I’ve come across a fabulous online course on “sustainability and business innovation” by SAP. SAP has been widely regarded as a global sustainability leader and is transforming themselves and helping other companies do the same. In the process, they learned quite a lot about the present and the future of corporate sustainability.

Peter Graf, SAP’s chief sustainability officer, will share this knowledge with you in a free, massive open online course!

The course covers key learnings from the sustainability journey of SAP and its customers. For example:

• How companies go beyond philanthropy and environmentalism to drive significant business value from sustainability
• How more sustainable practices create innovation, competitive advantage, reduce risk and cost as well as drive growth
• How to articulate, embed and execute a sustainable strategy at the company in which you are or will be working
• How to build the business case and how to sell it to executives

The course covers best practices in sustainability, from strategy, to business cases, business processes, engagement and reporting. The course is free of charge. It starts on April 29. Upon successful completion you will receive a record of achievement from SAP. Please find more information and register here.

After registration, please inform your friends about this course as well. More than 3000 people are already registered. The more people that understand how sustainability works in the corporate world, the better off we all will be in the future!!!

Feel free to forward this email to other people interested in sustainability, or maybe just tweet this: Free #MOOC on #Sustainability and Biz Innovation by #SAP @PeterGGraf http://open.sap.com/course/sbi1

As HR and IT professionals let's make a contribution to creating a more sustainable environment now and for the future.

Is leveraging Core HR part of your employee engagement strategy? It should. Why? I came across some really interesting data as I was researching this topic for our upcoming Employee Central webinar on April 9^th (click here to register):

• 70% of employees are not engaged at work (1)
• 43% of highly engaged employees received feedback weekly(2)
• 89% of employers think that employees leave for money, when in fact only 12% actually leave for that reason (3)
• Highly engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave the company(4)
• Companies with highly engaged employees on average have 2X more revenue than those will lower engagement numbers(5)

Back in the day, a typical employee engagement strategy involved donuts from Johnny's on Fridays and endless pots of Peet's coffee – times have changed.  To build and leverage the benefits of a strong culture of employee engagement, businesses need to plan strategically.

Technology and Core HR can play a huge role in this.  Want to learn more? Come to our upcoming webinar delivered by Thomas Otter from SAP and Andy Hodges from Gavdi. They will share real-world examples of companies that are successfully using Core HR to support engagement and drive business results.   

References

1. Gallup – www.gallup.com/strategicconsulting/163007/state-american-workplace.aspx
2. Towers Watson – http://www.towerswatson.com~/media/pdf/In
3. Leigh Branham- http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Reasons-Employees-Leave-Recognize-ebook/dp/B008Z2CVPW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396454515&sr=8-1&keywords=leigh+branham
4. Corporate leadership council - http://www.stcloudstate.edu/humanresources/trainingDev/supvBrownBag/documents/CLC-Employee-Engagement.pdf
5. Kenexa - http://www.kenexa.com/getattachment/8c36e336-3935-4406-8b7b-777f1afaa57d/The-Impact-of-Employee-Engagement.aspx

A very common request raised by organization's Human Resources department is presenting the organizational structure in a graphical formation. Unfortunately, the standard tools offered by SAP for organizational visualization are very simple and extremely inadequate and therefore there is a place to examine third-party organizational chart software packages. These tools can retrieve data from SAP HCM.

Common tool's requirements:

• Present the reporting structure between organizational objects, especially between positions and/or employees
• Additional information should be presented for each element in the structure, such as: position title, employee name, organizational assignment, cost center, employee's photo, vacancy indicator, special mark for supervisors, etc.

Main Software packages:

• OrgChart by Nakisa. This software is the one offered by SAP
• OrgPublisher by Aquire
• OrgPlus by Human Concepts
• OrgManager by Ingentis

SAP Organizational Visualization by Nakisa:

This software package offers the best and most comprehensive solution for organizational visualizations.

Alternative solution:

All these third-party applications in general, and the one offered by Nakisa in specific, present a full solution for organizational visualization, however they all require separate licensing.

There is an alternative solution, which many organizations disregard – usingMicrosoft Visio Organization Chart. You may find it hard to believe the amazing results that can be achieved by using this tool.

If any of you want to get additional information about this solution, you may contact me and I will guide you.

Liran Azury

Senior SAP ERP HCM Consultant

[Rating the blog will be appreciated]

Hi all,

We have an old Training and Event Management solution in use and I received the question whether it is possible to link a scanned file to a business event.

I am only aware of the integration towards an Optical Archiving system for PA infotypes via table TOAHR.

Is there such a thing for PD infotypes as well? Does anybody know of any possible add-on products that are available on the market?

Rgds

Bastian

For training departments, the work shouldn’t end when the courses are designed, the content is built, the training is delivered, and training history is recorded.  While you can’t blame anyone for feeling a sense of accomplishment after spending countless hours developing and delivering effective training programs, some of the most critical information has yet to be gathered at this point.  Evaluating the effectiveness of training offerings is a critical step that can often be overlooked in favor of spending more money and time in investing in the next training program to be developed.  This can be a critical mistake of training organizations as the opportunity cost of ineffective training can be severe in the long run.

SuccessFactors Learning provides training evaluation features that can help organizations quickly gather feedback from training participants and managers alike based on an established model of learning and training evaluation theory.  Administrators in SuccessFactors Learning can build surveys to use for various evaluation purposes that can streamline the process of gathering evaluation results.  Powerful reporting options are also available to analyze survey results quickly and efficiently to see what is working and what may not be.  In this blog I want to highlight functionality within SuccessFactors Learning that organizations can leverage to ensure they efficiently evaluate the performance of their training programs and how effectively knowledge from training is being applied by training participants.

The SuccessFactors Learning Training Evaluation Model

Training evaluation within SuccessFactors Learning is based off of an established training evaluation model from Donald Kirkpatrick.  The Kirkpatrick model introduces a 4-level approach to training evaluation, where evaluation should begin at the first level and proceed through the higher levels as needed (and within time and budget constraints).  Details on the model are illustrated below.

• Level 1 – Reactions – Initial feedback on the learner’s impressions of the training
• Level 2 – Learning – Measurement of the increase in knowledge or capability gained by the learner as a result of the training
• Level 3 – Behavior/Transfer – Extent of applied learning by the participant on the job after a period of time from the completion of training
• Level 4 – Results – Effects on the business/environment by the learner as a result of their performance

Implementing the Training Evaluation Model

SuccessFactors Learning provides several tools to implement this training evaluation model.  Related to the levels of the Kirkpatrick model, the following tools are available.

For the purposes of this blog, I am going to cover the survey specific tools within the LMS that support Level 1 and 3 of the training evaluation model.  Exams can be created within the LMS and assigned for pre/post assessments of training participants (Level 2 - maybe the topic of a future blog).  I will mention reporting toward the end of this blog that is available for survey analysis.

Item Evaluation Surveys

Item Evaluation Surveys within SuccessFactors Learning are used to gather Level 1 (Reaction) feedback from training participants.  These are the types of evaluations that most organizations already do to some extent because they are a quick and inexpensive way to gather initial feedback and evaluate the impressions of learners immediately after they complete training.  While you do not want to over complicate these types of surveys, thought should be given toward the questions that are presented and the feedback they intended to gather.  Typical questions can center around relevance of content, ability to maintain interest, and instructor feedback, among others.

Within SuccessFactors Learning, administrators have the capability of building evaluation surveys directly in the LMS and assigning them to Items accordingly. Administrators can access this tool via the path in the Learning Administration page for Learning->Questionnaire Surveys.  Surveys can be structured in multiple pages with multiple questions per page in order to organize common feedback question groups (i.e. – Course Feedback, Instructor Feedback, etc.).  The interface to create questionnaires is quite intuitive and not hard to understand, allowing an admin to create pages and questions with relative ease.

