when you enable it, everyone that has access to the Compensation portlet can see it? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide! Kind regards, Cristiana Like (0)

o

Luke Marson Aug 13, 2015 10:39 PM (in response to Cristiana D’Agosto)

Hi Cristiana,

I believe everyone can see it. I've not heard or seen anything to the contrary as I had the same question on a recent implementation.

Best regards,

Luke

Extending SuccessFactors with the Metadata Framework Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Jun 25, 2013 1:08:29 PM inShare48

As part of the SAP PRESS title SuccessFactors with SAP ERP HCM I was lucky enough to have an hour-long private session with Mike Rossi about the SuccessFactors Metadata Framework (MDF). Mike was kind enough to give me an overview of some of the details of the MDF, as well as some of the upcoming functionality. In this blog I’m going to provide a high-level overview of the MDF, how it works, and what it means to customers and consultants.

About the MDF The MDF is a UI-based configuration and extension framework that provides creation, modification, maintenance, and deletion of custom objects (called Metadata Objects) within the SuccessFactors HCM suite. It replaces XML-based configuration and the need to import Master Data via CSV/Excel files. It is also leveraged by the SAP HANA Cloud Platform.

At its core the MDF provides one generic set of the components that are re-used by all objects. This is because each object’s data is Metadata – nothing is hard-coded within the SuccessFactors system. These components include:

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API

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Controller

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User Interface (UI)

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Workflow

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Data Access Object (DAO)

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Database table

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Implementation of Role-Based Permissions (RBP) Security

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Logic Services

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Set of Java services

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Reporting integration

This means that there is no additional processing or memory consumption to use additional custom objects in the system. It also means that there is a common framework for the objects; the Metadata Objects only need their behavior to be configured through the UI and they have consistent behavior and design. And, most importantly, there is upgradability because standard objects and components are not changed. For example, when creating a Metadata Object attributes such as field names, the field data type, and the validation rules for each field are configured. The components such as the API, user interface, and database tables do not require configuration – they automatically work with the user’s custom definitions. All of this means that

SuccessFactors can deliver features faster as they do not need to write code and customers can extend their system without the need to write a single line of code. Customers cannot overwrite standard SuccessFactors objects, but through the MDF they can configure standard objects with their own customers-specific attributes. For example a customer could create attributes of a Job Code object that are specific to their business, but this would not change the SuccessFactors Job Code object – the customer’s changes would be saved separately and would just override those supplied as standard. From a customer perspective they are unable to identify this, but from a technical perspective it helps maintain upgradability of the system.

Although SuccessFactors applications do not use genuine objects in many of the Talent Management applications, this will change once the MDF is rolled out across the SuccessFactors HCM suite. Currently it is available in Employee Central and Succession, Time Off, and the new Job Description Manager application. There are further plans to extend it across the entire SuccessFactors HCM suite. For example, it is planned for SuccessFactors Recruiting to use the MDF from 1311 with more functionality added in the next 2 releases. Since this requires re-architecting of the Database layer and Application layer then this is by no means an easy activity.

Metadata Objects The structure of each Metadata Object is fixed, although there is a degree of flexibility. Customers have the ability to add up to 200 custom fields for each Metadata Object, in addition to the standard attributes that are required. These required attributes can be seen in the screenshot below.

There are also some attributes that contain system assigned data, including Internal ID, Creator, Creation Date, Last Modifier, and Modified Date.

Metadata Objects can leverage effective dating if required and labels and data can be maintained in multiple languages if any are enabled in the system. They can also have associations (relationships) assigned, just as it is possible with standard objects. And Metadata Objects can have rules triggered at 9 specific points within its transaction flow. These points are called Hooks and allow rules to be executed at point such as during object initialization, when a field is changed, before data is saved, or after data is saved etc. Here is an example of the Position object with rules assigned during the initialization or creation of a position. You can assign more than rule at Hook.

In addition to the standard Metadata Objects there are also other types of Metadata Object, such as Rules, UI components, and Picklists. I will not cover these in this blog, although Rules and Picklists are covered in the blogRules and Picklists in the SuccessFactors Metadata Framework.

Using the MDF The MDF is accessible in OneAdmin for system administrators – these are under Company Settings and Employee Files.

Below shows the Employee Files options in OneAdmin. Note that the transactions for Manage Time Off Structures andManage Time Off Calendars are not available unless the Time Off feature has been switched on.

In the old Admin Tools look for the section called Generic Objects.

OneAdmin provides multiple options for managing different types of Metadata Objects. It also allows you to import or export Metadata Objects. These options are:

       

Configure Generic Object Definition: Create, modify, or delete Metadata Objects (e.g. Building object) and Picklists Manage Generic Objects: Create and maintain instances of Metadata Objects (e.g. Building number) Manage Rule Objects: Create rules and validations Manage Position Objects: Perform Position Management that is used within Succession & Development Manage Time Off Structures: Create, modify, and delete different Time Off structures (e.g. Work Schedule) Manage Time Off Calendars: Create, modify, and delete holiday calendars Manage Config UI: User interface designer Generic Objects Import/Export: import or export Metadata Object data

The screenshot below shows a new instance of the Country object being created in Manage Generic Objects.

MDF v SAP HCM The principles and technical aspects of MDF differ from SAP HCM. Within SAP HCM when you create an object type, very little object-specific information is maintained. Rather, the infotypes and allowed relationships for the object type are maintained. New fields for new objects require new infotypes or using standard infotype fields in a different way from which they were designed. For more detail on the process of creating new object types see this blog.

In SuccessFactors – as we have seen – the process for creating an object is based in a single screen and is significantly simplified. Although more data can be maintained, it is structured and easy-touse each time that you create an object.

What the MDF means for customers and consultants The MDF means simplification and flexibility for creating new objects. It provides a flexible and consistent framework for customers and consultants to extend the object model of SuccessFactors and add their own unique objects, rules, validations, business logic, and UIs to SuccessFactors. It also means that while the SuccessFactors system is adaptable, it retains its upgradability and protects both the application and the customer from issues caused by enhancing the standard system.

However, it should be noted that management of the system is still required and the MDF is not intended to be available to large audiences. Rather, it should be managed in the same way that the authorizations are managed to restrict access to transactions in SAP in which objects can be created or maintained. It should also be managed as such so that Master Data is created by a central team, as would be the case with SAP. Saying that, the MDF now makes it possible for a business user to be able to enhance the standard SuccessFactors system without relying on a technical consultant or other technical individual to do this.

For consultants, it removes the need to maintain XML and thus reduces the likelihood of introducing errors into the system. In my experience of XML, it can be easy to introduce small errors that render the XML unparseable and are difficult to identify. It also makes extending the system much quicker and provides an object-orientated approach to data design and maintenance.

Summary The MDF is a powerful object configuration framework in SuccessFactors. It empowers system administrators to easily extend the SuccessFactors object model and create objects of their own. It also allows organizations to introduce their own rules, validations, and business logic to both standard and customer-created objects. The UI designer means that customers can control the visualization of their objects and take advantage of the benefits of the SuccessFactors UI.

Although not fully rolled out across the SuccessFactors HCM suite, the MDF will introduce a huge level of flexibility once it extended to cover all of the solutions in the suite. And although the MDF is very flexible and removes the reliance on technical consultants, it is not a replacement for a wellmanaged system of maintaining object types and Master Data. All-in-all the MDF is a huge step forward for SuccessFactors to provide optimal configuration and extension options across the SuccessFactors HCM suite.

The MDF is covered in detail in the SAP PRESS title SuccessFactors with SAP ERP HCM.

*Addendum* In the August (1308) release some of the options for the Metadata Framework in OneAdmin were changed. The changes are:

    

Configure Generic Object Definition = Configure Object Definitions Manage Generic Objects = Manage Data Manage Rule Objects = Configure Business Rules Manage Position Objects = Manage Positions Generic Objects Import/Export = Import and Export Data.

17602 ViewsCategories: Personnel Administration and Organizational Management , Personnel Development and Performance ManagementProducts: sap_hana, sap_erp_human_capital_management Topics: cloud_ondemand_and_saas Tasks: configuration Tags:sapmentor, hcm, successfactors, metadata, objects, customization, employee_central, hana_cloud_platform, mdf,metadata_framework, sapa_hana_cloud_platform

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 J. Meulendijks Jun 25, 2013 2:57 PM

Thanks for the useful post Luke! Needed some additional features checked in provisioning and authorizations to turn MDF on in my demo-system though;) Like (0)

o Luke Marson Jun 25, 2013 10:05 PM (in response to J. Meulendijks)

Thanks J.

The MDF is not enabled by default, although it is usually enabled in demo environments. At a customer you need to switch on "Enable Generic Objects" in Provisioning. In addition, based on which feature you are implementing (e.g. Position Mgmt, Time Off etc), you also need to check additional options accordingly. With respect to authorizations, RBP selections are required only if you configure your Generic Object definition to be secured.

Best regards,

Luke Like (1)

 Jarret Pazahanick Jun 25, 2013 3:37 PM

Very Good blog Luke and not hard to see the power and flexibility that MDF brings to the table especially when it is incorporated into the entire SuccessFactors suite of products. Like (1)

o Luke Marson Jun 25, 2013 10:06 PM (in response to Jarret Pazahanick)

Thanks Jarret and I agree. Once the MDF is rolled out fully it will provide a lot of extensibility for customers and will make SuccessFactors a real option where previously it might not have been. Like (0)

 Jyoti Sharma Jun 26, 2013 3:30 AM

Excellent blog Luke. I like how you have struck the right balance between the foundation of MDF and given us a quick peek into some of the highlights of MDF objects. I do like your succinct comparison of MDF with SAP HCM. I can vouch that both customers and consultants are loving what they have seen of MDF so far and have appetite for more.

Cheers, Jyoti Like (1)

o Luke Marson Jun 27, 2013 12:49 AM (in response to Jyoti Sharma)

Thanks Jyoti - that means a lot from an expert like yourself. The feedback I have received from customers is very positive, although for some they still need this rolled out further across the BizX suite to reap the full benefits of SuccessFactors.

Best regards,

Luke Like (1)

 Nico Thirion Jun 28, 2013 6:00 PM

Hi Luke,

Would it be a fair comparison to say that the hooks could be used in a similar way to an SAP event? Linking and creating a sequence.

Like (0)

o Luke Marson Jun 29, 2013 11:06 AM (in response to Nico Thirion)

Hi Nico,

Yes. A hook is like a user exit or adding some code in a BAdI or an Enhancement Point of a function module. They are in set places where it makes logical sense for an event to occur.

Best regards,

Luke

Recent enhancements to SuccessFactors Employee Central integration with SAP ERP and 3rd party systems Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on May 19, 2015 4:23:51 PM inShare112

As part of a current SuccessFactors Employee Central implementation that I am leading, we are integrating Employee Central with SAP ERP and 3rd party applications (including Benefitfocus, Microsoft Active Directory, ADP, and more) so that our customer can continue to run its back office, manufacturing, distribution, and workflow functions in SAP. In the course of our work we have been advising our customer on some of the recent enhancements to the integration that SAP provides. In this blog, I wanted to highlight some of these to demonstrate the continued investment SAP is making to enable customers with a large SAP ERP footprint to ensure that they can continue to leverage this when they migrate to Employee Central. Before we start: What is already provided by SAP? SAP already provides a host of packaged integrations for a number of scenarios, as demonstrated in this SAP diagram:

SAP provides packaged integration between Employee Central and SAP ERP for the following scenarios: 

Replicating Cost Centers from SAP ERP FICO to Employee Central

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Replicating employee data from Employee Central to SAP ERP or Employee Central Payroll

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Replicating organizational data and organizational assignments from Employee Central to SAP ERP SAP has packaged integrations between Employee Central and the following 3 rd party systems:

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Benefitfocus for benefits administration

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AON Hewitt for benefits administration

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Thomsons Online Benefits for benefits administration

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Workforce Software EmpCenter for time and attendance and workforce scheduling

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Kronos Workforce Central for time and attendance

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ADP GlobalView for BPO payroll

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NGA Payroll for BPO payroll SAP also provides:

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SuccessFactors Adapter in both SAP Process Integration (PI) and SAP HANA Cloud Integration (HCI)

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OData API for replicating data in and out of Employee Central

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Employee Central Compound API for extracting data from Employee Central Now, lets take at look at some of the recent enhancements. SAP Note 2129443: EC to ERP Organizational Data Replication – Enhancements Released on 11th February, SAP Note 2129433 contains a number of enhancements to organizational data integration between Employee Central and SAP ERP. Notable inclusions are:

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Translations for Business Unit, Division, and Department objects

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BAdI for replicating matrix manager relationships

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Sample of a BAdI for replicating chief positions

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Sample of a BAdI for replicating multiple position assignments

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New report in SAP ERP to check organizational assignments of specific employees whom were replicated from Employee Central The value of this SAP Note is in ensuring that the data required for routing workflows is fully available. This includes the chief position, position assignments, and any matrix relationships. Including object translations (i.e. object name or description) can also be useful for global organizations. SAP Note 2141931: Payroll Result Export Report for data transfer to EC A new report is introduced in SAP Note 2141931 to provide file-based transfer of payroll results data to Employee Central from Employee Central Payroll and SAP ERP Payroll. This so that Employee Central users can run analytics on their payroll results in Employee Central and Workforce Analytics. The reports works by exporting payroll data from logical database PNP along with the Employee Central user IDs to a CSV file. The CSV file is imported and data is imported into Generic Objects built on the Metadata Framework, which can then be reported on using Detailed Reporting in the Analytics module. Microsoft Active Directory Packaged Integration In the Q2 2015 release of SuccessFactors, SAP introduces a packaged integration that:

1.

