Product Information
Configurable New Hire in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central
The SAP SuccessFactors 2H 2020 Release brings with it a new enhancement that allows users to configure and customize the way the hire process works in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central – ECT-119535: Configurable New Hire.
This blog post is aimed to provide an overview of this enhancement and answer any questions you may have while also providing you with the best starting platform for using the feature in the 2H 2020 Release.
With the Configurable New Hire feature, you can now flexibly configure the hiring process to cater to different needs in different countries and/or for a different workforce. You can create templates where you specify only the blocks needed for the type of employment you are hiring for – for example, a full-time employee in the United States or a fixed-term contract employee in Germany. This is a more streamlined and tailored hiring process that allows customers to add, remove, and rearrange the order of the blocks as well as add standard and custom MDF objects to the configuration.
This feature is supported for the following hire processes in the 2H 2020 Release:
- Add New Employee
- Add New Employee for Fixed Term
- Rehire Inactive Employee
New in 1H 2021: In the 1H 2021 Release, we will support the Hire Templates within Manage Pending Hires for both Onboarding and Recruiting candidates.
New in 2H 2021: When adding a new employee using the configurable hire template, we now show the ‘Basic Data’ pop-up when a user has permission to only one custom hire template. This does not apply if the user has permission to only the standard template. Further details regarding this change is available in the What’s New Viewer.
New in 1H 2022: In the 1H 2022 Release, we will support the Hire Templates for Add Contingent Workers. Further details regarding this change is available in the What’s New Viewer.
New in 1H 2023: We now support Configurable Concurrent Employment, for additional details regarding this feature, please review my blog Configurable Concurrent Employment in Employee Central, and/or review the What’s New Viewer.
Highlights of this Enhancement
The main feature of this enhancement is the Hire Template, which you can define a different hiring template for each specific need.
A hire template is a collection of steps (pages), where each step is a group of blocks which can contain HRIS elements and/or standard and custom MDF objects. The purpose of the template is to allow users to customize the order of the objects and even remove some entities that are not required for the hiring process.
The template can hold a maximum of 30 blocks – a combination of HRIS elements as well as standard and custom MDF objects, within 2 to 10 pages.
Example of a custom template with 4 Steps (pages) defined
Example of blocks within a specific Step (page) of a custom template
There are certain requirements that you will need to consider when creating the templates, such as the Identity details (Name Information and Employment ID blocks) must be included in the first step. If using the National ID block within the template, which is optional, it must also be included in the first step. Blocks such as Job Information, cannot be included in the initial step otherwise the system will throw an error when saving the template.
Another important area to consider is the Show in Workflow option (as shown in the above screenshot next to MDF Block Type). This option is for MDF objects only and will allow the user to select whether that object will appear in the Workflow or not. If this setting is set to Yes, the MDF Object data selected during the hiring process will appear in the Workflow. As shown in the screenshot below:
Once these templates are created and permissioned, the hiring manager will see a list of templates they have access to within the supported hire scenarios, such as Add New Employee, Add New Employee for Fixed Term, Rehire Inactive Employee, Add Contingent Worker, or Manage Pending Hires:
As mentioned, these templates can be permissioned so only users (as an example) within a country, company, or those responsible for the hire of a certain workforce can view their specific templates. For example, a hiring manager in Germany needs to hire a full-time employee – this hiring manager does not need access to the hiring templates for the United States. We may want to permission the templates as follows in this example:
In the above example, the hiring manager would then only have access to those permissioned templates, and would see the following when navigating to Add New Employee:
If no templates are permissioned OR only the pre-delivered ‘Standard Hire Template’ is permissioned, the user will automatically bypass the template selection screen and begin hiring the employee using the legacy hire configuration. This will allow customers to circumvent the use of the Hire Templates for specific groups of users if required.
