Starting in 2020, SAP SuccessFactors has changed its release schedule from every quarter to biannually. With this change, the releases will be larger with an additional preview week. Here we will focus on what’s new and what has changed in Calibration.

There is one new feature for Calibration along with four enhancements. Let’s start with what’s new!

Customized Weighted Ratings now used in Calibration

Applicable for customers using Employee Central, there is a new universal feature that allows ratings from the Customized Weighted Rating section of performance management forms to be used in Calibration. Prior releases of Calibration could only use ratings from the Overall Performance, Overall Potential, Overall Objective and Overall Competency sections of a PM form as data sources. This is a EC specific feature because business rules must be created to trigger the weighted rating calculation.

This option is helpful if you wish to calibrate the overall form rating based on the ratings given by different roles in different steps instead of using the final overall rating from one role. The customized weighted rating is calculated based on the ratings and weights from the steps and roles that were defined in a business rule. Another rule defines the trigger step used to calculate the overall weighted rating.

The Customized Weighted Rating section of a PM template is displayed below.

When using ratings from the Customized Weighted Rating section, make sure the calibration step is after the step where the calculation of the weighted rating is triggered in the PM form. Just remember, when the manual rating is enabled in this template section, the calculated rating would not be available in the Bin view of a calibration session.

The Customized Weighted Rating section of a PM form is shown below.

In the example below, you can see the customized weighted rating appearing in a calibration session. It appears in the “Overall Form Rating” column because a manual rating overrides the calculated rating.

Continuing with this example, the rating is updated from “Meets Expectation” to “Extraordinary” in the calibration session as shown below.

After the calibration session has been finalized, the updated rating appears in the performance form as seen below.

In the Customized Weighted Rating section of the form, the overall rating reflects the updated rating of “Extraordinary” from the calibration session. The overall score pod at the top of the form reflects this updated rating as well.

Now let’s see what existing functionality has been improved in the latest release.

There are four universal enhancements for Calibration.

Subjects List Page Enhancement

In prior releases, when drilling down into one of the standard charts in Executive Review, printing the Subjects List page was not supported. In addition, any list display modifications were not saved. Now it is possible to print out the list of subjects and retain any adjustments made to the page display after refreshing the page. More details are shown below.

Now when a data point is drilled into a chart, the print option is now available as seen below.

Within this list, the Executive Reviewer may customize the display. Columns may be reordered by dragging and dropping, column widths may be adjusted, the sort mode may be set for columns and display options may be changed. The printed list will reflect the display changes. Notice there is no “save” button, the adjustments are saved automatically. The changes are preserved after the Subjects List page is refreshed as well.

When the Executive Reviewer drills down into another cell in the chart, the updated display has been retained. This enhancement prevents the user from having the update the display each time the Subjects List page is viewed.

Enhanced Comment Details

This next enhancement is applicable when comments are required when a rating is changed in a calibration session. When viewing comments made on a subject, the name of the calibration participant who entered the comment is listed along with the date the comment was made. An example is shown below.

When the rater is required to enter the user name associated with a rating change, your calibration template will have “Authorized By” enabled as shown below.

Now when viewing a comment with “authorized by” enabled, the comment detail will include the authorizer as well as the comment creator and date as seen in the example below.

Next we will see an update for matrix views within a calibration session.

Full Screen Mode Matrix View

During a calibration session, any matrix views will now have the toolbar available in full screen mode. Previously the toolbar was not visible in this mode. From the standard view, the user clicks on the “Open Full Screen” icon as seen below.

When switching to the full screen view, the toolbar is available and enables users to take the same actions in the full screen mode as they would in the normal mode.

New Reporting Columns

The final Calibration enhancement involves ad hoc and SAC reporting. There are new fields available to report on when generating a report for a finalized session. The session approval date along with the name of the last user to modify the session are now available. Most likely the last user to modify the session was the approver. The last modified user fields include “Modified By User Name”, “Last Modified by First Name”, and “Last Modified by Last Name”.

The new fields are available when reporting for all three calibration domains. A sample report is shown below.

Wrap up

We have now explored what’s new and what features have been enhanced in Calibration. While the updates are minimal, hopefully these features will make your calibration sessions more user friendly. Check out my other blogs on what’s new in Succession and Career Development.

Want to know what’s changed from the first Half (1H) 2020 SAP SuccessFactors release for Career Development? Let’s take a look!

There are two new universal features within Career Development and three universal enhancements in Mentoring. We will wrap up by seeing the new Career Explorer tool that is only available in an Early Adopter Care (EAC) program at this time.

We will begin with the new universal feature in Career Worksheet.

Creating a Deep Link to “My Current Roles” in Career Worksheet

It is now possible for an employee to use a deep link to go directly to the “My Current Roles” tab in Career Worksheet.

So what exactly is a deep link? For our purposes, it is a hyperlink that links to a specific page in the SAP SuccessFactors application. For example, a custom tile on the home page may contain a deep link. This acts as a shortcut to reduce the number of clicks to move to another page in SuccessFactors.

In prior releases, it would take several clicks for an employee to get to their current role on Career Worksheet. From the home page the path would be Development>Career Worksheet>My Current Roles tab.

With the latest release, an employee can open a deep link to go directly the Career Worksheet “My Current Roles” tab by using the new URL “sf/careerworksheet?currentrole=true“.

In order to take advantage of this new feature, a little set up is needed. For our example, we will add a link to the “Quick Links” tile on the Home page.

First let’s set up the URL so it will be ready when we need to reference it. To use the deep link, add it to the base URL of your SuccessFactors instance. To find your base URL, look at the URL for your login page. An example is shown below.

https://performancemanager4.successfactors.com/login#/companyEntry

Remove “login#/companyEntry” and add “/sf/careerworksheet?currentrole=true”  as seen in the example below.

https://performancemanager4.successfactors.com/sf/careerworksheet?currentrole=true

Now we can set up our deep link. Go to “Manage Home Page” and find the “Quick Links” tile as seen below.

