It’s that time of year again to talk about the “Must Know” new Employee Central features coming in the 1H 2023 release. I have consolidated a list of features that are important in this release for Employee Central Core and Time Off. Each of the features listed below will also include links to related information that will provide additional details regarding that specific feature, and I highly recommend you review the What’s New Viewer for details on all 1H 2023 enhancements available in this release.
A compiled list of guide changes for Employee Central in 1H 2023 is also available to review.
You can now create, manage, and monitor more types of scheduled jobs for Employee Central in the Scheduled Job Manager admin tool. The following are new job types on the Job Scheduler and Job Monitor tabs and the maximum times that they can run per day:
Please Note:
In case you exceed the daily limit for execution, we've included a validation message to notify you about the job failure. Additionally, each job has an execution limit that you can refer to.
Related Information:
We have added the Compensation Information Issues Alert and the Non-Recurring Pay Component Issues Alert to check for potential issues with associations, field criteria, picklist entries, and mandatory field changes.
Fewer data inconsistencies help solve potential issues before they can become bigger issues. The system checks for the following:
The job frequency for HR Data Issues - Compensation Information Issues and Non-Recurring Pay Component Issues alert types can't be changed. The default is "none", which means that administrators have to actively select Rerun to see the latest alerts.
Related Information:
If you have enabled Centralized services, position follow-up processes now automatically run in the background when you carry out any of the following actions:
The follow-up processes run in the background in this order:
When an error occurs during one of the processes, the system saves all the successfully processed data for that process. So if, for example, an error occurs during Hierarchy Adaptation, the direct reports without any errors still receive the new supervisor.
An email is sent to the user who initiated the action, and the system creates an admin alert of the new type Position Follow-Up Processes. This alert includes information that will help you identify and fix the errors, such as the name of the specific follow-up process that failed, and the name of the user for whom the initial action was saved (for example, the terminated employee). Under Actions on the Admin Alerts UI, you can retrigger the follow-up process after you've resolved the errors. The system then automatically deletes the admin alert. You can also delete the admin alert manually.
Related Information:
There are a few changes to the follow-up processes in Position Management. The behavior changes listed below apply if you've enabled Centralized services for the following actions:
You can now flexibly configure the concurrent hiring process to cater to different needs for your workforce in different locations. You can define and assign effective-dated templates to include standard and/or custom MDF blocks that can be added, removed, or re-ordered. To simplify the hiring process for concurrent employments, you can create concurrent employment templates with the required blocks, which are Employment Information, Secondary Employment Information, and Job Information.
Note: You can only use configurable concurrent employment templates if Centralized Services for Manager Self-Service for Concurrent Employment is enabled.
Related Information:
When you import data for a recurring pay component record that does not have a corresponding Compensation Information record, the system now creates a new Compensation Information to match the recurring pay component record. The system displays a message about this in the Import Employee Data page.
Recurring Pay Component imports and Compensation Information imports are now universally supported by Centralized services. These services are applicable to data imports initiated from the Import Employee Data page or OData APIs. OnSave rules are executed for both records of the recurring pay component and Compensation Information. However, the import will be prevented if there is no Compensation Information record for the user or if the event reason was not set using business rules. The rule for setting the event reason can either be based on Compensation Information or it can be a cross-entity rule between the Recurring Pay Component and Compensation Information.
Related Information:
As a system administrator, you can now manage and monitor the Synchronize Business Configuration job using the Scheduled Job Manager in Admin Center.
The Synchronize Business Configuration job now has enhanced validations and is displayed whenever you upload Succession Data Model and Country/Region-Specific Succession Data Model.
Enhanced Validations:
This enhancement improves the user experience. You’re no longer dependent on access to Provisioning and reimporting of the data model since you have the option to trigger Synchronize Business Configuration job and choose the type of data model. Additionally, we've included validation messages to notify you about the synchronization error. This helps in identifying the issue, and how to take appropriate steps to resolve it.
