In my last blog, I gave a quick introduction about the new tool -  "Mass Processing" . In that blog, I didn't go much detail into the actual solution. I am sure, after reading that blog everyone must have got a "good" idea on how this new functionality is going to be(which has SAP's documentation too ). In this blog, I shall get into more details of "What's new in HCM Processes and Forms framework to accommodate this new solution".

Being from strong Technical background, I am not the only one who hates to read "Documentation" before exploring any new functionality; but I mended myself recently after wearing "Functional" hat to read and understand(at least try) the documentation first before diving into any new functionality. Though I still feel exploring new things by technical way(by debugging if something is not working, looking into SLG1 and ST22 traces, hunting for new components, searching for OSS Notes) is far interesting than reading the boring documentation

Controlling my excitement, I opened the super duper HRASR_DT transaction to see that a new form type - "Mass Form" -

Before I start exploring this functionality in detail, I tried hunting for SAP delivered "Mass Form" Form Scenarios and realized that we don't have anything provided by SAP. I might be wrong, since I didn't do the Forms Reconciliation after the FP3 upgrade.

I went ahead creating this test form scenario and realized that after a lot of exercise, HRASR_DT has put down some weight by reducing lots of navigation nodes This actually hints me that this new functionality is not as something that is similar to existing HCM Process and Forms type functionality.

At the fields node, I found a new button - "Download Template"  that allows me to download the fields  in a excel file -

"Instructions" column in the fields table gets exported to excel as a "Remark" i.e. the value maintained in this column gets exported to the excel template as a "Remark"-

"Fixed field" column in the fields table fixes the columns in excel template -

"Help Value in Excel" column allows us to provide drop down values(as configured in Input Help) in excel

"Field Sequence" column allows defining the sequence of columns in the "Forms Application". A new form type got added which looks very similar to "List form" of FPM Forms (with minor differences) -

One more interesting thing that was found during my research was - In "Traditional HCM Process and forms", we used to create "Process" after creating the "Form Scenario". But coming to "Mass Process" configuration, we don't have to create a Process at all. The "Form Scenario" integrates directly with the new "Mass Processing Start Application".

A new web dynpro component is delivered as a part for this "Mass Processing Start Application" -

Here is the final look and feel of our new application -

Conclusion :

This new functionality from my perspective is really good. Now, I can add any number of infotypes in my Hire configuration without any development and do the mass processing in ease. Also, the functionality to export to excel and import from excel is also very good. I was under assumption that this tool would work for any "Action"(not only for Hiring / Rehiring), but my assumption had been wrong. Using a simple prototype, I tried updating Communications infotype alone without with any performing "Actions" for two persons(passing in Personnel Numbers), it didn't allow me to do so. This tool would be absolutely powerful if this framework works for any infotype with and without actions(I might be wrong too since I didn't invest good amount of time exploring this tool and I strongly believe SAP could have provided an option to use this tool for any action or infotype update ).

During my research I came across a cool SAP Note#1835253 - Mass Hiring Cookbook which might help you also !

You want to use different payslips in the portal depending on different fields. The standard system only offers as decision criteria MOLGA Country Grouping and RCLAS Report Category for Decision Feature.

The feature HRFOR uses structure PMEHF. This structure has several fields available for decision that can be used:

1. Execute transaction PE03.
2. Enter value HRFOR in the feature field.
3. Select “Attribute” option
4. Click on “Change” button
5. Click in “Struct.” button
6. Select those valid values relevant for you.

Example: You want to use a different payslip for the regular payroll run and for an off-cycle payroll run, you can add field PAYTY.

In this integration Q&A I interview Brandon Toombs, a leading SAP HCM expert who is currently supporting an implementation of the Integration Add-on 2.0 for SAP HCM and SuccessFactors. Brandon has also recently co-authored a SAP PRESS book on SAP ERP HCM Processes and Forms.

Hi Brandon, although you’re well known SAP HCM expert, can you give us a brief introduction to yourself and how you transitioned to SuccessFactors?

I have worked with SAP Talent Management on and off for several years, during which I have learned the value in having a fully integrated talent platform.  Concurrently, I have also watched the rise of multi-tenant architecture cloud Talent Management offerings.  I would often work with SAP sales teams as we competed for business against these cloud solutions.  During those "bake-offs" I came away impressed with the rate of innovation we would see in those cloud solutions.  So, when I learned that SAP had acquired the crown jewel of Talent Management (SuccessFactors) I knew that this was an avenue I wanted to pursue. 

You were involved with testing of the Rapid Deployment Solution (RDS) packages for Add-on’s 1.0 and 2.0. Tell us about that.

The way I explain Rapid Deployment Solutions is that they are delivered solutions from SAP to the customer for a fixed price.  To make this possible, the scope is fixed as well.  Instead of sending you home "with a box with the TV and home theatre system", an RDS shows up with the equipment, installs it, and trains you on it.  In the context of SAP ECC to SuccessFactors, the RDS team sets up the integration in a short period of time and leaves you with the knowledge necessary to take it from there.

And what is the feedback you’ve had from clients?

In addition to assisting SAP with their RDS testing, I was on a team at Coeus Consulting that created an SAP-to-SuccessFactors RDS package.  It was qualified by SAP through a process that culminated with an oral presentation at SAPPHIRE.  I am therefore going to base my feedback based on conversations that I have had with customers to the Coeus RDS, which is similar to SAP's.  I can tell you that the feedback from customers has been very positive.  The ideal candidate has a mature SAP HR environment but is new to SuccessFactors BizX.  By using the RDS they can cross integration off the list of things that keep them up at night.  Even the customers I've spoken with who were too far down the path in their implementation to use the RDS could see the value in a pre-packaged approach and wished they could have benefitted from it.

You’re currently assisting a customer who is implementing Add-on 2.0 as part of a SuccessFactors Recruiting project. What are your thoughts on the package?

Recruiting is more challenging than many people realize because it requires 2-way integration: sending of employee/requisition data from SAP to SuccessFactors and the return of data to SAP for candidates to-be-hired.  I'm going to split up my comments to deal with the two processes separately.  I will try to be brief because I have a blog in the works where I discuss the Recruiting interface in-depth.  First though, a word about the overall architecture.

Overall Architecture

As of the time of writing, the interface requires use of SAP Process Integration (PI) middleware.  While the middleware itself is robust and battle-tested at numerous SAP clients, it may not be a tool that a given customer has already invested in.  SAP HANA Cloud Integration (HCI) is SAP's long-term strategy for the SAP to SuccessFactors integration.  Since HCI is "in the cloud", there is no requirement for an on-premise installation as is required for PI.  The problem is that HCI is not yet generally available.  HCI has been nearing completion of Ramp Up for the past few months, but there is no firm date that I have heard as of yet.

So the difficult question is what to do in the short term.  What I have seen is that customers that already have PI installed are proceeding with a PI-based installation.  For customers without PI currently installed, they are tending to wait on HCI, although some are moving ahead with PI installs.

The other option is to go with the file-based approach for employee data integration.  This approach can be used to send data across from SAP to SuccessFactors.  However, the new hire import into SAP currently does not have a file based interface.