Questions created within a survey can be of four (4) defined types, described below.  An screen shot of the survey builder within the LMS is provided as well.

• Rating Scale – Responses based on a defined (configured) rating scale within the LMS (use to gather quantitative results)
• One Choice – Responses based on a defined list of possible responses where the user can select only one as an answer
• Multiple Choice – Responses based on a defined list of possible responses where the user can select multiple answers from the group
• Open Ended – Free-text response from user (up to 3,990 characters)

Various options can be specified on an Item Evaluation Survey to dictate how the survey will act when assigned to a User via an Item.  As illustrated in the screen shot below, within the Options area of the Survey administration page, an admin can specify surveys to be anonymous, be required for item completion (i.e. – user not credited training until survey is complete), the number of days allowed to complete, and whether or not to include a comments field for each question.

After completing the setup of a questionnaire survey, the survey must be set to Active and Published for use.  An admin can preview the survey at any time to see how the survey will look to users when they are completing, as illustrated by the screen shot below.

Once a survey is setup and published for use, it must be assigned to Items for use and assignment as users complete learning items within the LMS.  Item assignment for surveys can be performed in the Survey administration pages.  In addition, within the Item administration pages, Evaluation settings for an Item can be found under the Related (More)-> Evaluations area.  Defaults for Days to Complete and whether the survey must be completed in order for the Item completion to be recorded can be overwritten at the Item assignment level as illustrated in the screen shot below.

Follow-Up Evaluations

Follow-Up Evaluations within SuccessFactors Learning are used to gather Level 3 (Behavior/Transfer) feedback from training participants and/or managers.  It is this level of training evaluation that most training organizations struggle with or do not attempt to gather at all.  The challenge of these evaluations is they should happen after a set period of time from the learner’s completion of the training. Coordinating the completion of these evaluations is difficult, plus structuring these evaluations to ask the appropriate questions can be a challenge as well.  If done appropriately though, the feedback from these evaluations can be critical to assessing the overall effectiveness of training that everyone wants to be able to determine (whether or not learners’ behaviors are modified as a result of the learning itself).

Typically Follow-Up Evaluations should be performed three (3) to six (6) months after completion of the training, allowing enough time to pass for the learner to apply the new skills obtained within the training on the job.  SuccessFactors allows this type of evaluation to be sent to and completed by either the user or the manager (or both).

I previously described the tools available in SuccessFactors Learning for creating Item Level Evaluations via Questionnaire Surveys in the LMS.  Functionally there is no major difference in how these two types of surveys are created via the survey tool.  The surveys do, however, serve different purposes as previously discussed, which should result in the types of questions found in the evaluations to be quite different.  Questions on a follow-up survey should be directed more toward measurable or perceived evaluation of performance of the individual for criteria directly related to the training program completed.

Options that can be specified on Follow-Up Evaluation surveys differ slightly from Item Level Evaluation surveys.  As illustrated in the screen shot below, an admin can specify the amount of days the survey should be assigned after completion of the training, number of days to complete the survey, who the participants in the survey should be (employee, supervisor, or both), and whether comment fields should be supplied for each question (illustrated in the screen shot below).

Similar to Item Level Evaluation surveys, Follow-Up Surveys must be assigned to applicable Items that should require this type of evaluation.  Assignments can be made within the Survey administration pages as well as the Item administration area.  Within the Item administration pages, Evaluation settings for an Item can be found under the Related (More)-> Evaluations area.  Defaults for types of participants and the amount of days before assignment and allowed amount of days to complete can be overwritten at the Item assignment level, as shown in the screen shot below.

Assignment of Evaluations to Users

While evaluations must be assigned to an Item in order to potentially be assigned to users, SuccessFactors Learning ultimately determines whether or not to assign an evaluation to a user from the Completion Status that a user achieves when completing a learning item within the LMS.  Configuration at the Completion Status level can allow administrators to specify what statuses should result in evaluations being assigned to users (assuming the Item has evaluation(s) related to it).  For instance, certain completion statuses may be eligible for both Item Level and Follow-Up Evaluations whenever a user completes an item under that status (i.e. – ‘Course Passed’).  However, other statuses may not be eligible a Follow-Up evaluation (i.e. – ‘Completed Briefing’), and some statuses should not require evaluations at all (i.e. – ‘Incomplete’ or ‘Substitute Credit Given’).  As illustrated below, the configuration specified when creating Completion Statuses in the LMS (References->Learning->Completion Status) will determine when evaluations should be assigned as users complete learning items and are assigned a completion status.  To reiterate though, the Items being recorded for learning history with these Completion Statuses must have evaluations assigned to them in order for anything to be assigned to a user.  If the item has no evaluation associated with it, no assignment will be made even if the Completion Status indicates the item is eligible for an Item Level and/or Follow-Up Evaluation.

After the desired Item and Follow-Up surveys have been created, published, and assigned to the desired Items within the LMS, and the appropriate Completion Statuses are configured to include the desired evaluations, the surveys can be assigned to users appropriately.  Item Level Evaluation surveys are assigned to users upon completion of the item (i.e. – the learning event is recorded).  Follow-Up Evaluation surveys require an APM (Automatic Process Module) to be setup in order to synchronize evaluations and make assignments to users after they complete training and follow-up evaluation periods are realized.  This APM can be setup under System Admin->Automatic Processes->Evaluation Synchronization.  Running this process nightly should be sufficient for managing Follow-Up evaluation assignments.  As assignments are made to users, notification emails will be sent to users to let them know of the survey feedback they should provide.

User Access to Training Evaluations

Users can access assigned training evaluations from their Learning home page within the My Learning Assignments tile.  Assignments here will be sorted by due dates like all other learning assignments.  Due dates for evaluations are calculated from the options previously discussed for the amount of allowed days to complete from time of training completion.  Surveys will not be removed from a user’s learning assignments after the amount of days to complete has expired, but they will show as overdue until completed or removed.

Evaluations shown pending completion will display what Item (i.e. – course) the evaluation is for (Item Level Evaluation).  If the evaluation is a Follow-Up Evaluation, the name of the user the evaluation is in relation to will also be displayed.  The user can either open to survey to complete or remove it from their list without completing.  A user can fill out the survey, save progress for later completion, and submit when done.  The screen shot below illustrates what the survey looks like when displayed to the user to complete.

Survey Evaluation Analysis Reports

Various reports are available within the LMS to admins to analyze completed evaluations.  The following list summarizes these reports.

• Item Evaluation Report – calculates and displays the mean score for each survey, survey page, and survey question, including the percentage of users who selected each individual response.
  • Note – ‘Mean Score’ is calculated for questions of the Rating Scale type.  Average responses based on the scale are determined and displayed.
• Item Evaluation by Individual Response – detailed level report by user to show individual responses to survey questions.
• Item Evaluation by Instructor – calculates and displays the mean score for each survey and survey page grouped according to instructor.
  • Great way to compare an item’s average evaluation score across multiple instructors who teach the course.
  • Note – ‘Mean Score’ is calculated for questions of the Rating Scale type.  Average responses based on the scale are determined and displayed.
• Follow-Up Evaluation Report - calculates and displays the mean score for each survey, survey page, and survey question.
• Follow-Up Evaluation by Individual Response – calculates the mean score for each follow-up survey and survey page by rater (i.e. – Employee/Manager)

Summary

Training evaluations are a necessary part of any effective training program.  Evaluations provide organizations with the ability to assess the effectiveness of training programs and make adjustments as needed based on statistical data.  Hopefully you have a better understanding now of the two types of training evaluations provided by Success Factors Learning (Item Level and Follow-Up evaluations) and the Kirkpatrick model that is the basis for the evaluation approach in the LMS. In my experience, most organizations gather Item Level (Level 1) feedback to some extent, but Follow-Up (Level 3) feedback is harder for some organizations to truly gather and leverage appropriately.  Organizations must prepare accordingly for capturing training evaluations and ensure they ask the correct questions.  SuccessFactors Learning can then provide an efficient and robust medium for capturing and evaluating the feedback to facilitate continuous improvement of  their training programs, which at the end of the day should be the goal of any organization that wants to deliver effective training to their workforce to meet the future needs of the organization as a whole.

