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Author's profile photo Arijit Sardar

How to download/report on attachments from Employee Profile background element?

Is it possible to fetch/ download/ report on Attachments of Employee Profile Background elements via Adhoc Report in SuccessFactors Application?

As an administrator of SuccessFactors product, I do create Background Portlets under Employee Profile Domain in SuccessFactors product. In those background portlet, I configure fields which allows end users to upload some attachment such as .docx, .pdf, .xls, .jpeg etc.

HRBPs in several Department does not have direct access to the end user’s Employee Profile Background Element portlets to check what document end users are uploading. HRBP raise a request to check if I can create a report to download those attachments and provide to HRBPs.

In SuccessFactors product, Adhoc Report, Online Report Designer (ORD) report or Advanced Report does not allow to download attachments (example – .docx, .pdf, .xls, .jpeg etc).

As a possible workaround we can use Integration center to download attachments from Employee Profile Background elements. We created outbound Integration to SFTP to download End User’s attachments in batch wise so that HRBP can directly download those attachment files from SFTP.

Steps to create outbound Integration to SFTP to download attachments:

1. Go to Admin Center > Integration Center.
2. From Integration Center landing Page > select My Integrations.


3. From the Integration Center > My Integrations page > choose + Create More Integration Types.


4. From the Choose Integration Type page > select the following:

  • Trigger type as Scheduled.
  • Source Type as SuccessFactors.
  • Destination Type as SFTP.
  • Format as Attachment

 

5. Select Create.
6. Select the Starting Entity > Search for the portlet name which contains attachment > Select that Portlet


7. Configuration and Filter Tab are optional (If you wish, you can change configuration or filter and sorting. Refer below link for more information on same)

8. Go to Destination Settings page to enter the SFTP details.


9. Under Destination Settings tab > Scroll Down > Use Calculated File Names to generate unique file names per attachment in SFTP folder

Example of Calculated File Name:

Field Value = UserID from Background Element Concatenate/ Append _ Concatenate/ Append File Name from Background Portlet

Lets say, Username is CarlaGrant. This user has an attachment called Resume.docx in Background Portlet called – Attachment

In SFTP Folder all files will be generated as “CarlaGrant_Resume.docx”

10. Schedule the integration (if needed) and provide the frequency, start and End dates. Refer Scheduling for more information.

11. Go to Review and Run and check the details. Save the integration and click Run Now to run immediately. Save and click Set Schedule to run at a specific scheduled time.

12. Login into SFTP and check the destination folder for attachment output.

For more information on same please click on: Integration Center Document

Limitation – Integration Center supports extracting maximum of 5000 attachments at a time.

While scheduling Integration Center to download attachment ensure to apply filter on Department or Division or Business Unit field so that total count does not go beyond 5000 limitation in one batch.

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      7 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Suzan Al-Fareed
      Suzan Al-Fareed

      good day,

      I follow your step and the connection with the server is good and integration is done without error but, in the server, all attachments are 0B and I can not open

      can you advise please

      Author's profile photo Arijit Sardar
      Arijit Sardar
      Blog Post Author

      Hello,

      Hope you are doing well!

      Could you please open the Integration then go to Configuration Tab

      On the left hand panel , look into Associate Content and Associate Content Type what have you selected?

       

      Associate Content Should be selected as "attachment(Document)"

      Associate Content Type should be selected as "mime type" under "attachmentNAV "

      What have you give in Calculated Filed Name under "Destination tab"?

      It should be

      Field Value = UserId Concatenate/append _ concatenate/append File Name

       

      Thanks and Regards,
      Arijit

       

      Author's profile photo Suzan Al-Fareed
      Suzan Al-Fareed

      thank you for your reply now the issue is below, please advice

      Author's profile photo Arijit Sardar
      Arijit Sardar
      Blog Post Author

      Hello

      What is the exact error details?

      What changes have you done?

      Thanks and regards,

      Arijit

       

      Author's profile photo Suzan Al-Fareed
      Suzan Al-Fareed

      good day,

      there is no details for the error , no data

      Author's profile photo Arijit Sardar
      Arijit Sardar
      Blog Post Author

      Did you correct Association of Content and Content Type?
      Did you create calculated file name?

      Did you put the correct SFTP URL and other details in Destination settings?

      If you feel everything is okay and still there is an error, please raise a SAP Support ticket , so that SAP can login into system and check all configuration steps.

      Author's profile photo Henrik Waeltken
      Henrik Waeltken

      Arijit,

       

      thank you for this procedure - I'm wondering if it should work for an MDF object like Position as well? We use Position Management to store Job Descriptions against all roles and have been looking into ways to export all attachment documents from Positions periodically. Also we wanted to export filenames of attachments. Wondering if an AttachmentNav is available across EC objects (Job Info, Personal Info, MDF etc.)

      Regards,

       

      Henrik