Employee Data To SuccessFactors

The "core" of both the 1.0 and the 2.0 Add-ons are the process of sending employee data to SuccessFactors from SAP.  What's important about the Add-On employee data process is that it is able to send only employee data "deltas" to SuccessFactors.  I was surprised when I "peeked under the covers" and saw how SAP was accomplishing this.  In other areas, including the old E-Recruiting, SAP has relied on a process of writing a "pointer" every time the data changed, then reading that list of pointers (also known as "change pointers") to figure out what data needs to go across.  Instead of using change pointers for the new delta process SAP is actually comparing full data snapshots and comparing to the last full data snapshot.  When I saw this I was very skeptical that this would work for some of the large organizations that use SAP HR.  However, I have been pleasantly surprised at how fast this process happens.  Speaking with SAP support, they said for most companies this scanning process takes roughly 20 milliseconds per employee.  This means that you can scan a population with 100,000 of employees in 33 minutes and since sending changed employee data across to SuccessFactors takes only a few seconds,  this means that all but the largest organizations can send data across hourly or even faster.

Requisition Data To SuccessFactors

The requisition integration with SAP is not yet generally available.  From what I hear the process will be triggered by a vacancy creation on a position on SAP, although that could have changed.  This is scheduled to be delivered in the next couple of months, so it will be interesting to see what the final design looks like.

New Hires From SuccessFactors

With respect to the data coming back from SuccessFactors to SAP HR, the process works pretty smoothly as well: you set up an Ad-Hoc Report in SuccessFactors and "pull" it from SAP.  The data then gets stored in a staging table that is used to hire the employee.  The interface also includes messages back to SuccessFactors to change the status to "received" for the candidate and eventually to "hired" within SuccessFactors. 

In order to allow the SuccessFactors-based new hire process to work with the widest range of customers as possible, the process was set up to work with a variant of PA40.  That means that the core logic that customers have configured into the Personnel Administration processes works with the SuccessFactors hiring process. The process also includes nice touches such as checking for duplicate employees as well as ways to deal with situations where incomplete data has come across from SuccessFactors. 

How did you find the process of setting up the Add-on and was the available documentation sufficient in supporting this?

The Add-On setup is tricky if only because there are 3 different parts: SAP ECC, PI, and SuccessFactors.  In general the documentation does an effective job in explaining what needs to be done in SAP HR and PI.  The documentation is more limited on the SuccessFactors side.  This makes it critical that your HR team clearly communicates to your SuccessFactors implementation partner what needs to be included so that the SuccessFactors resource can incorporate the fields in the requisition/candidate and build the necessary Ad-Hoc reports.  Of course the easiest way to side-step this issue is to utilize resources that have been through the process already.

Did you find many gotcha’s during the implementation?

The overall "gotcha" to the process is the fact that the integration really requires collaboration among SAP HR resources, PI resources, and SuccessFactors resources from the start as the needs of the Integration Add-On really need to be considered early on in the design process.  For recruiting integration, all of the elements that need to be sent back across from SuccessFactors to SAP need to be sent across using a metadata interface into SAP.  This makes the new fields available for mapping of the SuccessFactors data to SAP.  To make things a little bit more challenging, there are certain fields (employee group, subgroup, and personnel area) that have to be included in the data coming across from SuccessFactors into SAP in order for the delivered New Hire Process to work right.  If the integration process starts after the design has already been finalized for the requisition/candidate, this can cause rework. 

My recommendation is to ensure your implementation team is aware of the requirements for the SAP integration early on.  This is where the RDS approach fits in nicely as you can have the RDS team come in and set up the baseline integration early on and do the Knowledge Transfer.  This serves as a good jumping off point for the rest of the implementation.

Would you say the package is “complete” for this process, or are there areas where you see enhancements or improvements?

My primary complaint with the SuccessFactors to SAP new hire process is that it does not integrate with the newly developed HR Renewal Infotype screens or even HCM Processes and Forms.  For customers who have invested in Renewal/HCM Processes and Forms, this will be disappointing.  For example, one of my current customers is having to build out customization so that the data can be moved from the staging table for the New Hire interface to HCM Processes and Forms hiring process. 

For the employee data interface to SuccessFactors, the main complaint I hear from customers is that while SuccessFactors itself can store numerous custom fields, the interface into SuccessFactors is currently restricted to allow only 15 custom fields to be interfaced in.  For customers with unique data needs, this can be a challenge. 

And as I mentioned above the main gap right now is the lack of integration between SAP org management and the creation of the requisition. This will hopefully be addressed in the coming weeks as the Requisition interface is scheduled to be delivered in Q3.

If you could give one piece of key advice to a customer who is going to implement the add-on, what would it be?

Consider the integration requirements at the start of the project so that those needs can be incorporated into the design early on.  A "co-education" where the SAP HR teams learn details of SuccessFactors and your SuccessFactors resources learn some of the key requirements within SAP is ideal. 

Do you have anything else you’d like to add?

As a shameless plug, implementing either the SAP or Coeus RDS integration packages is a great way to accelerate the process.

Thanks for your time Brandon.

You're welcome Luke.

Brandon can be followed on Twitter via @BrandonToombs. I can also be followed via @LukeMarson.

     As of Enhancement Pack 6, SAP has adopted a newer release strategy. While the older enhancement pack delivery mechanism still exists, SAP will also release what they refer to as "feature packs" (also known as "In-Advance Shipment"). As the name implies, these feature packs contain content specific to a business area to provide new features and functionality supplied "in advance" of the next Enhancement Package(which should be EhP7 at some point soon).

Per Robert Moeller from SAP, "A Feature Pack (FP) in this context  is nothing more than a special kind of Support Package (SP) that includes new functionality (where a SP usually only contains code corrections and legal changes), albeit you still control the activation of that new functionality with a business function switch that you may turn on."

     The intention is that these "feature packs" can be delivered quarterly between enhancement pack upgrades. So where are we now with releases?

*released at the end of July 2013

Highlights of each Feature Pack

     Here are the consolidated highlights for each release from SAP (with my occasional opinion in orange text thrown in for good measure! haha):

• New function in Design Time for Processes and Forms for the creation of forms based on Floor Plan Manager (FPM) application configuration components (VERY cool!)
• New function for using forms created in an external UI to access the Processes and Forms framework using the Service Layer

          (Do not GLOSS over this one! This means that yes, SAP allows us to use FPM-based forms as a option to Adobe, but they have also left the           framework open not to allow ANY other UI for the "form" that we want!!!!)

• New sample processes based on the new form type:
  • Change to Working Time (International)
  • Special Payment (International)

• Storage of Documentation for Additional DataSources (documentation moved from under BI information to HumanResources -> Reporting in Human Resources Management ->DataSources)   (they just made the documentation easier to find...as I said before in a blog about analytics HCM Processes & Forms:There’s gold in them there Processes and Self-Services! (Data and BI Analytics), I had to HUNT all over to find this information! haha)        

• New Start Application to execute processes for HR Administrator role (ASR_PROCESS_START_OVP)
  • Search for different object types (employee, position, organizational unit and job) using a single search screen
  • Start both FPM-based and Adobe-based processes from a single application for a chosen object (you would think this was done when they released the FPM option)
  • Attachments, history, and link lists
• New Process Browser application to track both FPM based and Adobe based processes
• Digital Personnel File (DPF) available for both Adobe and FPM form types
• Integration of StreamWork (StreamWork integration with HCM Processes and Forms enables collaboration/discussion between users who participate in different stages of a process.)
• New PFCG role for HR Administrator (SAP_ASR_HRADMIN_SR_HCM_CI_4)
• Further enhancements to the Design Time tool
  • Configure a print/read-only Adobe PDF: The system creates a PDF from the template specified and stores it in the employee's personnel file. If the form template is maintained, it can also be used to print FPM forms (not pulling any punches...this is a CRAP solution! It makes us still rely on setting up ADS and developing an Adobe form in parallel with our FPM forms!...but I guess at least SAP is giving us something. I really hope they release a *real* print solution soon!)
  • Bind the source of UI attributes for form fields (this will add to generic service development!)
  • Designate a text field associated with a form field, so that texts for values chosen in the Object Value Selector (OVS) are populated on the form at runtime (this will save some generic service development!)
• Sample processes based on the FPM form type:
  • Hiring (Germany)
  • Change Organizational Unit Attributes-WD [FPM]
• EIC Side Panel Integration in HR Application
  • HCM Process & Forms administrator application (5 Step PA & PD Application) has been enhanced to enable the creation of a service request, directly from the application, through a side panel. This means that context relevant data is included directly in the
    service request, eliminating the need to call or mail the Shared Service Center, to create a service request. It further allows the administrator to see the service request that they have created in the side panel and to view its current status.

