HR Renewal FP4 – What’s new in HCM Process and Forms

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.