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Author's profile photo Hoang Vu

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Integration | SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central

Overview

Let’s connect SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central!

We will setup a plug and play integration between two cloud solutions without any development effort.

Scope item: JB1

Systems

  • SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central: cloud HR system
  • SAP S/4HANA Cloud: cloud ERP system
  • SAP Cloud Platform Integration: cloud middleware system

Scenario

  1. Create cost center in SAP S/4HANA Cloud and replicate to SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central
  2. Hire employees and contingent workers including:
    • assigning cost center
    • assigning organizational data (division, department,…)
    • maintaining their availability (work schedule, absences,…)
  3. Replicate employees & contingent worker
  4. Replicate organizational data
  5. Replicate availability
  6. Receive employee & contingent worker data and staff to project in SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Note:

  • Replication from SAP S/4HANA Cloud to SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central does not require SAP Cloud Platform Integration
  • Replication from SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central to SAP S/4HANA Cloud requires SAP Cloud Platform Integration

What is SAP Cloud Platform Integration?

SAP Cloud Platform Integration is the cloud middleware of SAP that can perform mapping, routing and transformation requirement of the processed data.

Prepare & Explore Integration

Best Practice Integration

For best practice integration our starting points are:

SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer

  • on the roadmap viewer go to the SAP Activate Methodology for S/4HANA Cloud
  • go to “Content”
  • under “More” select “Integration: SuccessFactors”
  • Read through all content

Best Practices Explorer

Steps:
  • Go to Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud
  • On the right side choose SAP S/4HANA Cloud Integration
  • Read through following scope items:
    • JB1: employee integration
    • 1FD: S/4HANA Cloud enablement for employee integration
    • 1NL: employee payroll integration

In this blog we will focus on scope item:

  • JB1
  • 1FD

Setup Integration

To setup the integration you need to:

  • Configure SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central
  • Check scope items in SAP S/4HANA Cloud
  • Configure SAP S/4HANA Cloud
  • Configure SAP Cloud Platform Integration

All configuration steps can be found in the scope item JB1 under set-up instructions:

Configure SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central

Chapter 4 of the set-up instructions:

  • Enable Integration in Provisioning
  • Enable Intelligent Services
  • Update Employee Central data model
  • Define Replication Target System
  • Enable Push Replication (optional)
  • Enable Time off feature
  • Adapt Picklists
  • Setup super admin and SFAPI user
  • Setup Contingent Worker
  • Configure People Profile
  • Configure Payment Information
  • Setup Employee Availability
  • Configure Name Format
  • Enable Validation Checks

Read through the set-up instructions for further details.

After completing chapter 4 SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central is ready for integration.

Check scope items in SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Steps in S/4HANA Cloud:

  • Go to Implementation Cockpit –> Manage your Solution
  • View Solution Scope
  • Search for “employee integration”
  • Check that both scope items JB1 and 1FD are active

Configure SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Activate following communication arrangements under communication management:

SAP_COM_0001: Replication from SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central to SAP S/4HANA Cloud via SAP Cloud Platform Integration

SAP_COM_0056: Replication SAP S/4HANA Cloud to SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central directly

Chapter 5 of the set-up instructions:

  • Go to Communication Management
  • Create a communication user
  • Create a communication system (your SAP Cloud Platform Integration tenant)
  • Create a communication arrangement (SAP_COM_0001)
  • Configure communication arrangement for your scenario (which companies, countries should get replicated,…)
  • Create a communication user (your SFAPI user in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central)
  • Create a communication system (your SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central)
  • Create a communication arrangement (SAP_COM_0056)
  • Configure communication arrangement (define replication model & output mode)

After activation of communication arrangement SAP_COM_0001 & SAP_COM_0056, SAP S/4HANA Cloud is ready for integration.

Configure SAP Cloud Platform Integration

These are the required steps in SAP Cloud Platform Integration for the replication.

Chapter 6 of the set-up instructions:

  • download all relevant integration package
  • configure all relevant integration flows
  • deploy all integration flows
    • SFSF_EC_to_S4HANA_Availability: sends availability data
    • Employee Central to ERP Generic Object: sends organizational data (division, department,…)
    • Employee Central to ERP Employee Data and Organizational Assignment: sends employee/contingent worker and assigns organizational data to employee/contingent worker
    • ERP to Employee Central Confirmation: SAP S/4HANA Cloud sends confirmation of employee replication status back to SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central (employee successfully replicated, replication in process, replication failed,…)
    • Employee Central to ERP Employee Push: newly hired employees get replicated immediately
    • SFSF_EC_to_S4HANA_PhotoIntegration: sends employee profile photo

Now your integration between SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central is setup.