Click on “Manage Links” in order to add the URL. Click the plus sign seen in the top right corner of the page. You will then be able to add a new entry. Provide a name for the link label, turn the link on by default, enter the newly created URL and save. An example is seen below.

Now go to your home page. The new deep link will now be available in the “Quick Links” tile as seen in the example below.

Clicking on this tile, the user will see all of the quick links available to them. In the example seen below, the user has added this link to their favorites.

Clinking the link will take the user to the “My Current Role” tab on Career Worksheet as seen below.

That wraps up what is new for Career Worksheet. Next we will move on to the Development Plan.

Development Plan

The final “what’s new” for Career Development Planning is the availability of the Buddhist calendar in Development Plans. This enhancement is specific to customers in Thailand.  The Buddhist calendar will now display in:

• Development Plan – add and edit learning activity
• Development Plan – add and edit goals
• Learning Activity within Development Plan – create and edit new learning activity
• Learning Activity Group within Development Plan – group definition,  edit assigned learning activities for groups

We have now seen the new features for Career Worksheet and Development Plan. Now let’s see the enhancements for Mentoring.

Mentoring

There are no new features in Mentoring but there are a few universal updates to existing functionality:

• Enhanced Matching Rules
• Reduced number of recommended mentors
• Email notifications for changes in mentor availability

We will look at each one.

Enhanced Matching Rules

When an admin creates a mentoring program, the program signup form is configured.  The admin creates a series of questions that mentors and mentees must answer when joining a mentoring program. Now matching rules are defined for each question.  The system determines the best match for a mentor and mentee based on the responses and the matching rules for each question.

When creating the signup form in prior releases, there were only four columns to complete as seen below.  

The fields to complete were: “Answer Type“, “Selection Values“, “Questions to Mentor” and “Questions to Mentee“.

The admin would create questions for the mentors and mentees.  Each question would need to have the answer type defined: free text or a picklist.  If the answer would come from a picklist, the picklist would be identified in the “Selection Values” column.

The latest version of Mentoring has a much more robust method for matching program participants. 

The new signup form is displayed below.

Like the previous releases, a matching rule is created for each question that appears on the signup sheet.  Now there are additional criteria defined in order to find the best match:

• Question Category
• Matching Based On
• Key Question
• Matching Type
• Weight

The “Answer Type” and “Selection Values” columns from previous releases have been combined into the “Question Category”.  An example of the selections for this field is shown below.

If the question may be answered by a picklist, the picklist is identified in this field otherwise the question category value would be “Free Text”.

In order for mentors to be matched to mentees, all of the questions cannot be free text.

Just a few things to keep in mind about picklists.

• The picklists that may be used for each question are: competency, department, division, location, gender, job family, job role, job code, job level, job title and skill.  You may also use custom picklists.   The picklists need to be defined in the data model and permissions must be granted.
• The same picklist (standard and custom) may be used in multiple questions. 
• Custom picklists may only be used when matching is based on preference, not with mentee or mentor preference or profiles.

New is the “Matching Based On” column.  For each question, matching may be based on:

• Preferences.  Mentors and mentees are matched based on their answer to the question.
• Mentee’s Preference. Using this match type, there is only a question for the mentee.  The mentor will not get the question on their signup form. Matching is based on the mentee’s answers and the mentor’s employee profile.
• Mentor’s Preference. Using this match type, the question is only for the mentor.  The mentee will not get the question on their signup form. Matching is based on the mentor’s answers and the mentee’s employee profile.
• Profiles.  This match type does not use a question. Matching is done based on the picklist value for the question on the mentor and mentee employee profiles.

Also new is “Key Question”.  When a question is identified as “key”, and the mentee and mentor don’t satisfy the matching criteria for the question, they won’t match. Key questions cannot be weighted.

Matching type.  Options are “Matched” or “Not Matched“.  Matching depends on the answers or the profile to determine if they are a match on each question. If the answer is defined as “Not Matched”, the answer to the question by the mentor and mentee cannot be the same in order to match on the question.

Weight.  If used, the sum of the weights must equal 100. If this column is left blank, equal weight will be given to each question.  If you wish to omit a question from matching, you may leave its weight blank but have the weight for the remaining questions to add up to 100. Responses to key questions and free text questions cannot be weighted.

The table shown below identifies which fields are available for each “question category”/”matching based on” combinations.  The fields that the admin will be able to enter for each question on the signup form will differ based on the matching options.

Question Category	Matching Based On	Question to Mentor	Question to Mentee	Key question	Matching Type	Weight
Free text	N/A	X	X	N/A	N/A	N/A
Picklist	Preferences	X	X	X	X	N/A
Picklist	Preferences	X	X		X	X
Picklist	Profiles	N/A	N/A	X	X	N/A
Picklist	Profiles	N/A	N/A		X	X
Picklist	Mentee’s Preference	N/A	X	X	X	N/A
Picklist	Mentee’s Preference	N/A	X		X	X
Picklist	Mentor’s Preference	X	N/A	X	X	N/A
Picklist	Mentor’s Preference	X	N/A		X	X

For example, if you are using employee profile as the matching type, there will be no questions for the mentee or mentor because matching is based on the picklist value on the mentor and mentee employee profiles. For all cases where a question is identified as “key”, the weight field will not be active.

Matching Rules

The matching between mentors and mentees is based on the rules set up for the signup form questions. Matching rules determine the recommended matches.  The system compares data from the mentee to the mentor.

The matching program looks at the key questions first. If the matching rule is not satisfied for any of the questions, the mentor/mentee are not considered a match. If there is a match based on the rule of a key question, the system keeps matching based on additional question matching rules. For non-key questions, preferences or employee profiles are compared to calculate the mentor’s match score.

Skill and competency questions calculate a match score based (0 to 100) on the number of picklist values matched for a question. The number of mentor’s competencies/skills that match with the mentee is divided by the total number of competencies/skills that the mentee selected in their signup form. This number is then multiplied by 100 to arrive at the match score for this question. So the more competencies/skills that match, the higher the matching score. The match score for any other standard or custom picklist will be 0 or 100. If a question does not have at least one picklist value in common between mentor and mentor, the match score is zero.

