SAP HCM Talent Management Terminology

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Ever wondered why a dinosaur’s name is used for a search engine in SAP HCM Talent Management? Have you always wanted to know what the difference between a Talent Group and Successor Pool is? Well, now you can find out what a host of SAP HCM Talent Management abbreviations and terms means. More details about the terms, their usage and the processes they encompass then you can find out more in new SAP PRESS book Talent Management with SAP ERP HCM.

There’s little more introduction required here so we’ll get straight into it.

Abbreviations

Term	Definition
LSO	Learning SOlution
ECM	Enterprise Compensation Management
PMP / PMS	Performance Management
OSA	Object Setting and Appraisals (technical name for Performance Management)
PD	Personnel Development
TMC / HRTMC	Talent Management Core
STVN	SAP Talent Visualization by Nakisa
TMS	Talent Management Specialist
TREX	Search and Classification (originally Text Retrieval and Information EXtraction)
ESH	Enterprise SearcH
CMS	Content Management System (in LSO)

General Terms

Term	Definition
Competency	A behavior, characteristic, or qualification of an employee
Functional Area	A logical grouping of Job Families that represents a function of the organization, such as Marketing or Production
Job Architecture	A talent orientated structure used to efficiently assign competencies across the organization, compromising of Functional Areas, Job Families, Jobs and Positions and allowing inherited competencies down the structure
Job Family	A logical grouping of jobs that have similar attributes or characteristics
Position Requirements	The competencies required by the holder of a position
Scale	Levels of values used to measure proficiencies or attributes
Status Handling	The use of Nominated and Approved statuses to specify if an assignment to a Succession Plan, Successor Pool or Talent Group has been confirmed or not
Talent Development	Identification of talent or successors, review of individuals and development planning
Talent Group	A group of talented employees

E-Recruiting

Term	Definition
Candidate	An individual that registers their data or applies for a job posting
Candidate Profile	A profile of information about the Candidate, maintained by the Candidate – this is similar to the Talent Profile for Employees
Candidate Shortlist	The list of Candidates that have responded to a Requisition
E-Rec	E-Recruiting
Hiring	The process of hiring a successful Candidate into a role within the organization
Interview	The process of interviewing a Candidate for the role advertised in a Requisition
On-boarding	The process of introducing an individual to the organization and providing them with the information and tools to perform their role, as well tasks such as requesting personal information (address, bank account details, etc), entering into Payroll system and assigning an email address etc
Posting	An announcement of one or more vacant positions that a candidate could apply for
Publication	The process of publishing of a Posting
Questionnaire	List of questions about the role advertised in a Requisition
Requisition	A formal request by a manager to the recruiter to find potential candidates for one or more vacant positions
Screening	The process of identifying the Candidates that will be part of the Candidate Shortlist
Sourcing	The process of procuring candidates into the E-Recruiting system

Enterprise Compensation Management

Term	Definition
Approval process	The process of having budgets reviewed and approved by higher-level managers
Audit Report	A report that provides a summary of the changes that were made by managers
Bottom-up budgeting	The process of defining a budget at an employee level, which is then “rolled up” to a higher level to define the final budget
Budget Maintenance	A tool used for the distribution of budgets
Budget Unit	SAP object that represents a monetary and non-monetary budget for an Organizational Unit
Budgeting process	The process of creating compensation plans based on monetary and non-monetary budgets
Compensation Plan	plan compensation packages for employees, including tailoring base pay, bonuses, long-term incentives, as well as other configurable types of pay
Compensation Review process	The process of analyzing, distributing, and viewing compensation for employees
Controlling process	The process of monitoring and controlling planned budgets in order to ensure that Guidelines are in compliance with company budgeting procedure
Cost Plan	A plan of costs for each organizational unit for the employees of that organizational unit
Guideline	A guide used to help determining the level of compensation to be given to an employee, often based on performance or the final rating from an Appraisal Document
Payroll process	The process of transferring approved compensation data to SAP Payroll to update pay data
Top-down budgeting	The process of defining a budget at a higher level Organizational Unit that is the maximum amount for that and all child Organization Units

Performance Management

Term	Definition
Appraisal process	The process of appraising an individual’s performance and goals
Appraisal Template	A template used to create Appraisal Documents
Appraisal Document	A document used to perform and record the Performance Management process based on an Appraisal Template
Calibrate process	A process in the predefined process that allows a manager to calibrate the performance ratings of their team against each other
Final Rating	The final figure used to represent the performance level of an employee
Flexible process	Highly configurable process to create and implement performance management
Goals	Objectives for an individual to achieve; these can be Corporate Goals, Team Goals, Individual Goals or Training Goals
Individual Goals	Goals defined by a manager for a specific individual that are used to measure performance and reach Corporate Goals and/or Team Goals
Plan process	The process of defining, setting and/or cascading corporate goals, team goals, individual goals and training goals
Predefined process	A predefined template-based process that can be easily and quickly implemented
Prepare process	The process of selecting the employees to be appraised and creating the Appraisal Documents from the Appraisal Template
Review process	The process of reviewing goals assigned to an Appraisal Document before and during the Appraisal process
Team Goals	Goals defined by a manager that are cascaded into the Appraisal Documents of their team – these are used to measure team and individual performance
Training Goals	A goal defined to provide an individual with training

