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Get insider info on SAP SuccessFactors HCM suite for core HR and payroll, time and attendance, talent management, employee experience management, and more in this SAP blog.
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orkuntuerkmen
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
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What are the Public Cloud Software releases?

SaaS (software as a Service) or Public Cloud solutions deliver regular changes to improve their capability. These changes, which can be either optional or mandatory, include enhancements and new features. While we're focusing on the SAP SuccessFactors solution, these core concepts apply to all SaaS/Public cloud solutions.

What is Release Management?

At a high level, release management involves planning, scheduling, and controlling software release build, testing, and deployment. It ensures that new features and updates are delivered reliably and consistently, minimizing the risk of service disruption. Due to the continuous delivery and deployment models, this process is even more critical in a cloud environment like SuccessFactors.

Effective release management secures minimized disruption, improved user experience, and increased security. Depending on the customer's requirements, the release's frequency and size (how many changes are included) are decided as part of release management.

The bare minimum for SAP SuccessFactors is twice a year, and SAP automatically provides these changes as part of the subscription.

Critical Components of SuccessFactors Release Management

1. Planning and Scheduling: SuccessFactors operates on a bi-annual release cycle, the May and November releases. This predictable schedule allows customers to plan and prepare for upcoming changes. Customers can not deviate from the release plan and must adjust their release planning accordingly. Ensure mission-critical items are not due on the same date as the release for end users who may be working on such tasks late Friday evening or Saturday morning (depending on the location of your data center). 

Resources,

  • Product Release & Road Map Information View the planned Preview and Production Release dates.
    Link: https://pages.community.sap.com/topics/successfactors/product-release-road-map
  • Innovation Alerts proactively communicate changes impacting customers, including migrations and deprecations, providing necessary enablement resources. (e.g., Goal Management Opt-Out in 1H 2024 and Universal March 2025; it is impossible to opt out of the new Goal Management forms as of 2025; therefore, customers must plan activation of new goal forms). Typically major changes requires several releases and introduced optional opt-out first therefore high level  planning is quite instrumental. Link: https://community.sap.com/t5/innovation-alerts/tkb-p/hxm-innovation-alerts 
    You can also use the WhatsNew portal and filter the release by the word "Deprecated." Here is an example for the 2024 H2 release.
  • Plan the release weekend and ensure there is no impact on the operation. View the upcoming planned Preview and Production Release dates. Release windows are longer than typical maintenance windows. Without careful planning, they may interfere with other batch jobs, including those from connected solutions like Time Tracking, Org Chart, or other add-ons. To prevent potential conflicts, it is crucial to review the upcoming planned release dates for both Preview and Production environments.

    Please review this SAP SuccessFactors Community blog to review potential upgrade windows and details associated with a non-disruptive scheduled patch. Although relatively rare, your instance may receive an unscheduled patch to fix a critical functional or security issue.

2. Discover and Explore: SuccessFactors provides detailed release notes and documentation ahead of each release, outlining new features, enhancements, and any potential impacts on existing functionalities. At this phase, customers should review and shortlist the features that could be activated (optional) and also list features that are activated and should be tested. Your process owners, users, and admin should know the available capabilities. This review has to involve business owners, and decisions should be made by consensus after the impact review. At this stage, dependencies, if any, and risk assessments and licensing impact, if any, should also be conducted.

For example, a release offers 27 features for the Performance and Goal Management module, 15 of which are automatically on (global changes). The remaining 12 are reviewed, and only 3 are found relevant by process owners. Such a review per module would take not even 30 minutes and should be done twice a year. Activating optional features not reviewed and approved by process owners is not recommended. 
Resources,

3. Testing and Quality Assurance: Rigorous testing ensures stability and performance before the release. This includes automated testing, user acceptance testing (UAT), and beta testing with a select group of customers. Moreover, the release is available for all customers for four to five weeks in the preview environment.
Customers should define the core interfaces and scenarios. Business users (typically process owners) conduct the regression testing. Customers should also decide if they need to utilize automated testing tools and, if applicable, adjust the test scripts after the release. We recommend refreshing tenants regularly so that you have a representative preview/quality landscape. 
(Instance Refresh Tool FAQ & Demo  Full Admin guide to enabling Instance Refresh Tool)

4. Customer Enablement: SuccessFactors provides comprehensive training and support to help customers understand and utilize new features. Webinars, Q&A sessions, tutorials, and support documentation ensure a smooth transition. Most release changes require only basic SF admin skills and do not require deep consulting expertise. For changes requiring provisioning, where activation is not self-service, customers can request assistance through an SAP support ticket, offered as a free service by SAP cloud product support.
Resources,

  • What’s New Viewer is a simple portal to explore all the changes to SAP SuccessFactors for each release. It is also suitable for the end-users and should be utilized. You can filter by your interests, explore the list, dive into the adoption steps, and create a local copy for your shortlist.
    Link: https://help.sap.com/whats-new/8fcf4960eea24f78b1d7613da406a885 
  • SAP Cloud Product Support Select one of the channels SAP offers (Case, Expert Chat, Ask an expert peer...) to get help, which is part of your subscription. https://support.sap.com/en/my-support/product-support.html 
  • Plan and Prepare for Change Management for Your End Users
    Review each release item per module to determine if updates to training materials or employee communications are necessary. While most changes won't require organization-wide communication, some as the major changes like the use of interfaces or new reporting tools, etc., will.
  • SAP Learning Hub, you can gain skills per your role via https://learninghub.sap.com/  SAP offers several free online courses via SAP Learning Hub.

5. Post-Release Activities / Measure / Feedback Loop: After the release, end-user feedback should be gathered and analyzed to address any issues and inform future updates. Release-related known problems, if any, should be reviewed. It could be done via a short meeting with process owners or power users. 

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Please post your questions so that we can enrich the following FAQ part.

  • The proposed release dates would impact our project plan. Can the SF release be delayed by two months?

    Release changes are data center-wide activities without exceptions. Like other cloud SW vendors, SAP does not offer release date exceptions. 

  • There are significant optional changes, such as the new LMS user experience, that we are cautious about activating in the upcoming SF release due to multiple changes impacting our system. We plan to keep these features opt-out until they become mandatory. Is there any disadvantage to this approach?

    It's common to see opt-out options for some features until they become mandatory. We encourage you to activate these features according to your change plan rather than waiting for the compulsory deadline. This approach allows more time for testing and access to expert assistance if needed. For example, consider activating optional features in July or August after the May release and before mandatory activation in November. This buffer period can help address any issues and leverage support and development teams' availability before the post-release rush.

  • Are there any configuration changes required for the new features? Is there any impact on customizations or integrations?

    The majority of the changes are automatically on; you can see others via the enablement filter. Some changes may require a further license, backend configuration change, or customer admin actions. (e.g. "Enhancements to AI-Assisted Writing and Availability in More Areas" requires SAP AI unit; "Full Profile of the Latest People Profile", In addition to predefined cards and categories, administrators can configure custom cards, and then organize them into custom categories. So customer admin action is imperative for correct customization)

  • Several interfaces with the Time Tracking solution failed (or bank interface or Reporting data extractors) during the release update. How can we mitigate this issue again?

    SAP shared the release dates and duration, and all connected solutions should consider these dates/timings. Surprisingly, SAP still receives hundreds of tickets about failing batch jobs or interfaces due to the release changes. Please review your interface and report schedules and align with release timings. 

Summary,

Effective release management is a cornerstone of maintaining the reliability and performance of cloud-based software like SAP SuccessFactors. A structured release management process for SAP SuccessFactors ensures that customers receive timely updates that enhance their HR operations without disrupting their daily activities.

 

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