It's been over six months since my initial blog post on the Talent Intelligence Hub, offering a comprehensive overview of this solution. In case you missed it, you can find it here: - Everything you need to know about: SAP SuccessF... - SAP Community.
Since its General Availability in the second half of 2023, Talent Intelligence Hub has undergone many updates. I'll share a few key updates relevant to 2024 in this blog.
*****Update July 24th, 2024*****
With the evolution of our AI strategy SAP SuccessFactors have taken the decision not to continue maintenance for two “Early Adopter” Base AI features in Talent Intelligence Hub. We will instead release Premium AI skills inference features starting with 2H 2024, and we expect these to deliver far superior results.
Recommendations to Early Adopter Care customers:
- Base AI Use Case #1: Customers currently testing the MS Graph-based skills recommendations are requested not to roll out the feature to any users.
- Base AI Use Case #2: Customers using the current skills recommendations sourced from Continuous Performance Management data will be able to continue testing that feature with minimal support, but we recommend waiting to test with our improved offering.
Talent intelligence hub skills recommendations are planned for iteration and enhancement as follows:
- Continuous Performance Management-based Inferences - to be redeveloped in 2H 2024 as a Premium AI version
- OKR and Opportunity Marketplace-based Inferences – to be supported with additional internal data sources in 2025+
- External Data Inferences/ MS Graph Inferences – will be planned as soon as practical, after internal data sources are stable.
We fully recognise the importance of skills inference to our overall strategy for talent intelligence. We are committed to doing so in a scalable and sustainable way for our customers and SAP.
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Talent Intelligence Foundation
We have recently made some changes to the terminology of the peripheral components of talent intelligence hub to enhance clarity. For example, what was previously called the "Skills Ontology" is now called the "Talent Intelligence Foundation." It's important to note that Talent Intelligence Foundation is not a Skills Library! It is a foundation of skills that will allow us to support skills matching and skill inferences.
NOTE: We are creating our baseline talent intelligence foundation by combining 3 databases (Lightcast, O*NET, & ESCO). Customers will not see or interact with the Talent Intelligence Foundation at all. It will be present and used in the skills inference process. As the name suggests, it is a 'foundation for skills used in the inference process.' It is not a skills library.
To understand Talent intelligence foundation better, let's know what is 'AI-Inference' and, more specifically, what is 'skills inference.'
What is Inferencing?
An inference is an idea or conclusion drawn from evidence and reasoning. An inference is an educated guess. Making inferences is a way of connecting unknown information with the known. To do this, you analyze events, facts, ideas, and objects and compare them with what you already know.
AI Inferencing is the process of running live data through a trained AI model to make a prediction. (Source – IBM Research article https://research.ibm.com/blog/AI-inference-explained
We make inferences in everyday life.
Example: Emily sees chocolate stains on her daughter's face and dress, notices more chocolate stains on the refrigerator handle. Emily infers that her daughter opened the refrigerator and ate some of the chocolate cake.
You meet a colleague for the first time in person, and you see she's wearing a 'cat mom' sweater and has a custom coffee cup that says 'crazy cat lady'; you infer that your colleague loves cats!
What is Skill Inferencing?
Using natural language processing (NLP), AI-driven Skill Inference is a technique to extract employee skills from a variety of unstructured data sources (e.g., emails, chats, images, video footage, text, and so on).
It's common for HR Applications, including SuccessFactors, for employee skills-related data to be stored in several places within the suite and in various formats. This data often describes what they do, how they progress within an organization, their strengths, capabilities, feedback received, performance reviews, development goals, learnings, certifications, project accomplishments, and more. Managing this data and drawing conclusions about an employee's Skills portfolio can be complex. Skill inference helps by bringing together insights from these different sources, creating one reliable Skills Portfolio for each employee.
Skill Inferencing in Talent Intelligence Hub
Now that we have clarified the definitions, let's look into how skill inference plays a role in talent intelligence hub, especially with talent intelligence foundation.
Talent intelligence foundation is our intended approach to skills and talent strategy to help SAP SuccessFactors customers be future-ready.
It's a four-step process, as depicted in the figure.
