SAP on premise integration with SuccessFactors

In this blog I am going to show case step by step implementation process for integrating SuccessFactors and SAP.

Many of our clients maintain core HR processes in SAP and there Talent suit in SuccessFactors. That is an employee hired in SAP, any event happening through the tenure of employee is actioned in on premise SAP and the updated employee data flows from on premise to the cloud solution, where we run process like recruitment, Performance.

Once the integration configuration in SAP ERP is completed, we need to follow certain configuration steps to complete our configuration in SuccessFactors, which I have mentioned at the end of this document.

I have also added basic understanding of BADIs used in the process and how does each BADI functions.

To keep this blog more understanding I have simplified integration in steps, step 4 talks about integration using middleware, however if your client is not using middleware, step 7 talks about file transfers from SAP to successFactors (The programme compiles the files as expected by SuccessFactors system).

Below is the screen grab of standard SAP program (RH_SFI_SYNCHRONIZE_EMPL_DATA) to make you understand where do we use file transfer vs. middleware, we will elaborate this further in the points below

Below steps specifically refers to the configurations in SAP. I have added the responsibilities of Middleware and Access control team.

1. Create Logon in SuccessFactors to be used by Middleware to call successFactors
2. Create Role in SAP Z_ADMIN so we can add below authorizations to the role
3. Define Authorizations

Copy standard roles and define

Give the role a name to be used later

SAP_HR_SFI_EMPL_DATA_REPL

Add roles to existing composite role ZSYSTEM_ADMIN.

No default values are defined for personnel area, employee group, employee subgroup, therefore in customer specific role enter values of authorization object P_origin, P_OriginCON and PLOG

4. For Midlleware file transfer

First to check is Authorization check, below is basically for recruiting and compensation, ensure that there is a check mark in Active IMG column.

This BADI impacts recruitment integration authorizations for application processing. This requires personnel area, Employee group, employee subgroup are contained in the imported candidate data and in the configured field set for recruiting data import, this is used to facilitate authorization validation for incoming data.

When importing data from SuccessFactors system, SAP ERP system runs through the implementation of this BADI and attempts to determine PERNR and USER ID (IT105) from the transferred successfactors field comment, If able to determine this information SAP uses this to maintain infotype for the data transferred from SAP.

Ensure Active(IMG) is checked

B) Importing metadata from SuccessFactors BIZX

Importing metadata from SF BIZX, run – RH_SFI_SYNCH_METADATA to transfer metadata from SF to SAP ERP HCM, basically used for compensation and recruiting process.

There are certain basic needs to why we need to enable this, more information will be available from training guide compensation to SAP ERP, Recruiting.

Before we execute this report we need to be sure a compensation template must exists in SF, containing the compensation template, that is assigned to compensation template.

This report must contain the fields to be transferred to compensation/ recruitment.

5. Settings for Middleware

As the screen above suggests in this step we store the credentials created in SuccessFactors for the systems to talk to each other.

The credentials can be provided by a SuccessFactors consultant

6. Define package size for transferring employee data

This step simply defines the number of data to be transferred from on premise SAP ERP to cloud successfactors in each run hence fro recruitment it would be the number of requisitions, for employee data it will be the number of employees, if you leave it blank the system defaults the number to 200

7. For file path transfer – Once the integration add on has been successfully installed below IMG path will appear

SPRO – IMG – Personnel management – Integration add on for SAP ERP HCM and SuccessFactors BIZX, this will only appear once the integration add-ons has been installed

a) Define file path and name in “Integration scenario for Employee Data” – This is only required while using file transfer to successfactors and not using middleware scenario

GoTo à Logical file name definition and search for standard RH_SFI_DIR as shown in the screen grab below

Confirm the file – All entries should be kept standard

B) Go to à Assignment of Physical Path

The above shows the file path receivable when the RH_SFI integration program runs. This again is only used for file transfer, in this example I am using SFTP with the above directory address. We use syntax group as UNIX

C) Specify the variant for delta extraction, using the below node

We define the variants used by standard SAP program – RH_SFI_SYNCHRONIZE_EMPL_DATA

You specify the type of variant, a valid variant must be used

Employee data –Syncs employee data with successfactors using the inactive logic

Pre-hire data – Syncs employee data with successfactors in pre hire period program

You specify the format extraction of first name and lastname, if no specific format is defined, SAP uses standard fields VORNA and NACHN.

D) BADIs for customer specific code enhancements

• Specify file name for file storage – Custom file name logic
• Replication of employee data – custom logic another fields are read in SAP
• Enhance replication of employee data – If you use middleware, and want to enhance the extraction of employee data with customer specific fields, you only need an implementation if you have created customer specific fields and the field names are different to what has been defined in structure HRSFI_S_Transfer_data
• Label for data replication fields – you can use this badi to overwrite standard labels with customer specific labels
• Parameters to checks for employee data transfer – this BADI can be used to transfer additional paramenters from SuccessFactors BIZX, If you use middleware.

The above is the required configuration for on premise, we will now read through some steps for the configuration in SuccessFactors.

The steps can be summarised as below:

Step 1 – API URL

Step 2 – Enable SFAPI

Step 3 – Data module configuration

Step 4 – Create successsFactors API user

Step 5 – Setup API user permission

Step 1 Finding the API URL – logon to partner portal, the SFAPI endpoint URLs are used to access the SuccessFactors API SFAPI. Find the correct URL for your client, and enter the URL in SAP HCM configuration, API depends on the location

You will need to enter the correct version – /sfapi/v1/soap

Step 2 Enable SFAPI – Login to provisioning à Company settings

Search for SFAPI and make sure the scheck is marked and press save/exit

Step 3 Data Model configuration

Need to set the max length against the standard element, refer to below screen. It is usually maintained correctly. You will only need to check this

URL for max length – https://connect.successfactors.com/partnerportal/Documents/PM+Data+Integration.docx

The above document specifies each field has how many maximum chars value

Step 4: Create successfactors API Users, this will be used in SAP integration as the screen shows below

For the SFAPI there are two mandatory permissions that are needed, you can create a permission group for the same as shown below

There are two mandatory permissions that are needed

General user Permission à SFAPI User login and Manage user à Import employee data

Thanks for reading!

Saurabh