• Integration of the Mass Hiring Web application into the landing page
• Appealing and intuitive Web user interface, which offers a central workspace for an HR professional to manage data of multiple candidates when hiring employees. With the Excel-like Web UI, an HR professional can complete the whole maintenance process for candidates:
  • Download an empty excel template for mass hiring
  • Import an Excel sheet with records of multiple new hires
  • Export the candidates into an Excel sheet
  • Handle errors
  • Save drafts
  • Mass edit, mass validate, and mass submit candidates' data
  • Both synchronous and asynchronous validation processes are available and can be conducted in parallel to save time, if the function is enabled in the Design Timetool. These checks include:
    • Automatic duplication check during importing and validations (very cool!)
    • Rehire detection (very cool!)
    • Automatic creation of personnel numbers for all new hires after final step of data submission (I would like the option for WHEN this happens. Some clients/customers like to assign/hold the number early in the process.)
• Processes lane to the landing page for HR professionals. (will be nicer when it is available in the portal and not just the NWBC)
  • A short lane on which they can view the pending processes for a specific period
  • An expanded lane on which they can view all completed and open processes and includes advanced search capabilities
• new HR Professionalcomposite role

• Roadmap Form for Employee Processes
  The HCM Processes and Formsframework offers the new form type "Roadmap Form". With this new form type you can reuse the Personnel & Organization screens for single infotypes and offer them in a predefined sequence for display as an easy-to-navigate roadmap. You configure the roadmap form-based processes either as “single-step-processes” or use the workflow capabilities of HCM Processes and Formsto enhance them. Note: Currently, the roadmap form only supports processes for employee master data.

          (Interesting. I want to see it in action. Not really sure what "use case" SAP thinks this addressed since it is for "single infotypes".)

• new HR Professionalcomposite role

Feature Pack 4 was just released at the end of July 2013 as noted, but hints at the directions SAP is moving with a number of things if you read between the lines (some form of "dynamic actions" capabilities, integrated HTML5 based org charting, more robust "landing page" functionality, etc.). I hope this consolidation of information helps others wade through what is truly *NEW AND IMPROVED*in HCM Processes and Forms. As always...till next time....

Hi,

It's very useful module to streamline the HR process in our company. Functionality of the ESS is easily accessable to employees as wel Manager. Online approval matrix is ver helpful for reducing the time gaps.

Leave management, Buget planning, Basic personal Information Compensation Management Travel E recuritment all modules are such helpful for sreamline the process. But for EIC we reqired some specific documentation so it will help us for making more efficioent system.

Now our company lauching the process for deputed employees called E assignment note this is under ESS service. But whole application is custom so shall we get the fuctionality in config node so as Function we will get the appourinity to develop the application both way.

In EIC we want this interlink with Outllok so automation is more easier.

Also in our company employees are hired on contract basis so there so in provision to do the configuration in ESS. So if SAP will give the apporunity to develop such system then it will help us  to develop more system.

Regards,

Neeta

Hi everyone!

I had the pleasure to meet with many of you at HR2013 Amsterdam last June. The conference is now history, and if there is one thing that I took home: EMEA is the hybrid market. All the customers I spoke with told me that they were considering moving at minimum some talent applications to the cloud. It’s great when your customers tell you you’re doing the right things at the right time with the “talent hybrid” model. This model helps our customers protect and expand their HRIS at the same time.  That is unique in the marketplace (others advocate a “rip and replace” approach which we do not feel is respectful of customers’ wallets) and leading analysts Josh Bersin and Katherine Jones confirm how valuable our work has been to our customers stating that “SAP clearly understands this complexity, and the company now has a well thought-out strategy to address nearly every possible scenario”, from an article published recently.

I mentioned in my previous blog SAP and SuccessFactors’ hybrid model: what is next? that I’d share complementary information on our hybrid roadmap as soon as possible, and now is a good time to write again, although we are still ironing out the details.  Today I’d like to bring some clarity on things we have shipped but maybe not been loud enough about (at least I’ve heard that comment) and update you on our development plans.

The road behind us, plus a few small jewels

• Workflows: we have never been very vocal on this one although workflows truly complement the talent business processes themselves. They are enabled by the initial integration add-ons delivered over a year ago. Business workflow in SuccessFactors - like a workflow between employee and manager in Performance, the approval for the booking of a class, or the workflow behind the compensation worksheets - are mainly based on the reporting lines. This is fairly simple, but mandatory.
• Permissions: this is another topic we’ve been discussing with many customers. Permissions in SuccessFactors are support by SAP objects like Country (the famous “MOLGA”), Personal Area, Personal Group,… and this crucial data is provided by the first add-on and speeds up tremendously the deployment of permissions in the talent suite. Of course, you are not done after this, but the foundation is set up though.
• Reporting: application data get their meaning only when you can analyze them. The integration allows consumption of the data in all the SuccessFactors analytical solutions; from Dashboards to Analytics to Reporting. You can run a report or build a dashboard with SAP HR data and SuccessFactors Talent data out of the box thanks to the integration add-ons (needs Workforce Planning and Analytics subscription, more details on the solution here)
• Performance and Goal management: we have not mentioned it enough as it is obvious for most of us, but for completeness of the list I wanted to add it. To run SuccessFactors Performance and Goal on top of SAP ERP HCM you do not need anything more than the data provided by the first integration package. You will find the next level of information here: http://help.sap.com/erp_sfi_addon10, this picture is showing the shipments until today (Recruiting still in ramp-up as of July 24)

So, what lies ahead?

• Compensation Management: these are actually 3 components: fixed pay, variable pay and compensation calibration.  Fixed pay integration - component like base pay, bonuses, lump sums or LTIs – has been shipped end of last year and very well explained in last year’s great blog from Paul Hopkins and Luke Marson. More technical details here : http://help.sap.com/erp_sfi_addon10.We are currently examining the global need for variable pay integration, as it really varies from customer to customer. Here I’d like to hear from you: how important is SuccessFactors Variable Pay integration to SAP for your customers? Is variable pay too “customer specific” to become part of a standard integration package?
• Recruiting Management:  we are just about to exit the ramp-up for the phase one “from SuccessFactors to SAP”, please see more details here: http://help.sap.com/erp_sfi_addon20 . Recruiting phase two will close the loop and give our customers a competitive advantage with a hybrid end-to-end process running like in an integrated suite. The 2^nd phase is planned for August 2013.  
• Learning Management: this is one of the most asked-for topics right now, in a market with its own dynamic. The first shipment is planned with the 1311 release, and is planned to include “Skills and competencies” and “learner history” integration. This will set up the foundation. In the subsequent releases the first half of 2014. We plan to ship the cost allocation integration with SAP Financials, and are thinking about scenarios with other SAP solutions like SAP Environmental Health and Safety ManagementSAP Sales on Demand
• Succession Management integration: this is under discussion but I think we are almost there. The first add-on brings employee and the organizational data over to SuccessFactors. The skills and competencies for an open position are managed in SuccessFactors already. The only missing piece of the succession domino is the “position” and its attributes (like Name, Core, Incumbent…). We plan to consider Succession in a 2014 release. Until then consulting organizations should be able to leverage existing technical integration options (like CSV). This is summarized here:

• Hybrid models will evolve by nature, as customer will bring more and more applications to the cloud. SAP has been working on in another crucial scenario: the integration between SAP HR core and SuccessFactors Employee Central. Those integration points are key for any customers that want to quickly connect subsidiaries, acquired companies, etc, to a SAP HR core backbone typically owned by the headquarter. This complements the “talent hybrid” as shown in the “two tier HCM” depicted here.

