Some issues with the SuccessFactors Microsoft Teams integration

[StephenBurns]

1. There is no real support structure in place
I am not sure if anyone else is experiencing the same issues, but there seems to be no real support structure in place for the MS Teams app. If your users have issues authenticating or issues with any of the services, it just tells the user to contact their administrator. This isn't a message we can customize, and as administrators, we can do very little to actually help the user. There are no FAQs in the implementation guide to help administrators understand the cause of basic issues. For example, we have users that cannot authenticate and get the message "The app is unavailable due to user mapping issues. Please contact your administrator for help." SAP support has been no help in resolving these issues. Our SAP reps have been no help in resolving these issues. I cannot enage my internal Teams or Azure beyond verifying my UPN without additional information. If I am seeing this as an issue in a small pilot group, how bad would it be for a global employee population? Would i be expected to raise tickets with SAP for each issue. We have also see an error that states "Unable to reach app. Please try again" Is this an issue with Teams, the bot service, azure, our network, Successfactors? How am i to know and resolve?
2. You cannot customize the list of actions shown to users, even if those actions are not available. Things like view my pay statements will be shown as an action, even if your system does not support that. There is a learn more button which for some reason redirects users to help.SAP.com, which none of our end users use
3. When you first download the app, you get a page with formatting errors

4. The EC quick actions don't let you bring in standard fields into some of their templates. If you use standard fields as filtering criteria, you may not be able to bring that filterable field into the change template.
5. Some of the rule types do not function
6. The quick actions also show up in the web app and you don't seem to be able to customize this. Imagine creating a quick action to view your cost center so that someone could do that in Teams without logging in, but then it clutters up this menu

Those last four are somewhat minor compared to the first two. Connecting the web application to a huge enterprise application like MS teams without having a predefined support structure and providing tools to easily fix common issues is a show stopper. Having the interaction with your end users having no customizable options, so that the app suggests services that cannot be completed. Is also a show stopper

A few more issues discovered:

The new people profile spotlight disabled the links to chat in Teams that were enabled by the teams app in the old experience version

Changes you make to your instance, like enabling new quick actions, do not appear in the teams app. I have a support ticket on this, but considering there is no way to really sign out of the app, because even uninstalling the app and reinstalling it keeps you in the same session, Im guessing that I just need to wait until im eventually forced to reauthenticate

The home page is also not customizable and for some reason SAP has it show only your cost center. There is also no org chart in the teams app which would be very useful

While I stay signed into the app with no clear way to sign out, the home page constantly acts like it is signed out and needs to reauthenticate. Almost every time i use the app it asks me to "get started" on the home page.

If you want to use the app for approvals, then you might overlook these issues, but I'd not recommend it. Its pretty anemic on features, difficult if not impossible to support, and directs employees to SAP configuration documentation pretty explicitly. For the features we currently have enabled, there are actually more links to help.SAP than features for end users. I am very confused as to why they added 4 differerent, non customizable, external links to SAP's website in the app

If you want a way to do approvals without accessing the website, i'd recommend the mobile app

What do other people think?

[Ale_Comsa]

Dear @VanessaLi,

Thank you for the details provided in an answer regarding this topic. We would like to implement this functionality, and I'm investigating how and possible issues to be aware off.

All until now seems ok, beside the delegation option you suggest to use when installing the app.  This Improvement Request Details - Customer Influence issue cause me some question if we shall go or not with this project. Please advice.

Thank you in advance!

Alexandra

[sarahhu]

@Ale_Comsa, just want to confirm whether you want to implement the SuccessFactors Teams App, or are you talking about other CPM integration? As I ee in your provided influence and this is not under our Work Tech - Teams integration, it's under dynamic team. Our supported permission type under Teams App includes both application permission and delegate permission which is listed here - https://help.sap.com/docs/successfactors-platform/integrating-sap-successfactors-with-microsoft-365/... . Any further concern from your side?

[Ale_Comsa]

@sarahhu, thank you for your answer.

We are trying to implement integration with MS Teams, it is true that the influence is under Dynamic Teams but the topic is clearly states is related to MS Teams integration: "API Delegated Permissions for Microsoft Teams Integration".  As I saw in the community , you advice to use delegate option to avoid different errors related to user mappings. My question is that the delegation option has the inconvenience stated in the influence posts? 

Thank you!

Alexandra

[sarahhu]

@Ale_Comsa, are you saying the recruiting online meeting integration part (https://help.sap.com/docs/successfactors-platform/integrating-sap-successfactors-with-microsoft-365/...), instead of the Teams App?

[Ale_Comsa]

Hi @sarahhu, yes. And I see that application permission is recommended for recruiting online meeting...But in the main setup, to avoid problems related to user mapping is recommended delegation.

[sarahhu]

@Ale_Comsa, I get that. You can convert that influence idea to Recruiting team. I know their team is doing some work to see if it's possible to provide the option you want, but I don't know the progress on that. You can raise to Recruiting team directly

[Ale_Comsa]

@sarahhu, thank you for answering.