Creates the user account in Active Directory when a new employee is hired in Employee Central

2.

Deactivates an Active Directory account when an employee is terminated in Employee Central

3.

Synchronizes employee data changes between Employee Central and Active Directory This integration is fairly significant given the percentage of Employee Central customers that use Active Directory. In my time in consulting, nearly every customer I have worked with has used Active Directory. SAP Identity Management (IDM) SuccessFactors Connector In SAP Identity Management (IDM) 8.0, a SuccessFactors connector was introduced to enable SAP IDM to integrate with Employee Central. This integration enables two different scenarios:

1. 2.

User account data is replicated from Employee Central to SAP IDM, which then replicates the data to other SAP and 3rd party systems User accounts are managed in SAP IDM and data is sent to Employee Central Summary SAP are continuing to provide a wealth of integration between Employee Central, SAP ERP, and 3rd party applications. As owners of both SuccessFactors and SAP ERP, SAP are in an unrivalled position to ensure that the complex integration scenarios are provided and covered. As we have seen, SAP are continually ensuring that customers have a starting point now and won’t have to wait long to receive the remaining functionality that they need to meet their system-to-system data replication needs. Don't forget to keep up with the latest and greatest with SuccessFactors in the SAP and SuccessFactors LinkedIn group. Feel free to contact me for more information on Employee Central integration or any other Employee Central topics.

SAP ERP to SuccessFactors Employee Central data migration RDS Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Jun 16, 2015 4:30:30 PM

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On the many Employee Central implementations that I have worked on, data migration has always been a huge undertaking for customers and for the implementation team. Extracting large volumes of data from any system – SAP ERP HCM or otherwise – and transforming that data from the source format into the format required by Employee Central is a mammoth activity, whether you have a few hundred employees or tens of thousands. I always like to be totally transparent with customers and warn them before a project kicks off to the magnitude of the effort required. This is why I was delighted to hear about the release of the Rapid-Deployment Solution (RDS) for migrating SAP ERP HCM data to SuccessFactors Employee Central some months ago. In this blog I will give the lowdown on the RDS package and discuss how this solution can help you migrate your SAP ERP HCM data to Employee Central. Overview The RDS provides a full solution to analyze, extract, clean, transform and validate data from SAP ERP HCM and then load and reconcile that data directly into Employee Central. The RDS runs on SAP Data Services and the out-of-the-box solution comes with full mappings between SAP ERP HCM infotypes and Employee Central HRIS elements and fields (which can be modified as required by the customer and means that custom fields on both sides can be mapped), project methodology, Business Process Documents, and test plans per object. The RDS is available at no cost to SAP customers, although customers who do not use SAP Data Services would need to license SAP Data Services. The solution is built on SAP Data Services, which is the same solution used to replicate data from SuccessFactors HCM suite to SAP Business Warehouse (BW). Without wanting to cover the core capabilities of SAP Data Services too much, it is important to point out that the solution provides a number of Extract, Transfer, and Load (ETL) functions: 

Importation of metadata from the target system

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Data field mappings between systems

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Profiling

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Transformation

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Validations (e.g. address validations)

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Cleansing

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Extraction

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Upload

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Reconciliation



Source from multiple systems (e.g. SAP ERP, database, legacy system, etc.) and file types (e.g. CSV, TXT, XML etc.) Because this solution is built on SAP Data Services, it does not even require SAP ERP to be the data source. In fact, the solution supports multiple different data sources and so data can come from any and multiple databases, SAP systems, non-SAP systems, or flat-files (e.g.CSV, XML, etc.). Below is a screenshot of SAP Data Services:

For more information on SAP Data Services, I highly recommend checking out the SAP Help page for SAP Data Services or the SCN document SAP Data Services Product Tutorials by Ina Felsheim. How it works The RDS is designed with a six-step process flow, as illustrated in the diagram below:

The below diagram illustrates the process architecture for each of these six steps:

Now let’s discuss each of these steps in a little more detail. Analysis In this step of the process the source and target systems are analyzed and the SAP Data Services environment is prepared. During this analysis step, the data can be profiled on the source side to learn more about the source structure and understand the legacy data model. For example, the patterns of the postal codes are analyzed and different unique values for states and country are identified. This will help with both the field and value mapping. Extract In this step the data is extracted from the source system (e.g. SAP ERP HCM) into the SAP Data Services staging area where it is profiled and is prepared for the next step. Here the data can be analyzed and dissected to ensure consistency. Examples stated by Frank Densborn in his blog A better way to migrate your SAP data with Rapid Deployment Solutions might be checking the US 5digit zip code (and optional 4-digit ZIP+4) or Germany being referred to as Germany, DE, or Deutschland. Clean In this step the extracted data is cleaned, parsed, and transformed. This means ensuring that things like names, addresses, cost centers, etc. are in the correct format, that target data types are matched, and that data integrity is validated. It also means ensuring that the data meets specific formats, patterns, and is reformatting as necessary (e.g. concatenating fields, or breaking them into two or more fields as required). Additionally, here you have the opportunity to do a “search and replace” on certain values to update them as necessary. Overall, this step gives you the opportunity to review and correct data and ensure that any data is accurate. Transform In this step (not shown in 6-step diagram, but shown in the architecture diagram) the clean data is transformed into the target Employee Central format using the mappings. Prior to the transformation, if necessary, the delivered mappings can be modified based on customer-specific requirements. The screenshot below shows a mapping process flow in SAP Data Services:

Below we can see a mapping process definition for SAP infotype 0006 to Employee Central HRIS elementhomeAddress:

And finally we can see a mapping between field ORT01 and field city:

Validate In this step the Employee Central metadata (object structures, HRIS elements configuration, countries, languages, lookup values etc. for validations) is extracted into SAP Data Services and the transformed data is validated using business rules defined by the metadata. This ensures the data will match the target Employee Central system. Load Once the data is validated and ready then the load process can commence. The majority of the data – all but some of the Time Off data – is loaded into Employee Central using the OData API. However, it is possible to output the data as CSV files to upload manually. This is lift off! Reconcile Once the data is loaded then the reconciliation can take place. This is essentially a comparison of what was actually loaded against what you expected to be loaded. This is done via dashboards and WebI (Web Intelligence) reports in SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform. What’s in scope? There is a fairly comprehensive scope for the RDS, which includes all data required. The only exception are workflow objects, which are not replicated as part of the RDS. The following list indicates all items that are in the scope of the RDS: 

Foundation Objects:

o

Legal Entity

o

Legal Entity Local

o

Business Unit

o

Division

o

Department

o

Location

o

Location Group

o

Cost Center

o

Job Classification

o

Job Class Local

o

Job Function

o

Pay Component

o

Pay Component Group

o

Pay Grade

o

Pay Group

o

Pay Range

o

Geozone

o

Frequency

o

Event Reason

o

Dynamic Role

 o 

Positions: Position data Employee Data:

o

Profiles and User accounts

o

Biographical information

o

Personal information

o

Personal Global Information

o

Direct Deposit information

o

Email information

o

Emergency Contact Information

o

Address Information

o

Phone information

o

Social Account information

o

National ID Information

o

Employment information

o

Job Information

o

Job Relationships

o

Compensation Information

o

Recurring and Non-Recurring Pay Components

o 

Termination Information Time Off data:

o

Employee Time

o

Employee Time Calendar

o

Time Account

o

Time Account Change Calendar

o

Time Account Detail

o

Time Account Eligibility Status

o

Time Account Type

o

Time Account Type Rule Group

o

Time And Labor Configuration

o

Time Type

o

Time Type Profile In addition to Employee Central, there is also predefined scope for migrating data to Employee Central Payroll. The following infotypes are in scope:



Residence Tax Area (IT0207)



Work Tax Area (IT0208)



Unemployment State (IT0209)



Withholding Information W4/W5 US (IT0210)



Additional Withholding Information (IT0234)



Other Taxes US (IT0235)



Payroll Results (T558B)



Payroll Results (T558C)



Payroll Results (T5U8C)



Garnishment Document (IT0194)



Garnishment Order (IT0195)



Contract Elements (IT0016)



Loans (IT0045)



Loan Repayments (IT0078) Practicalities SAP customers can download the RDS at no cost and can get the RDS up-and-running in SAP Data Services in less than one day. If you don’t use SAP Data Services then you may need to set aside approximately 2 to 3 days to install and test SAP Data Services in a server environment. A partner is not required to implement the RDS if you have SAP Data Services skills in-house. Deployment information and prerequisites for SAP Data Services can be found in theMaster Guide on SAP Help page for SAP Data Services. The only prerequisite of the solution is SAP Data Services version 4.2. Please note that documentation is only provided in English at this stage. You can view details and scope of the package on SAP Service Marketplace using this link (expand Data Migration to SuccessFactors Employee Central) and download the package from the Software Download Center (SWDC) usingthis link. More Information & Additional Resources There are a number of resources you can view to get more information:

     

The solution scope of SAP Service Marketplace A YouTube video demo of the solution A presentation of about the RDS on Brainshark Data Migration space on SCN The SAP Press title Integrating SuccessFactors with SAP includes a chapter on data migration SAP Help page for SAP Data Services Questions on data migration – including this RDS – can be raised on the Data Migration space on SCN. Summary The value of this RDS cannot be argued; it removes the huge headache of extracting, transforming, and uploading data into Employee Central from a number of data sources, including SAP ERP HCM. Additionally, the RDS mitigates the risk with this process and helps you get your system live with trusted data. The package is available at no cost to SAP customers, although it does require the SAP Data Services solution that you might not be using right now. This RDS will drastically reduce the time and effort needed to get your data from SAP ERP HCM to Employee Central and ensures that you can avoid a Garbage In, Garbage Out (GIGO) scenario once you go live with your new Employee Central system.

Integration Add-on 3.0 for SAP HCM and SuccessFactors Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Nov 18, 2014 4:06:21 PM inShare70

The third packaged integration for integrating SAP HCM and SuccessFactors – Integration Add-on for SAP ERP Human Capital Management and SuccessFactors Business Execution 3.0 – was released on SAP Service Marketplace on October 15th 2014. The packaged integration introduced qualification integration between SuccessFactors HCM suite or SuccessFactors Learning and SAP ERP HCM. A brief overview of all of the packages and the strategy for integration can be found in my blog SAP HCM and SuccessFactors Integration Packages: a brief overview. The Package The packaged integration provides one-way integration of either competencies and employee competency assignments from SuccessFactors HCM suite or of curricula and employee curricula assignments from SuccessFactors Learning to SAP ERP HCM so that: 

Competency Libraries or Curricula Types are transferred as Qualification Group objects (object type QK)



Competencies or curricula are transferred as Qualifications objects (object type Q)



Competency assignments are transferred as Qualification assignments on the employee’s qualifications profile (seen in transaction OOQA) Additionally, there is a report to perform a one-time extract of qualification data from SAP ERP HCM to upload to SuccessFactors HCM suite. This is not available for SuccessFactors Learning. The packaged integration only supports legacy competencies and not the MDF competencies that are part of Job Profile Builder. The figures below demonstrate the process and data flows for each scenario.

Figure 1: Integration between SuccessFactors HCM suite and SAP ERP HCM

Figure 2: Integration between SuccessFactors Learning and SAP ERP HCM

Interestingly, this is the first package that is designed to function with only one middleware platform: SAP HANA Cloud Integration (HCI). Functionality was released in Integration Add-on 3.0 for SAP HCM and SuccessFactors: Service Package 2 to enable SAP Process Integration (PI) to be used. The integration process for HCI is different from previous packages as this integration is triggered by the middleware as opposed to being triggered in SAP. This integration means that in this scenario the system of record for competencies/qualifications is SuccessFactors HCM suite or SuccessFactors Learning and not SAP ERP HCM. SAP ERP HCM should be made read-only for both the qualification catalog and the employee qualification profiles. The add-on includes a number of new features and functionality:    

Ability to perform a one-time extract of qualifications from SAP ERP with report RH_SFI_EXPORT_QUALI Middleware content (part of HCI) Authorization role SAP_HR_SFI_QUALIFICATION New IMG entries under the Integration Scenario for Qualification Data node in the Integration Add-On for SAP ERP HCM and SuccessFactors BizX node The screenshot below show report RH_SFI_EXPORT_QUALI.