We are never done in HR, and Professional Services firms will help you go even beyond

I would argue that the SAP and SuccessFactors “hybrid talent” integration would be complete when those business scenarios are all shipped: performance & goal, compensation, recruiting, learning (planned) and succession (planned). These are the talent management processes for which our customers are asking for a standard integration with the SAP ERP HCM core system. In addition, from a technical integration perspective, our customers can benefit from 4 integration options: CSV, SAP NetWeaver PI, SAP HANA Cloud Integration, or another middleware. Here again, this is giving our customer a lot of choice and flexibility.

Nevertheless, I see a great potential for Professional Services organizations and consulting packages, and especially for new RDS opportunities. Just to give one example that I discussed recently with an industry expert at SAP: think about industry specific components like SAP Incentive and Commission Management and how it can complement SuccessFactors Compensation Management, just to name one. Target group: a couple hundreds of customers! What do you think? Do you see the need for Any particular industry, or region, maybe your own country? Let us know. Where to find more information on the hybrid solution?

As always, you can find great resources on this hybrid model, the HR scenarios and the technology supporting them here:

• http://help.sap.com/erp_sfi
• http://service.sap.com/erp goto Media Library - SuccessFactors Integration

These resources are updated regularly so be sure to save them as favorites in your browser.

Now I’d like to invite you already now to join our next SAPChat session that will take place August 8^th from 5.00 to 6.00 PM CET with SAP Mentors Luke Marson @lukemarson and Martin Gillet @mgillet, and SAP experts like Prashanth Padmanabhan @sprabu and more. We will be tweeting regularly before the SAPChat so that you can get familiar with the content beforehand.

Hope to “SAPChat” with you soon!  Best regards, Yannick

Follow me on Twitter: @ypeterschmitt

Follow SAP ERP HCM:@SAPHCM

Follow SuccessFactors: @successfactors

I am writing this blog to share my experiences and techniques i used to trouble shoot the issues with posting to accounting..Again i just sharing my view point and am happy to be corrected ..Being a consultant i would strongly suggest that users simulate the postings while they finalize the payroll reconciliations..It may happen you realise that the gross to net calculation would cause the error in posting to Accounting and you would have to reprocess your payroll..That is anyways due to a bad configuration but none the less "Better safe than sorry"

Taking a cue from principles of accounting which always stressed on debit must be equal to credits, i conclude the below logic

Gross Wages + Employer Contributions = Net Pay + Employee Contributions + Employer Contributions

We will take the same payslip to exhibit the importance of each of the steps mentioned. First we will see the correct posting for the payslip

POSTING OF ABOVE PAYSLIP

Imbalance Error # 1 - There is an posting imbalance. 

Check # 1 - Check on Gross to net calculation of the employee,Meaning add payments and minus employee deductions to double check the net Pay calculation.

Lets take the same example and see how the posting imbalance could occur because of the Incorrect calculation of Net Pay.

POSTING OF ABOVE PAYSLIP

See above that the debits are not equal to credits which cause the imbalance in posting documents. Here you need to review why your net pay went wrong fix it and then check of posting to accounting.

This is one of the example where payroll has to be processed after necessary changes are done to correct the net pay before the posting is attempted again.

Check # 2 - Post confirming that the Gross to Net calculation of employee is correct ensure all the wage Types forming part of gross to net are posted.

POSTING OF ABOVE PAYSLIP

Again we have a imbalance error but in this case due to the posting not done for "Tax" wage type.

Unlike previous case, since the tax wagetype is already in results and it was not mapped for posting we dont have to process the payroll

Once the wagetype is mapped you can attempt the posting which would resolve the issue.

Check # 3 - Check on Employer contributions and ensure they are posting on both side( Why both sides? because employer contributions are both expense and liability for employer)

POSTING OF ABOVE PAYSLIP

Again in above example the ER contribution is mapped for posting unfortunately only for one side and correspnding posting is missing.

Similar to previous case once the wagetype is mapped for posting the issue with imbalance would be resolved.

Conclusion

The payslips we see in real time scenarios and the posting is not simple as the examples chosen here but this blog, i hope,  would at least be a starting point for your trouble shooting... My First blog so please let me know your feedback

Best Regards

Ajay

Another article on change management. In "3 Hands-on Techniques for Managing Operational Change in HRIS Projects" I touched briefly on aspects of rollout projects in the second technique. This one is fully dedicated to the world of inter-/multi-/transnational HRIS projects:

Change Management in International HRIS Rollout Projects

“Change management” has recently become a compulsory element whenever managers of large scale IT initiatives presented their project to the board. It gets even more attention, when the project happens in an international / intercultural context.

As it is commonly accepted that a lack of good change management is one of the major sources of project failure, this seems like good news. However there are two problems with this:

• Quite often any reference to change management remains a mere lip service. Once project teams including project managers get entangled into the day to day technical problems, they lose sight of the “soft” elements of their work and quite often they are happy to forget about the change element, because they don’t have the confidence and capabilities to deal with it anyway.

• When solutions already implemented at the corporate centre are to be rolled out to subsidiaries in other countries, the prevailing notion is that these subsidiaries are facing major change and need some help from corporate IT or the business functions affected by the new IT systems. However, in most cases there is also a considerable transformation required at the corporate functions involved in order to manage the international rollout successfully and operate efficiently in a the more diverse context afterwards.

In this article we look primarily at this transformation required at the corporate centre based on our in a variety of projects.

A cooperative approach for change
When an IT system used in the mother country is to be rolled out to a subsidiary, there are two common approached corporate teams take:

• They work on the assumption that they know better and that the subsidiary will put up resistance that has to be overcome by force, usually relying on

support from the executive board or other powerful sponsors. We call this “The Conqueror’s Approach”, because they look at the subsidiary as some kind of castle that needs to be conquered. In most cases the support from powerful sponsors doesn’t take them as far as they hope, if they lack cooperation at a local level. Without local knowledge, the conquerors often get caught in an exhausting siege.

• The second approach also starts with the assumption of superiority, but is based on a charity mind-set. The corporate team believes they are bringing valuable new technologies and processes to the subsidiary and therefore think the local management and employees should gratefully embrace the changes they are suggesting. We call this “The Missionaries Approach”, as it reminds us of 18th century missionaries, who felt they liberated locals from an inferior way of life and thought that everything they brought them was an improvement. While this approach looks nicer than the conqueror’s approach at first sight, it leads to a similar outcome. Local management and workforce consider the corporate team as arrogant and blind with respect to the differences between countries. Eventually it will also cause strong resistance, though probably set up in a more subtle way.