Step 1
Our AI-infused Skill Inference uses machine learning (ML) algorithms to extract the digital footprints generated by employees as they interact with 3rd-party applications, leading Skills databases, collaboration tools, and internal data, i.e., from the SuccessFactors suite solutions. The data extraction is limited to semantic info about 'skills' using natural language processing (NLP), which helps translate unstructured data to structured input, almost like autocorrect!
Step 2
The structured skills data is then validated with SAP's trained machine learning model: talent intelligence foundation.
Step 3
Next, the system sends the inferred skills data to Attributes Library to check if there is an exact match for the skill in the Attributes Library.
Step 4
The skill is displayed as a 'recommended skill' in the employee's Growth Portfolio if a match is found.
The skill inferencing system works as a connector between the source system (for example, Microsoft Graph or SAP SuccessFactors Continuous Performance Management) and Talent Intelligence Hub.
NOTE:This feature is in the Restricted Availability phase. To test this feature in your environment, please email SAPSuccessFactorsEACPrograms@sap.com.
Here's a great video from one of LinkedIn's influencers, Bernard Marr, where he explains Unstructured data vs Structured data.
Skill Inference Sources (Early Adopter)
- Skill Recommendations based on Microsoft 365 Graph data
If the Microsoft Azure Client application is set up in your environment and the email ID of an employee in Microsoft Azure matches the email ID in SAP SuccessFactors, the skill inferencing system can create skill recommendations based on skill terms in the data from Microsoft Graph. The skills data is extracted from the following Microsoft APIs:
- Outlook calendar invitations
- Teams Team names and descriptions
- Distribution lists
For example, if an employee is in multiple Microsoft Teams that has 'Finance' as a common term in the Teams name or in description, the skills inferencing system learns that the employee is interested in financial management skills. The skill inferencing system then checks if there's an exact match for the skill name in the customer's Attributes Library. If a match is found, the skill is displayed as a recommended skill in the employee's Growth Portfolio.
- Skill Recommendation based on CPM data
Activities, Achievements, and Feedback in Continuous Performance Management (CPM) reflect the work an employee is doing within the organization and can be used to infer skills for the employee. As more employees continue to build a portfolio of activities, achievements, and feedback, they're likely to acquire new skills that may not otherwise be captured.
Note: Learn more about configuring this option - SAP Help Portal
- Skill Recommendation from External Skills Databases, licensed by customer (*Roadmap)
We will support the ingestion of data from external data sources of the customers' choice, and the data quality will, in part, determine the quality of inferences. The customer must have a direct license with the external Skills vendor they intend to use for skills inference (*Roadmap).
Other TIH Highlights for 2024
Import/Export Template for Talent Intelligence Hub Entities
Talent Intelligence Hub leverages Integration Center (IC) for importing and exporting entities. As a one-time activity, It's easy to set up a recurring job (daily, weekly, etc.) to import and export data from talent intelligence hub.
We have provided integration definition files, so you don't have to build one from scratch. You can download the templates from SAP Business Accelerator Hub:
Attributes Library
This package provides import/export templates for Attributes, Tags, Behaviors, Attribute to Tag Mapping, and Attribute to Behavior Mapping.
Growth Portfolio
With the Growth Portfolio import/export templates, you can feed external learning and talent solutions with attributes, date of assignment and associated ratings of People maintain on their Growth Portfolio.
Talent Intelligence Hub Growth Portfolio Import
Talent Intelligence Hub Growth Portfolio Export
Importing SkillsPlex data to Talent Intelligence Hub
Using the delivered import templates, you can now import SkillsPlex data into Talent intelligence hub. This package provides data files for SkillsPlex Attributes, Tags, and Attribute to Tag Mappings.
Link to SkillsPlex Import Template
Attributes Library and Attribute Sources
The attributes library is organized by attribute types and tags. Customers can use the Integration Center to populate these libraries from a 'source' of choice.
Team Portfolio for Managers
Managers can now view or edit the Growth Portfolio of their direct reports. The Team Portfolio provides a snapshot of direct reports' skills and skill gaps for the manager. Managers need role-based permissions to view their direct reports' growth portfolios.
Managers can:
- By default, the Team Portfolio screen shows all direct reports. However, the view is limited to 30 people at a time. You can add or remove people to the list based on your preference.
