SAP SuccessFactors 1H 2023 What’s New in Performance Management

SAP has announced the latest updates and changes for SuccessFactors for the first half of 2023.

Preview release is available on April 28 with the production release scheduled for June 2. You can view the full set of documentation in the What’s New Viewer here. For full details on the release cycle, check out the SAP SuccessFactors official product updates blog.

For tips on how to manage a release, check out our blog here.

Latest Goal Management

General Availability – Universal

Latest Goal Management Now Generally Available

The latest Goal Management is now generally available. It does require an upgrade which cannot be undone. It is best to familiarize yourself with the latest features available and limitations before doing the upgrade.

Once enabled, the latest version is automatically applied to the modules that are integrated with Goal Management. This includes as Performance Management, 360 Reviews,Continuous Performance Management, Career Development and the latest home page.

In prior releases, there were several limitations to the features available in the latest Goal Management. The 1H 2023 release addresses several these restrictions. We will review the most important updates.

Copy goals or create goals from a goal library.
Use milestones in goal plans
Use Advanced People Search to Assign or Cascade Goals using the latest Goal Management
View audit history for goals
Use legal scan
Dynamic Teams Integration with latest Goal Management
Latest Goal Management Updates for iOS and Android Mobile Apps

Create Goals from a Goal Library using the latest Goal Management

One of the best new features of the latest version of Goal Management is the ability to use goal libraries when creating goals. Previously, goals could only be created from scratch or copied from another goal plan.

With proper permissions, when clicking the Create Goal button, the user can now select the “Create from Library” option.

A users can select up to 10 personal goals from a predefined goal library at once.

Manage Milestones for Goals

It is now possible to use milestones (sub-goals) on goal plans. Milestones can be used for personal and team goals.

Use Advanced People Search to Assign or Cascade Goals using the latest Goal Management

When assigning a team goal or cascading a personal goal, the people search was limited to Name. Now an advanced people search is now available. The search now includes department, location, and division.

View Audit History for Goals

When read permission for goal fields is granted, users can now keep track of goal changes. Anytime a goal is created, copied, cascaded, assigned, modified, deleted, or replaced, an audit record is created.

Users will be able to see a list of any changes were made. This includes identify who made the changes, and when. A before/after comparison for modified or replaced goals will display previous values and the new values for changed fields.

Comments, activities, and learning activities changes are not captured in the Audit History.

Use Legal Scan in the Latest Goal Management

The Legal Scan feature is now available and allows users to check whether their inputs for text and textarea goal fields are in compliance with legal requirements. Comment field are not included.

Dynamic Teams Integration with latest Goal Management

A new major feature integrates Dynamic Teams with Goal Management. This allows team members to link the their dynamic team’s objectives to their performance goals. Dynamic Teams has to be configured and the Enable Linking to Performance Goals setting turned on.

Team members identified as contributors to one key result (ORK) can link a dynamic team’s objective to personal goals.

Contributors may

Use the “display more actions” menu to open the Link to Goals side panel, where you can see linked goals or add a new one.
Use the ‘ Link to goals’ icon to open the Link Goals dialog to select a goal plan and the goals you to link to the objective.

A Linked OKRs section in the goal details has an option to View Details about the linked OKRs in a dialog.

Additional requirements to use this feature include:

Being a member of a dynamic team that has defined its objectives and key results.
Being as a contributor to at least one of the key results for the objective you want to link.
Have permission to view the goal plan that includes the goal you want to link the objective to.

Latest Goal Management Updates for iOS and Android Mobile Apps

Many of the capabilities in the latest Goal Management had not been available for mobile users. The latest release address many of these limitations:

Create Goals from a Goal Library in iOS and Android Mobile Apps
Copy Goals from Goal Plans in iOS and Android Mobile Apps
Leave Comments on Goals in iOS and Android Mobile Apps
Manage Milestones for Goals in iOS and Android Mobile Apps

Performance Management

Updates to performance forms are minimal. We will look at a few of these.

User Experience Enhancements to Performance Management Forms

There have been enhancements to the user experience for PM forms which we will discuss.

Goal Section Updates

In the goal section some enhancements have been made:

Goal Details tab now appears first among all available tabs for a goal. Previously, the first tab was Achievements.
The Goal Name is now in bold font.

Page Anchoring

Previously, when the PM form page refreshed, users were anchored to the top of the page. Now when users perform an action on the form page, they’re now anchored to the location where the action was performed.

Toast Messages

Toast Messages provide feedback to users about an action they have taken.

For example, adding or deleting a goal, competency, or learning activity on the form page, a toast message will display confirming the action was performed.