While few people would consider themselves to be using one of those approaches, you can identify strong elements of one or even both of them in most international rollout projects, most notably in ERP rollouts, where the implementation of the system is likely to change the way an organisation works to a considerable extend. HR processes, even when excluding payroll, are strongly influenced by local legislation, institutions and culture. When changing them you ignore local knowledge at your own peril.

So the attitude “They have to change and we’ll tell them how” leads to various problems and missed opportunities:

• Many local employees will resist any change and may try to sabotage the project
• Knowledge and relationships required in the local environment will not be used in the project and may even get lost for the business for good.
• Processes made up thousands of miles away and forced upon the subsidiary often don’t work at all.
• Best practise and unique valuable skills of the local subsidiary, which could be leveraged for the benefit of the whole organisation, are ignored.

It is obvious that a more cooperative approach is required. But why is it that so many projects fail to achieve this and therefore don’t bring about the full benefit for the organisation?

The answer is simple: change is always considered to be something for the others, in our case, for the local subsidiary. However, an international rollout brings about as much need for change for the corporate functions involved as it does for the subsidiaries. Our experience shows that it is the transformation in the mother country that makes the whole organisation fit for a global rollout and also makes it much easier to get buy in for global standardisation on the local level.

The forgotten half of change

The need for change on a local level is undeniable and we are not arguing against the fact that some standards need to be applied globally. What we want to emphasise is that local change outcomes will add more value and be easier to achieve, if the need for corporate change is also considered. The change required from the corporate centre can be divided into four different categories:

It is not difficult to guess that having the right attitudes and mind-sets in the corporate team is the most important element. However, the best way to change them and even to demonstrate a need for change in the first place is to start with the other three elements as the need for change is much easier to see there. We will illustrate this with a few examples.

Change requirements in corporate IT processes and technology
If an HRIS team has so far been responsible for running a system in the mother country only, then there are quite a few obvious changes they need to make to their processes, once the system is rolled out globally, such as:

• Different time zones may require a 24/7 support, where 10/6 has been sufficient so far.
• Different languages require a multi-lingual user hotline.
• Changes to the system need to be discussed with many parties and therefore take more time to be approved.
• Patches have to be implemented more often as they have to cater for legislation and other requirements from various countries.
• Change drivers in technology can be as basic as differences in client hardware and software across subsidiaries starting with special characters available on local keyboards

These are only a few examples and often they affect day to day in IT operations far more than generally expected. You should of course try to standardize processes and seek synergies. However, this does quite often require changes in the mother country to get to a process, which can be used globally.

Change requirements in corporate business processes

Again, achieving a certain degree of standardisation across business processes can help to reduce cost, and also increase the quality of global processes. However, legislation, markets, geography, and various other factors set a limit to the degree of standardisation that can be achieved in any business process - be it payroll or recruiting.

The degree of localization required from a global IT system is usually underestimated by the corporate team at least as much as the possibility of standardisation is underestimated by local teams.

Attitudes, mind-sets and culture

Many problems that seem to originate from technology or process are actually due to attitudes and mind-sets on local as well as corporate teams. The biggest problem here is the common attitude in corporate teams that it’s the local subsidiaries that have to change to accommodate the blessings of corporate standardised processes and technology. It is this attitude that leads to the conqueror’s or missionary’s approach mentioned above and causes much of the resistance observed from the local teams.

Therefore, working on the attitudes of the corporate rollout team is paramount to minimize resistance and maximize benefits of the project. This is not as simple as it sounds because the mix of national and corporate culture that needs to be addressed goes right down to the basic assumptions Edgar Schein illustrates as the core of culture:

However, it is worth the effort. Aim at creating an open mind-set, which appreciates that some things that work in one country may not work in others and that best practice from local subsidiaries can also be used to improve processes on a global level. You also need to make it clear that some processes are likely to become more complicated, if they are to accommodate a variety of countries. Just demonstrate the benefits to show the changes are worth the effort.
In the long run, you are likely to find opportunities to develop centres of expertise in subsidiaries to take over some corporate tasks. However, this is usually nothing to address in the first step, as it is likely to cause even more fear and resistance on the corporate level.

A few best practises to start with

Some best practises to get the corporate team on board:

• The fact that you’ve done rollout projects already does not mean that it can’t be done in a more efficient and effective way, once the right attitudes and capabilities are in place.
• Demonstrate the need for change and its benefits using simple examples (like the IT processes mentioned above).
• Don’t condemn the “old ways”, but show how to build onto them.
• Make it fun and a positive challenge to explore cultural differences between various countries and discuss their implications.
• Allow for the learning curve by having some training before the start of the project and starting the rollout with “easy” countries.

To make the rollout project work on a day-to-day basis here are some best practises to observe:

• Have face-to-face meetings between corporate and local teams as early as possible.
• Follow up with regular web meetings, e.g. once a week, while the teams are not at the same site.
• Provide a chat room and wiki for online communication
• Define slots for ad hoc communication suiting corporate as well as local time zones.
• If the language at the corporate headquarter is not the project language (usually English), make sure that the corporate team is using the project language for communication and documentation.
• Having someone with local language skills on the corporate team can make a big contribution to gaining local buy-in.

These are just a few small points only scratching on the surface of a huge topic. However, if you get an idea how not only the subsidiaries, but the corporate centre as well, need to change, this is an excellent starting point to get away from the typical single minded change approaches and open your organisation up to exploit the opportunities hiding in an international rollout project. The road ahead is definitely worth exploring:

Enjoy the journey!

You can connect with me on Twitter: @svenringling

A survey conducted by Wakefield Research found that more than 70% of CIOs simplified their IT processes by migrating to the hybrid cloud environment. Hybrid cloud is quickly becoming a part of the IT norm in most organizations. To help CIOs simplify, SAP has been delivering integration capabilities called “People Cloud iFlows” around three strategic pillars: data foundation integration, process integration and user experience integration. On Thursday, August 8, at 9am PT/12pm ET/5pm CET, join Yannick Peterschmitt and a panel of experts for a #SAPChat on the topic of SAP and Successfactors’ hybrid model and how the solutions are and will integrate.

Panelists:

• Yannick Peterschmitt (@ypeterschmitt)
• Prashanth Padmanabhan (@sprabu)
• Martin Gillet, SAP Mentor (@mgillet)
• Luke Marson, SAP Mentor (@lukemarson)
• SuccessFactors (@SuccessFactors)

During the #SAPChat, we’ll cover:

• Hybrid roadmap: what is in, what is not
• Technology options including SAP HANA Cloud Integration
• Mentors’ feedback on roadmap and hybrid strategy
• Mentor’s review of hybrid adoption in the market

What is a #SAPChat?

A #SAPChat is an SAP-organized online conversation, held at a pre-arranged time, between a group of Twitter users, using a specific Twitter hashtag to identify the discussion.

How Do I Participate?

On the day of the event, log-in into your favorite Twitter client and enter #SAPChat into the search bar. We will likely use tweetchat.com (pending their server
migration) because it will automatically add the hashtag to your tweets as you participate in the chat. Other Twitter clients to use include TweetDeck,
TweetBot, Twitter Search etc. Just follow the chat hashtag, #SAPChat. During the event, you can follow the discussion, contribute questions, and
submit your own comments by using the same hashtag.

Be there - tweet there!

Join Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR, on 7/31 10 AM PST with SuccessFactors to learn more about how to make your company career site the heart of your employment brand. Register here.