After selecting a template, for example during Add New Employee, the look and feel within the UI is very similar to previous releases, however with the ability to customize the layout and order of steps and blocks. If we want to configure the template with only a few steps which minimizes the number of transitions between pages, it could look like this:
Or if we want to separate the blocks out among multiple steps/pages, it could look like this:
New in 1H 2021: With the 1H 2021 Release, customers can now use the Hire Templates when hiring employees within the Manage Pending Hires tool. This will allow additional flexibility when hiring employees that have data coming from both Onboarding and Recruiting modules. With the support of Manage Pending Hires, there is no additional configuration required for the Hire Templates.
Important Note: The following is expected behavior for mapped data coming from either Recruiting and/or Onboarding:
RCM & ONB 1.0:
- If the block is not configured in the Hire Template, then the values are not saved to the database.
- The only exception to this is the Payment Information blocks – these blocks will still save mapped data and trigger onSave Business Rules that are setup in the configuration.
- Business rules on all other non-configured blocks are ignored.
ONB:
- If the block is not configured in the Hire Template, then the values are saved to the database.
- Business rules for Payment Information blocks will still be triggered (even if not configured) and data will be saved
- Business rules on all other non-configured blocks are ignored.
Configuration
This section will review the configuration and important points that you should be aware of for this feature.
Prerequisite – Modify Hire Template Object and Permission
1. Go to Admin Center > Configure Object Definitions
2. Select Object Definitions > Hire Template
Please Note: This effective-dated object is pre-delivered by SAP SuccessFactors and can be modified to change labels and/or add associations. It is not recommended to add custom fields to this object. Custom fields should only be added in custom MDF objects.
3. Ensure the Security field is set to ‘Yes’ and it is recommended to add to the Permission Category of ‘Manage Business Configuration:
4. Save any changes made to the object
5. Go to Admin Center > Manage Permission Roles
6. Select the identified permission role and add permissions to the object – this will allow the user(s) tied to that role to create Hire Templates in Manage Data:
7. Save any changes made to the permission role
Steps to define the Hire Templates
1. Go to Admin Center> Manage Data
2. Select Create New> Hire Template
3. Add the required information:
- Template ID: Add an ID for the template – Please Note: “Standard” is a system reserved ID that cannot be used. This Standard Hire template is also not editable.
- Effective Start Date: Select the date on which the template should be effective
- Status: Select Active or Inactive
- Name: Add a name for the template – Generally, this can be the same name as the template ID.
- ECHireType: Select the required type:
- Employee
- Onboardee
- Contingent Worker
4. Add the first step or page to the template for the Add New Employee wizard:
- The first step is to create the Identity Information.
- Select Details for the identity step to add the HRIS blocks.
- Add the blocks to be included, for example, Name Information, Biographical Information, Person Information, and Employment ID. If National ID (Optional) is configured, it must also be included on the first page.
Please Note: Name Information and Employment ID must be used on the initial step, blocks such as Job Information cannot be used in the initial step
- Set the block type:
- For the block type of HRIS Element, select the corresponding Employee Central HRIS block
- For the block type of Configuration UI, select the corresponding MDF Block Type
- Add additional blocks as needed
Please Note: Each HRIS element or MDF object can only be used once in each template. For example, you can’t add Pay Component Non-Recurring twice.
- Select Done to save your changes.
Example of Steps when creating the Hire Templates
Examples of block within a Step
- Add the second step, for example, for Employment Information and Job Information.
Please Note: Remember that each step can contain a maximum of 10 blocks. The total number of blocks for the entire template is 30.
- Add other steps as needed for required data, up to 10 steps.
- Optionally, for data privacy, you can choose to hide MDF object information in the workflows. For the steps containing the MDF objects, select the step Details. In the popup, for the Show in Workflow field, select No.
5. Save your changes or save a draft of the template to return to later.
Important: For saved drafts of templates where you receive an error message that it is invalid, you can correct the template configuration to make the template valid again. This may happen when an object definition or config UI is removed from the configuration pages used.