After the system calculates the mentor’s match score for each question, the scores are summed. Weights used on a question are also used in the calculation of the final match score. Based on the results, the top ten matches become the recommended mentors for a mentee.

Matching Program for Supervised Mentoring Programs

Supervised mentoring programs use a backend matching program to calculate match scores. This program uses a star system with four matching levels.

1. Preferred (four stars) match based on preferred mentor selected during sign up
2. Excellent match (three stars) based on 75% or higher match score
3. Good match (two stars) based on 50 – 74.99% match score
4. Average match (one star) based on 49.99% or lower match score

Recommended Mentors Cap

Another enhancement involves reducing the number of recommended mentors. In prior releases, when a mentee completed the questions on their signup form and then saw the recommended mentors, up to 100 recommended matches would display.   Now the mentee will only see ten recommended mentors. This limits the mentee’s time scrolling though all matched mentors to make a selection and instead can focus on the ten with the best fit.

We will now look at the final enhancement for Mentoring.

Email Notifications for Unavailable Mentors

The final enhancement involves email notifications for mentor availability status changes.

When the availability status of a mentor changes, their mentees and their pending mentees will receive an email notification.   This is very helpful information for mentees to be made aware of so they may select another mentor. In prior releases, only the mentor received notification when their availability status changed.

Going forward, the mentor will only receive a notification if the admin changed their availability. In other words, if the mentor changed his own availability status, he would not be notified. In either case, the mentee will receive the availiabilty change notification.

Let’s look at what happens when the admin goes into a mentoring program and makes a mentor unavailable as seen in the example below.

The mentor will not be available until July 24, 2020 so both the mentor and the mentee will receive an email notification.

The mentor notification is seen below. The email contains the date the mentor will be available again. It also explains that the mentor cannot be selected by a mentee when in this unavailable status.

When the mentor is no longer available, the mentee receives an email notification as well. Any mentee that has a pending mentor request with this person will also get the email. A sample email is shown below.

In the email, the mentor’s availability date is supplied. The mentee also is prompted to select a new mentor.

Now we will see what happens when mentor makes himself unavailable as seen below. The mentor changed his availability and entered the date when their availability date.

In this case, only the mentee will receive the availability notification.

Next, if the admin goes into the program and makes the mentor available again, both the mentee and mentor will be notified.

Here is a sample email notification received by the mentor.

The mentor is made aware that they are available again so the mentor may expect to see some mentoring requests coming his way again. The email also explains that they may go into the program to change the availability or status.

The mentee is notified of the mentor’s availability as well. Shown below is a sample notification.

If mentor makes himself available again, only the mentee receives notification.

We have now seen what’s new and enhanced for Career Development. Now we will take a brief look at the limited release for a new feature.

Career Explorer

A new component of Career Development is Career Explorer. It uses a machine learning algorithm to make recommendations for future job roles based on users “like me”. Career Explorer recommends career opportunities based on the career paths of people who are similar to the user in the organization. An employee can see the career path taken by others that used to have the same job role or who have similar skills, previous roles or education. This give the employee some additional future job roles to consider that may not be within their regular career path. This tool provides personalized guidance over the predefined career paths to determine the possible next role.

Career Explorer helps an employee find possible future roles outside of traditional career paths or even discover an unexpected fit for a role. These roles may be set as targets for career development. ​Based on the recommended roles, the user can also see a future career path in a lineage chart.

A sample view of Career Explorer is shown below.

Competencies, skills and other job profile details may be viewed for each role. The employee may see how well they meet the job role requirements. If the role is added to their Career Worksheet, the employee may identify competency deficiencies and then create development goals and learning activities to help fill those gaps.

Prerequisites

Career Explorer is currently available only to those in the Early Adapters Care program (EAC).  In order to apply, you must be have a minimum of 1000 employees all associated with job roles. Additional requirement include using:

• Employee Central
• Job Profile Builder using job code, job classifications and competencies
• Succession Management
• Career Development Planning, preferably with Career Worksheet enabled

Registration ends November 1, 2020.

Wrap Up

We have now seen what’s new and improved within the Career Development module. And we have seen what is coming with the new Career Explorer. Check out my blog on what’s new for SAP SuccessFactors Succession for 1H 2020 as well.

What’s New in Succession?

With the SAP SuccessFactors First Half 2020 release there are six updates in Succession. There are four new features and two enhancements. Let’s start with Talent Pools.

Talent Pools

There are two new features and some minor enhancements for Talent Pools.

The two new features are:

1. View Nomination History for Talent Pools
2. View Talent Pool Nominations in People Profile and Talent Cards without Talent Pool Object Level Permission

The Talent Pool enhancements involve filter fields and the Nomination Table.

Now let’s look closer at each starting with what’s new for Talent Pools.

View Nomination History for Talent Pools

This new universal feature permits those with Talent Pool permission to see nomination changes for nominees within a Talent Pool.

In prior releases, there was no nomination history available to view within a talent pool.  Now users with Talent Pool role-based permissions with assigned target populations may see the nomination history for employees in a talent pool.

Within a talent pool, there is new icon used to view nomination history for each nominee. The example shown below identifies the icon which displays on the top right side of the talent pool table.

Talent pool nominees that have nomination change history for this pool will display in the “Nominees” section that displays on the left side of the page.   Click on any nominee name from this column and their nomination change history for this talent pool will display.

An example is displayed below.

The name of the user that made the change will display along with the change date. The readiness, status, nomination source and notes for each change are displayed as well.

Approved and Removed nominees will display their nomination history.  You must click the checkbox for “Show Removed” in the nominees section to see any employees removed from the talent pool. Both Approved and Removed nominees will display as seen below. The default view is approved nominees.

To see the nominee’s talent pool history for another date range, click the “Date Range” calendar icon that is available on this screen. An example is shown below.

The default date range is one year from the current date. The date range may be modified and then the nomination history will display for the new date range

We will now look at the other new feature for Talent Pools.

View Talent Pool Nominations in People Profile and Talent Cards without Talent Pool Object Level Permission

It is now possible to enable users without Talent Pool object level permission to view Talent Pool nominations of employees in People Profile and Talent Card.

This new feature may be used to enable managers to see this information for their direct reports in  People Profile and Talent Card.

This is a provisioning opt-in.  The setting to enable is “View Talent Pool nominations in People Profile and Talent Card without having the Talent Pool object level permission“.

When enabled, users without Talent Pool object level permission may view Talent Pool nominations for employees within:

• Nomination Block in People Profile
• Nominations section of Talent Card

In addition to these two new features, there is also an enhancement for Talent Pools that we will look at next.

Talent Pool Enhancements

There are a few enhancements to talent pools. Let’s open a talent pool to see what’s changed.

Talent Pool Nomination Table View

First, there are more lines available in a talent pool nomination table view as seen below. This update also includes making the line width consistent with tables in other modules.

Notes Column Placement

There is an additional display field option as well. Users may modify the position of the Notes column. Let’s see how it’s done.

Within the talent pool, click on the “Define Column Properties” icon as noted below.

A pop up displays the available fields that may be included in the talent pool view. When the cursor is place on “Notes“, the upward and downward arrows may be used to change placement of this field. 

Clicking “OK” and the nominations in the Talent Pool will now reflect the changed column order as seen in the figure below.

The final enhancement to Talent Pools involves selected filters.

Talent Pool Filters

First, the selected filters can now be automatically cleared after all nominees are deleted from a Talent Pool. Looking at the example below, the filters were defined by clicking “Adapt Filters“.

Here is where the filters are defined. The fields to use as filters are selected and will appear on the filter bar within a talent pool.

In the example shown below, there is a filter to display nominees with a readiness of 1 to 2 years.

After the final nominee is deleted from the talent pool, the readiness filter is cleared as seen below.

We have now seen all of the updates for Talent Pools. Let’s see what else is new in Succession.

Exclude Nominees from Seeing Themselves within a Succession Plan

This is an admin opt-in setting that when enabled, prevents users nominated as successors to see themselves in a succession plan. This will also prevent them from nominating themselves. This means that users with permission to do Succession Planning for certain positions won’t see themselves within the succession plans of those positions.

Let’s see how to enable this feature. Go to “Nominations Set Up”. Scroll to the very bottom of the screen and enable “Exclude nominees from seeing themselves within a succession plan”. The “Nomination Set Up” page is shown below.

This exclusion prevents nominees from nominating themselves. Additionally, the nominees would not see themselves in Succession Org Chart, Position Tiles, Lineage Chart, Talent card, People Profile, Presentation and Nomination History from position card.  A Talent Search would not display them or a list that they are a part of.

There is one additional feature that we will now explore.

New OData API Function Imports for Succession

There are two new OData API Function Imports for Succession:

• approveSuccessors
• rejectSuccessors

These function imports may be used to approve or reject nominees that are in a pending status.

In prior releases, third-party applications could only read the Succession nominations in Pending Approval status.

The two new function imports allows third-party applications to write the approval steps of the nomination workflow.

The role-based permissions needed for both function imports is: Succession Planners>Succession Approval Permission.

Approve Nominees in Pending Status

Pending status for approvals are:

• Change Pending
• Pending
• Approval Pending

Parameters for approval and rejection are nomineeIds (mandatory) and comment (optional).

NomineeIds use semicolon between multiple ids.

example: https://<API-Server>odata/v2/approveSuccessors?nomineeIds=’101;102;103’&comment=’testapproval&#8217;

Rejecting Nominees in Pending Status

Pending status for rejecting successors are: 

• Change Pending
• Pending
• Deletion Pending

example: https:///odata/v2/rejectSuccessors?nomineeIds=’100;101;102’&comment=’test&#8217;

Now we have seen what’s new in Succession, let’s see the final enhancement.

Picklist Label Enhancements for Matrix Grid Report and Talent Pools Overview Page

In previous releases, picklists used for filter fields in the Matrix Grid Reports and Talent Pool Nominations overview page showed option IDs rather than labels.

Matrix grid reports support custom filters and these filters may be associated with a picklist. If this is the case, the picklist labels will be displayed in the customizable fields. Picklists that are used for filter fields of the Matrix Grid Reports and Talent Pools nominations overview page will now show labels instead of option IDs. A custom picklist with values for a talent pool filter is shown below.

These fields also remember the picklist labels that were chosen the last time.

Wrap Up

We have now seen the new features and functionality for the Succession module. Check out my blogs on Highlight of 1H 2020 Release Updates for Calibration and Career Development too.

This guide is to help system administrators with Provisioning access to understand and configure the Career Worksheet template.

Enabling the Career Worksheet In Provisioning

To get started, let’s handle the settings needed in Provisioning. You should already have enabled Goal Management Suite (Total Goal Management) and Development Plan V12. In order for the Career Worksheet to be used in the Career Development module, My Goals Tab and Career Worksheet V12 must be enabled in Company Settings.

To use these features, Version 12 UI framework (Revolution), Enable Generic Manager and Enable the Attachment Manager should be enabled as well.

Configuring the Career Worksheet

The Career Worksheet is based on a template found in Provisioning. The Career Worksheet template is found under the Managing Plan Template section and may be seen by clicking on the Import/Update/Export Career Worksheet Templates link.

If the Career Worksheet Template is not found, you may download the Career Worksheet XML from a sales demo and then import into your company.

Once you see the Career Worksheet template, export it to tailor the features to your organization’s needs. The Career Worksheet XML may be updated to change field labels, define the rating scale, choose which features to switch on and set permissions.

Career Worksheet Template Elements

Let’s explore the Career Worksheet XML to get an understanding of the elements and their purpose.

Look for the first field-definition tag. It will follow tags for text replacement, behaviors, and self-assessment.

The standard field-definition ids are:

• Competency name
• Last rated form
• Last rated date
• Last rating
• Development goals
• Readiness Meter

The field definitions within the Career Worksheet XML are highlighted below:

No custom fields are allowed in the Career Worksheet XML.

