A Strategic Guide for Partners and Customers to Plan Their Journey with Data Protection in Focus
In this blog, I aim to provide valuable insights for both partners and customers to effectively plan their SuccessFactors journey. Data protection, while crucial, is often an overlooked aspect during implementation. By addressing key data privacy topics, businesses can ensure compliance, mitigate risks, and build a robust, secure system that aligns with legal requirements.
Why This Matters?
In many SAP SuccessFactors implementations, data protection features are either discussed too late or not at all. Partners, consultants, and BAU teams often focus on core HR functionalities, leaving compliance and security aspects as an afterthought. This leads to risks in regulatory compliance, inefficient data governance, and missed opportunities to optimize system configurations. By integrating these features into the requirement gathering phase, organizations can proactively design a more secure, compliant, and future-ready HR system and hence I took this opportunity to write about the various features that SuccessFactors offers around Data Protection and how to leverage them under one umbrella for effective compliance strategies.
Let’s start by giving a detailed overview of the key features that SuccessFactors offer around data protection.
Key Data-Related Features in SAP SuccessFactors
1.Field Sensitivity
Field Sensitivity helps organizations to restrict access to specific data fields based on the user roles. It ensures that only authorized personnel can view or edit sensitive HR data, enhancing privacy and compliance with data protection regulations.
Business case
There is an increasing need to protect sensitive information while ensuring compliance with hiring regulations. Modules like Recruiting and Employee Central offer the ability to designate standard fields as sensitive, such as SSN, disability status, and ethnicity.
Benefits
Protects sensitive applicant information while ensuring compliance with hiring regulations.
Restrict the permission roles that can access the sensitive information like passport and Bank Account number.
2.Data Consent
Data Consent in SAP SuccessFactors ensures that user data is handled in line with legal requirements. It allows organizations to collect and manage explicit consent from users before processing their personal information. This feature helps businesses stay compliant with data protection regulations like GDPR, ensuring transparency and accountability in their data practices.
Business case
Onboarding- Consent forms are typically included in the employee onboarding process, where employees are asked to provide consent for various data processing activities. This may include background checks, various form collection, and the use of other personal data during the hiring process.
Recruitment External - displays a statement to external candidates, which they have to accept before they can enter their application.
Employee Central- A consent statement is displayed to individuals when they first log in to SAP SuccessFactors. Users must accept this statement before they can access and use the system, ensuring compliance with data processing regulations.
Learning Management System: In the LMS, consent statements can be presented when a user first accesses the learning portal or when new courses or features require consent. For example, data consent might be necessary to track certifications and professional development.
3.Data Blocking
Data Blocking refers to the practice of limiting access to historical data in accordance with company policies and legal requirements.
Business case: Personal data may need to be stored by different departments for varying lengths of time. For example, HR may need an employee's address for 3 years, while Payroll requires it for 5 years. In this case, the data can’t be purged until 5 years, but HR retains unnecessary access after their retention period ends and hence data blocking is used to counter such scenarios.
Example: Primarily used for blocking the master Data in EC
Employee Central- Employee Central is the core module where most of the data blocking occurs. Data like employee records, compensation, and time-off information may need to be blocked after a defined period, such as after an employee leaves the company.
4.Data Anonymization via Instance Refresh
Data Anonymization during an instance refresh is critical for ensuring that sensitive or personal information is protected when migrating or copying data from a production environment to a test or development environment. This ensures that non-production environments are safe to use without exposing sensitive data to unauthorized users or creating compliance risks.
Fields such as compensation details, email address, national ID, phone number, and employee photos should be anonymized in test environments to prevent the exposure of sensitive production data. This ensures that personal information remains protected while still allowing for effective testing and system validation.
Business Case:
1.Fixed value anonymization: Field like email address should be defaulted to a fixed dummy value for example employee with email Bill.Watson@Sap.com will be defaulted to dummy@Sap.com
2.Null Values: This type of anonymization, the actual value is replaced with a blank in the target instance
Example: Photos of users are anonymized by keeping it null in target instance
- Random values: In this type of anonymization, any value related to compensation or Benefit rate is anonymized to a random numeric value.
Example: if the employee compensation is 45K it can be anonymized to 23K.
Module coverage: Employee central/Recruiting/Onboarding
5.Data Audit
Data Audit tracks and logs changes to data as well as access attempts, ensuring organizations can monitor who is accessing or modifying sensitive information. This is crucial for ensuring compliance with data protection regulations and maintaining data integrity.
There are broadly 3 main categories for audit reports.
Personal Data Audit Reports
Personal data change audit reports include changes to personal data records about or by a specific user.
Configuration Data Audit Reports
Configuration data audit reports include changes to the configuration of your system.
Business Data Audit Reports
Business data audit reports include changes to other types of data records in your system, such as transactional data in a business process.
6.Data Purge
Data Purge refers to the automated deletion of obsolete personal data from the system after a predefined retention period. This is an essential practice for ensuring that organizations manage their data responsibly, comply with data protection laws, and reduce risks associated with retaining unnecessary or outdated information.
Business Case:
Employee records, including personal details, employment history, and termination data, can be purged after a set period (e.g., 5 years after termination).
Risk Reduction: Ensures obsolete data is deleted when no longer legally required, mitigating the risk of data breaches.
Data Accuracy: Also serves as a tool for removing incorrect user IDs or master data when employees are hired with errors, ensuring data integrity and compliance.
Coverage: All the modules however during implementation considering the inter module dependencies is important. (can be covered in a separate blog).
Now that we've covered the features, let's explore strategies for using them effectively and ensure timely discussions around their implementation.
Strategies to Leverage these features effectively during an implementation.
1.Start with key stakeholders: Engage key stakeholders from HR, Legal, IT, and Compliance teams at the very beginning. Aligning expectations early ensures that data protection is treated as a foundational requirement rather than an afterthought.
2.Embed Data Protection in Requirement Documentation: Consolidate all data protection features into one comprehensive workbook rather than discussing them module by module. This streamlines conversations, ensures consistency, and simplifies managing changes.
3.Map Use Cases to Business Needs: Data anonymization, purge policies, and audit logging should not just be technical checkboxes—they should be mapped to genuine business scenarios. Highlighting tangible benefits, such as risk reduction and improved security, will drive stronger adoption.
These are some of the key features provided by SuccessFactors, consolidated into one area for easy reference. This approach allows both partners and BAU teams to address them under a single discussion point.
For businesses, this ensures enhanced compliance, risk mitigation, and operational efficiency. For consultants, it simplifies implementation, improves communication, and strengthens client trust. I hope this overview helps you plan your implementation with these benefits in mind.
SAP SuccessFactors Platform SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite
Regards
Ashish