Please Note: Do not forget to maintain a translation for your page names
Once the template is created, it will appear in the Manage Data list of Hire Templates. By default, the templates are displayed alphabetically by template name and can be modified and/or deleted from the list
Please Note: A template cannot be deleted if the hiring process or workflow associated to it are not complete.
Permission the Hire Templates
Once the template is created, the list of templates in Role Based Permissions is updated so that you can assign permissions for that specific template to a person or group, as shown below:
Once the templates are permissioned, the active templates will appear in Add New Employee, Add New Employee for Fixed Term, and Rehire Inactive Employee for users to utilize during these hire scenarios.
Additional Resources
- What’s New 2H 2020 – Configurable New Hire
- What’s New 1H 2022 – Configurable New Hire Templates Now Available for Contingent Workers
- Implementing and Managing the Employment Lifecycle (from Hiring to Termination) – Configurable New Hire
- Implementing and Managing the Employment Lifecycle (from Hiring to Termination) – Configuring a Hire Template
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Can the Configurable Hire Templates be used when adding a new employee via Imports?
Answer: No, the templates are triggered for hiring scenarios that make use of UI tools, such as Add New Employee and Rehire Inactive Employee. Other UI hiring tools, such as Manage Pending Hires, and Add Contingent Worker will be added in a future release.
Question: Will the templates allow more than 10 blocks per step or 30 blocks per template? Is there a way to bypass this limitation?
Answer: No, this is a hardcoded value and the system restricts the template from being saved if it has more than 10 blocks per step (30 blocks total per template), and more than 10 steps within the template – an error message will appear.
Question: Can I change the template during the hiring process?
Answer: No, if the template is currently in use, or the workflow is still active, then the template cannot be modified.
Question: For MDF objects, is it a must to have a configuration UI defined?
Answer: Yes, you will need to have a Configuration UI maintained for that object in order to select it during template creation.
Question: How do we request access to this feature after the 2H 2020 Release is available?
Answer: This feature is a universal enhancement and will be available to all customers in the 2H 2020 Release, the Hire Template object will automatically be available after the release, however will need to be permissioned first before the Hire Templates can be created within Admin Center > Manage Data. Please review the configuration steps available in this blog post or in the Managing Employments in Employee Central handbook.
I hope this information has answered any questions or concerns you may have had about the Configurable New Hire Feature, however please do let me know if you have any questions and I will be happy to address them in the comments.
Hi Andrew ,
Thank you for sharing insightful information on this new feature .
I have got few queries from my client regarding usage of this feature for user license calculation
Does SAP consider these hire templates for differentiating user license calculations of contract workers ,seasonal workers, employees e.t.c ?
Regards,
Balakrishna J
Thanks Balakrishna,
There is no impact to the way license calculation works when it comes to new hires.
Finally! It’s there.
Thanks for sharing,
Fabrizio
Hello Andrew,
Thanks for sharing this detailed info!
The rules for hire will work the same for each template?
Hi Alexandra,
Absolutely, if a rule is configured to trigger during a hire/rehire scenario, and the associated block is configured in the hire template (or templates), then the rule will work the same.
Best regards,
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I encountered that the rule only triggers on the standard template but not on "custom templates"...
Is that expected behaviour? I thought, that rules trigger on every template....
Kind regards
Stefan
Hi Stefan,
The rules should trigger in the custom template the same way they do for the standard template. For example, if you've included the Email Information block in your custom template (and this also will be in the standard template), then any rule configured should trigger in both templates.
If you are experiencing different behavior, please raise a support ticket and we will review the configuration to verify the behavior and investigate further.
Really useful, thanks Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Is this feature available for both versions 1.0 and 2.0? And it would be possible to use via SFSF mobile browser ?
Thanks,
Talles
Thanks Talles,
Can you expand on your question about versions 1.0 and 2.0? Are you asking about Onboarding 1.0 vs 2.0? If so, this feature is not yet supported for Manage Pending Hires - this will be added in a future release. If not, please provide further details so I can assist.