All of the field elements are required with the exception of the readiness meter. It is recommended to use the readiness meter, without it, the target roles will not display the percentage of how ready an employee is for a role.

Field definitions and the Career Worksheet

The fields defined in the Career Worksheet XML are related to the competencies for a role.

The first field definition id: competency_name. The name of the competency required for the targeted role.

Each competency that is required for the targeted role is displayed on the Career Worksheet.

Field definition id: last_rated_form. The name of the form where the competency rating was pulled from.

• 

The name of the form where the rating comes from is displayed beneath the competency gap graph.

Field definition id: last_rated_date.  The date on which the competency was last rated.

• 

Used in conjunction with last_rating_form, it displays the date that the form was completed.

Field definition id: gap_graph.  Image that shows the gap between the expected rating for a competency compared to the employee’s actual competency rating.

• 

Field definition id: last_rating. The user’s latest competency rating.

• 

The system uses the latest rating information in the system as the default. You can also specify a specific form or a couple of forms as the source of the existing ratings. We are concentrating of the use of the role readiness form as the source.

Be sure to reference the same rating scale that is used in the Role Readiness template. Otherwise the Career Worksheet will not have the readiness meter populate after an evaluation is completed.

The rating is pulled from the form that is identified in the Role Readiness Assessment Template as the source.

The competency rating is represented in the gap graph for each competency.

When hovering over the graph, the actual employee numeric competency rating will display along with the expected competency rating. The graph is based on the competency rating scale used in the form.

Field definition id: development_goals. This field is used to show the number of existing development goals for each competency along with a button to create a new development goal.  Use of this field requires that a development plan template with competencies is loaded.  The worksheet will use the default development plan.

• 

In order to use this, there must be an active development plan template with a competency field defined.

On the Career Worksheet, you may expand a competency to see any development goals the employee has already associated with the competency. If configured in the development plan, the employee may edit or delete the competency.

Field definition id: readiness_meter.   The percentage rate of readiness for the target roles based on calculation of actual competency rating and expected competency rating.

• 

Until a role readiness assessment form is completed,  the target roles’ meters will show that the role is not ready.

Once the initial role assessment is completed, all of the targeted roles will have the readiness meter show the percentage of how ready the employee is for the role based on the competencies needed for the role.

Career Worksheet Permissions

The ability to view the content of the Career Worksheet and the actions that a role may perform are set in the Career Worksheet template.

Now that the Career Worksheet fields have been reviewed, let’s move on the permissions for these fields.

Career Worksheet Field Permissions

The visibility of the fields on the Career Worksheet are influenced by the Read permissions in the template.

Write permissions for any fields on the template are ignored because the template does not support write permissions for the fields.

The competency_name permission allows the user to see the name of the role’s competencies. If read access is not granted to competency_name but is granted for the last_rated_date and last_rated_form fields, the competency name will show on worksheet as “undefined”.

Example of no read permission for competency_name field:

• 

View of worksheet without read permission for competency_name field.

Competencies required for a role are shown as undefined rather than by the name of the competencies.

The development_goals permission allows user to see the development goals associated with each competency.  The read and write permissions for development goals come from the development plan template.

The last_rating read permission is needed to view the gap graph for each competency.

The last_rated_date permission displays date of the most recent rating for each competency.

The last_rated_form permission displays form name for the most recent rating for each competency.

A role must have permission for both last_rated_date and last_rated_form in order to see the source and date of the rating.

Without read permission for both fields, date and form name do not display.

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The readiness_meter read permission allows the “Readiness” percentage to display for each of the targeted job roles.

Example of read permission for all fields for employee, manager hierarchy and HR roles.

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All roles should be able to read the readiness meter.  Without the read permission for role set to “*”, the readiness meter will not populate after the role assessment is completed.

Switches

There is a section within the XML to add switches that will control some of the features. The switches tag should be inserted prior to the text-replacement tag.

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Switch for Job Profile Builder Profile

When Job Profile Builder is used and job profiles are defined, turn on the sync switch in Career Worksheet template xml. 

This is done by setting the disable-jpb-profile-in-csw switch to “off”.

When the sync is on (value on switch is set to “off”), the future role details in the career worksheet come from Job Profile Builder Job Profile shows for future role when you hover mouse on i icon, as below:

Switch for Position Count per Role

For each targeted role, it is possible to see the number of openings using the “hide-position-count” switch set to “off”.

The default value is “off”, however, this position count only works for Legacy Position Nomination Method for Succession so the switch should be set to “on” to hide the count.

Switch for Development Goals

When competencies are included in the worksheet, a switch may be set to allow the competency descriptions to display.

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Switch for Competency Rating Calculation

To use the role readiness meter, you need to define how role readiness is calculated. There are two calculation types: averaging competency readiness or summing up the number of ready competencies.

Either calculation type requires the employee’s current competency ratings which can come from the latest rating from the performance review, average rating from 360 form or role readiness form. The default rating is the latest rating in the system

The default rating calculation switch is “off” which calculates role readiness using a score of either 1, for those competencies where a user met the expected rating, or 0, for those competencies where a user did not meet the expected rating.

For a proportional calculation for role readiness, add the switch for new_role_readiness_calculation with value “on”. 

When the switch is set to “on”, each competency rating is weighted as a percentage of the expected rating. The average of each of the competencies rating those percentages determines role readiness.

The system calculates readiness for each required competency for a role, and then calculates an average of the competency readiness.

If no switch is included, the default calculation is summing up the number of ready competencies.

Switch to launch form for current role

The Career Worksheet XML can be configured to allow employees to launch the Role Readiness Assessment form for their current role. This is accomplished with the following switch added to the Career Worksheet XML.

<switch for=”show-self-assessment-in-current-role-tab”  value=”on” />

Will also need to identify the form to use when creating a current-self-assessment tag.

Once the Career Worksheet XML is imported in Provisioning with these updates, the Current Roles tab will contain a link to evaluate readiness.

