# A Brief about Apprentice Management
Apprentice management is a new functionality in EC which is released as a part of 1602 Q1 release. This functionality will help for managing apprentice plans in a company.
It helps enable your business to plan, manage, engage, and retain the new employees (trainees) of your workforce while defining the game of your training program.
It will appear in people profile as a separate portlet.It can be used to capture trainees information like Training Start Date, Training End Date, Supervisor for Apprentice, Trainee Group, On the job training, Internal training etc..
# My Role on the Project and Company
I am working in enhancements and supports in a SAP partner company called Blueprint Technologies. As clients requires new functionalities available in system we need to keep on exploring the updates. So as a part of enhancement recommendation to the client we went through the functionality called "Apprentice Management". Once we given demo of this functionality many clients shown interest for enhancement in the system with Apprentice Management.
# Scope of Apprentice Management\
- Creating Apprentice plan for trainees.
- Creating development plans for trainees.
- Managing trainees with different On The Job Training and Internal training.
- Assigning Apprentice Supervisor.
- Communicating Apprentice plans to Supervisor and trainees.
- Overview of apprentice plan in Apprentice calendar.
- Categorizing apprentice based on different apprentice groups.
- Planning the duration of training with a start date and end date.
Here i am showing the portlet display of Apprentice portlet in one employee
Interesting fact in apprentice management is On-The-Job Training, Internal Training, Time off etc will appear in the calendar with highlighted in different color codes for a period of time.
System also allow to view the calendar for whole week, month and year. It is a better feature in one shot to understand the apprentice who undertaken different training activities. It will also show the status of training whether it is in progress, completed or in future.
HOW TO ENABLE APPRENTICE MANAGEMENT ?
As a prerequisite it is required to enable the functionality in
provisioning and once it is completed you may need to enable this in
Manage Employee Central Settings
PERMISSIONS RELATED TO APPRENTICE MANAGEMENT
Once you enable Apprentice Management in Manage Employee Central Settings then the next step is to provide permission for the functionality in
Manage Permission Roles for relevant roles.
You can give all objects permissions related to Apprentice Management under
Apprentice Management Permissions
BRINGING APPRENTICE MANAGEMENT IN PEOPLE PROFILE
Once you complete giving permission you can bring the object to people profile as a different portlet.
This you can achieve using
Configure People Profile
You can search for the block called
Apprentice in Configure People profile and then you can drag and push it to the required portlet. You will have option to change the name of portlet as well.
ENABLE PERMISSION IN EMPLOYEE VIEW TO VIEW THE PORTLET IN PEOPLE PROFILE
As the next step after you bring the portlet of Apprentice Management in people profile then you need to give view permissions in
Employee View for the new portlet you created in people profile.
Now you will be able to see the Apprentice Management Portlet in People Profile
YOU CAN USE THE FOLLOWING OBJECTS TO MAINTAIN DATA IN PORTLET
- Manage Data -> Apprentice
Apprentice object is to capture apprentice information with respect to each user. This data will be reflecting automatically in People Profile.
2. Manage Data .> Assigned Group
This you can define to create a common group for a set of trainees
3. Manage Data -> Apprentice School
This you can use to sub categorize apprentice into different schools
4. Manage Data -> Practical Training Events
This you can use to create and assign on the job training to apprentice. Here you can create a kind of on the job training and then you can assign to multiple apprentice. You can also mention the start date and end of the training so that it will reflect in Apprentice calendar with color code.
5. Manage Data -> Internal Training Events
This you can use to assign internal training for different apprentice. It will also have a start date and end date which will reflect in the Apprentice calendar with a different color code.
Once you complete this you captured training related attributes of one employee with necessary information. Success factors is created in such a way that to add custom fields also to the objects. So in case if any client required to capture additional information also as a part of apprentice it can be done through
Configure Object Definition
# Challenges in Apprentice Management
1. Role of apprentice supervisor is very limited. Other than sending apprentice plans mail from system i didn't any additional relevance for apprentice supervisor.
2. It is better if we can take a review or feedback from all Apprentice Supervisor about the trainee in the training perspective.
3. A separate hire action for apprentice also a recommended feature to built.
4. An org chart with separate tab for apprentice with Mentor. It helps to identify mentors and the trainees as a flow chart and from that flow chart system should allow to navigate to apprentice plans.
# Conclusion
I tried to explain a new functionality in SF where many clients are not used in their SF system.
Hope my writing will help you to understand the functionality better and also you can suggest this functionality to the clients with the advantages of using this. As SAP is keep on doing research in its product we are expecting the upgrades in the upcoming releases. As my scope is also part of enhancements, i will keep on updating the new changes in system with explanations.
Thank You