Mobile Learning has been a hot topic in the learning space for a couple of years already - so I think it is time to look at the current status, what options customers have with the SAP or SuccessFactors software and beyond and where companies are heading.

Just a quick summary of what is available today:

SAP offers for its Learning Solution / Enterprise Learning product out of the box the "Learning Assistant", an app to enable a companies mobile learning for employees with the Learning Solution or the Enterprise Learning as the backend.

The SAP Learning Assistant is available supporting two platforms:

• an iOS version for Apple devices
• and a Windows 8 version for Windows devices

If you are interested in seeing the Learning Assistant in action I would recommend to watch the video

or simply install the trial version (if you have a corresponding device at hand) which comes with some nice demo data and allows you to check it out. The trial version is available from the SAP Store.

But there has been a recent expansion of the SAP offering, which also extends the mobile offering. SAP Education added recently the assessment technologies powerhouse Questionmark to its portfolio under the brand: SAP Assessment Manager, to enable clients to manage their assessment and qualification tracking in the best way, especially in compliance-related industries. Please read more here in the posting from Thomas Jenewein.

Questionmark comes with a variety of mobile options as well, including apps for iOS and Android platforms. Worth noticing is also their responsive design approach where an assessment is authored and scheduled once and delivered to different devices:

The other offering of SAP / SuccessFactors for clients comes from its cloud-based solution. As part / addition to their BizX Suite which includes Learning they offer a comprehensive mobile application for iOS, Android and Blackberry platform, where learning is a part of the app.

To complete the picture, if you want to consume courses from SAP, there are options to learn on a mobile device:

• SAP Education Learning using SAP Learn Now - an app for iOS and Android platforms with special E-Learning Courses built for Tablets  - find more information here
• in the SAP Learning Hub: Mobile Access – e.g. of SAP Jam Learning Rooms –provides the possibility to follow discussions or contribute via blogs, videos etc. to the Learning Rooms. Learning Rooms are learning communities moderated by SAP Education instructors for SAP Learning Hub Users.

So while most of my clients like to talk about Mobile Learning and see the uses cases for it, there are not many that have implemented a comprehensive Mobile Learning strategy in their company. One of the onstacles that I see is certainly the device strategy of companies, either their status of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) or the level of providing mobile devices to all employees of the relevant target group. (Yes, in fact, I still have clients where not everyone has an own email address ...).

So I would like to open up the discussion:

• What is the status of Mobile Learning in your company / at your clients?
• What are the use cases / business drivers?
• Is the strategy implemented already or what is holding you /the companies back?
• What are the technical considerations regarding mobile platforms, security, middleware and others?

Please use the comments section to discuss. If you want to share screen examples (which is highly welcomed) please send them to me.

Recently I happened to meet a few newbies aspiring their career in SAP HCM. However, because of lack of background and knowledge in HR field they faced difficulties in understanding the HR business processes.

I hereby present a blog providing an overview of Human Resource processes and SAP HCM modules. This will be most helpful for those who are absolutely new in field of SAP HCM.

The employee life cycle integrated with SAP HCM modules can be presented in the following manner.

Well I believe this will be easy to relate, being employees ourselves we will be familiar with many of the above mentioned terminologies like recruitment, hiring, training, performance management, Compensation and benefits etc.

Recruitment: Refers to the process of attracting potential candidates from within or outside the organization to fill in the vacancies. Nowadays, most of the companies make use of online job advertising and E-recruitment to reach to the larger audience.

Hiring: The selected candidate is engaged in the services based on the job and position for defined wages/salary. The employee agrees to the policies of the organization. Once the employee is assigned to the position, he will become part of the organization and reporting structure. Below mentioned modules will cover the processes between the hiring and retiring of the employee.

Training & Events Management (SAP Learning Solutions) : Training as we know helps in extending and updating the skills and knowledge of the employees. SAP HCM helps in managing the training events from booking attendees to providing feedback such that the courses provided are of high quality.

Qualifications & Requirements: The qualifications required by a position can be maintained in the form of qualification catalog in SAP. These positions can be filled by the existing persons if the required qualifications match with those of the employee. This is most helpful in career and succession planning.

Performance Management: Employee performance management system includes setting goals, monitoring performance, developing the capability to perform the set expectations and providing feedback. Employee performance is evaluated and rewarded based on the contribution. SAP HCM application provides tools for appraisals, evaluations and feedback with user friendly interface.

Career & Succession Planning (SAP Talent Planning & Development):  Career & Succession Planning enables the organizations to groom their employees to take up key positions in future. Career planning helps organizations in identifying goals for employees and setting career plan. Succession planning helps in finding appropriate people from within the organization to fill in the unoccupied positions. In SAP HCM, Talent Planning & Development is integrated with Qualifications & Requirements.

Time Management: Employees work performed and the absence times can be recorded with use of time management. It acts as a time recording system and helps in planning the workforce requirement. This module is closely integrated with Payroll.

Shift Planning: Shift planning ensures that the organizations human resource is used to it full extent in an efficient manner. It includes planning shift time, shift location and number of required employees. Shift planning is a component of time management.

Compensation & Benefits: The remuneration system is responsible for devising the pay grade structure for employees in line with the market trend and providing access to benefits and performance based pay. Compensation and benefits needs to consider the country specific policies and regulations as well.

Payroll Administration: Payroll Administration includes all the tasks related to payment of wages/salary to employees of the organization considering the commissions, bonuses, taxes, loans and other deductions.

Travel Management: Travel management module in SAP HCM helps in maintaining different types of travel expenses of employees such as air fare, food bills, local conveyance, parking fees etc. The travel requests for employees needs approvals based on the workflow processes.

ESS/MSS: Employee Self-service helps employees to access and modify the data related to their personal details, employment, payments, benefits, leave details, etc. Manager Self-service helps the managers to maintain and approve employee related data.

I hope it was helpful, you can reach me anytime for any doubts or queries.

Regards,

Supriya

Ø  About SAP NetWeaver Gateway

SAP NetWeaver Gateway is a product from SAP that provides access to SAP Business Suite data for lightweight, people-centric applications that can run on a variety of devices and application platforms.

SAP NetWeaver Gateway act as a bridge between the traditional environment of the SAP Business Suite and lightweight needed applications.

SAP NetWeaver Gateway supports the Open Data Protocol (OData) which is a web protocol for querying and updating the data.

SAP NetWeaver Gateway can be deployed in one of two ways in an SAP landscape:

• Standalone in which SAP NetWeaver Gateway is deployed on a dedicated server. We call it as External Gateway.

• Embedded. Gateway is installed as an ABAP Add-on and runs on the same system as the SAP Business Suite, so no dedicated server is required to run Gateway. Meaning business logic and data exists in the same system.

For Remote Gateway, RFC connections are used to fetch data from a system.

For e.g. Suppose you have a HCM system, CRM system etc separately installed in a Customer landscape.

For cost efficient measures, Customer can have a single gateway system from where they can get data from any system either HCM, CRM etc.

So it’s like the hub, like your internet connection. You have a single modem serving many computers, where all systems interact to outside webpages via the gateway

In this scenario, Gateway servers as a security measure so that the actual system is not exposed to outside world.

Gateway Configuration is done so that you test the application in both local and remote gateway (covering all scenarios like HANA and normal db tests). We also have external and local gateways tests so that application should work seamlessly across any setup.

                Some more info:

Q: Is gateway valid for UI5 topics only or is it valid for lower releases also??