Click the link to open the form for the current role.

Identify source of ratings

The default rating is the latest rating in the system. It is possible to identify a specific form or forms as the existing ratings source. First find the form ids in Provisioning>Form Template Administration.

Next add <assessment-filters> tag to the Career Worksheet XML to identify the form to be used as the rating source.

Action Permissions in the Template

The action permissions for create, delete and private access need to be defined.

The ability to view the content of the Career Worksheet and the actions that a role may perform are set in the Career Worksheet template.

Create permission allows users to add Job Roles to the Job Roles I’m Considering section of the Career Worksheet.   This permission is also necessary for the Suggested Roles tab to be visible.

At the minimum, the employee role should be able to add targeted roles to the Career Worksheet. Based on your organization, you may decide that the manager or HR may add roles to the worksheet.

Delete permission allows a user to remove a targeted role from the job roles that they are considering.

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At the very least, the employee role should be able to delete targeted roles from their Career Worksheet.

Private-access permission allows users to see the content in the “Job Roles I’m Considering” section of the Career Worksheet.

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In addition, the Career Worksheet template will need to have the Share permission enabled. At the least, the employee role should be permissioned to allow sharing of a role in their plan.

Additional Settings

For each targeted role and current role, there is an count of the number of employees for each targeted role and current role.

When this feature is on, and the Employee Directory to be enabled in Provisioning, there will be a link to see the list of employees in this role.

If the directory is not enabled, you will see the number of employees but there will be no link to the list.

If you don’t wish to see the employee count for the number of employees in a targeted role, the Career Worksheet XML will need to be updated to change cws-people-role from “true” to “false”.

Additional Configuration in Career Worksheet XML for Role Readiness Form

A link to the role readiness form within the Career Worksheet enables an employee to launch the form and rate the needed competencies for a future role.  To enable linking to the correct form, the role readiness form id must be identified within the Career Worksheet XML. 

The Role Readiness Assessment form id may be found in Provisioning within the Form Template Administration section.

Go into Form Template Administration to see all of the form templates. Find the form id associated with the form that will be used to identify readiness for a role.

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Using the form id associated with the Role Readiness Assessment template, add the self-assessment tag which includes the role assessment form id to the Career Worksheet XML.

The tag which includes the form id is inserted before the first field definition tag. 

If the form is used for multiple languages, include an entry for each locale with the Role Readiness Assessment form ID. You may have multiple entries using the same form id ut only but only one self-assessment form may be specified.  

Without the  self-assessment tag in the Career Worksheet XML, the “Evaluate your Readiness” link will not appear in Career Worksheet.

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Career Worksheet access also allows a user to the “User Search” permission and to make the details of the Career Worksheet publicly available. The content will be restricted based on the Career Worksheet template permissions, so do not give all roles (*) read access to all Career Worksheet fields as shown below.

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To prevent users from seeing the details of any other user’s Career Worksheet, the permissions should be restricted in the Career Worksheet template. Limit the read permission for these fields to just the employee, manager and HR roles.

Once the updates have been made to the Career Worksheet XML, import the template in order for the updates to be reflected in the Career Worksheet.

Succession Data Model Updates

There is an indicator on the Career Worksheet which enables the employee to display any future role on their profile as a potential career move. On the Job Roles I’m Considering sub-tab, there would be a checkbox to make the future role public in their profile.   This may be selected for each of the roles under consideration. 

When the indicator is set for any of the target roles, the role will be visible on the employee’s profile is the background element is set up in the Succession Data Model, configured in People Profile and role based permissions granted.

Any or all of the future roles can be set to display on their profile.

Select each targeted role and set the indicator in order for the role to appear on the profile.

In order to enable this feature, the Succession Data Model must be exported from Provisioning in order to have the “preferredNextMove” background element added. The future job role on the Career Worksheet is used in the title field on the background element and is what will display in the profile.

The background element’s Title field is required.  Any additional fields that you wish to  include on the background element should not be required.   These additional fields are not displayed on the Career Worksheet.  When the targeted role is selected on the Career Worksheet, it will then appear on the employee’s profile in the Preferred Next Move block.   But any additional fields would be blank until the employee enters information.  However these fields would not be seen on the Career Worksheet. It is probably best then to use only the Title field on the background element for Career Worksheet purposes and use another background element for Career Goals fields.

You may also relabel the background element; Future Roles, Career Goals, or any other name that is meaningful to your organization.

Here is an example of the background element that contains additional fields that are not required.

Any additional fields would appear on the block in the profile where they could be updated but would not reflect in the Career Worksheet.

Once the data element is added and the data model re-imported, the profile within the instance needs to include this element. Go to Configure People Profile to include this block.

Add background element permission to any role that may edit or view this block on the profile.

Role Based Permissions for Employee

In addition to the field permission granted to users within the template, the user will also need access to the Career Worksheet and access to the content of the Career Worksheet in the Development module.

• Career Development Plan Access Permission allows access to Development.
• Career Worksheet Access Permission allows access to the Career Worksheet.
• Career Worksheet Suggested Roles Access Permission allows access to the Career Worksheet Suggested Roles tab.

Grant the required role-based permission so that the permitted roles can access Career Worksheet under Development.

The employee role will need access to Career Development. Under the Career Development Planning User Permission, enable Career Development Plan Access Permission, Career Worksheet Access Permission, and Career Worksheet Suggested Roles Access Permission.

The employee role will need access to Career Development. Under the Career Development Planning User Permission section, enable Career Development Plan Access Permission, Career Worksheet Access Permission, and Career Worksheet Suggested Roles Access Permission.

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In addition to the Career Development Plan permissions, the employee will need access to the Career Worksheet. When the employee opens the Career Worksheet tab, they are not authorized to view the career worksheet plan without it. Under Goals, select the Goal Plan Permissions for the Career Worksheet.

The target population of the “Goal Plan Permissions” is ignored when viewing the Career Worksheet.

