The new release is available since Monday this week on all preview instances and therefore I created a new Quick Review with a focus on Employee Central and Platform. This compilation is not intended to be complete, but should rather be treated as a snippet of features which customers often request or which can be seen as major enhancements with great impact.

1. Quick Review
Employee Central & Platform
Release H1 2021
Christoph Pohl, Deloitte Germany, 04/21/2021

2. 2021 Deloitte 2
General Dates, Facts and Files (click on the links to be redirected to the source)
Release Information Sources
Release Schedule
Release Preview Production
Q1 2019 (1902) March 8th April 5th
Q2 2019 (1905) May 10th June 7th
Q3 2019 (1908) August 9th September 6th
Q4 2019 (1911) November 8th December 6th
2019
 What’s New Viewer for Release Summary H1 2021 (S-User required)
 First Half 2021 Release Q&A Series - Registration Platform
 Product Release & Roadmap Info at the SuccessFactors Community Site
 SAP Roadmap Explorer (S-User required)
 Known Issues for the 1H 2021 Release
 Notable Fixed Issues 1H 2021
Release Preview Production
First Half 2020
April 10th,
April 11th
(DC18, 22 & 23)
June 5th
Second Half 2020 October 16th November 20th
2020
Useful Knowledge Base Articles
 Supported Fields for People Search in SuccessFactors
 How to set the Default Locale for a User in the Add
New Employee Wizard
 Permissions are Not Being Saved (EC)
 How to add URL Links on custom MDF portlet via UI
screen?
Release Preview Production
First Half 2021 April 16th May 21st
Second Half 2021 October 15th November 19th
2021