A: For any UI5 development gateway is valid. We have to perform these tests ideally. Now this is again up to the product team do the gateway configuration. It’s up to the team which is developing the application; their PO or DM has to give the directives.

Ø  Checking OData Services in Corresponding Gateway

Local Gateway:

You can go and check the services detail and OData activation in transaction “/iwfnd/maint_service” in given backend system .

Here, you will get technical name and description of the services, along with that you will see OData activation detail. Also, since it is local gateway so SAP system alias will be maintained as local.

2.            External Gateway:

You can go and check the services detail and OData activation in transaction “/iwfnd/maint_service” in given Gateway system .

Here, you will get technical name and description of the services, along with that you will see OData activation detail. Since it is an external Gateway, SAP system alias should be maintained with backend system.

Note: If one Gateway system is connected to more than one Backend system. Then we required an additional role like “Y_CLIENT_<System>_<Client>” assigned to your user, related to that particular Backend system and Client detail.

Ø  Configuration of SPB

The Suite Page Builder (SPB) is a UI development toolkit for HTML5 (SAPUI5) applications that acts as a framework to run Collaborative Human Interface Parts (CHIPs). A CHIP is an SAPUI5 application that adheres to specific binding contracts that the SPB defines.

The Suite Page Builder can be configured using the SPB Administrator Page that provides the CHIP and catalog configuration features. The administrator has access to the Administration Page and all of the catalogs in the system. Administrators can perform the following actions:

1.     Add CHIPs to the catalogs

2.     Delete CHIPs from the catalogs

3.     Decide which catalogs are displayed in the end user’s Suite Page Builder

Ø  Maintaining SAP Gateway OData Services

1.     Maintain System Alias

1.1 Create a RFC connection with Type 3 in transaction SM59.

1.2 Local Gateway: Create a local system alias in the Q system.

1.3 External Gateway: Create a system alias in gateway system pointing to Q system.

SPRO Path:

2.     Add Suite Page Builder Catalogs

Transaction -> /iwfnd/maint_services

Or,

Navigation Path: SPRO -> SAP Netweaver Gateway-> OData Channel -> Administration -> General Settings -> Activate and Maintain Services

Activate the following OData services for the Suite Page Builder Catalog:

·          /UI2/PAGE_BUILDER_CONF

·          /UI2/PAGE_BUILDER_CUST

·          /UI2/PAGE_BUILDER_PERS

                3.     To Activate Services in a System.

3.1 Click on “Add Service” button.

3.2 Add the system alias created in step (2) according to the gateway used and hit “Enter”.

3.3 Click on the service to be added.

3.4 Ensure that ICF Node is maintained as “Standard Mode”.

3.5 Save the service in local package.

3.6 Click on “Continue” button till success pop-up comes.

3.7 Go back to the previous screen and check the service that is recently added.

3.8 Double click on the Service and check that

3.9 ODATA is active in “ICF Node” section

·          To activate ODATA, use the navigation menu provided in “ICF Node” button.

·          The system alias should be according to the external/local gateway used

·          In case one service is called in many backend systems, then define a specific system alias (e.g., for a user role) by adding new system alias using   “Add System Alias” button.

              Similarly, add other SPB catalog.

  4.     Activating ICF Nodes for Services

Go to ABAP backend system and activate services in transaction SICF

·          Default_host -> SAP -> bc -> bsp -> sap

o    ARSRVC_SUITE_PB

o    ARSRVC_SPB_ADMIN

o    ARSRVC_LPD_C

·          Default_host -> SAP -> bc -> ui5_ui5 -> sap

o    ARSRVC_SUITE_PB

o    ARSRVC_SPB_ADMIN

o    ARSRVC_LPD_C

·          Default_host -> SAP -> public -> bc

o    ui2

o    ui5_ui5

In addition to above services, activate following SICF services as well in transaction SICF

·          Startup Service: /default_host/sap/bc/ui2/start_up

·          Image Upload Service:/default_host/sap/bc/ui2suite/image

Ø  External SAP NW Gateway System has a Different Client to the Backend ABAP System

To avoid an incorrect client user credentials request when running Suite Page Builder, configure the ICF nodes as described below:

1.   In your ABAP backend system, go to transaction SICF.

2.     The Maintain Services screen displays.

3.     Choose Goto -> External Alias.

4.     Select“Default Host” and choose External Alias -> Create.

5.     Choose“Trg Element” and navigate to SAP -> BC -> UI5_UI5 -> SAP.

6.     Double-click the SAP node.

7.     In the“External Alias” field, enter /sap/bc/ui5_ui5/sap and enter a meaningful description.

8.     Choose the Logon Data tab. In the Procedure field, select Required with Logon Data.

9.     Enter the backend client information as required and save your entries.

10.   Log on to SAP NetWeaver Gateway system, call transaction SICF and navigate to the respective service that the landing page uses.

11.   Double-click the service PAGE_BUILDER_PERS.

12.   Choose the Logon Data tab. In the Procedure field, select Required with Logon Data.

13.   Repeat the steps (10- 11) also for the following services:

·         PAGE_BUILDER_CONF

·         PAGE_BUILDER_CUST

Ø  Testing the Admin Page

After all of the prerequisite configurations are done, you must now be able to run the SPB admin page.

The SPB Administrator page can be launched with the URL.

https://<server>:<port>/sap/bc/ui5_ui5/sap/arsrvc_spb_admn/main.html

Ø  Setting up HR Professional

Using SAPUI5 technology, the landing page is a web-based UI for HR professionals offering a single point of access to employee and organizational master data.

Activate the required services for your application in the corresponding system and check the respective application in the landing page.

             List of oData services to be activated for HR Renewal 1.0:

*So far above services have been delivered to the Customers. As per the new developments, new services will be added to the catalog.

Ø  To Check the Path of OData Channel in SPRO in Different NetWeaver Release

1.     SAP NetWeaver 7.00 and 7.01

The OData Channel configuration settings are available in the Implementation Guide (IMG) in the system where software component IW_FND is deployed. In the SAP Reference IMG navigate to SAP NetWeaver Gateway.

(OData Channel IMG for IW_FND in 7.00 and 7.01)

2.     SAP NetWeaver 7.02 and 7.31

The OData Channel configuration activities are listed in the Implementation Guide (IMG) in the system where software component IW_FND is deployed. In the SAP Reference IMG navigate to SAP NetWeaverGatewayOData Channel.

(OData Channel IMG in IW_FND)

3. SAP NetWeaver 7.40

If you use software component SAP_GWFND in SAP NetWeaver 7.40, IMG activities for SAP NetWeaver Gateway Foundation 7.40 are available. In the SAP Reference IMG navigate to SAP NetWeaverGatewayand SAP NetWeaverGateway Service Enablement. There you find all the relevant OData Channel IMG activities.

References:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_uiaddon10/helpdata/en/bf/69de830b09406caad91de8cdcaa349/content.htm?frameset=/en/c6/d2b078316041ac9471c4f7069353e2/frameset.htm

http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BBA/SAP+NetWeaver+Gateway

This Blog is co-written by my SAP HCM Technical Architect - Manoj Gowravaram and myself (I play the Functional Role).

This is our first blog on SCN and we decided to write it on a very handy auxiliary application to the WebDynpro Processes & Forms – the Process Browser application. It’s delivered in the SAP Role as “Open Processes”, but we feel the term Process Browser just sounds more official.

This is a very handy application for anyone who has or is planning to implement some FPM based Processes & Forms. We implemented some P&Fs just when the FPM P&F technology was rolled out; while it was very exciting to be able to let managers be able to initiate their own HR process via MSS without Lifecycle Designer, one of the major complaints from the user community was the lack of visibility of where their processes are stuck in workflow. You could build detailed notifications in your workflow, but really, without a robust application where users can see exactly where their request is, either HR or Workflow Administrators will always get emails from users about the status of their requests.