Important Notes There are several important notes regarding the operation of the integration:   

The integration supports both PA and PD qualifications The integration supports using competencies in either SuccessFactors HCM suite or SuccessFactors Learning In addition to leveraging HCI, SAP Gateway 2.0 SP07 is also required



Competency ratings in SuccessFactors may be rounded up or down when mapped to SAP ERP HCM qualification objects



Qualifications must be manually delimited (or deleted) in SAP ERP HCM if the equivalent competency is deleted in SuccessFactors HCM suite or equivalent curricula is deleted SuccessFactors Learning



Skills, behaviors, teasers, and tuners are not considered For SuccessFactors Learning specifically there are some caveats to consider:



Any changes to items attached to the curricula catalog will render the status of curriculum for related employees to be invalid and an administrator must perform a full forced synchronization



Only curricula with status Completed are considered



Items are not considered, only the parent Curricula are

 

Curricula with multiple child Items will have the expiry date read from the Item with the earliest expiry date; if no expiry date exists 31.12.9999 is used as a default The start date is always the date of the integration Configuration and Setup This packaged integration requires setup in SAP HANA Cloud Integration and in the SAP Implementation Guide (IMG). In HCI for SuccessFactors HCM suite there are two processes that must be enabled and, if required, configured. For the one-time extract of qualifications data from SAP ERP HCM the integration processcom.sap.SFIHCM03.hcm2bizx.EmployeeQualificationRating should be enabled, although the one-time import can also be made in SuccessFactors Provisioning. The main process for the integration iscom.sap.SFIHCM03.bizx2hcm.UserCompetencyRating. For Learning curricula there are two processes:com.sap.SFIHCM03.bizx2hcm.CurriculumCatalogue and com.sap.SFIHCM03.bizx2hcm.Us erCurriculumStatus. If PD qualifications are used in SAP ERP HCM then a default Qualification Group must be defined for those Curricula that do not have a parent Curricula Type. This can be seen in the screenshot below.

Configuration in SAP is performed within the IMG under Personnel Management > Integration AddOn for SAP ERP HCM and SuccessFactors BizX > Integration Scenario For Qualification Data. The node can be seen in the screenshot below.

The following customizing activities need to be performed:   



Enable the OData APIs in customizing activity Gateway Configuration that is found in the Basic Settings node Configure the determination of Personnel Numbers in SAP ERP HCM from the User ID in SuccessFactors HCM suite in customizing activity BAdI: Determine SAP ERP Personnel Numbers and SuccessFactors User IDs in theBasic Settings node Map SAP ERP HCM qualification objects to competency objects in SuccessFactors HCM suite or curricula in SuccessFactors Learning in customizing activity Maintain Relationship Between Qualification ID and SuccessFactors ID in the Transfer of Qualifications Rating from SAP ERP to SuccessFactors HCM Suite node Mapping of Competency ratings in SuccessFactors HCM suite or SuccessFactors Learning to a rating scale of Qualification objects in SAP ERP HCM in customizing activity BAdI: Configure Value Mapping for Qualification Rating under Transfer of Qualifications Rating from SuccessFactors HCM Suite to SAP ERP node Once this configuration has been completed then the add-on is ready to use. The one-time export of qualification data can now be performed and the output uploaded to SuccessFactors either via HCI or Provisioning. Summary This enables competency data to be managed in SuccessFactors talent management processes and for that data to be also used in SAP ERP HCM processes. This can be important for customers whom manage competencies in SuccessFactors but rely on that data to make decisions for activities such as workforce planning, staffing, and health & safety. It enables this integration to

occur whether SuccessFactors HCM suite competencies or SuccessFactors Learning curricula are used to manage competencies. The integration relies on HCI, so might not be suitable for all customers at this time. It has some caveats that must be considered prior to implementation. Overall, this integration is extremely simple to setup and manage yet reliable and comprehensive.

SuccessFactors: all you need to know about Authorizations and Security Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Feb 27, 2014 6:51:45 PM inShare54

Data, security, and privacy are obviously quite important areas for customers in HCM and so I believe it is essential that customers understand how SuccessFactors protects their data through authorizations and security within the system. In this blog I will discuss the Role-Based Permission (RBP) framework in SuccessFactors that controls data access for different users. To understand how customer data is physically protected in the data center and during transfer to the web browser please refer to the Security in SuccessFactors section in the SAP and SuccessFactors An Overview article published by SAPexperts and this blog by SuccessFactors’ Vinod Choudhary on How We Address Data Security in Europe and Canada. About the RBP framework The RBP framework is the authorizations framework used in SuccessFactors. Before I continue it is worth mentioning that there is a legacy permissions framework in SuccessFactors called Administrative Domains, which should not be used for new customers and is also not compatible with Employee Central v2. However, this may be used at some customers who have implemented SuccessFactors previously and those customers will need to transition to the RBP framework when they consider moving to some of the other HCM suite solutions. The RBP framework allows for granular management of field-level permissions across most of the SuccessFactors HCM suite. It uses Permission Roles to be created that are assigned to Permission Groups (groups of users) for target populations (more on this later). This is not wholly different from the authorization concept in SAP. However, the RBP framework also includes structural-based permissions as standard (e.g. assignment of authorizations for a manager and 3 levels below). The RBP framework allows for granular rights at field-level, meaning that permissions (e.g. view, edit, correct, delete, etc.) can be controlled for each field in each role. Access to transactions and administrative functionality is also controlled to a fairly granular level. As an example, almost all fields, menu items, and actions in the Employee Files in Employee Central can be permissioned. Access to Employee Self-Service (ESS) and Manager Self-Service (MSS) in Employee Central is configured using RBPs. The functionality for ESS and MSS transactions is built into Employee Central and permissions are used to control which users (i.e. employees and managers) can access which functionality (e.g. Personal Information view orChange Job Information transaction). Caveats There are a few minor caveats with RBPs that should be considered:



Only one permissions framework can be used at one time: if a customer is using ADs for existing modules and one modules requires RBPs, then RBPs must be implemented for all existing modules



Module-page permissions for Performance Management, Goal Management, Compensation, and CDP are controlled at the form level

 

At present, RBPs only supports organizations with up to 300,000 employees SuccessFactors can slow down with bad RBP design (e.g. getting the same permission from different roles) Concepts of the RBP framework. The concepts of the RBP framework evolve around having Granted Users (who should have the permissions assigned) that have a Permission Role assigned (the permissions) for a Target population (those individuals that the permissions are applied upon). To summarize:

  

Permission Role = group of permissions Granted Users = users that have the role assigned (and therefore the permissions) Target = population of users that are accessed using the permissions This concept can be demonstrated in the diagram below:

A Permission Role can be re-used with different Granted Users and Target populations. A user can be assigned multiple Permission Roles. When a user has 2 different permissions they will get the most powerful of these permissions. For example, if a user is assigned an Edit permission and a View permission then they will get the Editpermission. Permission Groups Before we look into each of these core concepts, let’s take a brief look at Permission Groups. Permission Groups are simply groups of users that can be used as either Granted Users or Target populations. In each Permission Group various criteria can be used to select users, including but not limited to: 

City



Country



Department



Division



Geography



Hire Date



Job Code



Location



State



Team View



Time Zone



Title



User



Username Multiple different criteria can be used. Criteria can be combined (e.g. users in Department x with Job Code y) and multiple criteria can be used to select different types of users (e.g. users in Department x and users with Job Code y and users with Location z). Individuals can also be

excluded from a Permission Group using the same criteria. Other fields and customer-specific fields can also be added to the list of criteria available in the system. The screenshot below demonstrates a Permission Group called HR Group. This includes all users in the Talent Management Department and all users who are in the Enterprises Department and have Job Code Human Resources Manager. It excludes users who have Job Title of Recruiter, Recruiter – Brands, Recruiter – EMEA, Recruiter – HC, and Recruiter Software.

By clicking on the Update button in the Active Group Membership box the user can see the number of members of this Permission Group and by clicking on the number they can see a list of the users. The Granted Permission Roles tab shows which Permission Roles this Permission Group has been assigned to. Now let’s look through the core concepts of the RBP framework. Granted Users Granted Users are those users that are assigned a Permission Role for a specific Target population. Granted Users can be one of the following options: 

A Permission Group



Managers



HR Managers



Matrix Managers



Custom Managers



Second Managers



Host or Home Managers (when on Global Assignment)



Host or Home HR Managers (when on Global Assignment)



Everyone Granted Users – with exception of Permission Groups and Everyone – can be further filtered by a Permission Group. The options for the Target populations can vary depending on which type of Granted Users are selected for the Permission Role.

Target populations Target populations are those users that Granted Users can access with the applied permissions in the Permission Role. If the Granted Users are a Permission Group or Everyone then the Target populations can be: 

Everyone



Granted User’s Department



Granted User’s Division



Granted User’s Location



Granted User If the Granted Users are a type of Manager (e.g. Manager or Matrix Manager) then the Target populations can be:



Granted User’s Direct Reports



Granted User’s Direct Reports in a specific Permission Group Additionally for Managers the level of indirect reports can be selected for 1, 2, 3, or all levels below and the manager themselves can also be included in this population. Like with Granted Users, all of the Target populations – with exception of Permission Groups and Everyone – can be further filtered by a Permission Group. The Granted User can be excluded from the Target population if required. Generic Objects created in the Metadata Framework can have additional Target population permissions. The screenshot below shows the options available for selecting Target populations when the Granted User is aPermission Group and the Target population is a Permission Group.

The screenshot below shows the options available for selecting Target populations when the Granted User isManagers and the Target population is Granted User’s Direct Reports.

Now let’s take a look at Permission Roles. Permission Roles Permission Roles are a group of permissions and are created by selecting the required permissions. This can either be selecting the type of action (e.g. view, edit, correct, delete, etc.) or selecting whether the user has access to a particular action or feature. Permissions are split into two main categories: User Permissions and Administrator Permissions. Within each of these categories are multiple other categories, such as Career Development Planning,Recruiting Permissions, and Succession Planners. In the screenshot below the Employee Data permissions for non-Effective-dated employee data fields in Employee Central can be selected, either as View or Edit. Note that selecting an Edit permission automatically selects the Viewpermission.

Effective-dated fields in Employee Central have additional permissions that can allow users to not only view and edit current data, but also to view the history and correct and delete records as necessary. Of course, different permissions can be given to different Roles so that, say, only HR Power Users can correct or delete Effective-dated employee data records. The screenshot below demonstrates these permissions.

Most other permissions are enabled or disabled via checkbox, as seen below for the Succession Planning permissions. The † sign indicates that the specific permission requires a Target population to be defined. Additionally, hovering the mouse cursor over the question mark icon next to a permission will display the help text for that permission.

Similarly, administrator permissions can be selected in a similar way:

Now that we’ve looked at the concepts of the RBP framework, let’s look at a couple of examples to demonstrate how these can be applied. Example of RBP scenarios Below are two examples of RBP scenarios. We will cover the process and assignment of Permission Roles, but we will not cover creating the Permission Roles themselves. The previous section should give some idea of how these can be created. Example 1: In this example we want all users in the USA with Job Code HR Professional to be able to create, edit, and delete any data in Employee Files for all employees located in the USA. Our requirement is:   

Granted Users = HR employees in the USA Permission Role = HR Administrator permissions Target population = Employees in the USA This is demonstrated in the diagram below:

We will use the following steps: 1. a. b. 2. 3. a. b.

Create 2 Permission Groups to use for our Granted Users and for our Target population: USA HR with criteria Country = USA and Job Code = HR Professional USA Employees with criteria Country = USA Create a Permission Role called HR Role with all of the necessary permissions for a HR Administrator (e.g. maintain personal information or launch performance process) Assign the HR Role Permission Role to: Granted Users: Permission Group USA HR Target population: Permission Group USA Employees This final step is demonstrated in the screenshot below:

Once the Permission Role has been assigned to the Granter Users and Target population then the granting should be visible on the Permission Role, as seen below:

Now let’s look at another example, this time with managers. Example 2: In this example we want all users in the USA with Job Code HR Professional to be able to create, edit, and delete any data in Employee Files for all employees located in the USA. In this example we want all managers in the USA to be able to launch the Change Job and Compensation Info action in Employee Files for all employees they manage directly and indirectly. Our requirement is:   

Granted Users = Managers in the USA Permission Role = Manager permissions Target population = Manager’s team and below This is demonstrated in the diagram below:

Note that since we have already created a Permission Group for employees in the USA we don’t need to create any further Permission Groups in this example. We will use the following steps: 1. 2. a. b.