Related Information:
When creating business rule execution logs, you can now create a short rule trace. The short rule trace only shows which rules were executed, which parameters were passed, which actions were executed, the execution time, and the status for each rule execution.
The log file for a rule trace has a maximum threshold of 1 MB. If the log file exceeds this threshold, entries within the log file are deleted. So, if you’re either tracing many or even all rules, or the rules are complex, then you can run into the problem that the log isn’t complete. In that case, you even don’t see specific rules that were executed.
We've introduced the short rule trace to address the issue of incomplete logs by reducing the number of logs significantly.
Related Information:
This feature allows users to make effective-dated changes to the Time Profile object, such as adding or removing time types on a certain date, without having to create a new time profile and add an effective-dated entry in the employee's Job Information record.
Instead, you can make the change in the Time Profile object for all users assigned to that time profile. Effective dating ensures that there is no time gap between records and enables you to track historical data accurately.
Please Note: To enable this feature, you have to execute the relevant upgrade center task, called Upgrade Time Profile Object to Effective-Dated.
Related Information:
Holiday Work Pattern allows you to group employees based on their working pattern on public holidays.
A holiday doesn’t necessarily constitute a day off for employees. There are employees who work regular hours even when it’s a holiday because their job requires them to be available on such days. For example, this scenario holds good for nurses/doctors in a hospital, police officers, or production workers in a 24x7 work environment. Companies usually have both kinds of employees. Ones who need to work based on their work schedule even on a holiday, and those who don’t have to work on holidays. The employees that fall in the former category could also avail a day off on a public holiday, as if it was a regular working day.
Holiday Work Pattern is assigned to the job information record of an employee. When you define the Holiday Planned Working Time Determination Object, you must always associate the Holiday Work Pattern with a Holiday Category to determine the planned working time on a holiday. Holiday Category with a blank Holiday Work Pattern is used as the default, if no Holiday Work Pattern is assigned to an employee's job information record.
Holiday Work Pattern is used in Time Records Filter to configure premium pay for shift workers and regular salaried employees, when they work on public holidays. Holiday Work Pattern value is configurable. For more information, refer to the Related Information section.
Please Note: Holiday Work Pattern in time records filter is only available with SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking.
Related Information:
The Time Account Type Eligibility Status object is no longer required with the new way of calculating the eligibility status using HANA view.
As part of the 1H 2023 release, your attention is drawn to the following changes:
The following eligibility-relevant changes always trigger an accrual recalculation:
Related Information:
We have introduced universal support for some of the Centralized services entities. These entities are no longer governed by the configuration option.
Additionally, for all entities supported on Centralized Services, warning and error messages are now grouped together by parent entity and child entity in a pop-up to help users better understand and resolve issues. The grouped messages are displayed in the History UI, Employee Self-Service, and Manager Self-Service UIs as well as in workflows supported. The new message handling improves the user experience by grouping together messages that semantically belong together, giving more context to these UI messages. The following What’s New Viewer page provides additional details regarding the Enhanced Message Handling feature.
Related Information:
A compiled list of guide changes for Employee Central in 1H 2023 is also available to review.
Schedule Job Manager | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | Configuration Type |
| More Employee Central Jobs on Job Scheduler in Scheduled Job Manager | ECT-207756 | Universal |
You can now create, manage, and monitor more types of scheduled jobs for Employee Central in the Scheduled Job Manager admin tool. The following are new job types on the Job Scheduler and Job Monitor tabs and the maximum times that they can run per day:
| Job Type | Description | Execution Limit |
| Synchronize Business Configuration | To automatically push updates in Business Configuration to Succession Data Model. |
|
| Sync HRIS Data | To synchronize data changes since a certain date from Employee Central to Employee Profile. | The limit is set for two types of job occurrence separately:
|
| Sync HRIS Data for Specific Users | To synchronize all data about certain users from Employee Central to Employee Profile. | 3 times a day in the Admin Center |
| Business Configuration Audit Job | To fetch Business Configuration UI change audit job report. |
|
| Initialize migration of picklist fields Payscale area and types to MDF objects | To migrate fields from the respective picklists to the MDF objects. |
|
| Workflow Auto Escalation | To check for stalled workflows that meet a specified escalation criterion and trigger escalation. |
|
| Workflow Action Reminder | To automatically send batch reminders for all stalled workflows in the system. |
|
| HRIS PayComponentGroup Sums Sync | To make annualized sums of grouped recurring pay components available for Table Reports (ad-hoc reporting). |
|
| EC Alerts and Notifications | To regularly check which records are valid for alerts and create and send alert messages accordingly. |
|
Please Note:
- These jobs except for the Sync HRIS Data and Sync HRIS Data for Specific Users jobs can run in both the Admin Center and Provisioning, and the execution limits don't consider which tool is used to schedule the job.