Test Integration

We will test:

  • Cost center
  • Organizational data
  • Employee & contingent worker
  • Availability

Cost center

Steps in SAP S/4HANA Cloud:

  • Go to Master Data –> Manage Cost Centers
  • Create new Cost Center
  • Go to Data Replication –> Replicate by Replication Model
  • If you want to initially replicate all cost centers, choose “Initialization”
  • If you have performed initial replication and want to replicate newly create cost centers only, choose “Changes”
  • Choose your data model that you define in your communication arrangement
  • Replicate
  • If you do not want to replicate all changes, but one specific cost center only, go to Data Replication –> Replicate by Object Selection
  • Select Replication model & Target System
  • Add your controlling area and cost center
  • Replicate
  • Go to Data Replication Monitor –> Monitor Replication
  • Choose replication model
  • you can monitor your cost center replication

 

Steps in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central:

  • Go to Manage Data –> cost center
  • Search for your cost center

Organizational data

Steps in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central:

  • Go to Manage Data
  • Select “Create New” to maintain your master data
    • Department
    • Division
    • Business Unit
    • Job Classification
    • Position

Steps in SAP S/4HANA Cloud:

  • Go to Employee HR Master Data –> Monitor Data Replication
  • Replication monitor shows you whether organizational data has been replicated successfully to SAP S/4HANA Cloud
  • Set “Status” to “03” to view all successful replication
  • Set “Employee Central Object Type” to “01” to view status for departments
  • Go through steps for each data object or remove filter to view all data object at once

Employee & contingent worker

Steps in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central:

  • If you want to add a new employee, go to Add New Employee
  • If you want to add a new contingent worker, go to Add Contingent Worker
  • In our scenario we will hire a new employee
  • Create a new employee and fill out complete employee profile including:
    • cost center
    • organizational data (division, department, position,…)
    • availability
    • a unique email adresse
    • supervisor
  • Save: A new employee is created
  • Search for your employee in the search bar
  • You will land on the employee’s people profile
  • Maintain an employee photo if desired
  • Go to Data Replication Monitor for SAP ERP Integration
  • Go to Status per Employee
  • Search for your new employee
  • Check the replication status of your employee

Note: the supervisor/manager of the employee needs to be successfully replicated before the employee can be successfully replicated

Steps in SAP S/4HANA Cloud:

  • search for your employee in the search bar
  • go to your employee factsheet
  • you will see the successfully replicated employee with all organizational data and photo if maintained
  • Go to Identity and Access Management –> Maintain Business Users
  • Search for your employee
  • Go to Business Partner Master –> Maintain Business Partner
  • Search for your employee

Note: the Person ID in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central becomes the user name & identification number in SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Availability

Steps in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central:

  • Go to your employee’s people profile
  • Under Job Information check if availability is maintained correctly during hire process
  • If not, maintain time information
  • in our scenario the work schedule is Monday – Thursday 5 hours

Steps in SAP S/4HANA Cloud

  • Log on with the user you want to view the timesheet of
  • Go to HCM – Employee Self Service –> Manage my Timesheet
  • view your timesheet
  • You can see the 5 working hours per day Monday – Thursday
  • Because of the public holiday on Tuesday, the employee will only have 5 working hours on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday in CW18

Conclusion

And that is it! Leave a comment below if you have any questions!

Useful links:

Technical Guide SAP S/4HANA Cloud Integration with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central

SuccessFactors Employee Central Data Replication Monitor Tutorial

SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite

Working with Legacy Picklists

Export/Import Picklists

Add Association

Object association

Error: Target field’s max length is too short

Error: Mandatory field was not mapped

Error: Enter personnel number

Error: Personnel number in BIB

Error: Employee not found

Error: manager has more than one position assigned

 

Assigned Tags

      22 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Harish Choudhary
      Harish Choudhary

       

      Thank you Hoang for sharing your knowledge. This is very helpful for the entire S4HC community.

      Author's profile photo Carlos Dias
      Carlos Dias

      Great article! Thanks for sharing!

      Author's profile photo Samantha Robinson
      Samantha Robinson

      This is amazingly detailed and excellent. Thank you so much for sharing with the community.

      Author's profile photo Amit Zamader
      Amit Zamader

      Thanks for steps in details! this would really help to understand the concepts and particular plug-ins that are required to integrate both the cloud system.

       

      Author's profile photo David Merritt
      David Merritt

      Hi Hoang,

      Thank you for this great blog. Our client is planning to use SAP S/4HANA on Private Cloud, which means S/4HANA OnPremise functionality but hosted on the cloud. Will the integration that you describe in the blog also work for when using SAP S/4HANA on Private Cloud?

      Is it also "plug and play integration is available between SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central without any development effort" ?

      I thank you for your feedback on this.

      Kind regards,

      David

      Author's profile photo Hoang Vu
      Hoang Vu
      Blog Post Author

      Hi David,

      no this integration scenario is only available for S/4HANA Cloud.

