Employee to Business Partner Synchronization during S/4HANA system conversion

Updated on Nov 9, 2021 – Relevant to SAP S/4HANA 2020 and higher

SAP SuccessFactors, the next generation HCM suite in the public cloud, is the go-forward HCM solution for both cloud and on-premise editions of SAP S/4HANA. However, some SAP ERP customers who are converting to SAP S/4HANA on-premise may not be able to move their existing SAP ERP HCM to SAP SuccessFactors in the near future and would like to continue to use SAP ERP HCM until they are ready to move to SAP SuccessFactors. Those customers can run their HCM in either a separate instance or a single instance with S/4HANA. The integration between SAP ERP HCM and S/4HANA on-premise will be available via ALE if HCM is running on a separate instance. If HCM is running inside of S/4HANA on-premise, then the integration is automatically provided as part of the Compatibility Mode.

In SAP S/4HANA, Business Partner (BP) is the leading object, and customer and vendor master data will be assigned as roles to Business Partner. This is one of the major changes in S/4HANA, and therefore, it requires considerable effort to prepare the SAP ERP system for conversion to S/4HANA. Implementing Customer Vendor Integration (CVI) and synchronizing customer and vendor data with Business Partner (BP) in the SAP ERP system is a prerequisite for system conversion to S/4HANA. You may refer to my blog BP and CVI in SAP S/4HANA System Conversion for a step by step guide for CVI Implementation and Synchronization.

If an existing SAP ERP customer who is using SAP ERP HCM is planning to convert their ERP system to S/4HANA, they are required to synchronize their employee data as well to Business Partner once they are in S/4HANA. There are two parts to this, one is to synchronize the employee vendors to BP in the SAP ERP System before system conversion and the second one is to synchronize the employee records to BP in S/4HANA after system conversion. I will explain both in this blog.

CVI Synchronization

CVI Synchronization – Employee Vendors

First of all, if employee vendors exist in the SAP ERP system, the employee vendors will have to be converted to BPs of category “Person” during CVI synchronization. To accomplish this, implement SAP Note 2539457 (CVI & employee vendors in incorrect BP category) and ensure that BAdI implementation HCM_CVI_MAP_BP_CATEGORY (BAdI CVI_MAP_TITLE) is active. This BAdI implementation identifies employee vendors (LFB1-PERNR has an entry) and enables the synchronization of those vendors to BPs of category “Person” while executing the CVI synchronization report MDS_LOAD_COCKPIT. If this note is not applied, the standard program will create BPs of category “Organization” which is not desired for employee vendors while executing the CVI synchronization report MDS_LOAD_COCKPIT.

Activities in S/4HANA

Once the system is converted from SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA, carry out the following activities. For more details, please check the installation guide here.

1. Activate Business Function /SHCM/EE_BP_1
2. Set the following switches in the table T77S0 as below.

• HRALX HRAC to ‘X’
• HRALX PBPON to ‘ON’

3. Check if the following BP roles exist in the system. You may check this in Customizing, SPRO -> Cross-Application Components SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic Settings -> Business Partner Roles -> Define BP Roles

• BUP003 Employee
• BBP005 Service Agent
• BBP010 Freelancer
• FLVN00 Supplier (Fin Accounting)
• FLVN01 Supplier
• BUP010 Employment

4. Check if the following BP Address Types are maintained in the system. You may check this in Customizing, SPRO -> Cross-Application Components SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic Settings -> Address Determination -> Define Address Types

• HCM001 Employee Private Address
• HCM003 Address of Main Employment

5. Check if the following Identification Types are available in the system. You may check this in Customizing, SPRO -> Cross-Application Components SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic Settings -> Identification Numbers -> Define Identification Types

• HCM001 Employee ID
• HCM028 Internal Personnel Number
• HCM030 Employee ID (Service Performer)
• HCM031 Employee ID (Freelancer)
• HCM032 Personnel Number (Main Employment)
• HCM033 Personnel Number (Employment)

6. The following switches in the table T77S0 are used to assign number range for the BPs with employee role

• HRALX PNUMB
• HRALX PSUBG

7. The following switches in the table T77S0 are used to assign number range for the BPs with employment role

• HRALX ENUMB
• HRALX ESUBG

8. Run the report /SHCM/RH_SYNC_BUPA_EMPL_SINGLE. You can use this report only if the initial synchronization of BP has to be executed in parallel jobs due to large volume of employees or during testing cycles. This report will create two BPs, one with employee role and another with employment role, for every employee record for which no BP exists in the system. For the BPs created during CVI Synchronization for employee vendors with vendor role, this report will add the employment role BUP010. In addition to that this sync report will create another BP with employee role for the same employee. That is, if you are using the new employee business partner data model by activating the business function /SHCM/EE_BP_1, you will have two BPs for every employee record in SAP S/4HANA (assuming the employee has only one employment). A log is written for the failed synchronization, and the error log can be reviewed in transaction SLG1 for object SHCM_EE_INTEGRATION, Sub-object: BUPA_SYNC.
9. After completing the initial synchronization of employees with Business Partner, set up a background job for the report /SHCM/RH_SYNC_BUPA_FROM_EMPL. This report will update employee BPs based on the changes made to the employee records and keep the employee and BPs in sync. Secondly, this report will create new BPs for the future dated employees created in the system. An error log is written for the failed synchronization, and the error log can be reviewed in transaction SLG1 for object SHCM_EE_INTEGRATION, Sub-object: BUPA_SYNC.
10. The new Business Partner with employment role is designed to keep employment related roles, such as vendor. The creation of vendor role is optional in the new BP data model and can be triggered using the report /SHCM/R_EMPL_HANDLE_BPROLES.
11. Make sure the business process CVI_04 – Business Partner -> Vendor is active for component AP-MD (IMG Path: SPRO-> Cross-Application Components -> General Application Functions -> Postprocessing Office -> Business Processes->Activate Creation of Postprocessing Orders). This setting will enable the system to capture errors during vendor role creation for employment BPs.

Additional Info

1. HRALXSYNC (report) – You cannot use this sync report for employee synchronization in SAP S/4HANA. For any other (organizational unit) object synchronization, you can use this report.
2. Transaction PRAA – This transaction was used for employee vendor creation in the SAP ERP system for travel expenses. You cannot create employee vendors using this transaction, and it is no longer valid in the SAP S/4HANA system.
3. Table IEMPLOYEE provides info on the link between Employee and BP in S/4HANA.
4. Table /SHCM/D_BP_SYNC keeps track of the pending/failed employee records from previous/delta synchronization, which will then be picked up in the next run of the sync job.
5. SAP Note 2578294 – FAQ – Employee to Business Partner synchronization in S/4HANA OnPremise
6. SAP Note 2409229 – Employee Synchronization Report: FAQ
7. SAP Note 2340095 – S4TWL – Conversion of Employees to Business Partners
8. SAP Note 3023906 – FAQ – NEW Employee to Business Partner synchronization in S/4HANA OnPremise (NEW MODE)
9. SAP Help: New Employee Business Partner Model in SAP S/4HANA
10. Blog: New Employee Business Partner Data Model in SAP S/4HANA 2020 On-Premise

Thank you.

Brought to you by the SAP S/4HANA RIG and Customer Care team.