Q2 2018 (1805) Release Preview

Quick Preview
Employee Central & Platform
Release Q2 2018
Christoph Pohl, Deloitte Germany, 04/18/2018

2018 Deloitte 2
General Dates, Facts and Files (click on the links to be redirected to the source)
Release Information Sources
Release Preview Production
Q1 2017 (1702) February 10th March 10th
Q2 2017 (1705) May 5th June 2nd
Q3 2017 (1708) August 4th September 8th
Q4 2017 (1711) November 3rd December 1st
Release Schedules
Q1 2018 (1802) March 10th April 7th
Q2 2018 (1805) May 5th June 2nd
Q3 2018 (1808) August 4th September 15th
Q4 2018 (1811)
November
3rd
December 1st
2017 2018
1) Excel and Web Version of the Release Summary Q2 2018 (S-User required!)
2) Release Information Webinar – Registration Platform
3) Product Updates Information at the SuccessFactors Community Site
 Newest Product Roadmap (5th of March 2018)
Slightly reduced amount of new and opt-in features in Q1 & Q4 (new release circle)
Q1 2019 (1902) February 10th March 10th
Q2 2019 (1905) May 5th June 2nd
Q3 2019 (1908) August 4th
September
8th
Q4 2019 (1911) November 3rd December 1st
2019
Useful Knowledge Base Articles
 Which Portlets Support Cross Portlet Business Rules
 Object Association FAQ - Value Help
 HRIS Sync: Downstream Impacts
 System Freezes/Blocks When adding a Contingent

2018 Deloitte 3
Q2 2018
Quick Preview

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Q2 2018 Quick Preview – Employee Central & Platform
• You can now use lookup to read the data of MDF Objects that are effective dated "from parent".
• SF has made enhancements to the OData API for TodoEntryV2. First, the linkURL field is now returned for all categories, allowing the
client application to provide a deep link so that users can take action on the to-do. Second, the todoEntryName is now returned in the
logged-in user's locale.
• SF has made a couple enhancements related to user experience. First, you can now choose to disable the main navigation menu in
the global page header, making the SuccessFactors user experience more consistent with other SAP applications. You can choose this
option on the Company System and Logo Settings page. If you choose this option, you can use action search and home page tiles to
navigate the HCM Suite. Second, we've increased the maximum allowed number of custom home page tiles from 50 to 100. The
new home page design, with the ability to configure different content for different roles, may require a larger number of tiles than were
needed in the previous design.
• You have an option to enable/disable the Employee Central Service Center application icon on SAP SuccessFactors modules, by
enabling/disabling a permission setting in (Admin Center > Manage Permission Roles (select a role) > Permission Settings). For new
customers by default, the Employee Central Service Center application icon is disabled on SAP SuccessFactors modules. To enable, browse
to the ‘Permission Settings’ page, select ‘Service Center’ and select the ‘Access Service Center’ checkbox.
Employee Profile, Platform, User Experience, API
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Impact / Importance
As of the Q2 2018 release, when PP3 is active in a customer instance, a new version of the Team Absence Calendar (TAC) will be
shown. The new version of the TAC has been built using SAPUI5 technology and Fiori design patterns.
Time & Attendance Management
• You can now generate documents for inactive users, for example service certificates and good conduct certificates for ex-employees.
• When creating a new contingent worker in the system, it is now possible to specify an emergency contact for the worker.
HR Administration
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• You can now migrate the wage types and wage type groups to Employee Central.
• It is now possible to format the value of Employee Central fields used in organizational object replication from Employee Central
to the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system using generic value conversion. Generic value conversion provides a set of arithmetic
and string operations that you can use in a self-defined sequence. You can, for example, replace the value with a string or with the value
from another Employee Central field, add characters, or cut off parts of the field value.
• SF reworked the system messages raised by organizational assignment replication from Employee Central to the Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) system. On the one hand, we made sure that the Pending and Failed statuses of replication requests are set as
required: Issues that will automatically be corrected with the next replication run lead to the Pending status, issues such as incorrect data
will set the replication request to Failed. On the other hand, we revised the wording of some messages to make them clearer.
• The Employee Central Compound Employee API provides two new filters, employment_information_company and
employment_information_country. You can use them to filter employments based on their company or country assignment. Let's say
you replicate only data that's relevant for Germany from Employee Central to a specific target system. An employee moved from Germany
to the US on February 1, 2018. That is, this employee has two employments, the previous one in Germany and the current one in the US.
Using the employment_information_country filter, you can ensure that only the employment for Germany is replicated to your target
system and that the current, US employment is ignored.
• Employee master data replication from Employee Central to the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system using the Business Integration
Builder (BIB) now allows for changing the most recent rehire or termination date. This means, if you change the latest rehire or
termination date of an employee in Employee Central, this change will be replicated to the ERP system.
• With the enhancement of SOAP outbound integrations to support integrating with various systems, we now support parameters in the
SOAP URL.
Integration
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Impact / Importance
On downloading a template, the system will now automatically select those data fields with the "required" attribute set to "true"
in the data model to appear in the downloaded template, in addition to the Business Keys for that template.
Imports
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When changing employee's Supervisor in Jobinfo, there is a Feature (enabled by permissions) to move the employees Position along
with the Person to the new Supervisor. So, the employees' Position get's reassigned to the new supervisor's position. This was not
supported in PP3.
Organizational Management
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Impact / Importance
• For greater security, you can now manage Super Admin users in the Provisioning Access Management tool. You can see how many
Super Admin user accounts have been created by each Provisioning user with access to your system and you can remove Super Admin
access from these users at any time. Super Admins are typically created during the implementation process. They are created in
Provisioning, not through the standard user import process, and have broad system permissions that cannot be removed using the
standard permission tools. You now have more visibility and control over these users with Super Admin access.
• "Previously, RBP permissions remained unblocked for an unlimited period of time. Now, administrators can limit granted RBP
permissions by specifying a time period at the granting rule level for a set of objects when defining RBP roles for users. This feature
supports data blocking requirements for Data Protection and Privacy. This feature is available for EC Core, EC Time and Benefits, EC
Workflow and MDF objects. "
Role-Based Permissions
Payment Information, Local Specifics, Check Tools, RBPs, Integration Center, etc.
Many additional enhancements in…
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Q1 2018
Quick Preview

