SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central: H2 2020

nageshpolu · ‎2020 Oct 22

SuccessFactors Is Listening!

SuccessFactors Employee Central (EC), the core HR. Every implementation proves, we still have lot to cover in this module. Well it’s an ocean, I even call it as Mother of all Modules ?

Last blog, I have covered only EC Time Off , as I didn't want to mix time with other stuff. Now, let’s go deeper and see what SAP has to showcase on for Employee Central (minus Time & Attendance). Well, before I talk about the innovations coming in 2H 2020, let me tell you, from past few months, even before the H1 release, we have been seeing enhancement requests pouring from customers and consultants. Lot of discussions around Qualtrics integration, seen people recommending different scenarios for making the best usage of Qualtrics & EC duo. Also, on the mobility, customers were very keen to know about SAP’s roadmap on SuccessFactors mobile app. Even me, as a consultant, was very excited to see the release updates, especially on SuccessFactors Employee Central module. After I went thru the entire list of updates, let me tell you, we have to appreciate SAP team for bringing exciting innovations across the module. You will see something coming from every corner.

Let’s jump into the ocean and deep dive into EC. Here is the list of updates I can think of that you should consider:

Configurable New Hire: One of the best enhancements, I call. This will now allow you to flexibly configure the hiring process to cater to different needs for your workforce. You create templates where you specify only the blocks needed for the type of employment you are hiring for, meaning that you can add, remove, and rearrange the order of the blocks as well as add standard and custom MDF objects to the configuration. Best thing is it now allows custom MDF objects as well ?

Configuration Type: Admin Opt-in

The template is supported in the following processes:

Add New Employee

Add New Employee for Fixed Term

Rehire Inactive Employee (all scenarios)

Note: Configurable New Hire does not support Add Contingent Worker in this version.

On the enablement, I had to enable both in Manage Recruits and Manage Business Configuration.

Pending Hires Available in Admin Alerts 2.0: You can now access your pending hires using Admin Alerts 2.0 from home page or Admin Center.

Configuration Type: Admin Opt-In

Other than pending hires, the latest release brings few more changes on to Admin Alerts 2.0, like, monitoring HR data issues aroused out of incorrect or invalid Foundation Object configurations in the Job Information of users, inactive dynamic role users and also the application helps you to monitor and resolve data replications from Employee Central to designated target systems. So, Admin Alerts 2.0 is your going forward solution to manage HR data issues.

Manage Recruits (New Permission Category): The new Manage Hires or Recruits section contains all the hire-related permission settings so that granting access to HR admins and managers for new users is more efficient. Moving all the hire-related permission settings into one category provides an easier overview of all the settings as well as who can create users in the system.

Configuration Type: Universal

Enrollment or Claim of Benefits on Mobile via the Browser: SAP SuccessFactors has enabled support for enrolling and claiming benefits on mobile via browsers, which means now you can now enroll and claim benefits on mobile using any browser (I tried it on Chrome Browser, looks good!)

Configuration Type: Universal

Work Permit Importing on Centralized Services: You can now import work permit data in a new way based on the Centralized Services. This topic is only applicable for the customers who import work permits on the Centralized Services, they have to comply with the requirements (Country, Document Type, Document Number, Issue Date and User ID) on data preparation and understand the Behavior changes. Only the Full Purge mode is supported at the moment, which means all work permit information related to the selected users are deleted before the users' new information is imported.

Configuration Type: Admin Opt-in

Entities that support Centralized services even when the configuration switch is not enabled:

Biographical Information

Email Information

Phone Information

National ID Information

Personal Information

Global Information

Copy Configuration from one EC Instance to another EC Instance (ERP Integration): You can copy the configurations like transformation template group, metadata, picklists etc from one Employee Central instance to another EC instance based on a template group, which means When you are setting up the basic configuration activities in your ERP system for the replication of employee master data and organization data, you can run this report to speed-up the process. After choosing the source EC instance and transformation template group and entering the target EC instance and transformation template group, the target EC instance and transformation template group is first created and then the configurations are copied into them when you execute the report.

Prerequisite - Support package 30 of the integration add-on for ERP and SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central (SFSF EC INTEGRATION 1210) must be installed in your SAP S/4HANA or SAP ERP system.

Configuration Type: Admin Opt-in

Option to Select Event Reason While Hiring or Rehiring Contingent Workers: You can now select an event reason from the UI while hiring or rehiring contingent workers, which eliminates the requirement of relying on business rules to derive an event reason when you hire or rehire contingent workers.

