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Upgrading to Latest Goal Management – Cycle Planning & Preparedness – Best Practice Approach

VanessaLi
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
‎2023 May 10 9:23 PM
35,836

Target Audience

Customers using Goals/Group Goals in legacy version of Goals Management who need to continue using the same existing goal plan template in the latest version of Goal Management (Reimagined Goals UI), as oppose to uploading/creating a new template for a new goal cycle to start fresh.

 

Why now?

You may have seen article: https://groups.community.sap.com/t5/product-and-customer-updates/plans-underway-to-make-latest-versi... that we have plans to Universal Push a majority of customers to latest version of Goal Management in the 1H 2025 standard release (with some exceptions, please see the FAQ blog for who is excluded from this upgrade). Therefore it will eventually become inevitable that you have to review how this upgrade impacts to existing templates. We highly recommend you plan your upgrade before we universal push to reduce disruption of your goal cycle to a minimum.

 

Why we prevented Group Goals from converting

The reason we prevent Group goals from converting to a Latest template is due to the data model changes it would need to go through in order to convert it into Team Goals. Source group goals traditionally appeared on the manager's goal plan, whereas source team goals did not. That conversion change would result in an additional Team goal created on goal plan (which was previously the source group goal), which impacts the integration with Performance Form and the ratings it may already have due to this extra goal.

 

Disclaimer

 

We always recommend starting a new template when upgrade to latest version of Goal Management.

Most customers create new goal plans every year. A customer wanting to roll out latest version of Goals Management in the middle of the year has to be dealt with caution.

Please understand that reimagined goals is NOT just a user interface upgrade. It introduces new functionality and new ways of working (integration to CPM, OKR, etc). It is not, and was never intended to be a flip of the switch upgrade. Customers with very simple configurations will have very small impacts, however customers with more complex processes will certainly need to be more thoughtful when they move to the new version.

Read on if you still want to use the same goal plan template in the latest version of Goal Management. 

 

Scenarios and Best Practices

Scenario 1:

You are using a 2023 goal plan template right now and want to upgrade to latest version of Goal Management in 2024 year using a different goal plan template.

Best Practice:

This should be the easiest scenario.

  • Finish off the 2023 goal cycle in legacy goals
  • Upgrade to latest version of goals
  • Create a new template for 2024 goal plan
  • Done!

 

Scenario 2:

You are using a 2023 goal plan template right now and want to upgrade to latest version of Goal Management in the middle of this goal cycle year using the same goal plan template. You don't have group goals created in that old template.

Best Practice:

 

Scenario 3:

You are using a 2023 goal plan template right now and want to upgrade to latest version of Goal Management in the middle of this goal cycle year using the same goal plan template. You have group goals created in that old template.

Best Practice:

  • Read about the overview of latest version here: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_SUCCESSFACTORS_PERFORMANCE_AND_GOALS/4a24e48b5c384b18a81f6b661305021e/... make sure you are well aware of its reduced scope, limitations and changes to goal plan templates
  • Proceed to upgrade to latest version of goals
  • You CANNOT convert templates containing Group Goals in them, this is not supported due to its complications and disruptions it will cause to ongoing Performance Forms.
  • You MUST create a new template after you upgrade to latest version of Goal Management, hence taking us back to Scenario 1.

 

Scenario 4:

You have overlapping cycles – the 2023 goal plan will be left open for 2-3 months whilst the reviews happen (often via a Performance Form) and final changes are made, and the 2024 goal plan is already opened for the new year.

Best Practice:

  • Continue with the old cycle, the 2023 goal plan in legacy goals and finish that off
  • At the same time, go ahead with creating a new goal cycle 2024 goal plan still in legacy goals (but don’t create group goals for the new cycle yet, you can create Team Goals though, this is to prepare for the future template conversion)
  • After old cycle is completed, now upgrade to latest version of goals
  • Convert existing 2024 goal plan (this should work due to no group goals being present), read more about how to convert here: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_SUCCESSFACTORS_PERFORMANCE_AND_GOALS/4a24e48b5c384b18a81f6b661305021e/... 
  • At this point the old 2023 goal plan would have finished and will be in read only mode once you are upgraded to latest version of goal management, so you don't need to keep maintaining and changing the data in it. Continuing using new 2024 goal plan in latest goals, and integration with Performance Forms will also stay intact

 

Scenario 5:

You are using a 2023 goal plan template right now and want to upgrade to latest version of Goal Management in the middle of this goal cycle year using the same goal plan template. You have group goals created in that old template, but you still want to find a way to continue using the group goals you already created.

Best Practice:

  • Before or after you upgrade to Latest Goal Management, first export those group goals into an Excel csv file or through Reporting to save as a backup copy, making a note of which goal IDs are master/source goals, and which goal IDs are assigned/child group goals. This is used for later.
  • Now remove/delete those group goals using the Import Performance Goals tool in Admin Centre
    • it may be easier to identify parent group goals and delete those, since deleting the parent deletes all child assigned group goals too
  • Immediately convert your 2023 goal plan (without group goals now)
  • Import the backup csv file into the converted goal plan using the admin tool Import Performance Goals
    • Here you need to first identify the master/source group goals you made a note of earlier and import those using Action ADD.
    • Now you need to use Action ASSIGN to assign them as child Team Goals into the newly converted goal plan
  • Now you should have successfully transferred the group goals from the Legacy version into team goals in the Latest version. Note: this avoids the user having to manually create the same goals again, but a new template would be all existing integrations (e.g with Performance Forms) would be lost.