I’ve often said that your career page should be the center of your recruiting and hiring universe. Well, it’s true. Your channels and communities including social like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn; Job Boards & Aggregators; Visual Effects like Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest and YouTube;  as well as traditional recruiting efforts like Print Media and Career Fairs drive candidates to one single place for conversation, information and most importantly candidate conversion, your company career site.

Read more...

This week SAP announced that it will allow customers to swap on-premise software licenses and maintenance payments for Cloud subscriptions that “assumes an expanded investment with cloud solutions from SAP”. Given the innovation and scalability available in the Cloud, this is certainly a positive move for customers. What is the real impact of this for customers?

From an SAP perspective, this announcement allows customers to expand their Cloud footprint with SAP solutions while ensuring that SAP maintains the same level of income that it does now. This is a win-win for customers, particularly for those with shelfware licenses. An interesting conversation took place on Twitter between Chris Paine, Jarret Pazahanick, Naomi Bloom, and myself:

My initial thought was that SAP benefits more from this as customers due to the increase in licensing costs. After all, customers are supposed to benefit from the fact that SaaS is cheaper than on-premise due to the economies of scale of using software and infrastructure, among other things. However, this thought is only based on cost versus cost and doesn’t take into account that customers would spend more but also would get more. Taking away things like innovation and long-term costs, there is also the fact they will get additional applications that they can implement at a much quicker pace than on-premise software and are more likely to be used across the enterprise.

From something-for-nothing to nothing-for-something

Customers should also not forget that many of them are sitting on shelfware licenses that they can trade for subscriptions. However, it is also important that customers don’t trade shelfware licenses for shelfware subscriptions! This is an excellent opportunity for customers to expand their HCM and/or Talent Management technology usage without investing significantly more costs. It is an ideal time for customers to begin to consider using additional Talent Management processes within their organization to enhance their competitive edge.

Hidden costs

One thing that isn’t included in this deal is the implementation and integration costs. Although subscriptions of a higher nature provide additional software services, this software still needs to be implemented and – if retaining SAP as the core system of record – integrated with SAP HCM. It is important for customers to understand that there will be these one-off costs. I don’t expect customers to have any additional on-going costs to manage the integration as they have on-going maintenance costs that will be gone with the transition to the Cloud.

Bottom Line

This is a good move by SAP to increase adoption of their Cloud solutions as well as provide customers with the latest-and-greatest software. Moving to the Cloud provides customers with enhanced innovation, usability, and scalability and – more importantly – presents an opportunity to revisit existing business processes and introduce new Talent Management processes. It also gives customers with shelfware licenses the chance to swap them for services that will provide real value.

I have decided to collect my experiences from SAP HCM implementation projects in my country. I will categories the issue and I would dedicate the first part to the most important issue - DATE is Iranian calendar(Shamsi calendar), a non-Gregorian calendar.

1. Payroll and time management periods.

There is problem with Iranian calendar with some version of SAP Kernel. I recommend to install at least release 7.02 of SAP_BASIS component with level 0007 to avoid this issue. The problem comes from method CONV_YEAR_EXT_TO_INT of program LKGJHU01.

Correct sytem:

The code which has defect(s):

I got a very decent introduction about HR Renewal 1.0 Feature Pack 4 after it's recent release.

The very first thing I checked after installing HR Renewal 1.0 Feature pack 4 is HRASR_DT(Design Time). Scanned through the transaction real quick and found the below new features -

Roadmap Form -

I found a new form type i.e. Roadmap form along with FPM Form, Adobe form and Mass form -

Searched for this key word in SAP Help and found some interesting  information .

I see that the "Infotype Version" field added at the Form Scenario definition under the "Validity Range"-

Two new steps (Personnel Action and Roadmap) are added under the Form Scenario -

Personnel Action is an optional step that lets you mention the action that needs to be executed on submitting the form -

Roadmap step lets you define the list of infotypes that needs to be updated-

This screen resembles the classic infogroup configuration screen where you could mention the Infotype, Subtype and Operation-

I didn't find the "Forms" step under the Form scenario anymore. I then realized that these individual infotype screens are reused from "Infotype UI screens of Master Data Application".

On opening the roadmap form a see a whole different new UI altogether -

Along with the configured infotypes under "Roadmap" step, we got a bonus screen - "Wrap Up" screen which indicates that we have reached the last step.

Conclusion -

Finally SAP has started making some excellent moves by introducing a configurable "Roadmap" step using HCM Processes and forms(I wish we have this functionality introduced years back). It's a very decent and powerful UI which uses all possible technologies - FPM, BOL, FLUID(Biz cards), etc. This new functionality not only allows us to run "Actions" with excellent UI, but also drives the step based functionality without necessarily running any action. The only down-side that I saw in this new functionality is the "Wrap-up" screen. I somehow feel that this wrap up screen is very bland(with no useful information). I wish this "Wrap-up" screen shows the entire step information(all infotype information) which provides some kind of "Preview" functionality.

Let me know your thoughts on this new functionality.

Introduction

I continued exploring the new features of HR Renewal 1.0 Feature Pack 4 and I found one more interesting functionality – The Workforce Viewer(new Org Chart functionality in addition to the existing NAKISA Org Chart functionality). I have hunted for more information about this topic in SAP Help and found this info.

Flashback (Old functionality)

Not a very long back (about 10 months back), I wrote a blog introducing the new Org Chart functionality which came up with EHP6. Till HR Renewal 1.0 FP3 the NAKISA based Org chart functionality is the only Org Chart functionality that is confined to “Master Data Application” through “Show Chart” button -

Current (New Functionality)

With the HR Renewal 1.0 Feature Pack 4, we got a new Org Chart application i.e. Workforce Viewer delivered which is a HTML 5 based application-

The blocks that are displayed in the new Org Chart are called as “Cards”. These cards can represent different Persons or Org Units or Positions who are part of the Org structure. Each card has the following functionality –

Quick View: This functionality provides a short profile of the selected object.

Number of reporting employees: Indicates the number of people reporting to this person.

Email: This button allows us to send an email to selected employee.

Actions Menu: This is very much similar to the existing functionality.  The button allows us to open various applications based on Launchpad definition (for e.g. HCM Process and forms based applications).

Since “photos” are not configured in our system, the Org chart remains fairly simple.

This new functionality can be called from various places i.e. from all 3 homepages (Employee Self Services, Manager Self Services and HR Administrative Services). For e.g. you can now access “Organizational Chart” from “Employee Self Service” where you could view your current org structure with the peer information -

It’s been so nicely integrated with the “Search functionality” where you could now easily visualize the search results from Org Structure perspective with a simple click.

Conclusion –

Though I can continue writing the details of this new functionality for pages, in order to make sure that you are not bored, I have to end this blog now ! To conclude, I really loved this new functionality especially the way it’s integrated with many applications like Search, ESS, MSS, HR Administrative services. Though the old NAKISA based functionality still exists in Master Data Application, but that works more with the Web Dynpro Applications only. I wish we could gradually integrate this new functionality with the Web Dynpro Applications also. One more interesting flaw that I found was - The performance of this application is not very encouraging. I am sure SAP would release notes in future that would address these performance issues.

Let me know your thoughts on this new functionality.

Through this blog I intend to cover some of the basic concepts for SuccessFactors Employee Central integration, such as entities and objects, API, load type processing parameter and other features. I won’t touch on strategy for Integration i.e. Platforms (Dell Boomi, SAP PI et al) as Integration Strategy is dependent on System landscape and it’s more of the customer IT team’s prerogative, although I hope this blog will help customers in decision-making.