Create a Permission Role called Manager Role with all of the necessary permissions for a manager (e.g. launch the Change Job and Compensation Info action in Employee Files and have the relevant permission to view and edit data) Assign the Manager Role Permission Role to: Granted Users: Managers in Permission Group USA Employees Target population: Granted User’s Direct Reports for All levels down This final step is demonstrated in the screenshot below:

Again, once the Permission Role has been assigned to the Granter Users and Target population then the granting should be visible on the Permission Role:

Hopefully these two examples can demonstrate the way in which Permission Roles are assigned to users. Granularity of permissions and Role Design The RBP framework provides a great deal of granularity in assigning permissions and this can be a daunting task to design, create, and/or maintain. That is why it is very important to ensure that Permission Roles and the overall permission design is well thought out and catered for by a minimal number of Permission Roles. To give an idea of the granularity of permissions, for Employee Central there are over 400 permissions that can be used in the various Permission Roles that would be required for end users and administrators. However, in comparison Succession & Development has only around 20 permissions and Employee Profile around 50 permissions – and permissions for both are largely view/hide options. Reporting on Permissions Each user’s permissions can be viewed in the system using the View User Permission transaction – if the required permission is assigned of course. This provides an overview of all permissions assigned to a user and from which Permission Role they have been granted through. This is a helpful tool for administrators when troubleshooting RBP issues for permissions and the right level of access.

In addition, there are four Ad-Hoc Reports provided for more detailed reporting on RBPs: 

RBP User to Role Report



RBP Permission to User Report



RBP User to Group Report



RBP Permission Roles Report Copying RBPs from one customer instance to another RBP configuration can be copied from the Test instance to the Production instance. There are both Provisioning tools and a tool in OneAdmin. This requires activation prior to being permissioned to a user. SuccessFactors Learning The authorizations model in SuccessFactors Learning differs from the rest of the HCM suite in that it doesn’t leverage RBPs. To get a better understanding of how that works, I highly recommend Eric Wood’s blog SuccessFactors Learning Admin Security – Master of Your Domains? Customer and Partner Resources Customers and Partners can use the Role-Based Permissions Administrators' Handbook to get more information on configuring and managing the RBP framework. Partners can also use the Role-Based Permissions Implementation Handbook to support implementation of RBPs. Summary The RBP framework differs from authorizations in SAP, but the design has similarities and for system administrators permissions should be much easier to maintain in-house than SAP authorizations are. The RBP framework is powerful, but also requires carefully planned design of Permission Roles. Handling assignment is fairly straightforward and can be managed and tracked easily. For Global organizations, the RBP framework makes the solution scalable and accessible with the required level of granularity. Overall this type of framework is good for customers and has enough flexibility to cater for most needs.

Configuring SAP HCM & SuccessFactors: A Comparison Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Nov 5, 2013 6:09:15 AM inShare27

For many customers and consultants it has been difficult to get a full understanding of how the configuration landscape of SuccessFactors differs from SAP HCM. Many customers have concerns about Provisioning and the role it plays in setting up the SuccessFactors instance due to the access being limited only to trained SuccessFactors consultants. Due to the different designs of the systems they do not share the same methods of setup and configuration. In this blog I will attempt to explain the similarities and differences between SAP HCM and SuccessFactors from a setup and configuration perspective. What is Provisioning? Provisioning is the “backend” of SuccessFactors. However, it is not like the IMG of SAP – rather it acts more like the Switch Framework and is primarily used to enable different features within the SuccessFactors system. In addition, it is where XML configuration files are uploaded and jobs can be setup. For some modules it is used to setup features in more depth than in others. Generally once Provisioning of the instance has been done it should not be required again. However, there are some exceptions such as quarterly release opt-in features and adding new modules. Many of the technical limitations of Provisioning are being addressed over time with each quarterly release. One example is making changes to the Succession Data Model, which has a Config UI now available for basic to intermediate configuration changes in OneAdmin instead of via XML that must be uploaded via Provisioning. Over time more and more changes will be available via this Config UI.

Why is Provisioning not available to customers? Provisioning settings, although simple to activate, often have technical repercussions that need to be widely understood before features should be activated or deactivated. Some features also require multiple activities to be performed to enable them fully or require an additional license before being activated (some of these features have no technical restriction to being activated). In the SAP HCM world it is similar to a Basis consult enabling Enterprise Business Functions in the Switch Framework or configuring switch table T77S0. These are not activities generally performed by customers, although it is not unknown for customers to perform them if they have experienced or qualified resources. There is nothing to stop a customer from hiring an experienced or qualified SuccessFactors resource to Provision their system. The key difference is that SuccessFactors will not provide Provisioning access unless a consultant has completed the Intro to Mastery training course. This protects the customer from having an unqualified resource attempting to make settings within Provisioning that can destabilize their instance. What sort of things would be configured in Provisioning? Provisioning is where a consultant can configure the following types of settings: 

Languages and Language Packs



Single Sign-On (SSO)



Jam integration



Payroll integration



Dell Boomi AtomSphere account details



Session Timeout warning message period



Document Attachment storage and limits



Restrict access by IP range Provisioning is where a consultant can enable the following types of features:

 

Applications (e.g. Employee Central, Succession, Recruiting, etc) Application-specific features (e.g. Performance Management features such as Writing Assistant, Workflow, and Legal Scan or Workforce Analytics & Planning features such as Ad Hoc Report Builder, Dashboards tab, and Gap Analysis)



V12 Revolution UI



Talent Search



Position Management



Metadata Framework



Position Hierarchy



Web Services and APIs



Proxy

Provisioning is where a consultant can upload the following types of files:



XML Data Models



Competency Libraries



Skill Libraries



Goal Libraries



Templates (e.g. Goal Plan, Job Requisition, or Career Worksheet, etc) In addition the job scheduler, API debug logs, and advanced API settings can be configured in Provisioning. Notice that within Provisioning the items that configured are overall system settings. The individual application settings are just enable/disable or template/XML uploads. This is because applications are configured within the “frontend” of SuccessFactors in the administrator module, called OneAdmin. Over time SuccessFactors has and will move more and more of the XML configuration to OneAdmin so it can be modified via UI, further giving customers more control over the system.

OneAdmin Within the application both customers and consultants will – depending on their permissions – have access to OneAdmin. Depending on their permissions they will have access to different types of activities. For the purpose of this blog I will discuss OneAdmin as if I had been granted full permissions. OneAdmin is where consultants and customers can configure the following types of features:

 

Applications (e.g. Employee Central, Succession, Recruiting, etc) Application-specific features (e.g. Performance Management features such as manage Templates, manage Route Maps, or manage Rating Scales or Employee Central features such as Employee Files portlets, Workflow recipients, or data propagation rules)



Permissions



User Accounts



Employee data



Org Chart



Picklists (i.e. F4 Helps in SAP)



Home Page tiles



Metadata Framework



Position Management



Dictionary



E-mail Notifications



Themes and Company Logo



Talent Search



Proxy OneAdmin’s features are split by application/process in Company Processes & Cycles. System and employee management activities are within Manage Employees. Both are shown in the screenshot below.

OneAdmin configuration is GUI based. Let’s look at Foundation Objects – these are the equivalent of Object Types in SAP, such as Organizational Unit (O) or Job (C) objects. Creating Foundation Object data is done through a single screen. In the screenshot below is a Job Classification object, which is the equivalent of a Job object in SAP.

If we now look at Permissions, these are also configured via a GUI. In the screenshots below, the Manager Role is being configured to permission which effective-dated data can be visible, have its history visible, be edited, corrected, or deleted.

Even through these brief examples it is easy to get an idea of the simplicity of configuring SuccessFactors and how an administrator user could do the sort of activities that usually require Basis, ABAP, technical, and/or Security consultants to maintain. Over time OneAdmin will become even more powerful for customers. How Provisioning and OneAdmin compares to the Implementation Guide (IMG) It’s hard to compare the IMG, because simply the system is configured differently. The settings are done differently and there are very few like-for-like screens. In fact, in preparing this blog I spent a large amount of time trying to find some like-for-like screens in the IMG and OneAdmin and had little success. While it is possible to show screens of different configurations – for example configuring Performance Management templates – there really is a different design behind configuration of the two systems. One quick example I found to show some difference between the configuration of each system is within the Performance Management process. The following two screens demonstrate creating a Performance Management template in SAP HCM and in SuccessFactors:

As you can see, there is little similarity between the two configuration processes and the latter is certainly more customer friendly. Summary Hopefully I have provided some clarity about the purpose of Provisioning and OneAdmin, as well as how these compare to the Switch Framework and, more importantly, the IMG. The key here is to remember that these are different systems. They are designed differently and configured differently. The concepts behind what can be configured by an administrator in SuccessFactors versus what needs Basis or consultant support in SAP HCM differs quite significantly. Both systems have their pros and cons, but form my perspective SuccessFactors favors the less technical administrator and thus removes TCO versus SAP HCM.

The SuccessFactors Employee Central Organization Structure Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Oct 28, 2014 4:11:55 PM inShare157

SuccessFactors Employee Central uses a simple but effective way to manage the enterprise, which differs somewhat to how SAP ERP HCM manages the enterprise. In this blog, we will discuss the organization structure as well as part of the job structure. Please note that the standard-delivered configuration of Employee Central will be discussed, although we will touch on the extensibility options to enhance this.

The organization structure in SuccessFactors has a different approach than SAP. In addition to having a more granular and configurable structure, it also incorporates the Company/Legal Entity into this structure. In SAP, the Company Code is part of the Enterprise Structure and is assigned directly to employees in infotype 0001. There are concepts of Employee Group, Pay Structure, Pay Scale Structure, and Cost Center hierarchy in Employee Central, but no concept of a Personnel Structure. We’ll explore pay structures in a later blog. The Employee Central system is extremely flexible in allowing the standard configuration to be modified as such to allow a customer to create an organization structure exactly as they require. This could be hiding or changing existing objects

or adding new objects. Personally I believe that the organization structure in Employee Central makes more sense to business users and I will expand on this further as we continue.

A little terminology Before we start, it’s worth going through a little Employee Central terminology:

Employee Central term

Description

SAP ERP HCM equivalent

Foundation Objects

The primary objects and data that is used in employee records (e.g. Company, Job Classification, Pay Grade, etc.)

Object Type / Master Data / Transparent table

Assocations

Relationships between objects

Relationship

Generic Objects Custom objects crated with the Metadata Framework

Object Type

Organization Structure

The organization structure used to manage the enterprise

Organization Structure

Propagation

Auto-population of field values on an employee’s Employment Information from Foundation Objects

Default values set by Features in PE03

Organization Structure In the standard-delivered configuration the organization structure is composed of the following Foundation Objects:



Legal Entity



Business Unit



Division



Department



Location



Cost Center

Additionally, these objects can either be removed if not required or re-purposed in the structure (e.g. change a Department to a sub-Division). New objects can also be added within the structure using the Metadata Framework. The diagram below illustrates the “top” 4 objects in the structure, with the standard-delivered Associations between objects:

A Legal Entity cannot have a parent of the same type. A Division can belong to multiple Business Units and a Department can belong to multiple Divisions. In addition, both a Division and Department can have a parent of the same type, thus creating a hierarchy of these object types.

We can compare the objects in this structure to SAP object types or fields:

Foundation Object

SAP ERP HCM equivalent

Legal Entity

Company Code

Business Unit

Business Area / Organizational Unit (Object type O)

Division

Organizational Unit (Object type O)

Department

Organizational Unit (Object type O)

Location

Personnel Area / Personnel Subarea

Cost Center

Cost Center (Object type K)

The Organization Structure Objects

During the implementation of Employee Central, each Foundation Object can be configured to store certain details about the object. This can be used for reference or can be used to populate values into fields on an employee’s Employment Information record (called propagation in Employee Central terminology). Of course, many of these objects can be re-purposed as required and new objects can be added.

Legal Entity The Legal Entity object – sometimes referred to as Company – contains the definitions for all legal entities that are part of the customer’s enterprise. Every employee must have a Legal Entity assigned when being hired or setup in the system (just as they would in real life!). By default, a Legal Entity defines the country and default Pay Group, Location, currency, and standard hours for employees within that company. Country-specific information can be stored on a Legal Entity object. In SAP ERP HCM, the Legal Entity is the Company Code that is selected on the infotype 0001 screen during the hiring action.

The screenshot below shows the object record for the ACE USA Legal Entity.

The field below the Country field is country-specific fields for the country United States. These fields differ by country. Other data from this page can be propagated to the employee’s Job Information or Compensation Information, such as the Default Pay Group or Default Location field values.

Business Unit A Business Unit represents a segment of a Legal Entity that focuses on a specific business function, such as manufacturing, sales, or marketing. There is no direct equivalent object in SAP, although a Business Unit could be represented by the Business Area in PA or by an Organizational Unit object in OM.