3. 2021 Deloitte 3
Proxy Management, Configuration Center, Reports & Integration
H1 2021 Quick Review – Employee Central & Platform H igh M edium L ow
Impact / Importance
Title Description Config Type Impact
Time-Based Proxy
Assignment on
User Settings Page
You can now restrict proxy assignments to a specified time range when you assign a proxy to act on your
behalf, using your personal account settings. You can add a start date, an end date, or both when you assign a
proxy on the Settings page. The assigned proxy can only access your user account during the specified time
range.
Universal
Configuration
Center
Using Configuration Center, you can get a holistic view of all the configurations that are supported across
the SAP SuccessFactors application. Configuration Center allows you to view or download configurations to
your machine, and transport configurations from one tenant to another. Configuration Center simplifies the user's
experience around configuring change management process, viewing configurations, and supporting towards
logging quality incident when you encounter any configuration issue.
Universal
Availability of
Custom Fields in
Story Reports
When custom fields based on any object are configured as part of the objects within the Employee Central-related
or Benefits schema, the custom fields appear within the respective table in Query Designer. You can view
the code and the label of the object on which the custom field is based within the table in Employee Central or
Benefits schema. Also, a link is created between the table and the object on which the custom field is based.
Universal
Cutoff Date
The new cutoff date is used to filter effective-dated entities that you don’t require in your receiving
system. With the logic of this feature, only those records that are valid on or after the cutoff date are extracted
from Employee Central.
SAP created the cutoff date to ensure data consistency when integrating data from SuccessFactors Employee
Central to the SAP Master Data Integration Service.
Universal
Associated
Employee Structure
in the Compound
Employee API
The Compound Employee API now renders all employments for a manager (segment name
associated_employee_employment_information) under one segment for each manager (segment name
associated_employee_information). The change aligns the behavior in standard mode with an already applied fix
in delta mode to avoid duplicate key errors. This is only relevant for cases where an employee has multiple
relationships to different employments with the same manager.
Universal
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4. 2021 Deloitte 4
Business Rules, Mass Data Changes & Imports
H1 2021 Quick Review – Employee Central & Platform H igh M edium L ow
Impact / Importance
Title Description Config Type Impact
Cross-Entity Rules
Supported for Job
Information
Change
SAP now supports the execution of cross-entity rules when there is a change in job information that
arises from position to job synchronization. In the current version, execution of cross-entity rules is
supported for "onSave" of job information irrespective of the change source. However, it is only supported for the
following entities:
- Compensation
- Recurring Pay Component
- Non-Recurring Pay Component
- Job Relation
- Employment Details
Admin
Opt-In
Mass Data
Management
You can now perform bulk data changes to multiple Position data objects in Employee Central using
Mass Data Management. Mass Data Management is a UI-based approach that replaces the traditional method of
configuring rules and scheduling jobs to perform mass changes. The feature provides better control over the data
you want to modify. Using Mass Data Management, you can:
- Flexibly build a list of positions to modify using extensive filtering and sorting capabilities.
- Modify multiple positions with one change job.
- Review changes (highlighted on UI), and save change requests as drafts.
- Share drafts with colleagues for a review before finalizing the changes.
- Download logs to report on all mass changes performed in the system.
- Configure additional fields in the Position data object that can be modified as part of a mass change request, or
used as filters.
Admin
Opt-In
Direct Processing of
Job Information to
Position
Synchronization for
less than 5 Import
Records
You can now trigger a direct synchronization between Job Information to Position when less than 5 job
information records are imported. Earlier for any changes made to Job Information from an import job, a
scheduled job is triggered for position synchronization. A higher volume of such scheduled jobs leads to a
throttling limit exception. To avoid this issue, a direct synchronization is triggered when the number of records
imported for job information is less than 5, otherwise a scheduled job is created. This change applies even for
records changed through APIs.
Universal
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5. 2021 Deloitte 5
Imports, Check Tool & Data Model
H1 2021 Quick Review – Employee Central & Platform H igh M edium L ow
Impact / Importance
Title Description Config Type Impact
Configuration
Checks of Payment
Information
You can now use the check tool to perform configuration checks for payment information. This feature
allows you to validate the configuration settings such as generic field validations in SAP SuccessFactors Employee
Central.
Admin
Opt-In
Check Tool for
Invalid Picklist
References
You can now run checks for invalid picklist references for all HRIS Elements, which are related to either
person or employment information. This enhancement saves your time and effort with the added checks that
helps you identify and resolve inconsistencies for standalone, and cascaded picklist references.
Universal
Centralized
Services Support
This enhancement brings overall improvements to the data import process, making it more reliable and
consistent for Job Info, Compensation Info, Recurring Pay Components.
Several data validations are introduced, such as Association Validation or Duplicate Record Validation.
Furthermore, Business Rules, Data Deletion, Workflows and Forward Data Propagation is supported during
imports.
Admin
Opt-Out
Centralized
Services Support
for Rule Context
With onChange
Rules
Centralized services now support rule context criteria applied for onChange business rules assigned to
fields of an HRIS entity. Rule context criteria is applicable only if an HRIS entity is supported by Centralized
services, and Centralized services are enabled for it. SAP has made this change to close the gaps in the rule
context behavior for onChange and onSave business rules.
Universal
Access to Country-
Specific Succession
Data Model in
Admin Center
All previous versions of Country/Region-Specific Succession Data Model are now available in Admin
Center. You no longer require the help of an implementation partner to view or manage previous versions. This
enhancement provides you with the option to select from previous versions and export the Country/Region-
Specific Succession Data Model.
Admin
Opt-In
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6. 2021 Deloitte 6
Business Rules & Business Config
H1 2021 Quick Review – Employee Central & Platform H igh M edium L ow
Impact / Importance
Title Description Config Type Impact
Position to Job Info
Sync Rule Context
You can now use the Position to jobInfo Sync rule context to determine whether a rule assigned to
jobInfo must be triggered when there is a Position to Job Information synchronization. The rule context
can be applied to onSave and onChange rules assigned to Job Information. This new rule context provides you the
flexibility to trigger a rule depending on your business requirement. By default, Yes is selected to ensure business
continuity.
Universal
View HRIS Sync
Mappings in
Business
Configuration UI
You can now view a consolidated list of HRIS Elements mapping in the HRIS Sync Mappings section. You
can review all your HRIS Sync Mappings in a single screen. All duplicate mappings are highlighted in red in the
HRIS Sync Mappings section, which makes it easy to identify and it’s recommended that you don’t duplicate
mappings since duplication can lead to data discrepancy when the HRIS Sync job is run.
Universal
Enhanced Business
Configuration UI
Audit Log
Business Configuration UI audit logs are enhanced to ensure log entries are clear and easy to interpret. The
audit logs are enhanced by the following:
- Additional columns are added to capture information for the required record such as, created date, created by,
the parent ID that shows the parent entity of the HRIS Field, and the picklist ID that shows name and value for
the fields that are referred by a picklist.
- Additional columns are added to capture localization changes for labels in HRIS Elements and HRIS Fields.
- Audit Logs are captured for a duration of 90 days.
Universal
Retention of
Disabled Business
Rules
You can now view the disabled business rules in Manage Business Configuration in Admin Center.
Business Configuration UI allows you to retain disabled business rules attached to an HRIS Element without
removing it from the configuration. For ease of view, all trigger rules are sorted for each Event Type.
Universal
Rule Scenario for
Cross-Entity Rules
You can now use a rule scenario to configure cross-entity rules that are triggered from the source entity and
changes executed on the target entity. For example, you can configure that changes in Job Information update
Compensation Information. Note that you can have a maximum of 5 cross-entity rule scenarios for an HRIS
entity.
Universal
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7. 2021 Deloitte 7
Check Tool, User Experience, Provisioning & Integration
H1 2021 Quick Review – Employee Central & Platform H igh M edium L ow
Impact / Importance
Title Description Config Type Impact
Check Tool for Pay
Component Where-
Used List
You can now use the check tool to get a list of employees and objects that use a specific pay component.
Since you cannot change or delete a pay component that is in use, you can use the check tool to see the list of
where a specific pay component is used.
Universal
Context Switcher
Shows Inactive Label
for Inactive
Employment Records
When a logged-in user wants to view their multiple employment records, such as concurrent employment or global
assignment, the context switcher now shows the Inactive label next to their inactive employment
records. The distinction prevents users from being redirected to inactive employment records since it enables
them to quickly identify the right employment.
Universal
User ID-Based HRIS
Sync
You can now run a full sync for selected employees using the HRIS Sync job. You specify a date from when
data is to be synced when running an incremental or full HRIS Sync. The user ID-based HRIS Sync syncs all data
from the beginning of the employee's lifecycle at the company.
Provisioning
Opt-In
Duplicate Check for
Rehire Shows
Additional Fields in
Match Results
The duplicate check in the rehire process now shows additional fields in the results popup:
- First Name, Last Name (User Name)
- User ID
- Person ID (Person ID External)
- Status (Employment Status)
- Date of Birth
- Job Title
- Legal Entity
- Location
- National ID
Universal
Enhanced OData
Entity
EmpEmployment
You can use the datetime fields seniorityDate, originalStartDate, and benefitsEligibilityStartDate as
filters when querying the Employee Central OData API EmpEmployment. You can use these datetime filters
to query the entity records that meet date-related requirements. It can be used to select employees who are
eligible for benefits such as long-service awards.
Universal
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8. 2021 Deloitte 8
Christoph Pohl
Specialist Lead
Human Capital | SuccessFactors
Germany
cpohl@deloitte.de
+49 (0) 151 5800 2410
MY CONTACT DETAILS

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