What is the difference between these two offerings from SAP for learning SF Employee Central?

[ChandraV]

SAP Learning Journeys (free until certification):

Course:  Configuring SAP Employee Central Core -

https://learning.sap.com/learning-journeys/configure-sap-successfactors-employee-central-core

SAP Training (paid): 

Course: THR81, SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Core Academy

https://training.sap.com/course/thr81-sap-successfactors-employee-central-core-academy-remoteclassro...?

I'm wondering which one should I subscribe to start my SF EC learning. Both appear similar but one appears free and the other is paid but the paid one is more structured which is good. We all like the free stuff but wanted to make sure I'm not paying for something that's already available free. Also, from my understanding, for the free one, it appears that there is a pre-requisite that you have an Employee central already implemented to leverage the training (we don't have EC but have PM/GM and comp). 

It will be helpful if someone can clarify these. 

Thanks

[JayGarcia · Accepted solution]

"Your practice environment for the THR81 course is already configured for use. However, original customer instances require preliminary provisioning setup and configuration. To learn more about the initial configuration tasks, such as Provisioning settings that need to be activated, review the implementation guide on the SAP Help Portal. To see the standard Employee Central Configuration files provided for a customer implementation, visit the Download Center" 

This is a note for consultants implementing EC in customer environments. They won't be using the config files from the course in actual implementation. They need the full/master versions from the Download Center. 

As a learner, you don't need anything from the Download Center. Every file required for the course exercise is included in the course files. Hope this helps.

[JayGarcia]

Hello @ChandraV ,

The content for both courses is the same. The only difference is that the paid version is eight days of  3-hour per day instructor-led virtual training, while the free version is self-paced. 

You won't need to have EC implemented for both courses. You are given a demo environment for the paid version as part of the training. For self-paced, you can subscribe to a practice environment to use for the exercises included in the course. 

The only prerequisite for Employee Central is to complete the THR80 SuccessFactors Platform course.  (https://learning.sap.com/learning-journeys/explore-the-sap-successfactors-platform).

Hope this helps. 

[ChandraV]

Thanks for the response. However, the confusion around the requirement for EC implementation came from the below issue - 

I tried the Learning Journey - Configuring SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Core.  In the Setting Up the Training System section,  under the setting up the training environment, this paragraph provides an instruction to download a standard configuration files - "Your practice environment for the THR81 course is already configured for use. However, original customer instances require preliminary provisioning setup and configuration. To learn more about the initial configuration tasks, such as Provisioning settings need to be activated, review the implementation guide on the SAP Help Portal. To see the standard Employee Central Configuration files provided for a customer implementation, visit the Download Center"

When I clicked through this download center link (or go directly to the download center and follow instructions in the note 3153500 - How to download config files), I get the message No data found.  I opened a ticket to support but the response from support was quite interesting. Per support, my S-user Id did not have an SF EC instance assigned (we do not have EC implemented yet), so the config files are not available for my S-user Id. 

On the one hand the training instruction in the learning journey says, go here and download the config files to learn more but on the other the access is being denied because there is no SF EC instance assigned.  This looks very weird.