Division A Division is simply a division of a Business Unit. However, it can be used directly as a Division of a Legal Entity if required, such is the flexibility of Employee Central. There is no direct equivalent object in SAP, although a Division could be represented by an Organizational Unit object.

Department Divisions are broken down into one or more Departments. This is more typically represents an Organizational Unit object in SAP and is often the lowest denominator of the organization structure.

Location The Location, as the name suggests, represents a physical location. It is used to identify the employee’s location. By default, the Location defines the time zone and standard weekly hours of the employee. Locations can be grouped by Location Groups for further organization and reporting. In SAP, the location is often the Personnel Subarea.

Cost Center A Cost Center represents the units that account for business costs, just as in SAP ERP and other HRIS’. Although it is part of the organization structure, it is more of a designation for the costs of an employee than part of the organization in which they reside. However, some organizations do use Cost Center as part of the organization structure. Cost Centers can have parent Cost Centers so that a hierarchy can be created.

Generic Objects Generic Objects can be created in the Metadata Framework and associated to Foundation Objects so that additional layers can be introduced to the organization structure. Generic Objects are created with the Metadata Framework. Extensive details on creating Generic Objects can be found in the Metadata Framework Implementation Handbook on SAP Service Marketplace (S-user required) and in this SAPexperts article Creating Metadata Framework Objects in SuccessFactors Employee Central (subscription required).

Associations between Foundation Objects (including Generic Objects) Associations are relationships between objects that define the hierarchical relationship and filters for these objects. In essence, they define the parent-child relationship and whether a child relationship must exist for a parent object. In addition, they are used to filter object lists. An Association must have a multiplicity defined, which is either One-to-One or One-to-Many:

 

One-to-One: Defines that the object can only be associated to one other object One-to-Many: Defines that the object can be associated to multiple objects

In the diagram above we can see several associations. Departments are associated to Divisions, while Divisions are associated to Business Units, and Business Units are associated to Legal Entities. Business Units, Divisions, and Departments can have parents of the same type.

Example: A manufacturing Company has 3 Business Units called “Plastics”, “Woods”, and “Metals”. The “Plastics” Business Unit has 3 Divisions associated to it, called “R&D”, “Manufacturing”, and “Distribution”, while the “Metals” Business Unit has 2 Divisions associated to it, called “Metalworks” and “Alloys”, and the “Woods” Business Unit has 2 Division associated to it called “Carpentry” and “Timber”. This is demonstrated below.

An administrator is hiring a new employee. On the Job Information screen of the New Hire process an administrator selects the Legal Entity and then the “Plastics” Business Unit. In the Divisions drop-down the administrator will only see the values “R&D”, “Manufacturing”, and “Distribution”. Likewise, if they select the “Metals” Business Unit then in the Divisions drop-down they will only see “Metalworks” and “Alloys” and if they select the “Woods” Business Unit then in the Divisions drop-down they will only see “Carpentry” and “Timber”.

How does this look in EC?

Details of an employee’s organizational assignment is defined when the employee is hired. This information can of course be changed as required. The Job Information portlet found on the Employment Information page of an employee shows details of the position assignment, organizational assignment, and job information. The screenshot below shows the position assignment and organizational assignment for an employee can be seen below.

Here we can see the different elements of the organization structure that we have discussed. In the screenshot below we can see a demonstration of the associations example that we discussed above.

Jobs A Job Classification object (also a Foundation Object) contains details of an employee’s job role. Like in SAP, many employees can be assigned the same Job Classification (although in SAP this is through the Position object). It defines a large number of attributes about the job that an employee will hold, such as weekly hours, employee class, pay grade, and whether the employee is full or part time. In the standard-delivered configuration Job Classifications are associated to Business Unit objects. Country-specific information can be stored on a Job Classification object.

When a Job Classification is assigned to an employee a number of values from the Job Classification Foundation Object can be propagated. This is often common fields like Job Title, Pay Grade, Standard Weekly Hours, etc. The screenshot below shows the Job Information of an employee in the Job Information portlet. This information appears below the Organization Information seen in the above screenshot.

What about Positions? Employee Central – as well as SuccessFactors – leverages the Job Classification as the standard “job role” of an employee. However, it does also support full Position Management if required. In SAP HCM, the Position object is mandatory for every employee, while use of the Job varies from organization to organization. In Employee Central Positions are not linked to the Organization Structure, which provides customers a choice of whether or not to use Position Management. Positions can have parent positions and thus a Position-based org chart is available in SuccessFactors. Positions are Generic Objects and are managed through the Metadata Framework.

How does this all compare to SAP ERP HCM? I believe that the flexibility of the Employee Central organization structure enables organizations to more accurately setup a structure that truly reflects how they are organized. Although this is possible in SAP ERP HCM, it cannot be done with the level of granularity and accuracy that is possible in Employee Central. It is a simple yet effective way to accurately represent the organization within Employee Central as it is structured outside of the system. Many of the organizations that I have worked with have no problem with leveraging the Employee Central’s Foundation Objects to represent their organization structure in Employee Central as it fits how they operate and how they think organizationally.

Summary The organization structure in Employee Central is extremely flexible and enables organizations to design their organization structure in a way that reflects the real-life structure of their business. SuccessFactors provides endless possibilities in how this can be configured and managed in the system and provides customers with a method to create an enterprise structure that suits their business. Customers should ensure that they investigate the integration options available if they are going to maintain an organization structure in SAP HCM. The standard integration provided by SAP will integrate the standard organization structure from SuccessFactors, but customizing this structure will mean additional mapping and integration work.

14341 ViewsCategories: Authorizations, Queries, and Workflow , Personnel Administration and Organizational Management , Personnel Development and Performance Management , SuccessFactor IntegrationTopics: enterprise_resource_planning Tasks: integration Tags: sap, sapmentor, cloud, hcm, succes sfactors,human_capital_management, sap_business_suite, hr, saas, nakisa, talent_management, talent, ess, ms s,organisational_management, org_chart, employee_central, organization_structure, organizational_structure

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Comments

 Colleen Hebbert Oct 28, 2014 5:05 PM

Hi Luke

Brilliant timing for me (and awesome article)... I'm two weeks out from client workshops. I had been going through the Employee Central Training via SAP Learning Hub. I was still trying to get my head around the SAP HCM integration (needed for HR mini master among other things).

Thanks for putting together a practical scenario. The product looks fantastics. Just very hard coming form a SAP background to shift away from looking at organisational structure as the O-S-P relationships.

Can't wait to see the SuccessFactors products in action!

Regards Colleen Like (0)

o Luke Marson Oct 28, 2014 7:53 PM (in response to Colleen Hebbert)

Hi Colleen,

Thanks so much for your comments! I know the feeling when it comes to O-O-S-P, but once you get using the org structure in Employee Central it really does seem like a "ah-ha!" moment.

Good luck and I hope to see a blog post on your first impressions and experiences sometimes

Best regards,

Luke

The SuccessFactors Employee Central Pay Structure Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Dec 16, 2014 4:58:36 PM inShare47

In my previous blog I talked about the Organization Structure in SuccessFactors Employee Central. In this blog, I am going to turn my attention to the Pay Structure. The Pay Structure is more simplified than how SAP ERP HCM manages the pay structure and is focused more on data definition than the flexibility in payroll processing that the SAP ERP pay structure is designed for. Pay Structure The Pay Structure is made up of several Foundation Objects. Like with other Foundation Objects, customer fields can added and associations created between objects. The Pay Structure is not a hierarchical structure, rather it is a set of objects: 

Pay Component Group



Pay Component



Pay Group



Pay Grade



Pay Range



Pay Calendar



Frequency We can compare this structure to SAP object types: Foundation Object Pay Component Pay Component Group Pay Group Pay Grade Pay Range Pay Calendar Frequency

SAP ERP HCM equivalent Wage Type Wage Type Group Payroll Area Grade Pay Scale Payroll Calendar

Some details about each Foundation Object in the Pay Structure During the implementation of Employee Central, each Foundation Object can be configured to store certain details about the object. This can be used for reference or can be used to populate fields on an employee’s Employment Information record – particularly Compensation Information and Payroll. Pay Component A Pay Component is the Employee Central equivalent of a Wage Type. It defines a certain element of an employee’s compensation package, such as salary or a parking allowance. It also defines how the company pays the employee for that specific type of pay. By default, a Pay Component defines: 

Type of the Pay Component



Whether it is an earning



Currency of the payment



Value (if the Pay Component has a pre-defined, fixed value)



Frequency of payment



Whether it is recurring



Whether the value or attributes on the UI can be overridden



Tax treatment (e.g. taxable or tax exempt)



Whether it will be displayed in Self-Service access



Whether it can be used for Compensation planning



Whether it is a pay target (e.g. a performance-related or target-related bonus) The screenshot below shows the Base Salary Pay Component.

Pay Component Group A Pay Component Group is used to group multiple Pay Components. Its value is the sum of the Pay Components associated with the Pay Component Group. A Pay Component Group would typically be assigned as a potential compensation package for an employee. Annualization of an employee’s compensation is performed automatically and the main Pay Component can be used for CompaRatio and Range Penetration calculations. The standard SuccessFactors system comes with one Pay Component Group delivered by standard: Annualized Salary. Pay Group The Pay Group is used to group employees together that share the same payroll. For example, this could be by region or by employee class. Each Pay Group defines things such as the payroll vendor, number of weeks in the pay period, and the lag. It is the equivalent of a Payroll Area in SAP. Pay Grade The Pay Grade defines the grade – the method of defining the compensation for employment for the holder – of Job Classifications and, if Position Management is used, Positions. The screenshot below shows the Salary Grade 7 Pay Grade.

Pay Range A Pay Range defines the minimum, mid-point, and maximum salary ranges for – in the standard configuration – a combination of Pay Grade, Geo Zone, and Legal Entity. On the UI it is primarily used to calculate Compa-Ratio and Range Penetration. Pay Calendar The Pay Calendar defines the pay periods within a year and is associated to a Pay Group. For example, it defines when the pay period beings and ends, plus: 

The number of payments



When a pay check is issued



If the pay period is Off Cycle



The Processing Run ID and Run Type



Pay Group that this pay period is associated to Frequency Quite simply, the Frequency object defines how often a Pay Component is paid out. The standard system provides a number of frequencies, such as annual, monthly, and weekly. How does this look in EC? A majority of this data is not assigned directly to employees. For example, Pay Range is not assigned as it is part of the Pay Grade that is assigned to an employee. Pay Grade is assigned on the Job Information. Pay Group and Pay Components are assigned on Compensation Information, while Frequency is used to define the frequency of the Pay Components that are assigned in Compensation Information. In the screenshot below the North America Pay Group Pay Group is assigned to the employee, as well as the Base Salary and Performance Bonus Pay Components.

Pay Scale Structure SuccessFactors offers a Pay Scale Structure that can be used by SAP ERP HCM customers. Unlike the “standard” Pay Structure objects, the objects in the Pay Scale Structure are Generic Objects and not Foundation Objects. The Pay Scale Structure contains four objects: 

Pay Scale Area



Pay Scale Type



Pay Scale Group



Pay Scale Level All four objects can be assigned to employees on Job Information. Rules can be used to perform indirect valuation based on the employee’s assignment to the Pay Scale Structure in Job Information. This assigns a Pay Component in the employee’s Compensation Information that is defined on the Pay Scale Level object. The screenshot below shows a Pay Scale Level.

Time Recording

When recording time in Employee Central, Pay Components are created based on the time entered. This is not entirely dissimilar from the Wage Types that are generated through time evaluation in SAP (depending on the configuration in T510S). What’s the link with Payroll? The data defined in the Pay Structures defines how employees are paid in payroll, whether this be SAP ERP Payroll, Employee Central Payroll, or a third party payroll system. SAP’s packaged integrations for integration of Employee Central to SAP ERP enable this information to be transferred to SAP ERP infotypes (including infotypes 0008, 0014, 0015, and 0041) for use in SAP ERP Payroll or Employee Central Payroll. This data is also included in the packaged integrations for third party payroll systems. Pay Scale Area and Pay Scale Type are often used for Employee Central Payroll. Pay Scale Level and Pay Scale Group are not required to be used, but can be used if required. Comparison to SAP ERP HCM The Pay Structure of Employee Central is much more simplified than SAP ERP HCM. This is partly due to the overall complexity of the functionality in SAP ERP HCM and the use of this information in SAP ERP Payroll. SAP’s processing of Wage Types – such as Processing class, Cumulation class, and Evaluation class – adds complexity to the setup that isn’t required in Employee Central, since it doesn’t process payroll itself (although payroll can be processed in the SAP-built Employee Central Payroll). Once payroll is separated from the process of storing compensation data then the process is significantly simplified. Summary The Pay Structure is a far more simplified structure than in SAP ERP HCM and may be too simple out of the box for the needs of some customers. However, the integration with Payroll system may define the suitability more than how the data is defined and stored in Employee Central. Employee Central is focused on storing compensation data and also storing it in a way that can be integrated with other systems for the purposes of payroll. For this need, it serves the purpose very well.