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Q1 2018 Quick Preview – Employee Central & Platform H igh M edium L ow
Impact / Importance
• You can now configure the text of label “Contingent Worker” as it will be displayed in the Org Chart and People Profile. You can also
translate the text of the label.
• With the Q1 2018 release, performance is optimized to render information faster than before. Thus, an employee or admin can now
access information faster for better user experience.
• There is a new option to control behavior of the global People Search. By default, selecting a person in search results navigates to
that person's employee profile. Now, you have the option of making this action open that person's quickcard instead. The employee
quickcard displays basic information about the employee and provides deep links to other profile information. If you want to enable this
user experience in your instance, go to the Company System and Logo Settings page and select the checkbox "Selecting a user from
global header search will show the quickcard".
Employee Profile, Platform, User Experience, API
• In systems enabled with people profile, you can directly direct access the subject user's profile from the workflow details using a
link in the user's name. There is no configuration or permissions needed for this feature.
• "For data protection and privacy reasons, you can now purge workflows. You can set up the system to purge either all workflows or
only completed (approved, canceled, and declined) workflows.“
• It is now possible to define and trigger alerts and e-mail notifications for all the MDF objects including the custom objects as
an offset of every date of the object record, such as informing a manager 'n' days prior a position ends. With this feature, you can
proactively inform employees, managers, or HR Admins upon a business event so that they can initiate the necessary activities right in
time.
Workflows and Notifications
SF now supports True CSV file type that accommodates special characters such as double quotes, commas, carriage return, and new lines.
The True CSV output file type adds double quotes for special characters. As part of this enhancement, you can select whether to ignore
double quotes for null values that is available in the Option page for your integration.
Imports
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Impact / Importance
You can now sync configuration settings and dynamic tile groups for the new Home Page between instances using Instance Sync
tools. With the Homepage Tile Configurations artifact, you can sync standard tiles, custom tiles, and home page sections. With the
Homepage Tile Groups artifact, you can sync the dynamic groups used to determine who can see each home page section. To start using
these sync artifacts, contact SuccessFactors to have them enabled in your system. Then grant users the sync permissions for Homepage Tile
Configurations and Sync RBP Permission Groups to start using them.
Sync Tool
A new data model is available for Right to Return. You can find all the information you need and carry out the migration in the
Upgrade Center. Please note that the new data protection and privacy functions for Right to Return (as well as any future developments)
will be based on this new data model. As such, although migrating to the new data model is optional, we strongly recommend that you do
so.
Position Management
The Check Tool (available from Admin Center > Check Tool) now supports supplying parameters when running the checks. This is
useful when you run checks for form based information (for example, compensation or performance forms). The form template works as an
input to the check along with the other necessary parameters.
Check Tool
Previously all OData integrations were processed batches of 1,000, but you can now configure the page size in the options page for
your integration.
Integration
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Impact / Importance
• You can now sync EC workflow groups between instances using Instance Sync tools. An EC workflow group is a group of
employees responsible for a workflow in SAP Employee Central. This group can be set up as a dynamic group in permissions. The
employees can be dynamically included into this group on the basis of the employees’ job information attributes. To start using this new
sync artifact, please contact Cloud Product Support to have it enabled in your system. Once enabled, this artifact is available to users with
the existing "Sync RBP Permission Groups" permission.
• You can now manage languages and customize UI text with a self-service tool in the Admin Center. Using the new Manage
Languages tool, you can activate or deactivate languages in your system and customize UI text labels for any active language. You can
also download the default text values for any language. This is a universal feature and anyone with permission to use the existing Text
Replacement tool can access it. NOTE: Some UI text labels can also be customized using the existing Text Replacement tool. If you
overwrite the default text of the same key using both tools, the value in the Manage Languages tool takes precedence and is used in the
application.
HR Administration
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Q4 2017
Quick Preview