- To see a list of supported job types, go to Scheduled Job Manager > Job Scheduler and open the Job Type menu.
- Job types that aren't available in Scheduled Job Manager can still be managed in Provisioning.
In case you exceed the daily limit for execution, we've included a validation message to notify you about the job failure. Additionally, each job has an execution limit that you can refer to.
Related Information:
Admin Alerts | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | Configuration Type |
| Enhancements to Alerts for HR Data Issues for Employee Central Compensation | ECT-203980 | Universal |
We have added the Compensation Information Issues Alert and the Non-Recurring Pay Component Issues Alert to check for potential issues with associations, field criteria, picklist entries, and mandatory field changes.
Fewer data inconsistencies help solve potential issues before they can become bigger issues. The system checks for the following:
- Mandatory fields aren’t empty
- Picklist fields must have a valid picklist value (meaning that the system checks that the picklist value is active and/or exists)
- Cascading picklist fields must have a valid combination of parent and child picklist values
- Foundation Object/Generic Object fields must have a valid value (meaning that the object is active and/or exists)
- Associated Foundation Object/Generic Object fields whose values are actually associated
The job frequency for HR Data Issues - Compensation Information Issues and Non-Recurring Pay Component Issues alert types can't be changed. The default is "none", which means that administrators have to actively select Rerun to see the latest alerts.
Related Information:
- Handbook: Implementing and Managing the Employment Lifecycle (from Hiring to Termination) – Working with Alert...
- What’s New Viewer Link
New Validations | ||||
| Feature Area | Feature Name | Description | Reference Number | Documentation Links |
| Mass Changes | Association Validation During Employee Data Import and OData API | Non-effective dated entities are validated for their field criteria associations when importing employee data using Employee Data Import and OData API | ECT-205906 | What’s New Viewer Link |
| Manage Business Configuration | Ensure Consistency while Uploading Data Models in Business Configuration | We’ve improved the validations to check the consistency of uploading and synchronization of the Succession Data Model and the Country/Region Specific Succession Data Model to prevent data issues and the locking of the Manage Business Configuration page. | ECT-212385 | What’s New Viewer Link |
| Manage Business Configuration | Validations for Already Deprecated Elements in Business Configuration | We’ve introduced validations to inform you about deprecated elements, actions, and fields in Business Configuration. | ECT-206710 | What’s New Viewer Link |
| Manage Business Configuration | Business Configuration Validations | Administrators can now validate and identify configuration issues in the Manage Business Configuration page and take corrective actions. You can correct the validation errors based on the Results in the Check Tool. | ECT-212409 | What’s New Viewer Link |
| Manage Business Configuration | Updates in Business Configuration | We've introduced new validations and general enhancements to improve the consistency of the Business Configuration UI. | ECT-215462 | What’s New Viewer Link |
| Time Off | Validation Error on Assigning Rules with Basic Rule Scenario in Time Off | We've converted the existing warning message into an error message that appears when new rules with the Basic rule scenario are assigned in Time Account Type and Time Type objects. | TIM-34234 | What’s New Viewer Link |
Position Management | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | Configuration Type |
| Event-Based (Asynchronous) Position Follow-Up Processes | ECT-212057 | Admin Opt-In |
If you have enabled Centralized services, position follow-up processes now automatically run in the background when you carry out any of the following actions:
- Terminating an employment on the Manager Self-Service (MSS) UI
- Publishing compensation promotion data
- Hiring an employee internally using Manage Pending Hires (for pending hires from Recruiting and Onboarding 1.0)
- Adding concurrent employment on the Manager Self-Service (MSS) UI
The follow-up processes run in the background in this order:
- Reclassification
- Take Over Direct Reports (only applicable for concurrent employment)
- Transfer
- Hierarchy Adaptation
- Matrix Relationship sync
- To Be Hired Adaptation
- Position Deactivation (only applicable for termination)
When an error occurs during one of the processes, the system saves all the successfully processed data for that process. So if, for example, an error occurs during Hierarchy Adaptation, the direct reports without any errors still receive the new supervisor.
An email is sent to the user who initiated the action, and the system creates an admin alert of the new type Position Follow-Up Processes. This alert includes information that will help you identify and fix the errors, such as the name of the specific follow-up process that failed, and the name of the user for whom the initial action was saved (for example, the terminated employee). Under Actions on the Admin Alerts UI, you can retrigger the follow-up process after you've resolved the errors. The system then automatically deletes the admin alert. You can also delete the admin alert manually.
Related Information:
Position Management | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | Configuration Type |
| Changes to Position Follow-Up Processes on Centralized Services | ECT-206961 | Admin Opt-In |
There are a few changes to the follow-up processes in Position Management. The behavior changes listed below apply if you've enabled Centralized services for the following actions:
- Publishing compensation promotion data
- Saving changes to an internal hire using Manage Pending Hires
- Saving changes to Job Information on the Manager Self-Service (MSS) UI
Concurrent Employment | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | Configuration Type |
| Configurable Concurrent Employment | ECT-202037 | Universal |
You can now flexibly configure the concurrent hiring process to cater to different needs for your workforce in different locations. You can define and assign effective-dated templates to include standard and/or custom MDF blocks that can be added, removed, or re-ordered. To simplify the hiring process for concurrent employments, you can create concurrent employment templates with the required blocks, which are Employment Information, Secondary Employment Information, and Job Information.
Note: You can only use configurable concurrent employment templates if Centralized Services for Manager Self-Service for Concurrent Employment is enabled.
Related Information:
- Blog: Configurable Concurrent Employment in Employee Central
- Handbook: Implementing and Managing the Employment Lifecycle – Configuring a Concurrent Employment Template
- Handbook: Implementing and Managing the Employment Lifecycle – Configurable Concurrent Employment
- What’s New Viewer Link
Data Import & Export | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | Configuration Type |
| Enhancements to Recurring Pay Component Imports | ECT-190481 | Universal |
When you import data for a recurring pay component record that does not have a corresponding Compensation Information record, the system now creates a new Compensation Information to match the recurring pay component record. The system displays a message about this in the Import Employee Data page.
Recurring Pay Component imports and Compensation Information imports are now universally supported by Centralized services. These services are applicable to data imports initiated from the Import Employee Data page or OData APIs. OnSave rules are executed for both records of the recurring pay component and Compensation Information. However, the import will be prevented if there is no Compensation Information record for the user or if the event reason was not set using business rules. The rule for setting the event reason can either be based on Compensation Information or it can be a cross-entity rule between the Recurring Pay Component and Compensation Information.
Related Information:
- Handbook: Managing Mass Changes in Employee Central – Recurring Pay Component Imports
- Handbook: Managing Mass Changes in Employee Central – Compensation Information Imports
- What’s New Viewer Link
Manage Business Configuration | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | Configuration Type |
| Synchronize Business Configuration Job Availability in Scheduled Job Manager | ECT-209082 | Universal |
As a system administrator, you can now manage and monitor the Synchronize Business Configuration job using the Scheduled Job Manager in Admin Center.
The Synchronize Business Configuration job now has enhanced validations and is displayed whenever you upload Succession Data Model and Country/Region-Specific Succession Data Model.