SuccessFactors Terminology and Abbreviations created by Luke Marson on Nov 12, 2013 2:48 PM, last modified by 23, 2015 5:05 PM

Luke Marson

on Jun

Version 12 inShare7

This document provides a number of acronyms and other terms that are commonly used in relation to the SuccessFactors HCM suite.

Suite

Term

Definition

360

360 / Multi Rater

CDP

Career and Development Planning

Comp

Compensation

EP

Employee Profile

GM

Goal Management

JPB

Job Profile Builder

LMS

Learning Management Solution

MDF

Metadata Framework

ONB

Onboarding

PM

Performance Management

RX

Recruiting Execution

RCM

Recruiting Management

RMK

Recruiting Marketing

SP

Succession Planning

VAR

Variable Pay

Var Pay

Variable Pay

WFA

Workforce Analytics

WFP

Workforce Planning

ATS

Applicant Tracking System

JRDM

Job Requisition Data Model

Architectural, Technical, and Integration

Term

Definition

API

Application Programming Interface

ESR

Enterprise Services Repository (integration content for HCI and NWPI)

FO

Foundation Object

GO

Generic Object

HCI

SAP HANA Cloud Integration

HCP

SAP HANA Cloud Platform

IaaS

Integration-as-a-Service

iFlow

Integration Flow (an integration add-on)

OData

Open Data Protocol (see www.odata.org)

ODS

Operational Data Store

PaaS

Platform-as-a-Service

PI

SAP Process Integration

SaaS

Software-as-a-Service

SAIL

Social Media ABAP Integration Library

SFAPI

SuccessFactors API

SOAP

Simple Object Access Protocol

SSO

Single Sign-On

UDF

User Data File

Security

Term

Definition

AD

Administrative Domains

OAuth

an open standard for authorization

RBP

Role-Based Permissions

SAML2

Security Assertion Markup Language 2.0

SSL

Secure Sockets Layer

SSO

Single Sign-On

Miscellaneous

Term

Definition

CS

Customer Support

CSV

Comma Separated Values

IRR

Internal Release Readiness

PEPS

Product Expert Professional Services

UI

User Interface

UX

User Experience

V12

V12 Revolution UI

WACA

Writing Assistant and Coaching Advisor (Performance Management feature)

XML

eXtensible Markup Language

Abbreviations and terms no longer used

Term

Definition

EC

Employee Central

EC Payroll

Employee Central Payroll

J2W

Jobs2Web (not Recruiting Marketing)

JDM

Job Description Manager

SAP Cloud Payroll

Old name for Employee Central Payroll

SFSF

SuccessFactors New York Stock Market listing name

BizX

Business Execution Suite

NWPI

SAP NetWeaver Process Integration

SuccessFactors Employee Central – Time Off and other new features in the 1308 release Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Aug 22, 2013 4:40:19 PM inShare10

It’s that time of the quarter when SuccessFactors release the latest set of updates for customers. As preparation for some upcoming Employee Central projects I will be working on I took the time to review the new features in the August release (b1308) and publish this blog. There are a considerable number of enhancements and additional new features for Employee Central customers. The main enhancement focuses on Time Off, but there are also additional enhancements for Localization, Position Management, Workflows, and integration – plus other “miscellaneous features”. Employee Central Payroll includes a number of new features and these will also be covered briefly in this blog, as well as enhancements to the Employee Profile. A key aspect of this release is the enhancement of features to leverage the Metadata Framework (MDF). Many new features leverage the Rules Engine so that customers can define how the features work. Time Off The new Time Off UI has been introduced to make entry of absences and requesting time off easy and simple for employees, managers, and administrators. The new UI can be seen below.

The new UI for Time Off allows employees and managers to enter all types of absences and edit absence requests (once the return date has been confirmed). Workflow process, status changes, and leave of absences are triggered in the background automatically. The enhancements for Time Off include: 

New fields for Non-Permanent Time Accounts



Period End Processing enhancements



Posting Rules for using vacation from previous period



BizX Mobile enhancements For managing Non-Permanent Time Accounts 3 new fields have been added: begin date, end date, and Bookable until. For creating Time Accounts for recurring Time Accounts 2 new fields have been added: On hire date and On fixed date. These are a prerequisite for using Period End Processing. Period End Processing can now be setup and started using a calendar, with the results coming via email to the user. Rules – configurable via the MDF rules engine – can be used to determine how the remaining balance is handled. Common examples can be found in the Employee Central Handbook and a screenshot below.

Posting Rules can now be used to determine which Time Accounts can be used to book vacation. For example, a Time Account for the previous vacation period can be used instead of the current period so that accrued but unused vacation from the previous vacation year can be used. As a result of these changes, the Leave of Absence field has been removed in the Job Information portlet and also from the Take Action menu. There are some quite exciting BizX Mobile enhancements for Time Off on the iPad. I am still awaiting for new features for the Android version! These include: 

Team Absence Calendar



Balance Box Logic on iPad to calculate balanced based on selected date



Visualize non-working days & public holidays in calendar



Introduce new list of public holidays



Public Holidays and absences can be tapped and detail information will be shown



"Humanize ticker" (see screenshot below)



New message area



Comments & last activities in history list



Introduce help overlay



New selection style

Below you can see the Time Off calendar in the iPad app.

Localization Features New country-specific localization for Egypt, Israel, Jordon, Lebanon, and Uruguay have been added. This includes fields, picklists, and validations for personal information such as personal IDs, National ID, address information, job information, disabilities, and documents. This opens up a number of Middle-East territories to Employee Central as well as another LATAM country, where growth of adoption is continuing on a steady upward curve. Employees in legal entities in India can now manage and declare tax-deductible investments within Employee Central in an ESS scenario instead of through a manual or 3rd party system. There is an approval workflow triggered in the background for this feature. Advances can now be maintained in Employee Central and configured to each locale within the system. These Advances can be based on different attributes, such as Pay Grades. This is part of the MDF. Other enhancements include: 

Address layouts for 62 countries



Bank validations for 22 countries



Enhanced validations for National IDs for Ireland, Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Spain



Usability enhancement and CSV capabilities for naming formats



Dependents information for United Arab Emirates, Chile, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Qatar



Post code validation for Taiwan Position Management Position Management features 3 new enhancements in this release. The major release is the ability to select which hierarchy will be used for the org structure (the “Leading” hierarchy). This allows either the Position Hierarchy (position-to-position) or Reporting Line (employee-to-employee) to be used. Whenever one structure is changed, the changes within that structure will be reflected in the other. For example, setting a position a new parent position will update the supervisor field for all incumbents of the position. The main benefit of this feature is that customers no longer need to maintain two structures, rather just one. They can also select the hierarchy they use most to be the focus of the system.

Another enhancement is that the “To be hired” flag of a position will now be set automatically if the incumbent(s) is moved out of the position (e.g. an employee leaves or is transferred to a new position). This is a much needed feature to further automate transfer processes. The third and final enhancement is the ability to define a Rule (created in the MDF Rule Engine) to determine the fields that are automatically propagated in a new position that is copied from an existing position in the Position Org Chart. This is another useful feature to further automate position management activities. Workflows There are a number of features introduced for Workflows, including Workflow enhancements for Global Assignments. These are:       

RBPs for Manage Workflow Requests Page: RBPs can now be used to restrict access to Workflows that contain an employee within the target group Reminders for stalled workflows: A new field called Remind In Days has been added. The approver(s) of the Workflow will be sent a notification every number of days defined in this field until the Workflow is approved. Support for assigning Dynamic Groups to Dynamic Role: When assigning users to Dynamic Roles it is now possible to assign a Dynamic Group instead of a user. Leverage Job Relationships in Workflow assignments: Different job relationships like Matrix Manager, Second Manager, Custom Manager, and Additional Manager can now be assigned for Workflows. They are also available in RBPs for Workflows. Activity Log note for Proxy approvals: When a Proxy approves a Workflow a note is now recorded in the Activity Log. Attachments can be viewed in Workflow Approval Page: A link has now been added to the attachment name so that it can be viewed in the Workflow Approval Page. Enhancements for Global Assignments: Workflows can amended and returned to the initiator, planned assignments that were cancelled before starting can be set to Obsolete, and Workflows can now be found in theManage Workflow Requests list. Integration and Data Imports There are a number of new integrations included in this release. These include content for both Dell Boomi AtomSphere and for the SAP ERP Add-On PA_SE_IN_100. Additionally, integration is now available to transfer data from Employee Central to NorthgateArinso’s EuHReka system. Cost Centers can now be replicated from SAP to Employee Central by using a report. IDoc’s are leveraged for the data transfer and Employee Central – via Dell Boomi AtomSphere – is configured as a receiving system. Change pointers can be used to identify changes to Cost Center data. The selection screen for the report can be seen below:

Other integration features for SAP ERP Add-On PA_SE_IN_100 include:   

Employee Cost Center: An employee’s Cost Center assignment can now be transferred from Employee Central to SAP. In SAP this Cost Center assignment is made on the employee’s position. Replication Requests Viewer: A report has now been introduced to display and restart organizational assignment data replication requests in SAP. Template roles for organizational model: New standard roles are provided. The new release sees the introduction of OData query APIs. OData is the future technology for the SuccessFactors APIs, although it does not mean that the existing APIs will cease to function or be depreciated. The OData technology allows one REST-based API call for a number of Employee Central entities. In this release there are 38 entities supported. Additionally, new data segments have been added to the compound API to address missing entities in the entity-based SOAP APIs for Dependents, Job Relations and Payment Information. A DELIMIT operator can now be added into the operation column of data import files to delimit effective-dated records. This is enabled for the following entities in this release:



Phone Info



Email Info



IM Info



National Id card Info



Emergency Contact Primary Info



Pay Component Non Recurring Info



Direct Deposit Info



Pay Component Recurring Info Miscellaneous enhancements In addition to the enhancements already mentioned, there are a number of other enhancements that cannot be categorized as I have done so. These are:

 



 

     

Restrict sensitive information for Proxies: The Proxy feature has been enhanced so that it is possible to restrict a Proxy from viewing personal and compensation information about the Account holder. Limit Picklists for Event Reason and Pay Components for multi-national instances: Customers can now limit the values in the Event Reason and Pay Component Picklists by country, so to reduce the values in these lists. This is achieved in the MDF and is another example of SuccessFactors leveraging the MDF for new enhancements in Employee Central. MDF enhancement for fields: Another enhancement made to the MDF enables fields to be set to required, hidden, or made visible based on selected values. This leverages the Rules Engine in the MDF. In conjunction with propagation through rules, this enables a number of different scenarios to be included in events such as hiring actions, job changes, position modifications, etc. New Decimal Precision field: An additional field – Decimal precision – has been added to define how many decimal places (0 to 5) are required for the Pay Component field. This is to satisfy US companies who still pay hourly rates with decimal values. RBPs for Pay Components: Role-Based Permissions (RBPs) can now be used to control read and modify access to each Pay Component type for recurring, non-recurring, and target payments. This means users will only have access to the specific Pay Components that they work with. Insider Flag: An Insider Flag field has been added to the Compensation Information page to flag employees who have access to insider information. This is a requirement under some local laws, in particular the Securities Exchange Act in the US. Profile of employees on Global Assignment: For employees on a Global Assignment the Profile will now show the employee data, rather than showing blank portlets. Editing Pension Payout Details: The Pension Payout Details portlet can now be edited from the Employment Information page. Custom MDF portlets on Employee Profile: Custom MDF object UIs can now be added to the V12 Employee Profile as portlets. Internal Job History portlet: A new Internal Job History portlet has now been made available to be added to the Profile. This portlet displays the organization assignment of the individual. Editing Public Profile UI: An employee can now edit their public profile in one single UI, as seen below.

Employee Central Payroll

Employee Central Payroll sees one new country added – Malaysia – to bring up the number of supported countries to 23. The complete list of supported countries can be found here. A new alert for Employee Central Payroll issues is now available on the Admin Alerts tile, as seen below. Clicking on this opens up the new Payroll Issues Monitor, which is also accessible via OneAdmin. Within the Payroll Issues Monitor an administrator has a number of options, including navigating to the Employee Files to correct an issue (to correct the issue) or executing a manual data transfer to the Employee Central Payroll engine for one or more corrected employee records.

