SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central: 1H 2023 Release Highlights

[nageshpolu]

Hi there,

First half 2023 release is here!

The latest 1H 2023 release of SuccessFactors EC is here, and we have an exciting new set of enhancements to look forward to!

This latest release is once again customer-centric, with many of the enhancements being the result of customer suggestions and ideas. Thumbs up to the SAP team for listening to their customers! You Spoke, SAP Listened!!

Let’s take a closer look at some of the key features and enhancements that come with the SAP SuccessFactors 1H 2023 Release upgrade, so let's dive in!

1. Configurable Decimal Places for Pay Component Groups: We can now configure the number of decimal places for pay component groups. This enhancement is from a Customer Community Idea. Once this is configured, the decimal places are updated throughout the UI including People Profile, MSS, History UI, Compa Ratio/Range Penetration and compensation widgets. The maximum decimal places dropdown list allows us to choose between 0 and 5 decimal places, which is parallel to what we can configure for pay components. A must have, Thank You!!

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  • Enablement: Customer Configured
  
  
  • Customer Community Idea
  
  
  
  

 

2. Prevent Deletion of Global Information on Editing UI: Yes! Similar to our address information in the edit mode. We now have an option to prevent users from deleting Global Information records on the Editing UI of People Profile blocks. This too is an enhancement from Customer Community idea. Good to have!! How about having this option enabled via RBP? Any thoughts?

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  • Enablement: Customer Configured
  
  
  • Customer Community Idea
  
  
  
  

 

3. Short rule trace: Finally! Thank you SAP!! When creating business rule execution logs, we can now create a short rule trace, YAY!! 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, SAP has introduced the short rule trace to address the issue of incomplete logs by reducing the number of logs significantly.

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  • Enablement: Automatically On
  
  
  
  

 

4. Org Chart on People Profile for the Contingent Worker: As a contingent worker, we can now see the Company Org Chart in People Profile. One more from customer community! Kudos to team SAP 👏

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  • Enablement: Customer Configured
  
  
  • Customer Community Idea
  
  
  
  

 

5. New Role-Based Permission for Contingent Worker Hire Templates: You can now permission Contingent Worker Hire templates separate from other hire templates when assigning role-based permissions. SAP made this change so we’re able to segregate permissions for regular hire templates, concurrent employment hire templates, and the contingent worker hire templates. Nice to have!!

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  • Enablement: Customer Configured
  
  
  
  

 

6. Increased Access Level in Localized Biographical Information: Now, administrators can grant view and edit accesses of the country/region-specific field entities to the permission roles. Previously, it was only possible to grant view and edit accesses of the Localized Biographical Information section to the permission roles. Localized Biographical Information is still not visible on New Hire Screen. Couldnt test this. Comment if you see any challenges.

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  • Enablement: Customer Configured
  
  
  
  

 

7. Enhanced Mass Export in the Data Replication Monitor: Useful! I need this!!  Administrative users are able to mass export status records displayed in the Data Replication Monitor to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. On the Data Replication Monitor, there's a header that now includes two buttons for exporting records - Export selected records, and based on the total number of records displayed, either the Export 10000 records button.

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  • Enablement: Customer Configured
  
  
  
  

 

8. Enhancements to Rules in Employee Central Core: SAP added recommendations for the selection of HRIS Elements and modified the rule scenarios in Employee Central Core. Other than recommendations, SAP changed the titles and descriptions of the rule scenarios in Employee Central Core to reflect supported entities and event types. Recommended!!

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  • Enablement: Customer Configured
  
  
  
  

 

9. Configurable Concurrent Employment: We 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. Much needed and once again coming from customer community!!

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  • Enablement: Customer Configured
  
  
  • Customer Community Idea
  
  
  
  

 

10. Set National IDs to Optional Using Business Configuration UI: When configuring the National ID card HRIS element in the Manage Business Configurationtool, if we enable both the isTemporary and temporary-id fields, we can now set the national-id field to optional. As you know, previously, if the national-id field was enabled, it is always set to mandatory automatically in the Manage Business Configuration Nice to have!!

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  • Enablement: Customer Configured
  
  
  
  

 

11. Centralized Services: Centralized services now provide support for existing integrations between Employee Central Compensation and Global Benefits as well as Employee Central Compensation and SAP SuccessFactors Compensation. There are some significant changes in the follow-up processes in Position Management. Additionally, there are several updates to the Centralized services entities, including universal support and new features such as support for termination details data imports and adding a concurrent employment. Overall, these changes aim to improve the functionality and efficiency of Centralized services.

 

11. Country/ Region Specifics: Last but not the least, the country specifics, As with every release, SAP has added several region-specific enhancements in this new release. Here the list:

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  • Thailand: A new personal document type, "THA - Non-Thai Identification Number" to the picklist ID permitdoctype has been added.
  
  
  • Finland: Enhancements to the national ID format and validation algorithm.
  
  
  • United Kingdom: Availability of new work permit document type, "GBR-Passport Number" to the picklist permitdoctype
  
  
  • South Africa: Enhancements to the validation rule for the South Africa national ID type
  
  
  • Panama: Format changes to the Panama national ID type <Cedula ID>under Identity Information.
  
  
  • Hungary: Enhancements to the Tax Settlement picklist for Hungary, SAP have added two values, "Dependent Sick Child" and "Dependent Sick Child in Turns" to the picklist id TAXSETTLEMENTCODE_HUN.
  
  
  • Cambodia: Changes to postal code format in Cambodia is updated to 6 digits and enhanced the validation message
  
  
  • Romania: Enhancements to the the tax-free amount picklist and the field label
  
  
  • Japan: Availability of a new field <Municipality Code>under Address Information for Japan.
  
  
  • Turkey: To comply with the standard ISO Country Code, SAP has renamed the official name from "Turkey" to "Türkiye" in the country/region-specific data model, Country/Region object, and picklist values
  
  
  
  

Apart from the above mentioned set of enhancements, lot of  SAP's primary focus is on improving UX/UI, and there have been several visual changes incorporated into the latest release. Many of these changes are related to the Horizon visual theme, which has been turned on automatically for all customers by default in this release. Introduced in 2H 2022, the Horizon visual theme is now available on the most frequently used pages in the HXM Suite, replacing the legacy SAP Fiori themes Quartz (for Fiori 3) and Belize (for Fiori 2). It is important to note that the Horizon visual theme is a purely visual change and has no impact on functionality or data. It is expected to be the standout feature of the 1H 2023 release.

At the time this blog was published, the 1H 2023 Release Upgrade for the SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite had been completed in all data centers. The SAP SuccessFactors team once again should be commended for their customer-centric approach to this upgrade. The changes I've highlighted here are just a small sample of what's included in the latest release. To discover the full range of enhancements across the application, I recommend checking out the "What's New Viewer" for a detailed release summary.

My other blog on LMS is live, and you can go thru the follow link:

• SuccessFactors LMS

Stay tuned for my upcoming blogs!!