Configuration Type: Universal

Live Profile User Information for Contingent Workers: This enhancement will enable you to add to your People Profile to display and manage additional information about contingent workers. By adding Live Profile User Information block to your People Profile, you don’t need to import data using Employee Central Imports or OData APIs to modify information that's not available on the contingent worker's profile. The best part is, if you already have Live Profile User Information block for regular employees, you need not configure your People Profile as the custom block is now visible for contingent workers as well.

Configuration Type: Admin Opt-In

Country/Region-Specific Gender Field: You can now use the new Gender field in Global Information to collect gender information specific to a country or region. Predefined picklists for the country/region-specific Gender field are available for Germany and India.

Configuration Type: Admin Opt-in

Manage Pending Hires Supports onChange Rules Across Blocks for Internal Hires: You’re now able to execute onChange rules across blocks when an employee is transferred within your organization using the Manage Pending Hires tool. Having this feature, you can also trigger changes based on rules set for fields across blocks. For example, when there’s a transfer leading to a change in the company code, the pay group is changed based on onChange rules in your instance.

Configuration Type: Universal

Skip Consecutive Workflow Steps with Duplicate Approver: This new feature allows customers to skip all the consecutive workflow steps with the same single approver, except the last step. Customers have to enable the option Skip workflow steps with duplicate approver in Company System and Logo Settings, the steps immediately close to each other and having the same single approver, except the last one of them, are automatically skipped. These steps are marked as "Skipped" on the Workflow Participants dialog box and in the Activity area of the Workflow Details page. By skipping other steps, customers can shorten a long approval chain, improving efficiency without affecting data quality.

Configuration Type: Admin Opt-in

Internal Job History Block Available in People Profile: configure the Internal Job History block in the People Profile to view a summarized version of an employee's job history at the company. This is a read-only block, showing a filtered version of the job history for an employee based on a rule scenario configured to show selected fields from Job Information. Well, I had to enable disable few times to see the tile live, but hope to see getting better in production

Configuration Type: Admin Opt-in

New Business Rule Scenario for Workflows: You can find the new business scenario Trigger Workflows under the Employee Central Core category on the Configure Business Rules page. This scenario removes irrelevant options or settings that are visible in a generic business rule scenario, and offers special support when you define the THEN statement of your business rule. Best solution for the business scenario where you want to create all your workflow business rules.

Configuration Type: Admin Opt-in

Improved Handling of Import Data in Global Benefits: SAP have enhanced the import data functionality to make it more easily usable. Customers have reported issues during the import of enrollments as certain scenarios weren’t handled. Also, customers have been asking for support for import of the HSA saving type benefit. List of enhancements that have been made to the import data functionality:

Support for the import of the Health Savings Plan (HSA) benefit type

Improvements in the import of insurance enrollments. For example, if employee and employer contributions aren’t maintained in the import file, the system updates the fields automatically.

Improved error handling and validation for better usability and troubleshooting

Also, In the current version, following enhancements, validations, or appropriate error handling is introduced for different benefit types:

When a particular combination of Coverage, Enrolling For, and Smoking isn’t maintained in the rate chart

When the enrollment request date is in future or is missing in the import file

When the employee contribution and the employer contribution filled in the import file don’t match with the rates available in the rate chart

When the insurancePlanEnrolmentdetail.csv file is missing in the import zip folder

When the dependent details aren’t added for a plan that has premium type as Dependents only

Deductible Allowance

Validation has been introduced to handle scenarios when the Benefit Enrollment-Deduction Details.csv file is missing in the import zip folder.

Pension

Validation has been introduced to handle scenarios when Benefit Enrollment - Pension Fund Enrollment Contribution Details.csv file is missing in the import zip folder.

Savings Plan

Import of savings plan of type HSA.

Imports of Flexible Spending Account, Limited Flexible Spending Account, and Dependent Care Reimbursement Account savings plan are enhanced to support the new fields introduced for the handling of partial year enrollments.

Configuration Type: Admin Opt-in

Qualtrics Integration: Topic of the town, As expected, SAP SuccessFactors team is trying to make the best of Qualtrics Email Surveys, From this version, using the intelligent service events send employee information to Qualtrics so that you can send a Qualtrics survey via email to them for the following scenarios:

When people are assigned to concurrent employment

When employee ends his/her global assignment

When there is a change in manager

To find out how they're doing with their new job

To find out why they're leaving the organization

Configuration Type: Admin Opt-in

Well, the list goes on, but, I chose these. I have covered the crucials ones, if not please comment below on what I missed.

Also please find the documentation on the SAP Help Portal under SAP SuccessFactors Release Information, quick links under "What's New" section will provide the detailed release summary across application.

You can also refer to below blogs on other module updates: