SuccessFactors offered a multitude of fun small functionalities that are less known about. These are not always covered during your implementation project, and it is quite normal: they are not covered by project scope, not all consultants known about them because they are not part of their module’s main features or the cost of the project resource implementing these do not justify return on investment. So, unless you specifically ask this question to your implementer/consultants: is this feasible? You will not know about it! Hence, I always wanted to start writing a serie of SuccessFactors Fun quick tip blogs and shared these little enhancements you can make for quite some time now but never found the time to do so until now. These entries are meant to SuccessFactors administrators, so you can have some post-project improvement ideas and to share with SuccessFactors consultants that have not had the chance to test these yet!

So here is the fun tip for this entry: it is possible to add HTML code to Message Definition and Alerts in SuccessFactors. Business rule can be used to throw info, warning, error, and alert message to the end user. Below you can see an example of a Message Definition using HTML and the result of the message:

Adding HTML code in message definition

Why is this important to know?

• Improving communication to end user messages is a great way to improve system usability and reduce end-user questions to your HR service centre. Making messages clearer using html text enhancement is a great way to do so.
• Business rules used to be solely meant for the Employee Central module. However now, you can now use them in Recruitment, Onboarding 2.0, Calibration, Reward and Recognition or any custom MDF object you have created.
• Knowing the 2 points above, you might want to improve your current configuration by adding/improving info, warning, error and alert messages to your end user and use HTML code in them.
  • Start with collecting and reviewing frequently asked questions by your end-user population and target where you can get some quick wins out of info, warning, error, and alert messages. While you are at it, make them fun and user-friendly by using HTLM code in your message 😊

Appendix:

If you aren’t a developer like me, here is the sample code used in my message example so you do not have to start anything from scratch:

<p>This is a <b>bold text</b></p><br>

<p>This is a <i>italic text</i></p><br>

<p>This is a <u>underlined text</u></p><br>

<p>This is a number list:
<ol>
<li>This is a numbered list 1</li>
<li>This is a numbered list 2</li>
</ol>
</p><br>

<p>This is a bullet list:
<li>This is a bullet 1</li>
<li>This is a bullet 2</li>
</p><br>

<p>This is a <a href=”http://www.google.com”>hyperlink</a></p><br>

<p>This is a <a href=”http://www.google.com” target=”_blank”>hyperlink</a> that opens in a new window</p><br>

<p style=”color:red”>This is a <span style=”color:blue”>color text</span></p><br>

<p style=”font-size:30px”> This is a larger text</p><br>

<p style=”font-family:’Courier New'”> This is a Courier New text</p>
<br>

<p>This is an image:</p><p><img alt=”” src=”https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5e/7a/d4/5e7ad4a466c544ca46dae0517984febb.jpg” style=”width: 200px; height: 300px;” /></p>
<br>

<p>This is a table:</p>
<table border: 1px solid black>
<tr>
<th><b>Column 1</b></th>
<th><b>Column 2</b></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Value 1</td>
<td>Value 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Value 3</td>
<td>Value 4</td>
</tr>
</table>