Other enhancements include:    

    

BSI eFormsFactory: integration with BSI eFormsFactory for US Payroll is now available so that administrators can enter tax information on behalf of employees. Within Provisioning, a configuration consistency check is also available. Workflow for additional cost center assignments: There is now a standard workflow that is triggered when additional cost center assignments are made for an employee, which can be configured to route either to a manager and/or HR administrator. Non-cost center information replication: Non-cost center information held in the cost center field (such as Work breakdown structure (WBS) or internal orders) can be replicated to Employee Central Payroll or SAP. A BAdI is used to define how this data is retrieved for transfer. Event reasons data changes during data replication: During replication of data to Employee Central Payroll, event reasons defined in Employee Central can be used to change, modify, or overwrite data in Employee Central Payroll. For example, an event for unpaid leave can automatically change the status of an employee from “active to “inactive”. Three digit rates: Three digit rates can now be replicated to Employee Central Payroll. This means more accuracy when rates such as 1/8 hourly rate need to be paid. API enhancement for employeeTime object: The API now reads data from the MDF object employeeTime. Various selection criteria from the employeeTime and jobInfo objects can be used to determine the output. Infotype 0008 replication: Custom fields can be replicated to infotype 0008 Infotype 0007 replication: Work scheduling defaulting can be replicated to infotype 0007 Infotype 0041 replication: Dates in the Employee Information portlet can now be replicated into infotype 0041 Summary There are an impressive number of enhancements in SuccessFactors Employee Central and Employee Central Payroll in the August release. SuccessFactors are making heavy use of the MDF in this release and rightly so. The MDF component adds configuration flexibility and therefore by using it, customers can leverage this flexibility to modify standard objects to suit their own unique business requirements. All in all this is a solid release and further extends the value of Employee Central.

In future releases I would be quite keen to see deeper handling of Global Employment and Concurrent Employment, as well as the ability to add custom portlets in pages such as Personal Information and Employment Information. I would also like to see Time Management and Benefits fleshed out further to align more with the functionality offered in SAP HCM on-premise and HR document management would also be a big bonus. And of course more features in BizX Mobile for the Android platform!

Q&A: Time & Attendance with SuccessFactors and WorkForce Software Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on May 27, 2014 4:40:19 PM inShare48

At the recent HR2014 conference in Nice I had the opportunity to catch-up with Kevin Haus, Global Alliances Manager at WorkForce Software. WorkForce Software is a provider of enterprise-grade Time & Attendance and Workforce Scheduling software. In this Q&A, I chatted with Kevin about WorkForce Software’s EmpCenter offering, where this sits in the SuccessFactors Employee Central landscape, and what sets it apart from other offerings in the market. Thanks for joining me Kevin. Could you take a brief moment to introduce yourself and your role at WorkForce Software? Thank you Luke for this opportunity. My name is Kevin Haus, and I am Global Alliances Manager at WorkForce Software. I work with a variety of partners in many different capacities, such as sales, marketing, integrations, support, etc. I end up wearing many hats depending on what is needed, which is really fun and exciting.

Can you tell us a bit about WorkForce Software and what they offer? WorkForce Software was founded in 1999 and has emerged as a key player in the competitive workforce management landscape. Since the company’s inception, we have continually grown in many aspects —from the number of clients we serve, to the number of professionals we employ, to the revenues we generate and reinvestments in our solutions. Our success has led to fantastic employee and client growth, which has earned us several awards such as a Top Global SaaS provider. It’s an amazing ride. We specialize in developing and delivering the most versatile and flexible workforce management solutions available today and our technology is deployed in a diverse array of industries and organizations across the globe. Our goal is to meet 100% of the client’s needs, not just the easy 80%. We can do that via our phenomenal configuration capabilities. Can you give us some more details on your EmpCenter offering? EmpCenter solution is our flagship workforce management solution that has seen tremendous growth for the last number of years. EmpCenter helps large employers track employee hours and absences, assign tasks, manage schedules, streamlinelabor law compliance, and mitigate the risk of employee fatigue. But that’s just the start. With EmpCenter, organizations are able to tackle more strategic workforce management goals – like controlling labor costs through eliminating unearned absences, minimizing unplanned overtime, and increasing productivity by optimizing schedules and labor. So how does this tie into SuccessFactors Employee Central? We have a very clean and powerful integration into SuccessFactors. Our goal for this integration with SuccessFactors was to merge two best of breed solutions into one great offering, and I think we have done just that. We built a standard iFlow integration into SuccessFactors’ Employee Central and Employee Central Payroll to simplify the daily user’s life by only having to do things once. With Single Sign On and direct link between the applications, users are just logging onto 1 system and doing the activities that they need to do without worrying what application they need to be in. It’s nice and easy. With a number of ecstatic clients already leveraging this easy solution, we know that we hit our goal. Tell me a bit about your partnership with SuccessFactors Our companies are great partners. It is not often in business that you can build a truly symbiotic relationship. From our development, sales, professional services, support teams, etc… We mutually help each other in a number of different ways, and our teams work together as one joint team with our one goal in mind; client success. We at WorkForce Software want the happiest clients possible, and our clients are not just numbers… So we wanted to partner with a company that can help us achieve that goal across the entire HCM suite, and we are doing just that with SuccessFactors. SuccessFactors are planning to introduce some “lightweight” Time Management functionality into Employee Central in the next 12 or so months. What impact – if any – does this have on WorkForce Software? It does not really have an impact to us or the partnership. We focus on clients that are looking for true workforce management capabilities. With the functionality that SuccessFactors will be releasing, it is really targeted at a different type of client profile. It is for clients that haves a very specific basic time needs, which is very different from what we provide. It may cause some confusion at first, but it really doesn’t impact us or our partnership. SAP ERP HCM customers are used to having Time & Attendance as part of their ERP system and closely linked to HR. What is the value proposition for a customer to license both Employee Central and WorkForce Software EmpCenter? All we do is Workforce Management, we are the experts. The majority of ERP systems cannot handle the complexity that EmpCenter can (not even close). The integration between SuccessFactors Employee Central, WorkForce Software, and Employee Central Payroll makes it an easy choice for clients because they get the best of both worlds. What sets EmpCenter apart from some of the competition? The biggest is our flexibility. We have the best configuration tools in the market that allows us to meet our clients’ needs without any costly customization. It’s great to have a product that you can honestly go into a client and say “give me your most complicated union contract and lets us show you how we can handle it.” We don’t have to dance around complexity. We can take it head on, and prospects and clients love it.

The major factor that sets WorkForce apart is our culture. I know it is a cheesy answer, but it is true. Prospects, clients, and partners feel it on a regular basis. They understand that we care. We want to help people and businesses, and we do it primarily through workforce management solutions. A great example of what I am talking about is what we did at HR Tech last year. Instead of spending money on random stuff that we would hand to people, who stopped by booth, we did a campaign called “WFS Helping Hands,” where we had attendees assembled over 500 care packages in our booth that we delivered to the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth after the show. It was big success. It is those types of things that we do make you proud to work here. It makes you want to go that extra mile in everything that you do, which our clients see and feel. Do you have any tips, recommendations, or best practice guidance on Time & Attendance for the readers? We actually have a webinar coming up on May 28 th that will discuss nine essential tips for selecting a Time & Attendance solution. For those that are interested in attending I encourage them to register through our website. I think there will be some really valuable information shared. Without spoiling the webinar I think the most important things for people to remember are: 1. 1. 2.

Time & Attendance processes can seem simple… but they rarely are Automation is king and will drive greater return on your investment Choose a flexible platform for continual refinement and longer useful life Is there anything else you would like to add? The other week we announced that we’ve signed an agreement with Insight Venture Partners to invest in WorkForce Software and take a major equity stake in the company. Insight Venture Partners is the premier growth oriented private equity fund and they deliver the ideal mix of financial and intellectual resources that will continue to propel WorkForce Software – and our clients – to greater levels of success. We are all very excited about this announcement. You can find the official press release on our website if you are interested in learning more. Thanks for joining me Kevin, it’s been a pleasure to talking to you. Thank you, Luke for taking the time. I always enjoy speaking with you. More information on WorkForce Software can be found here and they can be followed on Twitter via @WorkForceSW.

Rules and Picklists in the SuccessFactors Metadata Framework Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Jul 9, 2013 2:29:44 PM inShare9

Following up on my recent blog Extending SuccessFactors with the Metadata Framework, I wanted to delve a little deeper into the Rules Engine that forms part of the SuccessFactors Metadata Framework (MDF) and also look at Picklists. Both of these form an integral part of data validations, approvals, and business logic that is used within the SuccessFactors system and, in particular, Employee Central. Rules Engine As mentioned in my blog on the MDF, it provides a flexible and consistent framework for customers and consultants to extend the object model of SuccessFactors and add their own unique rules, validations, and business logic to SuccessFactors. Rules can be used where user exits, BAdIs, or ABAP program Enhancement points would be used in SAP HCM to provide customer-specific business logic or validation of data input. The Rules Engine allows you to create rules by modeling statements and flow logic to define the business logic of the rule. Rules have two sets of logic that is configured in the MDF: If logic and Then logic. If logic uses statements “and” and “or” statements to determine if the Then logic should occur. Each of these statements involves checking a field for a particular value or object attribute. If logic can also be set to Always True, which means that the Then logic automatically executes when the rule is triggered. An example can be seen in the screenshot below, along with Then logic. The Then logic determines either the value to be set and/or the message to be raised if the If logic conditions are met. When the Set Output Type is selected then a value will be set to the field that is configured, either from a selected value or an object attribute.

Hooks Once a rule has been created, it can be assigned to one or more Hooks. Hooks are points at which Rules can be triggered and can be either at the object level or the field level. At the object level Rules can be added at four points of the object “lifecycle”: 

Initialization



Validation (pre-save)



Saving



Deleting At each point one or more rules can be defined. They will be triggered once the object gets to that point of its maintenance.

Within the object level rules can be added at field level. Here one or more rules can be defined so that they will be triggered when a field is modified. Picklists Picklists are, simply, selection lists used to populate a data input field with one of a number of predefined values. They act in the same way as F4 Helps in SAP HCM. Picklists provided in the standard system can be altered to use customer-specific values. The screenshot below shows a simple example of a Picklist for Marital Status.

Picklists are configured using the option Manage Configure Generic Object Definition under Company Settings in OneAdmin or under Generic Objects in the old Admin Tools. Below shows a Picklist being created for the different types of documents that you can contribute on SCN.

This Picklist can then be assigned to a field in the MDF as below. You can also see the Rules section to define one or more rules at the field level.

Summary When combined, the Rules Engine and Picklists provide customers to add their own business logic, rules, and validations to objects and fields. This means that customers can have a significant level of control on ensuring that data is created, maintained, and deleted the way that they need it. It also means that data quality can be upheld by using the system to validate data entry or provide users with picklists from which to select values. The MDF is covered in detail in the SAP PRESS title SuccessFactors with SAP ERP HCM.

The Development Plan in SAP HCM Talent Management Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Sep 11, 2012 8:44:21 PM

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In EhP4 when SAP introduced the revamped Talent Management and Talent Development module they bought in a new Development Plan. Confusion has reigned ever since about what value this development plan offers, since its concept differs from the “traditional” development plan found in Performance Management. In this blog, I will attempt to provide some insight and answers into the concept of this “new” development plan.

What is the Development Plan? The Development Plan allows Talent Management Specialists and managers to create development plans and track long-term development for those employees who are important to the operation of the business, potential leaders of the future and/or are successors to key positions. It is created by a Talent Management Specialist and then used by both Talent Management Specialists and managers of the employees for which it was created.

How does it differ from the Development Plan in Performance Management?

The Development Plan in Performance Management sets the yearly objectives for employees, while the Development Plan in Talent Management sets long-term development objectives for either a defined or undefined period and allows tracking, measuring and monitoring of development steps, and the actions that have been defined to complete the development steps.

You might wonder why a separate plan is really needed. If you consider that developing leadership competencies or grooming a potential successor for a key position is a long-term process then it becomes obvious that a yearly development plan simply doesn’t afford the kind of functionality required to track or manage ongoing objectives that might take upwards of 3 years to complete. Since some potential successors might need a 3 or 5-year period to develop the skills and competencies that are required for them to be suitable to move into a planned role, it wouldn’t be possible to facilitate this with the Development Plan that is part of the Performance Management cycle.

The two development plans are not alternatives or are interchangeable - they are actually buddies that work hand-in-hand. The Development Plan in Talent Management defines a number of actions that are required to complete the development steps defined for the employee (= talent in SAPspeak), such as a mentoring role or a training course. The yearly Development Plan in Performance Management can be used to support the completion of these actions. In this way, development is being done in bit-size chunks year-on-year and contributing to the employee’s long-term development.

Let’s take a simple example. A Talent Management Specialist creates a development step for a specific employee to “Improve strategy execution” and this has several actions, such as “Take an executive coaching course” and “Increase business partner awareness of strategic initiatives”. The employee’s manager is preparing the yearly objectives for the employee and reviews their Development Plan. The manager decides that the employee’s yearly development plan should contain “Take an executive coaching course” and “Arrange quarterly meetings with the regional Business Partner to discuss the department’s ongoing strategy”. The manager contacts the Talent Management Specialist responsible for their area and discusses the development plan suggestions. The Talent Management Specialist agrees and these can now form part of the yearly development plan. The following year, other actions of the development step can be incorporated into the yearly development plan.

