4 Steps to getting SAP SuccessFactors Best Practices Content in your Customer Implementations

SAP Best Practices for SAP SuccessFactors are a set of recommended HR business configurations, designed to help a customer get the most significant benefit from their SAP SuccessFactors footprint. The customer and their implementation partner can pick and choose the configuration blocks which fit their requirements.

The following are the key benefits of using SAP Best Practices for SAP SuccessFactors in your implementation projects.

• Automated, free-of-cost pre-configuration that shortens time-to-value for your customer, and allows a quick move to the cloud
• With a click of a button and in a matter of minutes, you will be able to run the Business Process and showcase the same immediately to your customer
• Leading Practices content based on experience and learnings from customer projects
• Modular and flexible deployment of configuration data where you can select only the configurations required by your customer
• Regularly updated content with new features, localization, and modules released with the SAP SuccessFactors quarterly releases

One of the most common questions that we have encountered is “How to start with the SAP Best Practices for SAP SuccessFactors in my project?” In this blog post, I am presenting a 4-step sequence that you can follow to start using the Best Practices content in your project quickly.

Step 1: Activating a Provisioning switch

To enable the SAP SuccessFactors Best Practices in the Upgrade Center tool, you need to check a Provisioning switch for your company. We recommend that this switch is unchecked once your implementation activities are over. Another recommendation is not to activate this switch in the Production environment.

Step 2: Creating a Permission Role for your user

To view the SAP SuccessFactors Best Practices Upgrade Items, you need to have at least the below two Permissions to your user’s Permission Role.

• Manage Upgrade Centre
• Company System and Logo Settings

In addition to the above, you need to maintain a valid email for your user. The email helps in reviewing the content that was pushed into your customer instance, as well as troubleshooting any error that you might encounter in your upgrade.

Step 3: Choose your Upgrade Item and review the Quick Guide for that Upgrade Item

Based on the implementation considerations and customer requirements, you choose the SAP Best Practices Upgrades that are required for your customer. For example, if the customer is going for SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Core, you will need to run the below upgrade. Before you hit the ‘Upgrade Now’ button, you should make sure that you have reviewed the below points.

• Download the Quick Guide for that Upgrade using the link on the left-hand side of the Upgrade screen, as shown below
• Make sure that all the ‘Prerequisite Feature(s)’ are completed, shown by the green ticks below

Once you hit the ‘Upgrade Now’ button, you will need to review the pop-up that follows. You will not be able to undo the Upgrades that deliver the SAP Best Practices content for SuccessFactors. Hence, you will need to be sure if you need a particular module or feature in your instance.

Step 4: Check the results of the Upgrade you just started

You can check the results of your upgrade in two places.

1. In Upgrade Center, you can click on the link ‘View Recently Completed Upgrades’ to check the status of your upgrade. However, this link does not give details on the reason for the failure of your upgrade.

2. An email is always sent to you with the detailed results of your upgrade. You can use the data in the email to troubleshoot in case of an error, and it can also be used to review all the data that was pushed into your instance.

Since the SAP Best Practices for SAP SuccessFactors upgrades push a lot of configuration data that makes significant changes to your customer instance, we recommend that an SAP SuccessFactors certified consultant performs the above activities. In addition to the configuration data, you can also download the documentation that includes Quick Guides, Workbooks, Process Test Scripts, and Process Diagrams. In case you get an error that you are not able to resolve yourself, you can create a ticket in the component LOD-SF-SBP.

Another common question that we get is, “What scope is covered by SAP Best Practices for SAP SuccessFactors in Upgrade Center?” I am listing below an overview of the portfolio that is available in the Upgrade Center for Q3 2019 (b1908) release.

• SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central
  • Core Localizations (21 countries)
  • Time Off Localizations (18 countries)
  • Dependents Management Localizations (21 countries)
  • Benefits (USA & IND)
  • Position Management
  • Company Structure
  • Global Assignment
  • Concurrent Employment
  • Contingent Workforce Management
  • Apprentice Management
  • Payroll Timesheet
  • Document Generation
• SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting
• SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development
• SAP SuccessFactors Performance and Goals

As you can imagine, there are more than 120 SAP Best Practices for SAP SuccessFactors upgrades available in the Upgrade Center as of b1908! A quick solution to get to the upgrade item that you are looking for is to search for the keyword (for example, “Position Management”) on the Upgrade Center page.

I hope the above helps you out in starting using SAP Best Practices for SAP SuccessFactors in your projects. If you have any questions, please post them in the comment section below.

Adios!!