What is Employee Central?

As the SuccessFactors website says it’s the next-generation core HR system (HRIS) is designed for the global enterprise workforce delivered over Cloud.

At an Object level, Employee Central broadly maintains two kind of information:

• Organization, Pay and Job Structure Details - in Successfactors terminology this is called Foundation Objects
• Employee Details - This covers Personal and Employment Details for Employees, known as Personal and Employment Objects respectively

There is another category of Objects, which were added recently to provide flexibility in a scenario where standard delivered Foundation Objects are not sufficient to meet customer requirements. These are known as Generic or Custom Foundation Objects, e.g. Positions for Position Management. As per their current status, generic objects are not “Integration ready” i.e. it’s not possible to import or export generic objects in an automatic manner

Update – as per the Metadata Framework (MDF) Configuration guide, MDF Objects (Generic Objects are part of MDF) are exposed through REST Based Common Object OData API. However, at this time, there is not sufficient documentation available to add details and provide reference about this feature. Never the less it shows SAP’s commitment towards making their products more open and extensible to developer community. More information on Metadata Framework can be found at Luke Marson’s blog - http://scn.sap.com/community/erp/hcm/blog/2013/06/25/overview-of-the-successfactors-metadata-framework

What is an Entity in Employee Central?

EC stores data in multiple table structures, which are commonly known as EC Entities. There are various entities for Foundation as well as Personal/Employment Objects. The concept of entities can be best understood by relating them to SAP HCM Infotypes.

Common Foundation Objects Entities Available for Integration – Company/ Legal Entity, Business Unit, Location Group, Geozone, Location, Division, Department, CostCenter, JobCode, JobFunction, PayGroup, PayGrade, PayRange, PayComponent, PayComponentGroup, PayCalendar, EventReason, and Frequency.

Here is an example of Legal Entity Object:

Common Personal and Employment Objects Available for Integration - User, PerAddress, PerDirectDeposit, PerEmail, PerEmergencyContacts, PerNationalId, PerPerson, PerPersonal, PerPhone, PerSocialAccount, EmpCompensation, EmpEmployment, EmpEmploymentTermination, EmpJob, EmpJobRelationships, EmpPayCompNonRecurring, and EmpPayCompRecurring.

An example of EmpJob or JobInformation Object:

Properties of Entities

Effective Date and Effective Sequence – Those with some ERP experience would already be familiar with this concept. A majority of the Employee Central entities are effective dated. Effective date is a date when a given record becomes effective. It helps Employee Central track historical data accurately. Similarly there might be a scenario where multiple events are required to be recorded on same effective date for e.g. Transfer and Promotion. There is a field called Sequence Number, available in Job and Compensation Entities, which is used to identify such changes. Sequence Number should always by greater than 0

Business Keys - Each entity identifies its record uniquely by business key, which is a composite key or combination of various fields of that entity. For more details about this concept, refer Employee Central Configuration guide and Employee Central Entity Guide on the SuccessFactors Partner Portal

Purge Type - Employee Central supports two types of load: FULL and INCREMENTAL. When purgeType is set to ‘FULL’ during entity record update, Employee Central overwrites historical data for that record and inserts a new record. For ‘INCREMENTAL’ purge type, only those records that have same Effective Date and Sequence Numbers are overwritten

What is Employee Central API?

The Employee Central API is library of Employee Central entity structures exposed to the outside world. The Employee Central API covers Foundation Objects and Personal and Employment Objects. Those who don’t have programming background, a quick glance on wiki page about API would be useful - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_programming_interface. The Employee Central API allows various data manipulation and query operation on Employee Central entities.

Supported Operations - Each entity supports some or all of the following Data Manipulation and Retrieval operations through API:

• Insert (insert) - Insert the record for specified Entity Type
• Update (update) - Update the record for specified Entity Type
• Upsert (upsert) - First try to update record, if record doesn’t exists (identified by Business Keys) then Insert record
• Query (query) - Retrieve records based on Successfactors query language (SFQL). For details about SFQL refer SFAPI documentation. For now just assume that SFQL is weaker cousin of SQL
• QueryMore (queryMore) - Query can support retrieval of only fixed number of records as specified in batchSize parameter. If there are more records then QueryMore has to be used (following Query operation).
• Delete (delete) - Deletes the record identified by Entity Type and Business Keys

If you have access to a SuccessFactors instance with necessary permissions, precise details can be found by going to Admin Tools -> API Dictionary. Personally I feel the API dictionary is great way to learn not just about integration, but about Employee Central in general.

Entities Related to Foundation Objects starts with prefix FO_

Here is one example:

As explained above, each Entity has a set of supported operations. Each field in an entity also has different set of properties. One more point worth noting is that custom fields added to the configuration are also visible and can be used by supported operations.

Similarly Personal and Employment Objects can be accessed through API. Person Entities start with the Per prefix and Employment Entities start with the Emp prefix. Examples of these can be seen below.

In the API dictionary you would also find API(s) for Picklists, Background Objects, Adhoc Reports and a few other general objects that are part of Employee Central and the SuccessFactors BizX suite as a whole.

Let’s see one example now -

Let’s try to retrieve Personal Details (PerPersonal API Entity) for Carla Grant. For simplicity I am using soapUI to trigger the request.

Request Message. Check the SFQL, where we are retrieving fields in PerPersonal entity, filtered by “where” clause on person_id_external

Response Message

Here we have SOAP response with Personal Details about Carla Grant.

A quick note, here we see only those fields, which were in SFQL query. Your (custom) application can consume this response as needed.

Summary

As mentioned in prologue, the weblog covered some of the basic concepts about Employee Central. The Entities forms core of EC, knowing about entities would also be useful in adhoc reports, advanced reporting and other tools.

I hope this blog is helpful for consultants and customers trying to understand, integrate and extend Employee Central.

REFERENCES

Entity Type Guide

https://confluence.successfactors.com/download/attachments/29131019/EC_Entity+Type+Guide.docx?version=1&modificationDate=1362174001750

Entity Guide – User Object

https://confluence.successfactors.com/download/attachments/61358344/SFAPI_Entity_Guide_User.pdf?version=2&modificationDate=1370419657808

SFAPI

https://confluence.successfactors.com/download/attachments/59446592/SFAPI_Functional_Guide_1210.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1368146371531

Metadata Framework (MDF)

https://confluence.successfactors.com/download/attachments/29131019/MDF+Implementation+Handbookv3.0.pdf

- Originally published in: http://www.the-decisionfactor.com/performance-management/are-your-human-resource-metrics-relevant/

There are many presentations and discussions about how analytics and “Big Data” can improve decision making—a simple Google search on the terms returns over 23 million results. Organizations find their workforce analytics especially challenging as human resources (HR) departments attempt to grow beyond creating reports for the sake of reporting. When you think about it, on any given day, HR gets many questions about your workforce that data could address or improve. But which do you try to answer?

Sales, marketing, and finance have leveraged analytics successfully as part of their toolkit for some time, but as research points out, only best-in-class organizations have processes in place to understand and leverage workforce data to drive better business decisions. Why can’t this scale to all organizations?

It can scale—if HR takes a more methodical approach to workforce analytics, and starts small.

Start Small with Specific Questions

HR has always had an abundance of workforce data, but how do you make progress in how you are using this data? It’s important to point out that technology and data aren’t enough—data needs context and qualification.