We were eagerly waiting for this application, and with Feature Pack 4 of HR Renewal 1.0, SAP did deliver out-of-box Process Browser. The process browser itself is straightforward, easy to understand and implement, but we investigated some enhancement options and figured that with some quick Role and Workflow enhancements the usability of the process browser can be improved further. In this blog, we cover the basic setup to get this application up and running and then some enhancement tips to improve usability of the application.

Note: The blog does not talk about FPM P&F itself; there are tons of great blogs, articles and forum posts to learn about P&F. This blog assumes you already know some basics of implementing P&Fs and we focus especially on Process Browser.

Prerequisites

The standard delivered Process Browser application comes with EhP6 HR Renewal 1.0 – FP4

Overview of Process Browser

Before we get into technicalities let’s review the application itself.

The application displays all the processes started by the initiating user, with other key data like affected objects and most important the current status of the process.

The user can drill down to additional details of any process.

The details page of a process has two sections: (The page has 2 sections. I think we should call attention to Withdraw button in a separate paragraph)

1. a. Process Steps: This pane provides step level detail of the process. You can see important information such as who is currently processing the request, and date and time stamp of the steps within the process.
2. Form: This pane displays the form with its contents relevant to the step highlighted.

Note: The initiating user has the option of withdrawing a process from this screen. During any time of the process; while it is still open; the initiating user can withdraw the process by clicking on the ‘Withdraw’ button on top of the details page. Once withdrawn, the process is immediately canceled regardless of where it currently sits and the subsequent work items are deleted from the subsequent agent’s POWL.

Personalization

The users have the option to personalize how they see their open processes by clicking on the Personalize button on top right of the table.

This is very handy to, for instance displaying only open processes or sorting based on latest process first.

Basic Setup – Role Configuration

SAP provides the Process Browser application with the HR Administrator Role. This can be added to your MSS role also and by changing some Webdynpro parameters to work for initiating managers.

WebDynpro Application: ASR_PROC_BROWSER_OVP

Application Configuration: ASR_PROC_BROWSER_OVP_CFG

The parameters BROWSER_CONTEXT and INITIATOR_ROLE determine if the process browser is relevant for HR Administrators or for Managers.

Setup your MSS and/or HR Admin role with the WebDynpro Application and Config and pass the appropriate parameters to affect behavior.

Enhancement Tips

By default SAP provides some basic attributes for the process browser, which may be enhanced to improve usability for the end user. In the next section we show some enhancement options. We will cover some simple scenarios, but we hope this will give you a good idea on the possibilities which you can explore based on the nature of your processes/s.

Workflow Configuration

Determine Processor Roles: This activity helps you specify how the processors should look like on the Process Browser. By default SAP provides some options such as ‘HR Administrator’ and ‘Manager’, however these may not be intuitive enough particularly if the workflow is complex. For example, you may have a process that requires up to 2 level manager approvals. In such cases the initiating manager would like to know if the current step is sitting with 1^st Level Approving Manager or the 2^nd Level Approving Manager instead of simply displaying as Manager.

IMG Path: Personnel Management -> HR Administrative Services -> Configuration of Forms/Processes -> Process Configuration -> Set Up Processes -> Determine Processor Roles

For our example, I have created 3 additional Roles:

• Ø Initiating Manager
• Ø First Level Approving Manager
• Ø Second Level Approving Manager

Note: If you intend to use any of these roles as initiators in your P&F (in HRASR_DT), ensure you check the ‘Initiator’ checkbox in this table.

Usage of Processor Role in Workflow: Now that you have determined your Processor Roles, you need to bind these roles in your workflow steps. Let’s take the example of binding the Processor Roles to the Approval Step in Workflow.

Edit the appropriate Approval Task for your workflow. In the example below we use the standard approval task for any Webdynpro P&F: TS33700019.

The expression: PROCESSOR_ROLE in the task container should be bound with the constant value of the Processor Role you defined. This way you now display the roles you think make more intuitive sense to the initiating manager.

Maintain Business Status: Similar to Processor Roles, you may want to enhance the intuitiveness of the business statuses on the process browser to help initiating manager better understand where his/her process is currently sitting in the workflow.

IMG Path: Personnel Management -> HR Administrative Services -> Configuration of Forms/Processes -> Process Configuration -> Set Up Processes -> Maintain Business Status

Maintain Business Statuses: For each action in the workflow maintain the relevant business statuses.

Maintain Business Status for Request Step: There is a second IMG activity in this step. You will need this if you want to change the business status displayed when the workflow is in one of the main process actions: DRAFT, ERRORED, FORWARDED and PROCESSED.

For example, as soon as a process is initiated, the workflow is set to action: PROCESSED. At this stage if you would like to display your own business status, configure the appropriate Business Status for the Action.

With the settings above, as soon as the initiating manager has initiated the workflow, the Action is set to PROCESSED, which in turn displays the business status of Submitted to 1^st Level Approving Manager as the business status.

Usage of the Business Status in Workflow: Now that you have configured your new Business Statuses, you will need to bind these statuses in your workflow steps. Let’s take the example of binding the Business Statuses to the Approval Step in Workflow.

In the above example, we have bound the business status of 0001 to the expressions: BUSINESS_STATUS.BACK and BUSINESS_STATUS.APPROVED.

Note that the Business Status IDs of 0001 here for Back and Approved are not the same.

From examples above its clear, when the action is BUSINESS_STATUS.BACK the status displayed on Process Browser will be “Sent Back to the Initiating Manager” whereas when the action is BUSINESS_STATUS.APPROVED, the status displayed on the Process Browser will be “Submitted to 2^nd Level Approving Manager”.

This way we can display easy to understand business statuses to the initiating managers on Process Browser.

O.K, that’s all we have to share with you on this blog; hopefully it was of some help to some of you. Thanks for taking the time to read our first blog.

Looking forward for comments, questions, corrections and other additions from your experiences!

- Nakul Subramaniyan & Manoj Gowravaram

May 21^st to 23^rd sees the SAP Insider HR2014 conference come to Nice on the sunny south France coast. The conference – like its North American counterpart– is the highlight of the SAP HCM and SuccessFactors calendar in Europe and sees itself co-hosted with sister conferences BI2014, GRC2014, Financials2014, and HANA2014. In addition to a great selection of SAP ERP HCM and SuccessFactors content, there will also be excellent opportunities to network with likeminded customers, partners, SAP and SuccessFactors executives and product experts, HCM experts, and industry thought-leaders.

To help entice you to attend the conference – if you didn’t already want to go! – I am offering a special €450 discount via this link that is good right up to the conference.