Career Worksheet access also allows a user to the “User Search” permission but the content will be restricted based on the Career Worksheet template permissions. To prevent users from seeing the details of any other user’s Career Worksheet, the permissions should be restricted in the Career Worksheet template.

Performance Management Access permission is needed as well. Without it, “Evaluate your readiness” link will not appear on Career Worksheet when targeted roles exist.

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Now that the Career Worksheet is configured and permissioned, you are ready to create a Role Readiness Assessment form to be used within the worksheet. Check out the guide to set up the Role Readiness Assessment for more details.

The SuccessFactors Career Worksheet, part of the Development module, may be configured to use Career Paths. Career Paths provide an employee with a graphical route of what their current or other roles may lead to. Career Paths aid an employee in planning how to develop their skills and competencies to advance into roles that interest them. Career Paths show a progression of roles that an employee may grow into.

How to Access Career Path

On the Career Worksheet, an employee may view the career path of any targeted roles on the My Job Roles tab, Job Roles I’m Considering sub-tab.

An employee may also see the career path for their current role on the My Current Roles sub-tab on the My Job Roles tab of the Career Worksheet.

If an employee clicks the link, the career path for the role will display.

An employee may access Career Paths from the Suggested Roles tab as well.

Based on configuration, the administrator may restrict employee access to Career Paths based on criteria such as role, department, or division.

Configuration in Provisioning

Career Paths can be tailored to an organization’s specific needs. Set up includes which roles can edit and also view the Career Paths. Before an a system or HR administrator can configure the paths in the instance, there are some settings to be enabled in Provisioning.  

Provisioning Settings for Career Path

Career Path V2 needs to be enabled in Provisioning.

In addition to enabling the Development Plan V12 and the Career Worksheet V12v in Provisioning, enable Career Path V2. Be sure that Version 12 UI Framework, Enable Generic Objects and Enable the Attachment Manager are set as well.

Role Based Permissions for Managing Career Paths

Once the Provisioning set up is complete, there are some role based permissions within the instance that are required.

In order for the Career Path feature to work for the Career Worksheet, access to Manage Career Path is needed for any roles that can create or view the career path set up screen. Access to configure what shows up in the career path node is required as well.

Under Manage Career Development, grant access to Manage Career Path. This allows the admin role access to define and manage the Career Path. In addition, Configure Career Path Node enables access to define the Career Path node details. This allows the admin to configure the Career Path and to identify which elements to display or hide on role nodes in the career path.

If Manage Career Path is not seen in the Manage Career Development permission, the Career Worksheet has not been enabled in Provisioning and/or Attachment Manager or Generic Objects has not enabled.

There are additional permissions needed for the admin to view and edit the Career Path. Under User Permissions>Miscellaneous Permissions, the admin will need Visibility and Actions permissions for Career Path.

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View permission should be granted along with edit and import/export action permissions.

It is also possible to set field level overrides.  The Field Level Overrides option grants the right to specify which information to display or hide for a career path. This can be used to identify fields on the career path definition that can only be viewed by a role or to be hidden.

Restricting access to specific career paths is done based on code, business unit, department, division or a custom view.

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The permission for the selected field limits if the field is hidden (No Access) or visible but not editable (Read Only).

By default, roles with View and Edit access have access to all career paths in the system. However, administrators can restrict their access to specific career paths based on code, business unit, division, department, or a custom view.

To restrict access, scroll down to the Grant this role to… section and click Edit Granting.

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Go to Specify the target population for the other objects and scroll down to find Career Path.

To limit the access to specific career paths, the role may have a target population specified. You may restrict the target population for Career Path by specifying the restrictions in the drop down menu.

After Career Path administration access has been granted, the admin would see an additional tab within the Development module. It is here where the Career Paths are configured for the instance.

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To recap, to create and manage career paths, the Career Path v2 feature must be enabled in Provisioning and the admin role should be granted Edit access for Career Paths.

Employee Permissions for Career Path Access

Now that the admin role has access to configure Career Paths, the employee role permissions should be set up. Under the User Permissions, the Career Development Planning section, the employee role should already have Career Development Plan (CDP) Access Permission and Career Worksheet Access Permission. In addition, this role will need Career Worksheet Suggested Roles Access Permission.

To grant access to View Career Path for a future role or current role on the Career Worksheet, the employee role needs Miscellaneous Permission>Career Path>Visibility>View.

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Without this permission, the employee will not be able to view any career paths on the Career Worksheet.

Viewing, Editing and Creating Career Paths

Now that the permissions are set up for the admin and employee roles, here are just things to keep in mind about career paths.

If a role does not have a career path, there will not be a View Career Path link for a future role or the current role on the Career Worksheet.

Multiple career paths may be created and it is possible to associate them with a specific role and also limit employee’s access to the career paths based on pre-determined criteria.

Career Path Set Up

Once permisssioned, the admin would see an additional tab within Development called Career Path. It is here where the paths are managed.

There are two tabs within the Career Path page: Career Paths and Job Roles.

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The Career Paths and Job Roles tabs are not permissionable.  A role with permission to access the Career Path page has access to both tabs and cannot hide one or the other.

Career Paths Tab

The functions on the Career Paths tab include the following:

• Configure a career path node
• Create a career path
• Edit an existing career path
• Search for a career path
• Edit career path basic info
• Delete a career path

Next we will look at each of the career path functions in detail.

Configure Career Path Node

A career path node is a role within a career path. There are six components that may be displayed for career path node. The Node Preview image shows the components that may be included on a node. Deselect any elements to omit from the career path node.

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Career Path Node Icons

Let’s look at the icons within the node that can be displayed. The icons provide the admin with useful information about the role.

• Number of competencies for job role
• Number of skills need for the job role
• Number of people holding this role

In addition, the node may contain:

• Number of talent pools that the role appears in
• Role’s job family
• Role’s job code

Click anywhere within the node to see the job role details. This is actually a view of the job profile.

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Create a Career Path

Once the admin determines what details should be included for the nodes within a Career Path, the Career Path creation may begin.

On the Career Paths tab, click Create New Career Path to provide basic information about the path.