Looking for some clarification. We primarily use Onboarding, which moves places the candidates into Manage Pending Hires, then does it mean that these type of hire actions won't allow us to select a specific hire template? We also have a path where certain types of hires go straight from Recruiting to Manage Pending Hires>Recruiting. Would those also bypass the ability to select a hire template?
Hi Kristina,
Unfortunately, the answer to both questions is yes. The new hire templates in this release (2H 2020) will not work with Manage Pending Hires, there will be no option to select a hire template in the Manage Pending Hires tool for Onboarding or Recruiting candidates - however, it is planned in a future release to have the hire templates work with all hire scenarios, including Manage Pending Hires.
In this release, we support the hire templates for Add New Employee, Add New Employee for Fixed Term, and Rehire Inactive Employee.
Ciao Andrew!
huge thanks for this guide..
do you think it would be possible to create rules that are triggered only for specific template?
Hi Camin,
You can create rules to trigger based on data in the hire wizard, for example you can have rules trigger for the National ID Element based on specific conditions – if that HRIS Element is not included in one of your hire templates, then the rule will not trigger under that scenario, but could trigger on another template that includes the National ID Element. The same behavior can exist for MDF Object rules.
However, there is no option in Manage Data > Hire Templates to specify trigger rules for each template that has been created.
Hope this helps!
Hi Andrew,
thanks for the guide!
Regarding rules, do I understand correctly that it would not be possible to hide fields per New Hire Wizard template using business rules?
Hiding Fields in the New Hire Wizard Using Business Rules as described here will affect all available templates, right?
Thanks a lot for the clarification!
Hi Michael,
Yes, the documentation you linked is accurate for the Configurable New Hire templates as well, in regards to rules to hide fields. The behavior should be the same as Add New Employee using the standard template.
Hi,
Thank you very much for your inputs. Can you please let us know how can we add this template in the Manage Pending Hires section. I understand it would be available in the next release. Any additional information on this would be helpful.
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Subramaniyam
Hi Subramaniyam,
Yes, we are expected to support the hire templates within Manage Pending Hires during the 1H 2021 Release. We will update this blog with those details or include the information in a new blog closer to the next release.
Thanks a Lot for your quick and prompt reply, with appropriate information.
Hi
Another Quick question.
When we select the new configurable new hire Template, which we created. We have the option to select Start Date, Company, Event Reason, Hire Template. After we click continue, all these four fields becomes non-editable. Please advice how do we make this four section editable, like the standard Hire Template has.
Please advice,
Regards,
Subramaniyam
Hi Subramaniyam,
This is expected behavior at this time, you can cancel the hire and start over to adjust the Start Date, Company, Event Reason, and which Hire Template you wish to use.
Thanks a Lot for your quick and prompt reply, with appropriate information.
Hi Andrew Kuhn
When we use this "Recruit Template", it is allowing only HRIS/MDF level only. We want to create a template for our contractors with very minimal data during hire. Since this same portlet/HRIS elements are used for regular hire with quite a few mandatory fields as well. How do we achieve this? Please suggest.
Regards,
Saravanan
Hi Saravanan,
Contingent Workers are not yet supported with Hire Templates, however this is something that Engineering is evaluating in a future release.
Hi Andrew - We are not using contingent workers. Just want to use this Hire Template feature and trying to onboard particular set of contractors. Is this achievable?
Regards,
Saravanan
Yes, you can customize the template for a specific group of employees you want to hire, as long as you include the required blocks as documented in the handbook: Managing Employments in Employee Central – Configurable New Hire
Hi Andrew,
Good Morning.
When we select the new configurable new hire Template, which we created, and go to the Compensation Section, upon selecting the Pay Component and giving the required Details like:
Pay Component, Amount, and Currency, the Annual Salary Field is not automatically getting displayed unlike when Selecting the Standard Hire Template.
Please Advice.
Regards,
Subramaniyam
Hi Subramaniyam,
Unfortunately I won't be able to confirm the behavior without checking the configuration. If this is still an issue and you need assistance from SAP Support, please raise a support ticket to have this reviewed further.