Analytics should be targeted. Analytics shouldn’t be an open-ended exercise in data-mining, especially for firms and HR organizations that have limited resources with analytics skills. You should be able to ask specific questions and answer them with data.

The information presented should tell a story. The story should be compelling, one that connects the data to its audience. It must be relevant to the issue at hand or tied to the priorities and challenges faced by a business leader—what really matters. This is why it’s critical to start with the business issue, not by randomly searching for data.

Build an HR Framework

Establish a framework from an HR perspective by determining relevance so that you don’t get the question “why are you telling me this?”. Begin by answering the following basic questions:

• What business outcomes are we trying to impact? Profitability, margin rate, revenue/budget-to-goals, customer satisfaction, and operational excellence are some examples.
• What are the human capital drivers of these outcomes? Engagement and motivation of workers, capabilities and performance, and retention have direct impact on the business outcomes.
• What is our current state of our workforce compared to the optimal state?
• What talent strategies drive these outcomes? Recruiting, training, mobility, performance, and staffing mix optimization are examples of strategies utilized by HR that can be leveraged to impact behavior.

Use a Line of Sight Visual

A line-of-sight visual helps to draw the link between metrics and relevant business issues, or vice versa, cascading from business strategy down to metrics. It’s very simple, and can be very effective.

Mick Collins and Jaye Tanner, in their 2013 HCI Workforce Planning and Analytics Conference workshop on Actionable Analytics: From Big Data to Better Data, shared a very effective example of a line-of-sight-visual. This simple representation shows how selected metrics are relevant and important to keep in view as you work through specific strategies and initiatives as an organization.

A clear line of sight means that you’re able to map every metric you report on and demonstrate its relevance directly to the business objective. Whether a senior business leader needs to look at dashboards of metrics, or an analyst needs to pull required data together—both will have a clear understanding of the context and the story.

Actionable Analytics Present Choices

In order for analytics to be considered actionable, it must present choices clearly. These choices will result in decisions being made and action being taken. The information provided becomes transformative, resulting in actions that lead to a change in people’s behavior in order to “move the dial.”

This basic framework helps to get the most out of people’s time, energy, and talents by moving the conversation focus from data and metrics definitions to answering “so what?”, discussing prospective actions, identifying those responsible, and allocating resources.

Analytics helps build credibility for the HR function, and positions HR as an agent of impact. HR’s role as a strategic partner becomes prominent as it provides guidance on best course of action.

We keep hearing in the news about a so called ‘skills shortage’ especially within Europe where there are record numbers of youth unemployment.  With this in mind, companies need a 21^st century solution to a 21^st century problem...

As governments and educational ministers plunge millions into new initiatives* across the globe, the fact remains that learning is shifting from the traditional classroom to the digital world, as employers seek more control over skills training whilst millennials expect more development from their organisations.

The failure of governments and education to provide industry with the skills they need has been well documented with a recent survey conducted by Pearson indicating that 93% of firms in Britain desire more control over skills training**. With this in mind, global organisations need a central, cloud-based application, accessible on multiple devices to manage learning, monitor employee progress whilst also linking key initiatives to organisational goals.

From the employee side, the millennial generation are demanding more and more from their employers with career development and training being cited as one of the main factors for university students when deciding which organisations to apply for upon graduation. Modern day employees are looking for continuous improvement so a mixture of informal, formal and social learning is a cocktail for success.

For more information on e-learning take a look at this best practices white paper: http://bit.ly/5learningbps

*in March of 2013 a new EU coalition was created, plunging 1 million euros into I.T education in the region.

** ‘Skills Training: Employees ‘Want More Control’ published on bbc.co.uk 21/06/2013

Leave Request Application is one of the most popular Employee Self Service application along with “Record Working Time”,“Personal Profile”, etc. This application has been one of the first application which gets delivered by SAP when it adapts any new technology say Web Dynpro Java or Web Dynpro ABAP.

Leave Request Application in Web Dynpro Java

The Leave Request – Web Dynpro Java application was delivered in ECC 5.0(ESS Business Package) which is still supported even today. This application works in good old “Roadmap” approach where user enters the Leave request details in the first step(Display and Edit), reviews the entered information in the second step(Review and Send) and finally sees a confirmation in the third step(Completed). Most of the applications delivered during that time used to have the “Step based” approach.

This application has features like “Show Calendar”, “Show Time Accounts” and “Show Overview of Leave”. These application calls the RFC enabled function modules – “PT_ARQ*” to get data, perform validations and save data into ECC. The configuration for the Leave Request application has the steps like Creation of Rule Groups, Link the Rule Groups to Absence Types, etc.

Leave Request Application in Web Dynpro ABAP

After many years of wait, the Leave Request – Web Dynpro ABAP application was delivered in ECC 6.0 Enhancement Package 5 which is also supported even today. Suddenly SAP’s development direction has changed in ECC 6.0 from Web Dynpro Java and BSP to Web Dynpro ABAP. They first migrated the E-Recruiting applications from BSP to Web Dynpro ABAP and in EHP5 and gradually SAP has moved the ESS, MSS, Benefits(and most of the applications) from Web Dynpro Java/BSP to Web Dynpro ABAP.

This new application runs on Floor Plan Manager Overview page framework which looks more decent. There is no more step based approach. On entering the leave request information, you can validate the entered information using a simple “Check” button in the same screen. Once all errors/warnings are addressed, you can submit the form using the “Send” button. Again, this application has the same features like “Team Calendar”, “Time Accounts” and “Leave Requests”, but these features are implemented using individual “Tab” based approach.

Configuration for this application didn't change a lot again ! It almost looked same as Web Dynpro Java’s application  except minor changes.

This application uses the Object Oriented approach with a whole bunch of classes (CL_HRESS_PTARQ*) that came with the package – PAOC_TIM_ESS_WDA.

Leave Request Application in SAPUI5

Here comes the latest Leave Request Application which is developed using SAPUI5. This application is delivered in HR Renewal 1.0 Feature Pack 4(Service Pack 14). There is no reason why I won’t be excited with this application since it being the latest and something really cool.

This new application renders three different sections in the screen – Leave Request details, Team Calendar and Time Accounts making best use of the screen. SAP has reduced the number of tabs for displaying the features. The “Leave History” displays each leave requests in separate lanes as shown below. We do have options to edit and delete the submitted “Leave Request”.

This new application works based on ODATA service from SAP ECC perspective. The Model used for this application is HRESS_LEAVE_REQUEST with the Model Provider class as CL_HRESS_GW_MD_LEAVE_REQUEST. The technical service linked to this Model is - HRESS_LEAVE_REQUEST_SERVICE with data provider class as CL_HRESS_GW_RT_LEAVE_REQUEST and Model Provider class as CL_HRESS_GW_MD_LEAVE_REQUEST. Overall there are whole bunch of objects(for this application and many other new ESS services) delivered under the package – PAOC_ESS.

Configuration for this application also remains the same, in fact nothing has changed.

Conclusion –

After working in SAP for almost 10 years, I have seen this Leave Request Application(in fact I should say all ESS Applications) constantly changing and has been getting better day by day. Though the front end (UI as WD Java or WD ABAP or SAPUI5) has changed across these years, SAP has kept the configuration almost the same for many years. Overall I am very happy with the evolution of this application(and all ESS applications) !

What do you feel about the changes over these years ?

Note : Since, I haven't worked on Fiori's Leave Request Application, I decided not to discuss about this new mobile app. You may find more information about this application in the below link -

http://productdesignjournal.blogspot.com/2013/06/sap-fiori-leave-request-app-from.html