When creating a career path, a code and path name are required. Business unit, division and department can be selected to restrict access to the career path to the employees within those areas.

In other words, the admin may limit which career paths will be visible to an employee.

Save the path once it is defined.

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After saving the path’s basic information, an edit page will display with a box to select a role. It is here where you will begin to create the career path.

Creating first node

Now you may build the career path by selecting a role. The role will be the first node of the path. Click Select a role in order for the role selection screen to display.

There are two views available to aid in finding a job role. List view is the default.

Job roles may also be viewed by family hierarchy.

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Another way to find a role is via search.

Select a role to use as the starting point of the career path. Once selected, the role is the first node of the career path.

You will see that the node contains all of the icons and details that were configured on the Configure Career Path Node page.

Career Node Actions

Now we can build the career path. Click on the down arrow to see the options available.

The following actions may be performed:

• Add a lead-from role
• Add a lead-to role
• Add a peer role
• Replace node with a new role
• Cascade delete roles
• Delete Role

Add Lead-from Role

This action adds a proceeding role to the current role. Creates a “Select a role” box and role list pop up.

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Upon selection of a role, it will place the node before the current role.

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Add Lead-to Role

This action adds a new node after the current role.

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This would create the next node in the path.

Add Peer Role

This action adds a lateral role above the current role.

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There is a maximum of 2 lateral roles for a node.

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Replace Node

This action moves the selected node and allows selection of a replacement node.

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Upon selection of new role, replaces the node.

Cascade Delete Roles

This action removes the current role and any roles that follow in the path.

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After selecting this action, confirm the deletion.

All subsequent node are deleted including peer roles.

Delete Role

This action removes the selected role and connects lead-from role to the lead-to role.

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After selecting “Delete Role”, confirm deletion.

After deletion, node is removed.

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After saving, the path is updated.

Collapsing Node Details

When viewing the career path in edit mode, it is possible to collapse the path to omit the details.

Click on the Collapse icon to change the view.

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The collapsed view of the career path hides the career path node details and only displays the role names.

Edit Career Path

From the Career Paths tab it is possible to select any existing career path and make it editable.

Upon selecting a path, the path is ready for updates. From here any node can be added, moved, deleted or updated.

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The basic information about the path may be edited as well by clicking on Basic Edit Information found on the upper right corner of the page. After creating a career path you may decide to restrict access to it.

Search for a Career Path

On the Career Paths tab, there is also a search optionI. f your organization has a large number of career paths, you can avoid scrolling through pages by doing a search by path name.

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All paths that meet search criteria will display.

Edit career path basic info

Within any career path, it is possible to update the path’s basic information.To update the Career Path’s name or details, click Edit Basic Information.

The path details may be modified to change its name or any of the filters.

Delete a Career Path

From the Career Paths tab, any path may be deleted via the Action column.

Prior to the deletion of the path, a confirmation screen will display.

Job Roles Tab

Now that we have reviewed the Career Paths tab, let’s look at the Job Roles tab.

The Job Roles tab lists each role, its associated family and the number of career paths the role is part of.

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Select a role on the Job Roles tab and the career path opens. If the role is contained in multiple career paths, you may select which path to view when the selected Job Role page opens.

This view is used to see all the roles within a Career Path. Clicking on a node will display the role details.

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No edits can be made to the career path on this page. In order to edit the career path, click Edit Career Path.

Now the action arrows are available on each node so updates may be made. The option to update basic node information is enabled as well.

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Job Roles Search

Job role search may be done by name.

A job role search option is available. Enter a job role name to see all paths the roles is associated with.

Enter a role name. If the job role is contained in more than one career path, a dropdown menu appears that enables yoy to choose the career path to display.

Import and Export Career Path

Career Paths may be imported and existing Career Paths may be exported using the Import and Export Data function. The limitation is that only the basic career path details are contained on the file.

Download the Career Path template.

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Open the file to see its contents. The CSV file contains two rows of fields that make up the career path names.

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In order to create a new career path via a file, you would need to enter the same fields that you would using Career Paths tab.

The file would mimic the fields populated when you name the career path. Below is an example of the exported career paths file.

The values in Column C match the Career Path names found on the Career Paths tab.

When updating a career path or adding a new career path, the Import and Export Data screen is used for the import as well.

This does not build the Career Path, it simply sets up the path in order to build the nodes. You can download the template for the Career Path details but the values include system generated GUIDs. So it would be difficult to do an import with the nodes.

Suggested Roles

The Career Worksheet also contains a Suggested Roles tab.

This is visible as long as the employee role has the Suggested Role Access.

Suggested roles can be based on Career Paths created by the system admin or through an algorithm based on a set of criteria.   This is done via Configure Suggested Roles. The weightings that are set will determine how suggested roles appear on the career worksheet’s Suggested Roles page.

The list of suggested roles is determined based on the factors selected and their weighting.

The system calculates a score (0-1) for the role based on proximity in Career Path, Competency, Job Family, Open Positions and Popularity within team.

• Proximity in Career Path: the further the role is on the ca­reer path from the employee’s current role, the lower its assigned score.
• Competency: the system uses the Career Worksheet readiness cal­culation to compute a competency match score which compares the em­ployee’s competency rating with the ex­pected rating for the role.
• Job Family: the score for Job Family is determined according to whether a role belongs to the same job family of the employee’s current role.
• Open positions within role: only used for Legacy positions in the Succession module.
• Popularity within Team: the score is based on how popular a role is for employees sharing the same manager. 

The factors are multiplied with set weights to calculate a final score for each of the considered roles. The roles are then ranked from highest score to lowest and displayed on the Suggested Roles tab.

Filters on Suggested Roles

Enabling the competencies, job families or relevant industries filters allow the user to see only roles that met that the filtered criteria.  However, filtering for relevant industries is only available when Job Profile Builder is used.

This filter will cause the suggested roles to display only the roles that contain the selected competency.

Career Paths are now set up and an employee may use this feature to help identify roles they may aspire to. Check out the Career Worksheet and the Role Readiness Assessment blogs to learn more.