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Impact / Importance
• In previous releases, no recalculation took place if a change was made within a holiday calendar assigned to an employee's job
information. From the Q4 2017 release, it is possible to trigger recalculations manually in such cases by maintaining a time
management recalculation event (TMRE) for them.
• In previous releases, when Time Off was enabled and an employee had time accounts with balances, the Termination screen included a
section "Time Account Balance As Of Termination Date For <Employee Name>". From the Q4 2017 release, this is regulated by a new
role-based permission called "Show Time Account Balance As Of Termination Date". The balance information now only appears
for users, such as managers. for whom the new permission is set.
• From the Q4 2017 release, a Time Management Configuration Search tool is available. You can use it to determine, for example,
which employees are assigned a particular time type or time profile, which time types are assigned to a particular time account type, or
which configuration objects are covered by a particular time management retention group.
• From the Q4 2017 release, leave of absence (LOA) is offered as an option in the Take Action menu if both Time Off and PP3 are
active. Users for whom the people profile is shown can navigate to the Employee Self-Service (ESS) page. Users for whom the people
profile is not shown can navigate to the time workbench.
Time & Attendance Management
• You can now have the fields Work Order Owner ID and Work Order Name as optional rather than mandatory if you do not need
them in your business processes. This change can be made in the Configure Object Definition page for the Work Order.
• The work order start date of a contingent worker is now propagated from the hire date in the Add Contingent Worker wizard.
This is to help simplify the hiring process for the HR admins. The system also now checks to ensure that both dates are the same.
• You can now configure the country-specific job information configuration for contingent workers in the Business Configuration
UI. This helps you manage different sets of fields for legal regulations where necessary. No further configuration or permissions are
needed for this feature.
• In the Business Configuration UI, you can now set onInit, onChange, and onSave business rules for the Job Info portlet (for CWs).
Contingent Workforce Management
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Impact / Importance
MDF now provides a change log report for effective dated entities.
Metadata Framework
• The Compound Employee API provides a new parameter, purgeOptions, with a new attribute, validateEffectiveEndDateFilter.
This parameter evaluates the Purge Status defined in Data Retention Management in Employee Central, which shows that and when a
purge run was carried out for an employee. Using this parameter, you can enable an optional validation that checks whether the effective
end date specified in the Compound Employee API query is in a period in which data was purged in Employee Central. The effective end
date needs to be present in the query and corresponds to the full transmission start date (FTSD) that is used in employee data replication
from Employee Central to other systems, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Setting the purgeOptions parameter
ensures that the Compound Employee API raises an error message if the effective_end_date is in the period in which any of the requested
data was purged.
• You can now use the sample content to set up a regular web service-based replication of Employee data from SuccessFactors
Employee Central to SAP ERP HCM system.
• Since Q3 2017 you can migrate employees from the SAP ERP HCM system to SuccessFactors Employee Central with an additional
event record as of hire date until the earliest transfer date. This allows you to have the correct hire date in the Employee Central for
the employees and to consider terminated/inactive employees in the migration. The additional events as of hire date are now
applicable as well to employees transferred from one country to another country, employees who hold multiple employment,
and the employees on Global Assignment.
• Starting with the Q4 2017 Release, MDF supports one-to-one mapping between a parent object and child object. A validation is added
when you try to associate one more parent object to a child object, thus not allowing you to complete the action. Note: The
existing data that has multiple parents for a child object will be bypassed from the validation. Further extension is disallowed.
• Previously, the MDF OData metadata was not getting updated or refreshed whenever the data model changed. Because of this, the