Selected Sessions

As mentioned, there is a great schedule of sessions at the conference and – as usual – I’ve selected my top picks:

• Guidelines and best practices for deploying ESS and MSS on mobile devices by Jeremy Masters, Worklogix – Wed 21^st at 10:45-12:00
• On-premise, hybrid, or cloud: Understanding your reporting options across all HR landscapes by Danielle Larocca, SpinifexIT – Wed 21^st at 10:45-12:00
• Guidelines for deploying and integrating international subsidiaries into SAP ERP HCM by Sven Ringling, iProCon – Wed 21^st at 12:15-13:30
• Case study: How Zalaris maximized the value of core HR through new self-service functions and integration with SuccessFactors by Jurjis Lubgans, Zalaris – Wed 21^st at 14:45-16:00
• Panel discussion: Answers to FAQs about SuccessFactors Employee Central moderated by Luke Marson, HRIZONS with Joachim Förderer, SAP and Jyoti Sharma, HRIZONS – Wed 21^st at 16:15-17:30
• Expert tips for evolving your HR strategy to keep up with SAP technology enhancements by Martin Gillet, Cogilius bvba – Wed 21^st at 16:15-17:30
• From taking inventory to building talent: Using technology to transform succession management by Steven Hunt, SuccessFactors – Thur 22^nd at 10:45-12:00
• Panel discussion: The future of SAP ERP HCM - Predictions from the Experts moderated by Martin Gillet, Cogilius bvba – Thur 22^nd at 12:15-13:30
• Preparing for a SuccessFactors initiative: Project strategies to ensure a smooth deployment by Amy Grubb, Cloud Consulting Partners – Thur 22^nd at 14:30-15:45
• Case study: Lessons learned from Barco's hybrid cloud initiative by Stijn Hoegaerts, Barco – Thur 22^nd at 16:45-18:00
• Expert guidance for an Employee Central implementation or migration by Jyoti Sharma, HRIZONS –  Fri 23^rd at 8:30-9:45
• Best practices for social collaboration in HR: Get started today by Giovanna Enea, SAP – Fri 23^rd at 8:30-9:45
• The consumerization of HR: How technology is changing the HR service delivery modelby Graham Dibble, Capgemini UK – Fri 23^rd at 10:00-11:15
• SAP E-Recruiting or SuccessFactors Recruiting? A leading expert shares his thoughts by Mark Ingram, Ingram Talent – Fri 23^rd at 11:30-12:45
• A guide to improving SAP payroll and analytics functions with SAP HANA by Frans Smolders, SAP – Fri 23^rd at 13:45-15:00
• How leading HR organizations achieve service delivery success: A detailed look at the results of Towers Watson's annual survey by Tim Richard, Towers Watson – Fri 23^rd at 15:15-16:30
• Case study: How Schott ensures sustainable business performance and mitigates operational risk through streamlined talent and succession management by Thomas Strasser and Roland Granzer, Schott – Fri 23^rd at 16:45-18:00

The HR keynote will be given by Mike Ettling, Global Head of Cloud & On-Premise HR, SAP and Mark Brandau, VP, Product Management, SuccessFactors.

Sessions by SAP and SuccessFactors

SAP and SuccessFactors are also delivering a number of sessions on their products and roadmaps that may be interesting to delegates:

• A guided tour of talent management solutions from SuccessFactors: Capabilities, innovations, and future direction by Mark Brandau, SuccessFactors – Wed 21^st at 10:45-12:00
• A guide to fully leveraging the latest capabilities for core HR in SAP ERP HCM by Parvathy Sankar, SAP AG – Wed 21^st at 12:15-13:30
• Improve employee engagement and performance with SuccessFactors Performance and Goals by Margit Bauer, SAP – Wed 21^st at 12:15-13:30
• End-to-end shift planning with SAP Workforce Scheduling and Optimization by Ralf Wagner, SAP – Wed 21^st at 14:45-16:00
• Live demo: An up-close look at HR Renewal by Parvathy Sankar, SAP – Wed 21^st at 14:45-16:00
• An updated guide to SuccessFactors Employee Central and Employee Central Payroll by Heike Kolar, SAP – Wed 21^st at 14:45-16:00
• Attract, engage, and select qualified candidates for employment with an end-to-end recruiting and onboarding solutions from SuccessFactors by Steven Jones, SuccessFactors – Thur 22^nd at 9:00-10:15
• An up-to-date guide to the SAP and SuccessFactors integration technology strategy by Heike Kolar, SAP – Thur 22^nd at 9:00-10:15
• An in-depth look at SuccessFactors Learning by Mark Brandau, SuccessFactors – Thur 22^nd at 10:45-12:00
• Identify, develop, and retain talent with SuccessFactors Succession and Development by Yannick Peterschmitt, SAP – Thur 22^nd at 12:15-13:30
• Reward your top performers and avoid overpaying underachievers with SuccessFactors Compensation by Yannick Peterschmitt, SAP – Thur 22^nd at 16:45-18:00
• Live demo: Employee Central by Heike Kolar, SAP – Fri 23^rd at 11:30-12:45

Other highlights

Because the conference is co-hosted with a number of other SAP Insider events, this is a great opportunity to expand your horizons and look at a number of other technology areas that might usually be inaccessible. In particular, the HANA 2014 event should offer some exciting learning opportunities.

Networking with fellow customers and leveraging expertise of leading experts is a big plus of the conference. Ensure that you speak to other individuals about their experiences and insights that can help you get the best of your HR technology and overcome your everyday HR challenges.

The Ask-the-Experts sessions will be held on Wednesday 21^st at 17.45-18.30 and on Thursday 22^nd at 16:00-16:45. As usual it will feature leading experts in SAP ERP HCM and SuccessFactors, such as Martin Gillet, Sven Ringling, Jeremy Masters, Danielle Larocca, Jyoti Sharma, and Amy Grubb among others. Stay tuned for the full list!

This week, I had the opportunity to speak at Fleming Gulf’s Global Human Asset Expansion in Mining conference, in Toronto.

What I learned (and shared, at the end of Day 1, with the conference facilitator), was that mining firms are incredibly innovative when it comes to talent management – almost no other industry is facing such a dramatic gulf between the demand for a flexible, skilled workforce (spurred by fluctuations in commodity prices, aggressive targets for profit and production volumes, advances in technology that require new skills, and acquisitions) and the supply of labor; compounding high retirement rates of chief electricians, geologists, and mine superintendents, mining firms are increasingly losing key talent to companies in the Oil & Gas sector, and it’s not as though they can be replaced overnight.

As discussed by the opening day speakers, the fact is that the industry suffers from an image problem – much of the work is seen by recruits as low-skilled or manual, thereby deflating the number of potential candidates. And while global firms are committed to hiring local employees, one panelist shared that, where her firm operates, Tanzanians are leaving the country in search of higher pay. Those who are hired often come from cultures unused to the highly visible emphasis on safety, structure, and regulatory procedures.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. The modernization of the industry’s technology is a draw to engineers and technicians and new hires are excited to be working for strong management teams at well-run companies.

In fact, I was very impressed with the innovation demonstrated by HR teams in adapting to local customs and building global talent pipelines. For example:

• Publicly recognizing unskilled employees who achieve technical proficiency via colored helmets (graduating from green to yellow, for example)
• Over-investing in diversity (particularly female and aboriginal employees) as a mission-critical necessity, rather than a nice-to-have option
• Correlating performance score distributions with profits (higher profits should equate to a greater percent of employees with scores above the median)
• Embedding knowledge handover programs for roles with high levels of turnover
• Creating learning and development guides for every competency used in assessing performance

Across the board, workforce analytics was cited as a topic of interest. That said, during my presentation, a significant majority of the attendees rated themselves as a Level 1 (of 3) on the maturity scale, essentially delivering ad-hoc reports rather than conducting analysis of the data and/or strategic workforce planning.

Given lean HR resources and constant quest for operational efficiencies, I believe that the opportunity exists for mining firms to take advantage of workforce analytics & planning techniques that enable even more precise investments in gap-closing strategies.

I would like to point interested customers to an shortly upcoming event. At the Sapphire + ASUG Annual Conference event taking place begin of June 2014 in Orlando, the product management team is offering a pre-conference workshop on June 2 that introduces the various integration scenarios between the SuccessFactors HCM Suite and SAP ERP/SAP HCM, i.e. talent hybrid, SuccessFactors Employee Central being integrated with SAP ERP and core HR side-by-side. The workshop will provide deep insights into the integration of the SuccessFactors HCM Suite with SAP ERP, explained by the product management team as well provide information about next upcoming developments. Interactive demos are planned to help customers gaining hands-on experience.

The overall goal of the workshop is to support customers in showing them ways to adopt cloud solutions in the HCM area and explaining them how the approach could look like individually.

Customers who plan to attend the event are invited to participate the interactive workshop.