 

Scenario 6:

You are using a 2023 goal plan template right now and want to upgrade to latest version of Goal Management in the middle of this goal cycle year using the same goal plan template. You have team goals created in that old template but no group goalss, but you still want to find a way to continue using the team goals you already created.

Best Practice:

  • Upgrade to Latest Goal Management
  • All templates will become read only, including your 2023 one.
  • Convert template
  • The team goals are automatically converted and should be available for usage.

 

 

Leave a comment to any questions and I will get back to you as soon as possible!

58 Comments
YuchingLee40
Explorer
‎2024 Apr 12 9:36 PM
0 Kudos

Thank you very much @VickyDing for your quick response. 

So, what is the best way to confirming the instance? Should I open another SAP ticket?

Also, I didn't receive any announcement email regarding the new March 31st 2025 timeframe. Is this yet to be sent out? Kindly let me know. 

Thanks again,

Yuching

VickyDing
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
‎2024 Apr 15 8:19 AM

@YuchingLee40 

We have sent emails to all production instances that will be excluded from the universal push. If you have a production instance but have not received an email notification about this exclusion, it means your instance will be included in the universal push. Consequently, it will be updated to the latest version within 1H 2024.

Maria11
Explorer
‎2024 Jul 30 12:22 PM

Hello Vicky!

regarding the deprecation of Legacy Goal planned on December 31st 2025 (in the H1 24 documentation).

What about those goal plan NOT converted? There are customers with goal plan since 2020, or 2021.

Some of these have group goals. The legacy goal will ufficialy disappeared after december 2025?

Thanks a lot

CMezger
Participant
‎2024 Aug 19 8:07 AM
0 Kudos

Hello,

In our performance process, the Get Feedback functionality is used to give the Get Feedback provider the same editing options in the form as the manager.

We have switched to Latest Goal management in production. The Get Feedback giver is authorized to the Target and the Development template per RBP. The RBP have not been changed.

In Legacy Goal Management, both performance and development goals could be entered via Get Feedback using the form.
This is no longer possible after the changeover to Latest Goal Management.

As the development plan is visible in our company, it is not possible to authorize all employees to all goal/development plans.

This means that the Get Feedback function for creating and editing goals via the form is no longer available.

We urgently need to restore this functionality.

Thank you for your feedback.

Thanks

Conny

MarikaS
Explorer
‎2025 Jan 10 7:02 AM
0 Kudos

Hi @VanessaLi ,

Team Goals were supposed to replace Group Goals in Latest Goal Management, but there are still issues when admin users are assigning Team Goals as Group Goals to all employees or employees based on certain filters.

When assigning Team Goals to for example a Division with 500 employees, the admin user cannot select all users, but needs to scroll down, wait for the list to be refreshed, scroll down, wait, scroll, wait until they have reached the bottom of the list of employees (= 25 times scroll & wait). The search window only shows 20 employees at the time, and Select All only selects the employees which are visible in the window. This is again causing frustration for admin users, as customers are setting 2025 goals as we speak. Is this enhancement proceeding?  https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/idea/309177 

The other issue is with the filters when assigning Team Goals as Group Goals: you can only select one filter at the time. So imagine you have a Group Goal that should be assigned to for example all 4000 employees. There is no option to assign to All users, but you need to use filters. Let's say your company has 15 Divisions. Admin user needs to assign the same Team Goal 15 times to get it assigned to all employees, since you can only select one Division at the time as filter. And then you still need to do all the scrolling and waiting to be able to select all employees in that Division as mentioned above. Is this enhancement ever proceeding? https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/idea/309147 

Both of these are very important for admin user experience and adoption of Latest Goal Management. 

BR,
Marika

VanessaLi
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
‎2025 Jan 10 7:27 AM
0 Kudos

@MarikaS  We are trying hard to push the two enhancements to release. Since they do not fall under the Goals domain, and much rather fall under the Search domain, I have forwarded this to our internal Search team to consider it for 1H 2025.

Tbrown
Participant
‎2025 Feb 14 2:59 PM
0 Kudos

Hello, I am getting ready to upgrade to the Latest Goal Management. Beforehand, I want to close our our 2024 Performance goals by mass changing all existing goals to Completed status. 

Please advise on how I would export all 2024 goals and update the status to Completed. What are the steps to move all 2024 goals in the Legacy Goals platform to Completed?

I am assuming once I upgrade to the Latest Goal Management platform, employees will not be able to change their goal status to completed resulting in pending Goal action cards on their home page.

VanessaLi
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
‎2025 Feb 21 9:55 AM
0 Kudos

@Tbrown 

  • Navigate to Report center
  • Click “New”
  • Click “Table”
  • Click Single Domain
  • Select “Goal Management” as the data you wish to start with
  • Define Team: Select any Team Manager and select “Other Filters” for the Team Reporting Type
  • Click on Data Sets and choose the Goal Template that needs to be converted, which contains the unsupported table fields
  • Click on “Columns” and select all columns configured for the Target and Tasks table
  • Click the Objective plan ID and Objective ID

Then through Import Performance Goals tool, in your csv import file, use ACTION: UPDATE to edit the goals' status value. Here's the help guide on how to import: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_SUCCESSFACTORS_PERFORMANCE_AND_GOALS/4a24e48b5c384b18a81f6b661305021e/...