Dear Andrew,
Thank you for the clear explanation.
I have tried to include the payment information portlet but I am not able to find it. Can you please confirm if this is a limitation of the solution?
Thanks
Hi Joana,
Payment Information should be listed as an available block when configuring your hire template as long as the Configuration UI is setup properly in your instance. If you are having trouble with the configuration, please reach out to support for assistance. Please also refer to the handbook, Managing Employment in Employee Central - Configuring a Hire Template
Really useful article, but sadly I am struggling to find the Hire Template in any form in our test instance (either the object or the related permissions). Is this something that needs to be provisioned first by our SI partner or should I see this as a client user? Thanks so much!
Scott
Hi Scott,
There are no provisioning settings required to first enable this feature, the 'Hire Template' object should be available within Manage Data (as well as Configure Object Definitions). The only requirement from the Provisioning side is to have Employee Central enabled on the instance. If you need further assistance with checking the configuration, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist further.
Hi Scott,
Please, check RBP permissions, specifically:
After that, you should be able to display Hire Template in Manage data.
Anyway, if you have some doubts, you have the documentation here:
Andrew Kuhn , I suppose that background elements are not available, isn´t it? It is a pitty....
Thanks for the detail Gillermo. I think there must be some other prerequisite as those menus don't appear in the permissions to enable (and yes I have full access to manage permissions).
Does this functionality require something like Intelligent Services or some other pre-requisite?
Any and all guidance very welcome 🙂
Hi Scott,
Intelligent Services is not required for this feature. All the prerequisites are outlined in the handbook, however if you are still having trouble with the setup of this feature, please do raise a support ticket so the support team can review your configuration and provide guidance on fixing this issue.
Hi Gillermo,
Unfortunately, background elements are not included in the hire templates.
it would be great if background elements are supported. we can include standard Document background portlet for document collection.
Hi Andrew,
Thank you for the detailed blog.
Just a quick question - can we write business rules to auto select a new hire template based on the Company selected?
Thank you!
Hi Aparna,
Unfortunately no, there is no options to select a specific hire template within Business Rules at this time.
Hi Andrew,
Does the feature (ECT 160495) allow data flow/integration from RCM to EC for the fields defined in custom MDF portlet on Hire screen?
Thanks!
Hi Diksha,
The feature (ECT-160495) supports the use of Hire Templates within Manage Pending Hires, however it does not change the behavior of the type of data that can be mapped between RCM and EC. I do not believe its currently possible to map data from RCM to fields within a custom MDF block (only pre-delivered MDF blocks will work, like Position). Sorry for any confusion.
In the transformation model in RCM, do we use the syntax as CustomObjectID.FieldID in order to map?
Hi Andrew,
Thank you for this helpful blog.
I was trying to figure out if hire templates supports Add contingent worker. When I checked "hirePersonType" of Hire Template object, Contingent Worker is also listed. Does this mean contingent worker is also supported in recent release.
Thanks,
Ram
Hi Ram,
Contingent Worker is not yet supported in the current release, we'll support this feature in a future release.
Hi Ram,
Contingent Worker is now supported in the 1H 2022 release - More details can be review here: What’s New Viewer Link
Hi Andrew,
This is very helpful article.
Thank you for sharing the details.
BR,
Ghanshyam
Thanks Andrew, your blog get me set up quite quickly.
When creating a new template, it is possible to choose employee or also contingent worker as the ECHireType, but as you mention, only employee is supported at the time of writing your blog.
Would CWK be supported in the future?
Hi Eugene,
Yes, CWK support is planned for a future release. We'll have more details around this at a later date and once supported, I'll update the blog with the details.
Hello,
very nice article, thank you!
I have a question though to payment information. Payment information is added to the used hire template, although when going to manage pending hires and selecting Drafts, editing a pending hire this portlet does not appear anymore on the template. We also get a validation error but cannot check if the data was entered correctly as the portlet is not shown anymore. Is there a limitation to this?