Pre-conference workshop: Interactive Workshop on Integration of SuccessFactors Cloud Solutions with SAP ERP from Product Management

Monday, June 2
8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
$295 ASUG Member | $395 Non-Member

Find more information and registration options here:

http://www.sapandasug.com/asugpreconferenceseminars.html

(Scroll down to the last section on this page, named "Half-Day Seminars")

In case you have any questions do not hesitate to drop me an e-mail.

Kind regards,

Heike Kolar

Solution Manager HCM Solutions, SAP AG

heike.kolar@sap.com

Recently I was working on an SAP Payroll & Benefits enhancement project. The project phases were planned as back to back deliverable with tight deadlines. Due to shortage of time, the project team had to work very closely. Testing, being an integral part of all successful delivery, I am always more particular about validating and testing all my development work very thoroughly at every stage. In order to save time, I decided to work with the testing team closer than usual. In the due course I realized that I did not have access to some of the authorisation intensive interface programs to validate my developments end to end. But I knew there's a quick work around. I could execute any program as a Batch user. The process is simple but a bit lengthy and I thought I should share it with the community.

Here are the steps for executing a program as a Batch User:

1. Execute the program via SA38 and schedule a background job

  Fig. 1

2. Go to transaction code SM37 to view your scheduled job

Fig. 2

3. The program that we are executing here is as highlighted in Fig. 3. The schedule status shows ‘cancelled’ because user does not have authorization to execute this program.

Fig. 3

4. Click on the job item and select Job from the menu bar -> select copy from the job drop down

Fig. 4

5. Rename the job by adding a post fix to identify the job later on, and then click on copy.

Fig. 5

6. This creates another scheduled job under the same user, so go back and repeat step 2 to view the scheduled background jobs and see the new copied scheduled job item (highlighted in Fig. 6)

Fig. 6

7. Now, select the copied new job item and on the menu bar click jobs->change

Fig. 7

8. Select ‘step’ from the task bar

Fig. 8

9. On the next screen, select the job, and click the edit option from the tool bar

Fig. 9

10. The next screen allows you to edit the user name for executing the program, change the user name from your user ID to BHSBTCH (Batch ID). And save the changes and save again on the following screen.

Fig. 10

11. After saving the scheduled job under user BHSTCH, go back to check the job items (repeat step 2 again) but feed user name as * to see all scheduled jobs

Fig. 11

12. Select the new job saved and click on ‘Release’ from the task Bar. The program will be executed.

Fig. 12

If you’re a seasoned HR leader, chances are that “building a capability for workforce analytics” is second only to “creating an integrated talent management framework” on your strategic HR bucket list. A significant gap remains between HR’s need for better data-driven insights and its ability to deliver analytics. As a recent best practices study by Bersin by Deloitte demonstrated, the majority of HR functions are insufficiently prepared to deliver executive-level data analysis, despite greater pressure to do so.

Putting aside the issue, for now, of whether workforce analytics should be a high priority for the modern HR function, the HR leaders that I speak with tend to cite a lack of urgency and lack of expertise as barriers and primary reasons for delaying their commitment to analytics as a core competency.

To help address these hurdles, and without the need to invest more resources, here are four ways in which you can accelerate the process of building a capability for workforce analytics in your organization:

1. Determine what “workforce analytics” means for your organization, HR function, and you

Remember the phrase “if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”?  Well, it could also mean that you don’t even begin your journey. This is often where HR gets stuck – not being sure of the destination makes it difficult to decide the appropriate next steps on the roadmap.

That’s where a workforce analytics mission statement can help, especially if analytics is unchartered territory for you. Clearly outlining the rationale for why HR is deploying workforce analytics has two principal benefits:

a. In short, it communicates what workforce analytics “is” and “is not” – setting expectations about how the use of data fits into talent management decision-making, reduces the risk of project over-reach.

b. It streamlines the future deployment of scarce resources, prioritizing those activities and investments which align best with the leader’s vision.

Whether the vision is narrow (“use data to identify the drivers of turnover”) or broad (“to establish an organizational culture that utilizes workforce data to optimize and influence business results”), the statement serves as a rallying cry.

At the end of every practitioner webinar I run, I ask “what has a commitment to workforce analytics meant for your career or professional interests?” Take a moment to think about how analytics can add another skillset to your portfolio, or help with your career advancement. Your enthusiasm and passion for data will be inspiring to others.

2. Write out three analytics “wins” you want to achieve in the next 12 months

Back in 2005, during a customer workshop on talent management KPIs, the Head of HR shared five hypotheses that he wanted to test with data; one example was that “retirees are our biggest net promoters” – newly-retired staff who had a positive work experience would be very willing to share that opinion with others. Outlining a set of testable statements meant that the function’s limited resources could be applied to finding answers to a finite set of well-defined questions.

While solving five hypotheses in 12 months might be a stretch, I would encourage you to write out three “wins” that your team would like to achieve.

For example, you could use the following as a simple template (“I would like to know whether my firm’s investment in _________________ has resulted in ______________________?)”, and narrow the scope by selecting a specific segment (e.g., Sales, Females, High-Potentials).

As with the vision, communicating a clear set of achievable priorities avoids the risk of over-reaching or sweeping generalizations.

3. Conduct a SWOT analysis of your current practices for sharing data

Rather than embarking on a laborious assessment of every single process for how data is transferred from the system (HRIS, Talent Management, etc.) to the end-user, leverage your experience in how data arrives at your desk, and then assess your function’s:

• Strengths: What organizational or functional assets/resources do you possess that increase the likelihood of success in workforce analytics?

• Weaknesses: What are your current deficiencies/limitations on the deployment of analytics?

• Opportunities: In the next 6-12 months, how can analytics help your organization better achieve its goals?

• Threats: In the next 6-12 months, what might hinder the attainment of those goals?

Doing so will help you prioritize decisions that build upon strengths/opportunities and address weaknesses/threats, rather than trying to build an entirely new data delivery process.

4. Establish a deadline for getting “win #1”

Finally, to instill a sense of urgency, create a deadline for when you expect Win #1 to be realized. While deadlines can focus attention, they can also create undue stress and inhibit creative thought, so should be established only after creating a vision and plan of attack. You may choose to create two deadlines; a soft timeline for the exploration and discussion of the analysis, followed by a hard timeline of when to move onto win #2.

Either way, if you’ve decided where you’re going and which road will take you there, now’s the time to decide how long you want to take to get there.

Enjoy the ride!

To download an excerpt from the Bersin study, plus other white papers and checklists for workforce analytics, go to Your Roadmap to High Value HR Analytics.

During an implementation for MSS, we came across an interesting issue on Talent Management iView. The manager had 40 odd direct and and indirect employees under him. List of employees appeared correctly in Team Calendar. But when accessing Talent Management iView, we saw 40 entries with employee names repeating 16 times for 1 employee, and twice for other two employees.

Data in PA0002 was accurate and the fact that Team Calendar did show correct names for all employees, we discarded the possibility of bad data. The issue was reported after setting up structural authorizations but employee names repeated multiple times did not make sense.

Here is what I found after some debugging.

FM HRMSS_GET_QUALIFICATIONS called by Talent Management application calls FM HR_READ_INFOTYPE inside a loop for each employee selected by OADP configuration. Note highlighted part in the code. Exception handling is commented out for FM, internal table LT_0002 and work area LS_0002 are not cleared after each loop pass.

FM HR_READ_INFOTYPE checks for structural authorization of user in class CL_HRPAD00AUTH_CHECK_STD, method CHECK_CONTEXT_AUTH_OBJ. In case of missing authorizations to read PA0002 for an employee, FM HR_READ_INFOTYPE returns empty internal table LT_0002.

Now consider a case where the manager has authorization to read PA0002 for employee 1 , employee 17, employee 19, employee 20, and employee 21 and employee 23 to employee 40. Because of the code, even though HR_READ_INFOTYPE returns empty internal table LT_0002 for employee 2 to 16, employee names for these employees will be populated as employee 1 only i.e. employee 1 reperating 16 times and so on.

