SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central and Time & Attendance H1 2020 Release

While organizations and individuals are struggling to cope and make the most of their time during this unpresented challenging period, many are focusing in developing new, more efficient ways of work or reengineering existing processes to gain more benefits over the negative impacts the COVID-19 era is leaving behind.

No matter how big or small are such changes, they can have a significant impact on the way people work and the level of quality is delivered; at the same time, they can not only increase productivity and efficiency, but they can also positively affect peoples’ psychological state.

The purpose of this blog is to review some of the new features from SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central and Time & Attendance H1 2020 Release, which can have such a positive impact on people productivity and efficiency, while at the same time adding significant value in their daily processes.

The below new features or enhancements can be setup and activated by HR or system administrators without too much hassle and without the need of their implementation partners to get involved. Each feature would require a very short time to be reviewed and activated, nevertheless, it can have a great impact on the overall system functionality and user interaction.

Customizable Key Details on Workflow Requests Page (Employee Central)

A very promising enhancement on the central page of user’s workflow requests page has been introduced. You can now define specific fields you would like to get an update for when a new workflow request is triggered and be able to view these updates straight from your central page of the workflow requests. So, you will not have to enter each workflow one by one to view all the relevant details and updates made.

To start using this feature, you need to include the fields you would like to display, as demonstrated below:

Prerequisites to activate this feature:

  • Have Access on “Manage Data” MDF Section
  • Create a new Record in “Advanced To-do Key Details” object
  • Include all fields you would like to include

Although this feature is still only supporting Workflows around Position object, this will most probably get enhanced in the next releases with more objects available.

Show Full Name in History Pages (Employee Central)

You can benefit from this next enhancement automatically as it is a Universal feature, so it will become available to your instance without having to do any adjustments or any activations. But it will give you great insight and save you from a lot of significant time you might have been spending, while trying to figure out who exactly was under that Person ID you used to see before.

Yes, you got that right – Person IDs that used to be displayed on the Activity Log on History of Effective Dated Entities, are now replaced by the full name of the person who initiated each record or made a change.

Specify Start/End Time for Auto Delegation (Employee Central)

Another Universal Feature that improves the overall user experience of a Delegator is now available to you out of the box. That hassle that we once had in order to manually activate a delegation process to another person and then manually go back to deactivate this process, is now automated and can be set on and off using the same screen. The user will no longer need to have this action on their To Do List as soon as they get back to work so that they do not forget turning off the delegation action.

Prerequisites to activate this feature:

  • Users A and B have been granted to Auto Delegation Permission
  • Workflow is defined with “Is Delegate Supported” = YES
  • User can set Auto Delegation by going to “Quick Links” → Auto Delegate

Another similar enhancement to the Auto Delegation feature is the capability that users will now have to either Accept or Reject any incoming Delegation Requests, before Workflow requests can start being forwarded to them. 

Enhancements to the Manager View of the Team Absence Calendar (Time and Attendance)

Finally!! I have personally been expecting this enhancement for so long! Team Absence Calendar has been substantially enhanced to provide a better user experience but at the same time provide that vital insight the Managers seemed to be lacking in many occasions.

A better visualization is now provided with the option to switch between a weekly or a monthly view of your team’s absences. Not only that, but you can now add more people in your view, based on the permission you have of course. So, managers can not only view their immediate direct reports from now on but can view direct reports from all levels and even have the option to search for more people outside their immediate reporting hierarchy.

Prerequisites to enjoy this feature:

  • Active Time Off
  • Employees are assigned with a Direct Manager
  • Absences are recorded
  • Manager role has a reporting hierarchy with multiple levels, and has been assigned:
    • Permissions on the target population level
    • The ‘User Search’ permission under ‘General User Permission’
    • If Time Off Objects are secured → manager has the relevant permissions on Employee Time and Time Type objects (at least View permission)

Self-Service for Time Account Pay-out (Time and Attendance)

Another enhancement introduced in this release is the capability that employees can now have to directly request for a pay-out for any unused leave accounts. Very simple upgrade this might seem but will manage to free significant time from system and HR administrators who until now they had to spend time adding the time account pay-outs using a manual process.

Instead, now the responsibility moves towards employees, and with a relevant approval process that is triggered upon a new time account pay-out request, system and HR Admins have the ease of mind.

Prerequisites to activate this feature:

  • Creation of Workflow
  • Creation of a Non-recurring Pay Component for Amount or Number
  • Created Business Rule to trigger the workflow
  • Setup Time off elements
  • User permissions for Time Account Pay-out are granted for self-service

Of course, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@aktglobal.com