Thank you,
Emese
Hi Emese,
When using a Hire Template, and then saving to draft, that specific template used for that candidate cannot be changed or adjusted (unless you start over). The blocks included in that template should still be accessible when you return to that draft to hire the candidate. So the Payment Information block should still appear when processing that candidate.
Is it possible that specific template used was adjusted or modified in any way after the candidate was saved to draft? I'd suggest to open a support case so we can review the configuration to see exactly what is happening in this scenario.
Dear Andrew
we have build b2105 and I tried to go into role to enable this feature but I don't see it in permisison neither in manage data or n configure object definition.
We actually have EC active but it seems there is something missing but you wrote in provisioning there are no steps.
What we can do?
KR
Alex
Hi Alex,
If the object doesn't exist in Configure Object Definitions, then please raise a case with the support team so the configuration can be reviewed. If the 'Hire Template' object does exist, then you can follow the directions above.
Hi Andrew,
I do have a question regarding internal Hires, I understand Manage Pending Hire was added in 1H 2021 for onboarding and recruiting, does this include internal hire template or is this only available for external hires?
Kind regards,
Thanks!
Currently trying to replicate the steps in this blog and unfortunately the template is not appearing for internal hires, only new hires.
Andrew Kuhn is this expected behavior? is there any way to hide fields or have fields as read only in the internal hire in Manage Pending Hires?
Thank you!
Hi Andrew
I have created a custom template that includes two MDF sections, but when I am using it it does not activate the rules set for the object,
Should it work like this or is there a way to add such rules for recruitment?
Hi Lorena,
The MDF rules should trigger without issue when using a custom template. Please raise a support ticket for this, as we would need to review the configuration to confirm the behavior.
Hi Andrew
Thanks for the blog.
I was wondering why do I see the hire pop up screen if I only allow one template. Is there a way to not display it if you allow only one template for selection ?
Thanks,
Christopher
Hi Christopher
This was added in the 2H 2021 release to display the 'Basic Data' popup even if there is only a single hire template created (or permissioned). I added a note at the top of the blog with a link to the What's New Viewer. Please raise an enhancement request on our Ideas Place if you would like to see this feature changed.
Hi Andrew. Thanks for keeping your blog updated over the years.
One drawback (it's a small one) that I noticed is that the validation business rules are not triggering for custom MDFs added in the configurable hire templates. Below is a link to the KBA describing this known issue:
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/3166474
Hi Randy
This is something our Engineering team is reviewing and will potentially fix in a upcoming release. We'll add more details to the KBA once we have further information about a change.
Here I was and wanted to congratulate SAP to have implemented a nice new feature and then this.....
Error when saving:
Do I need to understand why that is the case? I have an MDF that I have to maintain for full time employees as well as for CWKs.
Why SAP, why?!
Hi Andrew,
Will this New Hire Template work with personal data collection and review new hire data step of Onboarding 2.0? Or will these templates only work in Manage Pending Hire page?
Regards,
Minh To
Hi Minh To,
These templates are only triggered for EC hire scenarios, Add New Employee, Add New Employee for Fixed Term, Rehire Inactive Employee, Manage Pending Hires, and Add Contingent Worker.
Hi Andrew,
We have the same question as Minh To above.
Will this New Hire Template work with personal data collection and review new hire data step of Onboarding 2.0? Or will these templates only work in Manage Pending Hire page?
We can see the the hirePersontype Onboardee is already available in our instance but the mdf object cannot be saved with this selection. When will this option become available?
Regards,
Hannah
Hi Hannah,
The templates are only triggered for EC hire scenarios, Add New Employee, Add New Employee for Fixed Term, Rehire Inactive Employee, Manage Pending Hires, and Add Contingent Worker. So this currently will not be triggered within Onboarding 2.0.
We do not currently have details when this option will be available, however it will be added to the roadmap sometime in the future.