By performing this type of development planning essentially means that organizations are performing planned long-term development instead of undergoing short-term, uncorrelated and sometimes spontaneous and unprepared development activities that don’t necessarily support the progression of an individual’s competencies or align with the strategic goals of the organization. In order for the organization’s long-term goals to be met, development must be planned long-term and must align with those goals. This simply cannot be achieved solely with the Development Plan in Performance Management – a long-term view is needed to ensure that talent is developed in line with the long-term needs and goals of the organization.

Why can’t the employee access the Development Plan?

Since Talent Management activities can often be sensitive and there is a high risk of jeopardizing the long-term development of a successor or leader, it is not common for some or all of this information to be disclosed to candidates for succession or leadership positions. Some development actions will be made known in the yearly Development Plan in Performance Management and it is up to the Talent Management Specialist and Manager to decide how much information they provide to the individual about the long-term development plan. This kind of strategy will vary from organization to organization, but generally there is a gradual increase in divulging this type of information to the employee. For the employee, it is important that they concentrate on achieving their short-term development plan objectives, as well continue to perform within their current role. It is best not to derail an employee by informing them too early that they are a candidate for other, more senior positions.

What are the features of the Development Plan in SAP HCM Talent Management? The Development Plan is a fairly simple application and makes setting up a Development Plan quick and easy. Technically, the Development Plan is an assessment form document and is configured as an open-ended document (e.g. with an end date of 31.12.9999) that can be closed once completed.

The Talent Management Specialist creates a Development Plan in the Talent Information application and this automatically makes it available to the Manager via the Talent Profile for Managers and Talent Management Specialists (read-only) and in the Talent Assessment application in MSS. Both parties can freely update the document once it is created. When creating the Development Plan, the Talent Management Specialist can define a number of Development Steps freely or based on a qualification from the qualification catalog. For each Development Step the Talent Management Specialist can define a number of Actions that the employee needs to complete in order to complete the overall Development Step. Progress of each Development Step and Action can be tracked and updated as required by either the Manager or Talent Management Specialist.

Actions defined in Development Steps cannot be transferred to the Development Plan in Performance Management. It is up to the business to discuss which actions are needed on the Development Plan in Performance Management and how they are approached both on the plan and when discussed with the employee. Some actions may be altered slightly when added to the Development Plan in Performance Management to reflect the short-term life of this development plan.

Summary The Development Plan in SAP HCM Talent Management is a valuable tool for creating, tracking and managing the long-term development of key talents within the organization. Alongside the Development Plan in Performance Management, the Development Plan can facilitate the management and execution of the long-term development of an employee in an organized and forward-thinking fashion. Instead of thinking short-term, this enables the organization to think longterm about development of the most important assets in their businesses and ensure that development is aligned with the goals of the organization.

SAP HCM Talent Management Terminology Posted by Luke Marson in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) on Aug 8, 2012 8:52:06 PM

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Ever wondered why a dinosaur’s name is used for a search engine in SAP HCM Talent Management? Have you always wanted to know what the difference between a Talent Group and Successor Pool is? Well, now you can find out what a host of SAP HCM Talent Management abbreviations and terms means. More details about the terms, their usage and the processes they encompass then you can find out more in new SAP PRESS book Talent Management with SAP ERP HCM.

There’s little more introduction required here so we’ll get straight into it.

Abbreviations

Term

Definition

LSO

Learning SOlution

ECM

Enterprise Compensation Management

PMP / PMS

Performance Management

OSA

Object Setting and Appraisals (technical name for Performance Management)

PD

Personnel Development

TMC / HRTMC

Talent Management Core

STVN

SAP Talent Visualization by Nakisa

TMS

Talent Management Specialist

TREX

Search and Classification (originally Text Retrieval and Information EXtraction)

ESH

Enterprise SearcH

CMS

Content Management System (in LSO)

General Terms

Term

Definition

Competency

A behavior, characteristic, or qualification of an employee

Functional Area

A logical grouping of Job Families that represents a function of the organization, such as Marketing or Production

Job Architecture

A talent orientated structure used to efficiently assign competencies across the organization, compromising of Functional Areas, Job Families, Jobs and Positions and allowing inherited competencies down the structure

Job Family

A logical grouping of jobs that have similar attributes or characteristics

Position Requirements

The competencies required by the holder of a position

Scale

Levels of values used to measure proficiencies or attributes

Status Handling

The use of Nominated and Approved statuses to specify if an assignment to a Succession Plan, Successor Pool or Talent Group has been confirmed or not

Talent Development

Identification of talent or successors, review of individuals and development planning

Talent Group

A group of talented employees

E-Recruiting

Term

Definition

Candidate

An individual that registers their data or applies for a job posting

Candidate Profile

A profile of information about the Candidate, maintained by the Candidate – this is similar to the Talent Profile for Employees

Candidate Shortlist

The list of Candidates that have responded to a Requisition

E-Rec

E-Recruiting

Hiring

The process of hiring a successful Candidate into a role within the organization

Interview

The process of interviewing a Candidate for the role advertised in a Requisition

On-boarding

The process of introducing an individual to the organization and providing them with the information and tools to perform their role, as well tasks such as requesting personal information (address, bank account details, etc), entering into Payroll system and assigning an email address etc

Posting

An announcement of one or more vacant positions that a candidate could apply for

Publication

The process of publishing of a Posting

Questionnaire

List of questions about the role advertised in a Requisition

Requisition

A formal request by a manager to the recruiter to find potential candidates for one or more vacant positions

Screening

The process of identifying the Candidates that will be part of the Candidate Shortlist

Sourcing

The process of procuring candidates into the E-Recruiting system

Enterprise Compensation Management

Term

Definition

Approval process

The process of having budgets reviewed and approved by higher-level managers

Audit Report

A report that provides a summary of the changes that were made by managers

Bottom-up budgeting

The process of defining a budget at an employee level, which is then “rolled up” to a higher level to define the final budget

Budget Maintenance

A tool used for the distribution of budgets

Budget Unit

SAP object that represents a monetary and non-monetary budget for an Organizational Unit

Budgeting process

The process of creating compensation plans based on monetary and nonmonetary budgets

Compensation Plan

plan compensation packages for employees, including tailoring base pay, bonuses, long-term incentives, as well as other configurable types of pay

Compensation Review process

The process of analyzing, distributing, and viewing compensation for employees

Controlling process

The process of monitoring and controlling planned budgets in order to ensure that Guidelines are in compliance with company budgeting procedure

Cost Plan

A plan of costs for each organizational unit for the employees of that organizational unit

Guideline

A guide used to help determining the level of compensation to be given to an employee, often based on performance or the final rating from an Appraisal Document

Payroll process

The process of transferring approved compensation data to SAP Payroll to update pay data

Top-down budgeting

The process of defining a budget at a higher level Organizational Unit that is the maximum amount for that and all child Organization Units

Performance Management

Term

Definition

Appraisal process

The process of appraising an individual’s performance and goals

Appraisal Template

A template used to create Appraisal Documents

Appraisal Document

A document used to perform and record the Performance Management

process based on an Appraisal Template

Calibrate process

A process in the predefined process that allows a manager to calibrate the performance ratings of their team against each other

Final Rating

The final figure used to represent the performance level of an employee

Flexible process

Highly configurable process to create and implement performance management

Goals

Objectives for an individual to achieve; these can be Corporate Goals, Team Goals, Individual Goals or Training Goals

Individual Goals

Goals defined by a manager for a specific individual that are used to measure performance and reach Corporate Goals and/or Team Goals

Plan process

The process of defining, setting and/or cascading corporate goals, team goals, individual goals and training goals

Predefined process

A predefined template-based process that can be easily and quickly implemented

Prepare process

The process of selecting the employees to be appraised and creating the Appraisal Documents from the Appraisal Template

Review process

The process of reviewing goals assigned to an Appraisal Document before and during the Appraisal process

Team Goals

Goals defined by a manager that are cascaded into the Appraisal Documents of their team – these are used to measure team and individual performance

Training Goals

A goal defined to provide an individual with training

Learning Solution

Term

Definition

AICC

Aviation Industry CBT Committee – learning standard used in LSO

Authoring Environment

Environment for creating, testing and publishing learning content

Content Management System (CMS)

Repository for storing and managing learning content

Catalog process

The process of cataloguing the content created during the Content process

Close-Out Process

The process of registering completion of a course and performing follow-up actions

Content process

The process of creating content using the Authoring Environment

Course

A training course offered to potential participants

Course Group

A grouping of one or more Courses that have the same characteristics or cover related content

Course Offering

A collection of courses offered, including information relating to location, cost, resources, provider etc

Course Type

A grouping of one or more Courses that have the same objective, content and form

Curriculum Type

A special Course Type that offers other Course Types as part of the offering

Resource Type

A classification of resources that share the same characteristics or attributes

Enterprise Learning

Additional functionality to allow virtual learning through Adobe Connect

Instructor Portal

An online portal that provides instructors with information on their courses and allows them to manage course participation and course activities

Learner Portal

An online portal that provides an individual with information on their current courses, completed courses, booked or searched courses, required training and qualifications, and training history

Offline Distribution

The process of packaging content to be available via the Offline Content Player

Offline Content Player

Allows an individual to download learning content and synchronize with the learner portal when the individual is online

Online Content Player

Delivers learning content via a web browser when a course is launched from the learner portal by an individual and communicates the progress back to the LSO system

Participation process

The process of managers and employees enrolling for and participating in courses

Profile process

The process of creating profiles of courses that can be assigned to elements of an organization structure or to employees

Schedule process

The process of scheduling courses and enrolling employees to courses

SCORM

Shareable Content Object Reference Model – learning standard used in LSO

Training Administrator Portal

An online portal that provides administrators to perform their day-to-day training activities and manage all courses within the Learning Solution

Training Management

This controls learning processes and manages course offerings and extends the functionality available in Training and Event Management; the latter controls straining logistics and reporting.

Virtual Learning Room

A virtual classroom that leverages Adobe Connect technology

Talent Management and Talent Development (aka Talent Management Core)

Term

Definition

Area of Responsibility

The area of the organization structure for which a TMS can perform Talent Management activities

Bench Strength

A risk-based score to measure the strength of the successors assigned to a position

Career Type/Level

Type and level of career aspiration, used to measure the career aspirations of employees and the career aspiration requirement of jobs or positions

Corporate Goals and Values

Goals and/or values that represent those of the organization from a strategic level and cascading to organization units to use in the performance appraisal process

Development Plan

Long-term development plan used to track and measure objectives for successors or high-potentials

Key Indication

The attribute that specifies a Key Job or Key Position

Key Job

A job whose positions are determined to be Key Positions

Key Position

A position that is critical to the operation or long-term success of an organization

Mobility

The ability for an employee to relocate to another geographic location

Ranking

The value of a successor to the position if they became the holder of the position

Readiness

How ready a successor is to assume a position

STVN SuccessionPlanning

The graphical user interface offered by SAP to support succession planning processes

Succession Plan

The successors of a position

Succession planning

Process of identifying and developing successors for key positions and high

potentials for Talent Groups and Successor Pools

Successor

Someone who is adjudged to be capable of taking a position in the future

Successor Pool

A collection of employees who have potential to fill one or more jobs or positions within a specific job family

a Talent

An employee that is assigned to a Talent Group

Talent Assessment

Application used to assess the talent-related characteristics of employees by their manager

Talent Profile for Employees

A self-service profile of talent-related information maintained by employees, such as education, work experience, career aspirations and mobility preferences

Talent Profile for Managers and Talent Management Specialists

An extended display version of the Talent Profile for Employees that is available to managers and Talent Management Specialists, containing additional talent-related information

Talent Review Meeting

Application used to support the review of employees both during and/or after the appraisal and talent assessment processes

Object Types

Object Type

Definition

BP

Business Partner

CP

Central Person

TB

Talent Group

RM

Talent Review Meeting

FN

Functional Area

JF

Job Family

C

Job

S

Position

P

Person

NA

Candidate

NB

Requisition

NC

Posting

ND

Application

NE

Candidacy

VA

Appraisal Template

VB

Criteria Group

VC

Criterion

Q

Qualification / Competency

QK

Qualification Group

QB

Qualification Block

BU

Budget Unit

E

Course

D

Business Event Type (used for LSO Course Type)

L

Business Event Group (used for LSO Course Group)

US

User

T

Task

OSS Components

Component

Definition

PA-ER

E-Recruiting

PA-EC

Enterprise Compensation Management

PA-PD-PM

Performance Management

PE-LSO

Learning Solution

PA-TM

Talent Management and Talent Development

XX-PART-NKS

Visualization Solutions by Nakisa