Learning Solution

Term	Definition
AICC	Aviation Industry CBT Committee – learning standard used in LSO
Authoring Environment	Environment for creating, testing and publishing learning content
Content Management System (CMS)	Repository for storing and managing learning content
Catalog process	The process of cataloguing the content created during the Content process
Close-Out Process	The process of registering completion of a course and performing follow-up actions
Content process	The process of creating content using the Authoring Environment
Course	A training course offered to potential participants
Course Group	A grouping of one or more Courses that have the same characteristics or cover related content
Course Offering	A collection of courses offered, including information relating to location, cost, resources, provider etc
Course Type	A grouping of one or more Courses that have the same objective, content and form
Curriculum Type	A special Course Type that offers other Course Types as part of the offering
Resource Type	A classification of resources that share the same characteristics or attributes
Enterprise Learning	Additional functionality to allow virtual learning through Adobe Connect
Instructor Portal	An online portal that provides instructors with information on their courses and allows them to manage course participation and course activities
Learner Portal	An online portal that provides an individual with information on their current courses, completed courses, booked or searched courses, required training and qualifications, and training history
Offline Distribution	The process of packaging content to be available via the Offline Content Player
Offline Content Player	Allows an individual to download learning content and synchronize with the learner portal when the individual is online
Online Content Player	Delivers learning content via a web browser when a course is launched from the learner portal by an individual and communicates the progress back to the LSO system
Participation process	The process of managers and employees enrolling for and participating in courses
Profile process	The process of creating profiles of courses that can be assigned to elements of an organization structure or to employees
Schedule process	The process of scheduling courses and enrolling employees to courses
SCORM	Shareable Content Object Reference Model – learning standard used in LSO
Training Administrator Portal	An online portal that provides administrators to perform their day-to-day training activities and manage all courses within the Learning Solution
Training Management	This controls learning processes and manages course offerings and extends the functionality available in Training and Event Management; the latter controls straining logistics and reporting.
Virtual Learning Room	A virtual classroom that leverages Adobe Connect technology

Talent Management and Talent Development (aka Talent Management Core)

Term	Definition
Area of Responsibility	The area of the organization structure for which a TMS can perform Talent Management activities
Bench Strength	A risk-based score to measure the strength of the successors assigned to a position
Career Type/Level	Type and level of career aspiration, used to measure the career aspirations of employees and the career aspiration requirement of jobs or positions
Corporate Goals and Values	Goals and/or values that represent those of the organization from a strategic level and cascading to organization units to use in the performance appraisal process
Development Plan	Long-term development plan used to track and measure objectives for successors or high-potentials
Key Indication	The attribute that specifies a Key Job or Key Position
Key Job	A job whose positions are determined to be Key Positions
Key Position	A position that is critical to the operation or long-term success of an organization
Mobility	The ability for an employee to relocate to another geographic location
Ranking	The value of a successor to the position if they became the holder of the position
Readiness	How ready a successor is to assume a position
STVN SuccessionPlanning	The graphical user interface offered by SAP to support succession planning processes
Succession Plan	The successors of a position
Succession planning	Process of identifying and developing successors for key positions and high potentials for Talent Groups and Successor Pools
Successor	Someone who is adjudged to be capable of taking a position in the future
Successor Pool	A collection of employees who have potential to fill one or more jobs or positions within a specific job family
a Talent	An employee that is assigned to a Talent Group
Talent Assessment	Application used to assess the talent-related characteristics of employees by their manager
Talent Profile for Employees	A self-service profile of talent-related information maintained by employees, such as education, work experience, career aspirations and mobility preferences
Talent Profile for Managers and Talent Management Specialists	An extended display version of the Talent Profile for Employees that is available to managers and Talent Management Specialists, containing additional talent-related information
Talent Review Meeting	Application used to support the review of employees both during and/or after the appraisal and talent assessment processes

Object Types

Object Type	Definition
BP	Business Partner
CP	Central Person
TB	Talent Group
RM	Talent Review Meeting
FN	Functional Area
JF	Job Family
C	Job
S	Position
P	Person
NA	Candidate
NB	Requisition
NC	Posting
ND	Application
NE	Candidacy
VA	Appraisal Template
VB	Criteria Group
VC	Criterion
Q	Qualification / Competency
QK	Qualification Group
QB	Qualification Block
BU	Budget Unit
E	Course
D	Business Event Type (used for LSO Course Type)
L	Business Event Group (used for LSO Course Group)
US	User
T	Task

OSS Components

Component	Definition
PA-ER	E-Recruiting
PA-EC	Enterprise Compensation Management
PA-PD-PM	Performance Management
PE-LSO	Learning Solution
PA-TM	Talent Management and Talent Development
XX-PART-NKS	Visualization Solutions by Nakisa

SAP Talent Visualization by Nakisa (STVN)-specific terminology can be found in the blog Visualization Solutions by Nakisa (VSN) Terminology.