Enhanced Validations:
- The Synchronize Business Configuration job is in progress: This validation occurs after you upload the Succession Data Model. The Business Configuration page is locked because the Synchronize Business Configuration job is still running. After the job is successfully completed the Business Configuration page is automatically unlocked.
- The Synchronize Business Configuration job fails because of a configuration error or a technical issue: This validation occurs when the Synchronize Business Configuration job has failed. Select Details to navigate to the Schedule Job Manager page to know which part of the Succession Data Model is causing this issue.
- The Synchronize Business Configuration job is completed: This validation occurs when the Synchronize Business Configuration job is successfully completed. You no longer need to refresh the Business Configuration page to check if the job is complete. It automatically loads the Business Configuration page.
This enhancement improves the user experience. You’re no longer dependent on access to Provisioning and reimporting of the data model since you have the option to trigger Synchronize Business Configuration job and choose the type of data model. Additionally, we've included validation messages to notify you about the synchronization error. This helps in identifying the issue, and how to take appropriate steps to resolve it.
Related Information:
- Handbook: Implementing and Managing Business Configuration (BCUI) – Synchronize Business Configuration Job in ...
- What’s New Viewer Link
Business Rules | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | Configuration Type |
| Short Rule Trace | RUL-419 | Universal |
When creating business rule execution logs, you can now create a short rule trace. The short rule trace only shows which rules were executed, which parameters were passed, which actions were executed, the execution time, and the status for each rule execution.
The log file for a rule trace has a maximum threshold of 1 MB. If the log file exceeds this threshold, entries within the log file are deleted. So, if you’re either tracing many or even all rules, or the rules are complex, then you can run into the problem that the log isn’t complete. In that case, you even don’t see specific rules that were executed.
We've introduced the short rule trace to address the issue of incomplete logs by reducing the number of logs significantly.
Related Information:
- Handbook: Implementing Business Rules in SAP SuccessFactors – Creating Business Rule Execution Logs
- What’s New Viewer Link
Time Off | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | Configuration Type |
| Effective-Dated Time Profile – General Availability | TIM-29244 | Admin Opt-In |
This feature allows users to make effective-dated changes to the Time Profile object, such as adding or removing time types on a certain date, without having to create a new time profile and add an effective-dated entry in the employee's Job Information record.
Instead, you can make the change in the Time Profile object for all users assigned to that time profile. Effective dating ensures that there is no time gap between records and enables you to track historical data accurately.
Please Note: To enable this feature, you have to execute the relevant upgrade center task, called Upgrade Time Profile Object to Effective-Dated.
Related Information:
- Handbook: Implementing Time Management in SAP SuccessFactors – Effective-Dated Time Profile
- What’s New Viewer Link
Time Off | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | Configuration Type |
| Support of Regular Work on Holidays using Holiday Work Pattern | TIM-31767 | Universal |
Holiday Work Pattern allows you to group employees based on their working pattern on public holidays.
A holiday doesn’t necessarily constitute a day off for employees. There are employees who work regular hours even when it’s a holiday because their job requires them to be available on such days. For example, this scenario holds good for nurses/doctors in a hospital, police officers, or production workers in a 24x7 work environment. Companies usually have both kinds of employees. Ones who need to work based on their work schedule even on a holiday, and those who don’t have to work on holidays. The employees that fall in the former category could also avail a day off on a public holiday, as if it was a regular working day.
Holiday Work Pattern is assigned to the job information record of an employee. When you define the Holiday Planned Working Time Determination Object, you must always associate the Holiday Work Pattern with a Holiday Category to determine the planned working time on a holiday. Holiday Category with a blank Holiday Work Pattern is used as the default, if no Holiday Work Pattern is assigned to an employee's job information record.
Holiday Work Pattern is used in Time Records Filter to configure premium pay for shift workers and regular salaried employees, when they work on public holidays. Holiday Work Pattern value is configurable. For more information, refer to the Related Information section.
Please Note: Holiday Work Pattern in time records filter is only available with SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking.
