SAP and SuccessFactors Talent Hybrid Packaged Integrations: an overview

[lukemarson]

*updated July 20th 2015*

During one of the SAP discussion panels at SAPPHIRE 2012 David Ludlow, VP of HCM Solutions at SAP, revealed some information about the planned packaged integrations between SAP ERP HCM and SuccessFactors. Since this is quite a hot topic in the context of SuccessFactors, I wanted to provide a summary of the packages that were revealed in the session alongside some other bits of information I have discovered during the previous weeks, prior to any detailed announcements in the forthcoming weeks/months.

SAP is focusing on 3 main areas of integration:

1. Data integration – information stored in SAP HCM on-premise system that is needed for running talent management processes in SuccessFactors. Employee master data and OM relationships will be “moved over” to SuccessFactors.
2. Process integration – data that is created from processes such as compensation, learning and recruitment and needs to be stored in the SAP HCM core HR system
3. User access – creating unified access so that users are not “knowingly” accessing multiple systems or have any need to log onto multiple systems. This includes single sign-on, unified navigation structures and unified menus to access data and processes, for a seamless user experience.

Their strategy is to create new APIs for extracting data in a standardized and correct method. There is nothing I have heard so far to suggest that the “integration” between SAP HCM and SuccessFactors is genuine integration, rather that there are just interfaces between the systems transferring data files at fixed periods.

SAP will be releasing a series of packaged integrations, starting with the first package that was released in SMP for Ramp-Up in the week proceeding SAPPHIRE. These packaged integrations will be delivered as part of the maintenance fee, although additional services can be obtained through the optional Rapid Deployment Solutions (RDS). The only pre-requisite for the integration packages is to be using ECC6 - there is no requirement to be on any specific Enhancement Package for ECC6. The diagram below shows the integrations covered in the packaged integration.

Details of the packaged integrations can be found below. Please note that it is always recommended to implement the latest add-on.

• Integration Add-on 1.0 for SAP and SuccessFactors – Released for Ramp-Up in May and on General Availability in August 2013 and is a full file load “point to point” for employee and organizational data for the Hybrid model and extractors for analytics data for SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics
• Integration Add-on 1.0 for SAP and SuccessFactors SP1 – Released on August 10th 2012 and delivers delta file handling
• Integration Add-on 1.0 for SAP and SuccessFactors SP2 – Released on November 5th 2012 and delivers Compensation process integration for the "Pay-for-performance" scenario
• Integration Add-on 2.0 for SAP and SuccessFactors – Released for Ramp-Up March 18th 2013 and on General Availability on August 16th 2013 and covers Recruiting process integration for the "Attract-to-hire" scenario
• Integration Add-on 2.0 for SAP and SuccessFactors SP2 – Released on September 6th 2013 and covers Recruiting process integration for the "Define-to-hire" scenario
• Integration Add-on 3.0 for SAP and SuccessFactors – Released for Ramp-up June 20th 2014 and on General Availability on October 15th 2014 and covers qualification integration between SuccessFactors HCM suite/SuccessFactors Learning and SAP ERP HCM
• Integration Add-on 3.0 for SAP and SuccessFactors SP1 – Released on October 16th 2014 and delivers part 1 of the Variable Pay process integration
• Integration Add-on 3.0 for SAP and SuccessFactors SP2 – Released on February 2nd 2015 and delivers part 1 of the Onboarding process integration, part 2 of the Variable Pay process integration and SAP PI content for the qualification integration released in add-on 3.0
• Integration Add-on 3.0 for SAP and SuccessFactors SP4 – Released on June 15th 2015 and delivers part 2 of the Onboarding process integration, offboarding integration, SAP PI content for skills replication, and SAP HCI content for Variable Pay and Onboarding integration released in add-on 3.0
• Under consideration – future packaged integrations being considered include:
  • Succession Planning
  • Learning Cost Allocation
  • Performance ratings to SAP ERP HCM

SAP will continue to announce additional packaged integrations in due course.

Addition Content

Details on the Talent Hybrid packages can be found at http://help.sap.com/erp_sfi_addon30. Additionally, there is other integration content available at http://help.sap.com/hr_integration and http://help.sap.com/hr_api.

For SAP Jam there is the Social-Media ABAP Integration Layer (SAIL) documentation available for SAP_BASIS 7.31 SP05, 7.30 SP08 or 7.02 SP12 and SAP_BASIS 7.31 SP06.

Summary

Talent Management in the cloud seems to be a real focus for SAP and this reflects the “hot topic” status that talent management affords in the HCM world today. For me this still seems like a long way of genuine integration and I still thinkthat those customers wanting real-time, integrating data services might have to wait some time to realize this. For some customers this is a big step in the right direction and no doubt there are a significant number of customers who will be saved a lot of pain by leveraging these integration packages. Time will tell if this will be enough for high-density data users or those with complex security or data requirements, but for now it’s a big step forward from what was available when the deal was closed earlier in the year.