customers had to do additional steps to update or refresh MDF OData metadata. Now, an event is published whenever MDF object
definitions change. This explicit call will help MDF OData to refresh or update the metadata whenever there is a change in MDF data
model, that is, either addition or deletion of object definitions. The OData metadata refresh needs to be done manually, if you enable or
disable a feature or change the language packs through Provisioning leading to a change that requires OData metadata refresh.
Integration
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Impact / Importance
• For greater security, you can now manage Super Admin users in the Provisioning Access Management tool. You can see how many
Super Admin user accounts have been created by each Provisioning user with access to your system and you can remove Super Admin
access from these users at any time. They are created in Provisioning, not through the standard user import process, and have broad
system permissions that cannot be removed using the standard permission tools. Previously, RBP permissions remained unblocked for an
unlimited period of time.
• Now, administrators can limit granted RBP permissions by specifying a time period at the granting rule level for a set of objects
when defining RBP roles for users. This feature supports data blocking requirements for Data Protection and Privacy. This feature is
available for EC Core, EC Time and Benefits, EC Workflow and MDF objects.
• Previously, the HR user who did not have the required authorization was not able to perform mass changes such as promotion, pay
change, mass hire, and so on. Now, when the HR user imports the data, a workflow goes to the HR Admin (approver) to approve or
reject the changes. When the workflow is finally approved, the pending record will be saved as a normal record and can be queried in
OData.
Role-Based Permissions
If you are using Solr People Search in the global page header, you can now choose to include inactive users in the search. When
opened from the global people search, the employee's inactive status is reflected on the quickcard as well.
Search Functionality
• For all organizational filters shown on the My Workflow Requests page, next to the name of a value, you now see the code of
that value in parentheses. No extra configuration or permissions are required.
• This feature is a major development for workflow emails in Employee Central. For the major workflow actions and email recipient, admins
can now create custom email notification templates. Within these templates, they can now define variables in addition to the existing
workflow tags to provide more information to the workflow participants right away. The system now gives the admins greater flexibility by
allowing them to even turn off the notifications when necessary. As an admin opt-in feature, configuration is required for this feature.
Workflows and Notifications
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Impact / Importance
• You can now enable the Data Retention Management tool in the Admin Center. To do this, go to Admin Center>Tools>Company
System and Logo Settings and check the "Data Retention Management" box. Then, configure the minimum number of approvers required
for purge requests. SF also improved UI text in the tool to make it clearer and more accurate. The page was renamed "Data Retention
Management" to make the purpose of the tool more evident. We clarified the distinction between a "purge request" and a "purge rule".
And we renamed the "Launch Immediately" action to make it more clear that the purge job begins immediately after it is approved, not as
soon as you click the button. We also updated error and confirmation messages.
• You can now sync EC workflow groups between instances using Instance Sync tools. An EC workflow group is a group of
employees responsible for a workflow in SAP Employee Central. This group can be set up as a dynamic group in permissions. The
employees can be dynamically included into this group on the basis of the employees’ job information attributes. To start using this new
sync artifact, please contact Cloud Product Support to have it enabled in your system. Once enabled, this artifact is available to users with
the existing "Sync RBP Permission Groups" permission.
HR Administrator
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2018 Deloitte 16
Christoph Pohl
Senior Consultant
Human Capital Advisory Services
HR Transformation
Germany
cpohl@deloitte.de
+49 (0) 151 5800 2410
MY CONTACT DETAILS

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Q2 2018 (1805) Release Preview

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