      For S/4HANA on-premise, please check following SAP Help:

      SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Integration to SAP Business Suite

      Regards,

      Hoang

      Author's profile photo Samir Bigdeli-Issazadeh
      Samir Bigdeli-Issazadeh

      Hi David,

       

      right now we don't offer any prepackaged integration between S/4HANA and SAP SuccessFactors other than for the public Cloud.

      All available documentation on integration of SAP SuccesFactors can be found on https://help.sap.com/viewer/p/SAP_SUCCESSFACTORS_EMPLOYEE_CENTRAL_INTEGRATION_TO_SAP_BUSINESS_SUITE

      Best regards,

      Samir

      Author's profile photo Ghadeer Zahaiqa
      Ghadeer Zahaiqa

      Hi  Hoang Vu

      can we do  replication directly  without CPI , I mean through webservices As both Systems are cloud

       

      Regards

      Ghadeer

      Author's profile photo Hoang Vu
      Hoang Vu
      Blog Post Author

      Hi,

      unfortunately this is not possible as we require SAP Cloud Platform Integration to handle a lot of the mapping work for us.

      Regards,

      Hoang

      Author's profile photo Prasobh Prakash
      Prasobh Prakash

      Is it a two way communication?

       

      Means if we create some details in Cloud, then it will automatically replicate in Success factor and vice versa?

       

      Author's profile photo Hoang Vu
      Hoang Vu
      Blog Post Author

      It is a two way communication, cost centers are being transferred from S4 to SFSF and employees from SFSF to S4.

      Author's profile photo Payal Seth
      Payal Seth

      Hi,

       

      We have done the config for contingent workers as per JB1.

      The replication happens successfully but not for contingent workers at all.

      Could you please advise?

       

      Thanks,

      P.

      Author's profile photo Hoang Vu
      Hoang Vu
      Blog Post Author

      In the configuration there should be an option where you set what types of employees including contingent workers should be replicated.

      So you might need to check again those places for configuration, maybe the BIB or your iflow.

      Author's profile photo Chiranjeevi Kata
      Chiranjeevi Kata

      Hi Hoang Vu

       

      I do not see SuccessFactors under “More” select “Integration: SuccessFactors” on the Roadmp Viewer.

      https://go.support.sap.com/roadmapviewer/#/group/BE47098A-617A-43EF-A27E-DFD801D70483/roadmapOverviewPage/IMPS4HANACLDENMGMT:w14

       

       

      Could you please provide some light on this?

       

      Thank you in advance!

       

      Best Regards,

      Chiranjeevi

      Author's profile photo Hoang Vu
      Hoang Vu
      Blog Post Author

      The Activate Roadmap gets updated regularly.

      If you can't find it there anymore, they might have removed it or transferred it to another place.

      Author's profile photo Wei Jun Quah
      Wei Jun Quah

      Hi Hoang Vu, thank you for the article.

      I noticed that we are able to replicate the organizational hierarchy of business units, divisions, departments over to S/4 Hana Cloud.

      However when syncing the cost centers from S/4 back to SF, the business units, divisions and department fields for the cost center in SF gets overwritten to blank values.

      Edit* - After checking, purgeType=full is sent in the ODATA request, therefore the old record is deleted and a new record is created instead. The ODATA request payload does not have sufficient data for business unit, department fields as well.. therefore the fields are blank..

      Could you please advise if it is possible to retain those field values? Is there anyway we can pass the business unit, division data etc over from S/4?

      Thanks,

      Wei Jun

      Author's profile photo Mohamed Cassim
      Mohamed Cassim

      Has this been resolved?

      Author's profile photo Dawit Desalgne
      Dawit Desalgne

      Thank you Hoan, it's an excellent knowledge transfer.

      Best Regards

      Dawit

      Author's profile photo PRASAD KKAV
      PRASAD KKAV

      Good Document

      Author's profile photo Barket Ali Zafar
      Barket Ali Zafar

      Thanks for Sharing Wonderful information

      Author's profile photo Loan Pham Thi Hong
      Loan Pham Thi Hong

      Thank you a Hoang Vu for your sharing.

      I have a concern related to the report. Are there any ways for us to build report to compare the differences between data in EC and data in S/4 after we replicate?

      Looking forward to hearing your advice.

      Best Regards,

      Loan Pham

      Author's profile photo Mohamed Cassim
      Mohamed Cassim

      Hoang Vu Thank you for putting this together.

      One important point from the instructions in JB1 is to ensure that for a new Company Code setup, the effective date of the entity in Success Factors is earlier than the effective date of the Cost Centers. One faces replication issues if the effective date for the entity in Success Factors is after the effective date of the Cost Center

      Effective%20Date%20of%20Entity%20and%20Cost%20Center

      Best regards,

      Mohamed

      Effective Date of Entity and Cost Center