Related Information:
- Handbook: Implementing Time Management in SAP SuccessFactors – Holiday Work Pattern
- What’s New Viewer Link
Time Off | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | Configuration Type |
| Deprecation of Time Account Type Eligibility Status Object | TIM-32779 | Universal |
The Time Account Type Eligibility Status object is no longer required with the new way of calculating the eligibility status using HANA view.
As part of the 1H 2023 release, your attention is drawn to the following changes:
- The Time Account Type Eligibility Status MDF object is removed and no longer available under Manage Data.
- The Data Replication Management (DRM) tool to update the eligibility status is deprecated.
- The Eligibility Status Change field, relevant for recalculation, is removed from the Time Account Type object.
The following eligibility-relevant changes always trigger an accrual recalculation:
- Time Profile change in Job Information
- Employee Status change in the Time Off Configuration object.
- Create, update, or delete leave of absence (LOA).
- Update to the Time Account Waiting Period.
- No inconsistent data created.
- No need to update the eligibility status manually using the Data Retention Management (DRM) tool.
- New checks in the check tool to identify issues easily.
Related Information:
Centralized Services – Universal Support | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | What’s New Viewer |
| Universal Support for Centralized Services Entities | ECT-210246 | Link |
We have introduced universal support for some of the Centralized services entities. These entities are no longer governed by the configuration option.
| Universal Entities | Description |
| Compensation Information History UI Save | Centralized services now universally support saving changes for Compensation Information on the History UI Save. |
| Compensation Information Import | Centralized services now universally support Compensation Information imports. |
| Non-Recurring Pay Component Information UI Save | Centralized services now universally support saving changes for Non-Recurring Pay Component Information on the Editing UI |
| Non-Recurring Pay Component Imports | Centralized services now universally support Non-Recurring Pay Component Imports. |
| Pay Component Recurring Imports | Centralized services now universally support Pay Component Recurring Imports. |
| Contact Information Edit UI Save | Centralized services now universally support saving changes for Contact Information on the Editing UI. |
| Emergency Contact UI Save | Centralized services now universally support saving changes for Emergency Contact on the Save UI |
| Emergency Contact Imports | Centralized services now universally support Emergency Contact Imports. |
| Employment Details Edit UI Save | Centralized services now universally support saving changes for Employment Details on the Editing UI. |
| Work Permit UI Save | Centralized services now universally support saving changes for Work Permit on the Save UI. |
| Global Assignment Edit UI Save | Centralized services now universally support saving changes for Global Assignment on the Editing UI. |
Additionally, for all entities supported on Centralized Services, warning and error messages are now grouped together by parent entity and child entity in a pop-up to help users better understand and resolve issues. The grouped messages are displayed in the History UI, Employee Self-Service, and Manager Self-Service UIs as well as in workflows supported. The new message handling improves the user experience by grouping together messages that semantically belong together, giving more context to these UI messages. The following What’s New Viewer page provides additional details regarding the Enhanced Message Handling feature.
Centralized Services – Admin Opt-Out | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | What’s New Viewer |
| Centralized Services Support Termination Details Imports | ECT-163307 | Link |
| Centralized Services Support Integration with Employee Central Compensation | ECT-194595 | Link |
| Centralized Services Support Manager Self-Service (MSS) Changes to Job Information and Job Relationships | ECT-192712 | Link |
| Centralized Services Support Manager Self-Service (MSS) Changes to Compensation Information | ECT-194534 | Link |
| Centralized Services Support for Internal Hire in the Manage Pending Hires Tool | ECT-194359 | Link |
| Centralized Services Support Saving Changes on Editing UI for Dependents and Importing Person Relationships | ECT-206169 | Link |
Centralized Services – Admin Opt-in | ||
| Feature Name | Reference Number | What’s New Viewer |
| Position Validation for Publishing Compensation Promotion Data and Hire Date Corrections | ECT-210816 | Link |
| Centralized Services Support Manager Self-Service Changes for Concurrent Employment | ECT-194645 | Link |
Related Information:
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