So output in view like Competency Matchup would show,

employee 1

employee 1

employee 1.

...

...

..employee 1 ( 16 times ),

employee 17

employee 17

employee 19

employee 20

employee 21

employee 21

employee 23

employee 24

...

...

employee 40

Lessons learned. Yes, we need to set up structural authorizations properly, but never miss recommended best practices below.

1) Judiciously use CLEAR on internal table and work area inside a loop.

2) Code appropriate error handling after FM call.

Also learnt was the lesson that if you have correct data in backend ECC and missing/confusing data on portal iView, do not rule out authorization issues early.

What is there in a name? Well, name does matter when a manager wants to match up employee competency for a position.

I hope this helps in others facing similar issues.

Hi

Before writing this blog, I got one requirement that -  to place the Temse Object into SAP Application Server (AL11).

The task seems to be simple why because by going to PU12 Export Tab and we can select the Temse Object which ever we required and by clicks on execute we can able to generate that file into AL11.

But the requirement is we need to automate this process means using background job we need to place the TemSe Object into SAP Application Server.

As the standard PU12 program(SAPMPU12) which is using for this purpose ,is not a executable report and it's an module pool program you can't run that with variants.

When I received this requirement, I have searched a lot in SCN to find out for the direct solution(way) but unable to catch up.

I have developed 1 custom report to achieve this with below idea.

1.  First need to download the Temse object to local pc.

Using Standard SAP Report - RPCIFU03 we can achieve this.

2. Once Temse file is placed in Presentation Server ,we need to place that file to Application Server.

Using the Function Module - C13Z_FILE_UPLOAD_BINARY, we can achieve this if we have downloaded the Temse Object into Binary format.

Using the Function Module - C13Z_FILE_UPLOAD_ASCII,we can achieve this if we have downloaded the Temse Object into ASCII format.

The custom report will club these 2 steps and provide the solution to place the Temse Object into SAP Application Server directly.

I have attached the code to achieve this.

Check the usefulness of this and act accordingly.

Thanks & Regards,

Sreeram

HR and workforce analytics continue to be hot topic, and this year’s SAPPHIRE NOW + ASUG Annual Conference on June 3-5, 2014 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, will feature theater presentations, demos and micro-forums that will give you the opportunity to hear, see and discuss workforce analytics and planning with experts from SuccessFactors and SAP, our partners, and your peers.

Many organizations are successfully using workforce analytics and benefiting from the insights derived from them to support crucial business decisions and drive business strategy and outcomes. At the same time,  a large percentage of HR organizations continue to struggle in making the leap from operational and advanced reporting to true HR analytics. This leap does not come easy, but SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics can help to accelerate the transformation in your organization. You should, however, set proper expectations that this is not an overnight change, and you will only see true, sustainable value in the long term.

The SAPPHIRE NOW conference sessions are designed to provide you with a practical understanding of how analytics can help to build credibility for HR functions and position HR as an agent of impact.

For a great customer story, make sure to attend the theater presentation Confirm the ROI of Your Recruiting Solution by Using Analytics (session LB15234) by Rob Delmarco, Vice President, Financial Management & Analytics at Comcast. Comcast is a long-time customer of SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics. Hear Rob discuss how Comcast uses analytics to confirm the ROI of its recruiting solution—SuccessFactors Recruiting. Comcast recently deployed SuccessFactors Recruiting, and it set expectations for its deployment during the sales process. Rob will describe how Comcast uses SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics to confirm the benefits from its investment and how it uses ROI analysis to substantiate the value realized and quantify the impact on its business outcomes.

While you’re at SAPPHIRE NOW, make sure to have a conversation at a micro-forum with Tony Ashton, VP Product Management, SuccessFactors Workforce Planning and Analytics, on benchmarking and predictive analytics as applies to HR; and see Mick Collins, Principal Consultant (Twitter: @MickCollins), demo SuccessFactors Workforce Planning and Workforce Analytics solutions and answer your questions.

Featured Sessions

See below for a list of sessions covering HR analytics:

The dates and times provided here are accurate as of the time this blog was published, but scheduling is subject to change. Make sure to check the conference agenda for most recent information so you don’t miss any sessions.

Other noteworthy events:

There’s a great webinar series from SuccessFactors on workforce analytics on a range of topics, including recruiting and onboarding, learning, performance, and diversity. Click here to register.

Recordings of past webinars will be available from the archives.

Also right around the corner, the HR & Workforce Analytics Innovation Summit (#HRChicago) will take place at the Westin Michigan Avenue in Chicago, IL on May 22 & 23, 2014.  The summit organizers have arranged for solid line-up of speakers from companies across various industries who lead the way in deploying the latest analytical methods and technologies to drive positive change in their organizations.

SuccessFactors is a Gold Sponsor of this event, and Sue Boylan will deliver a keynote about bringing storytelling to analytics.  This critical skill helps HR assemble insights into workforce data into compelling stories that can be communicated to the executive team at their level, giving them what they need to make informed, fact-based decisions.

We have many members of the SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics team at the event.  They would be happy to set up product and best practice discussions.

To learn more about how workforce analytics can support your HR strategy, click here to download: Your Roadmap to High Value HR Analytics.

We hope to see you soon!

HR is currently going through the most fundamental change it has ever seen. There are five generations in the workplace at once. Temporary labour is on the rise. Millennials are fundamentally shifting the way work is done and the way you engage in the workforce.

In addition, your customers, partners, employees and leadership are demanding more from your team, faster. For the HR organisation, the greatest differentiator between failure and success is the ability to quickly and consistently tie people strategy to business strategy. An increasing number of organisations are responding to these demands in the cloud.

Join us at SAP All Cloud Connect to find out how SAP is bringing a foundation of 40 years of industry expertise to the Cloud.

SAP All Cloud Connect

Melbourne
June 17, 2014 – Crown Promenade

Sydney
June 19, 2014 – Sheraton on the Park

With a dedicated HR stream, the event provides an opportunity to network with your peers and hear how 20 million SuccessFactors subscribers are leveraging the next generation of cloud-delivered HR to:

• Deliver real-time workforce insight to increase the business impact of HR;
• Align workflows, content, insight and expertise that directly impact business execution;
• Make big data accessible so you can make smart decisions that improve workforce performance and impact the bottom line;
• Realise employees' expectations of simplicity and great user experience.

Some food for thought:

Danoneputs HR in cloud with SAP's SuccessFactors Global rollout covering 100,000 staff

Online HR helps construction giant Laing O'Rourke to find staff with the right fit

As their business grew, Corporate Travel Management transformed HR processes & more with  SuccessFactors

We look forward to seeing you at the event and exploring how cloud solutions from SAP can help you.

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Dear all

Thought i would make you aware of some recent changes in SuccessFactors Employee Central as of release 1405.

I have a Sales Demo with Del Boomi Integration to an EC Payroll instance where the Employee Replication has been set up and is working nicely.

Coming in the other direction we had a configured HR Form Payslip displaying in the Pay Statement option within EC.

As of 1405 the way to access the Pay Statement has changed. SF has, for want of a better word, nested the Pay Statement option into a portlet that is now accessed via a simple Payroll option from the menus.

By default, this is not enabled in Role Based Permissions so it needs to be enabled in the required role to be available to the employee.

Heres an example of what it looks like in my system

Im now looking to extend the Payroll Integration with EC with the addition of the new Payroll services that allow admins to enter pay related data that can then be integrated with EC payroll. If i find anything interesting ill be sure to share.

Feel free to share your experience of EC/EC Payroll integration here or in your own thread. Ill be interested to hear your views on it as it progresses with each release. So far im very impressed.

Cheers

Doug