- Use filters to search for people by attributes, tags, and proficiency levels.
- Add or remove attributes from an individual's or everyone's Growth Portfolio.
- Assign proficiency levels for newly added attributes. Managers can also modify the proficiency level for existing attributes in an individual's Growth Portfolio.
Talent Intelligence Hub – Available features as of 2H2023 and EA
Here's a list of #talentintelligencehub features and HXM suite use cases available with 2H2023 release.
Talent Intelligence Hub – 2024 and Roadmap items
There's an impressive list of existing and upcoming use cases in 2024. Here's a list of some of the key roadmap items. Recruiting is getting a lot of AI love in 2024 release. Career Explorer, powered by SAP Business AI service, currently recommends career opportunities (roles) to employees based on the career paths of the people who are similar to them in the organization. Going forward it will also use Skills as a data source for personalized career path recommendations. There's also 'skills tagging' for learning content in the roadmap, which aims to remove the manual work by learning admins to assign skill(s) to learning content.
Talent Intelligence Hub – Dashboards and Story Reports
There are two standard dashboards available as of 2H 2023 - Admin Dashboard and Manager Dashboard.
Admin Dashboard
The Admin Dashboard provides a concise view of the attributes, tags, behaviors, and more that's available in the Talent Intelligence Hub Attributes Library for an HR Administrator.
Note: The report considers the logged-in user’s locale to display the data. In case, Attributes /Tags/Attribute Types are not maintained in logged in user locale, then the count displayed may vary for the logged in user.
The template is now available on Import -Content Store in Report Center. The title of the template story is SF_TIH_Talent_Intelligence_Hub_HR_Admin_Dashboard_v1.0.
Manager Dashboard
The Manager Dashboard provides managers an overview of Team Members’ proficiency levels, any proficiency gaps, areas of strength, and opportunities for development.
You can filter the report by Attribute type, Attribute, User, and Proficiency level. There are two Pages provided:
- Attribute Overview
- Attribute Gaps
The template is now available on Import -Content Store in Report Center. The title of the template story is SF_TIH_Talent_Intelligence_Hub_HR_Manager_Dashboard_v1.0.
Note: We highly recommend that you make another copy of this story and make necessary changes. Please avoid updating the imported story, as your changes are over-written if the story is re-imported from Content Store.
Stories in People Analytics
Other than utilizing these dashboards, you can also create Story Reports with data from Talent Intelligence Hub. These Story Reports in People Analytics can be used for audit purposes. You can report on data for the following entities in Talent Intelligence Hub.
Attributes
Attribute Types
Tags
Growth Portfolio
Behaviors
Proficiency Level
Proficiency Set
Talent Intelligence Hub – Components & Structure
Talent intelligence hub comprises of three key elements:
- Job Profile Builder
- Attributes Library
- Growth Portfolio (Team Portfolio is an additional view within Growth Portfolio for people managers, with necessary role-based permission)
Note: Conceptually JPB is now part of Talent Intelligence Hub. While JPB will continue to manage Job related attributes, Growth Portfolio will manage People attributes and Attributes Library will serve as the storage place for all these attributes. There can be three scenarios while implementing TIH:
- From a solution perspective, JPB can be implemented without Growth Portfolio, if a customer isn't ready for the change management involving Growth Portfolio and giving its employees access to manage own Skills Portfolio.
- A customer may decide to enable and implement Growth Portfolio only but not JPB. In both scenario #1 and #2 they will need Attributes Library to store the attributes.
- The third and recommended scenario is implementation all components of TIH - JPB, Growth Portfolio and Attributes Library. This help customers to be a skills-based organization and develop a future-ready workforce.
I hope this information was helpful. Please refer to other talent intelligence hub related blogs:
Link to other blogs -
Talent Intelligence Hub and SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite Integration as of Release 2H 2023
SAP SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace & SAP Business AI-powered Recommendation
Talent Intelligence Hub & SAP SuccessFactors Learning Integration
SAP Help link for Talent Intelligence Hub - Talent Intelligence Hub | SAP Help Portal
Many thanks to @Julie Bartholic and @kanchanarao @Rebecca Reagan-Thieme for the collaboration.
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