And one final question for CPM - req feedback / give feedback, if questions in SF were personalized with custom translations in manage language, the custom translation will be available in the app? Or jusy only the messages mention here can be changed? https://help.sap.com/docs/successfactors-platform/integrating-sap-successfactors-with-microsoft-365/...

Thank you!

[sarahhu]

One update about the Teams chat integration: In 2H 2024, the profile preview will support this as screenshot shows if Work Tech is enabled.

[jsysel]

Hi,
it looks to me that you have something wrong in the configuration... We don't have payslips in the teams, we have added recognise recently and it's there. The people have exactly what they need to have. It's about permissions and settings of quick actions in the home page configuration. I'd recommend to review it.

[StephenBurns]

Hello @jsysel, if you click supported commands for quick actions or learn more, it will take you to a help.sap guide which lists all available actions and configuration options. Our end users shouldn't see these guides or they are going to get confused. Not only will it suggest actions that they cannot use, but it will show potential functionality that we dont' yet have set up. Like your screenprint, the actions listed out are specific to our instance, but since there are two hyperlinks to an external guide that lists all the actions, it is still confusing

[jsysel]

Hi, I understand, I think this is more for influence portal than anything else. As this enhancement needs to be implemented by SAP into the teams app.

[VanessaLi]

@StephenBurns 

1. For the first point, a couple of comments
   1. "The app is unavailable due to user mapping issues. Please contact your administrator for help" - we do not disclose too much information to the end user so as to not reveal technical or configuration details to relieve them of this burden. We rely on admins who implemented the connection to have an impression that this could be a result of the user mapping they previously set up, since user mapping is one step in the configuration page. I do agree that for this message - it is useful to have it linked to an FAQ or enhance to reveal more info what the mapping issue refers to, we can investigate whether this option is possible. In addition, we have a KBA that explains how to troubleshoot when the same error appears on the Admin configuration page: https://userapps.support.sap.com/sap/support/knowledge/en/3371538 
   2. As for "unable to reach app", this is intended to be a generic message as the root cause cannot be differentiated and reflected in the message without troubleshooting, we display this generic message in the hopes of the user trying to access the app again, or asking for admins for help and eventually submit a Support ticket for engineers to take a closer look. We will explore the possibility of enhancing this message, or at least add some guidance for next step.
   3. Lastly, some of these error messages only occur under Application type permission. If you switch to Delegated type permission, there will be no user mapping issues since the login is triggered by the user themselves. You may see documentation about this type of set up here: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_SUCCESSFACTORS_PLATFORM/3adee415c1eb4b918bc0172afc76948c/7e014829b6684... and a video demo here: https://sapvideo.cfapps.eu10-004.hana.ondemand.com/?entry_id=1_wtw6ptgu
2. This seems to be config issue. If you don't have view pay statement configured in SuccessFactors, this will not shown up in the Teams App, we follow permissioning and configuration. As for the Help guide - we do need a space to display all supported actions, but would need to re-consider what else is the option here instead of exposing it to an end user. What would be your suggestion here - to remove the help link completely? In 2025, we are considering making the Help card text customizable. This is a good opportunity for you to remove the link there.
3. Formatting issue is fixed. Please check again
4. This is an issue that you could bring to the EC team, as we follow whatever template they provide.
5. Is this related to #4? If so, feel free reach out to EC
6. To my knowledge, you should be able to customize what is displayed in EC quick actions on the web. Have you tried reaching out to EC?
7. Regarding people profile Teams chat link - this is on the Roadmap, please stay tuned.
8. Sign out issue - this is currently expected behaviour that we don't allow a sign out under Application type permission. Is there a reason you need to sign out?  In addition if you chose to use Delegated type permission (like I mentioned in 1.3), we support a Connect/Disconnect command, which resembles and is purposed to mimic the act of sign in/sign out. 
9. Home page and org chart - Which home page are you referring to? The Home tab in Teams? Currently, the labels are not customizable, but the content is. The content will by default show what you have configured. We display your HR Manager and your Cost Centre by default on the Home tab as we feel it is 'not easily found' information and would like to make it prominent for you when you need it. Regarding org chart - isn't this already a feature in Teams to view Organization structure? We do not feel the need to replicate this in the App if it is already available as part of the Teams core App.
10. Customizable text - we have this planned to be able to customize the Help card in 2025. Please stay tuned.
11. App message for when the App is downloaded by the user but App connection is not set up - we will investigate possible message enhancement there.
12. Regarding lack of features - I would argue that we have plenty of feature as documented under the SuccessFactors App section of this guide: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_SUCCESSFACTORS_PLATFORM/3adee415c1eb4b918bc0172afc76948c/373e3d1026084... there are demo videos under each feature. Is there any other enhancement ideas or feature you feel would be useful in Teams, please feel free to submit Influence ideas under the Work Tech feature area here: https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/campaign/3508