Automatically Fix Document Transfer and Change Engine Issues Caused by RBP Refresh Failures

The Document Transfer and Change Engine issues caused by a RBP refresh failures can now be fixed automatically on a daily basis.

To enable the automatic fixing, select Automatically Fix Document Transfer and Change Engine Issues under Admin Center Performance Management Feature Settings.

Continuous Performance Management

General Availability – Universal

Hide Prior Feedback from the New Manager That Was Requested or Given By the Former Manager

A major update for Employee Central (EC-enabled) instances allows the admin to automatically hide feedback from former managers in Continuous Performance Management (CPM).

Previously, when an employee inherits a new manager, or a manager provides feedback to the employee and leaves the company, the employee had the option to manually hide or delete that feedback from their new manager.

The feature automates the process of hiding feedback given or requested by the prior manager when a manager transfer occurs. The admin will now have the option on the CPM configuration page to automatically hide prior feedback requested.

Visibility of Edit and Delete Actions for Continuous Performance Goal Cards Based on User Permissions

Continuous Performance Management goal actions are aligned with Goal Plan action permissions for Goal Management. Employees now have more control over their Performance Goals by creating, editing, or deleting directly in Continuous Performance Management (CPM). When integrated with Goal Management, changes to Performance Goals by the CPM user are reflected in the user’s Goal Plan.

The permissions for available actions on a goal in Continuous Performance Management experience respect Goal Plan configuration. In the previous version of CPM, users were shown both Edit and Delete options for goals. Now employees see actions for edit, delete or edit and delete for Goal cards based on their granted permissions.

There are three different access views of the Goal card: Edit, Delete, Edit and Delete. With this release, the user is only shown the options that they have permissions to use. Previously, Goal cards shown in My Activities view of Continuous Performance allowed all users access to edit or delete actions for the goal.

Now on the My Activities view with the employee’s permission to only edit goals, the Edit icon is what they will see on the Goal cards.

When an employee’s permission only allows to delete a goal, the delete icon is the only action available on the Goal cards on the My Activities view.

To modify an Activity linked to a Goal, select that Activity. This opens a new view with Activity Details. Separate Edit and Delete options are available for the selected Activity.

Use Continuous Feedback in the SAP SuccessFactors App in Microsoft Teams

When SAP SuccessFactors and Microsoft 365 are integrated, a new feature enables allows Continuous Feedback of the latest Continuous Performance Management within Microsoft Teams.

Within Teams, users can enter the SAP SuccessFactors app from the app bar or the compose message area of any chat and perform these tasks:

Request feedback: users can send a feedback request to others to ask for feedback on their performance at work
Give feedback: users who receive a feedback request can provide their feedback and send it back to the requester

Continuous Feedback from Microsoft Teams

Then find and select the person to collect feedback from. Fill in the questions to ask.

Receiver is then notified and can reply in the SF app.

Replacement of Continuous Performance Management Legacy Version with the Continuous Performance Management Latest Version

The legacy version of Continuous Performance Management (CPM) reached end of maintenance on May 20, 2022 and will be deleted as of May 24, 2024.

The replacement is the latest version of CPM is currently available in the Upgrade Center. If no action is taken, your company will be automatically upgraded to the latest version after the deletion date.General Availability – Admin Opt-Ins

Calibration

General Availability – Universal

New Filter Options in Calibration Session

There are now six more filter options to narrow down employees to be displayed in a calibration session.

The new filter options are:

Discussed
Country
New to Position
Future Leader
Key Position,
Matrix Managed

Additional Filters for Calibration Session Employee Search

Discussed is predefined as a default filter. To use the other five filters, enable in Filter Fields from Admin Center >Manage Calibration Settings>Search and Filter Fields.

Calculated Performance Management Ratings Available in List View

You can now view calculated ratings of employees for all performance rating elements in the List view of a calibration session.

By enabling the new admin option Show Calculated Rating from Performance Management in List View at Admin Center >Manage Calibration Templates>Views>List View, calculated ratings of employees can be shown in the List view.

When manual rating for performance elements are enabled, calculated ratings display in the same column as manual ratings. Previously, only manual ratings were shown for the rating element.

When calculated rating for performance elements is enabled, calculated ratings display in the same column as rating labels. Previously, calculated ratings were shown as rating labels defined in rating scales.

Calculated Ratings in Calibration List View

Improved Format of E-mail Notifications Regarding Calibration Rating Changes

Next is a minor update generally available. Columns are left-aligned in e-mail notifications about rating changes in finalized calibration sessions. This update is easier to read. Previously the header and data were not aligned.

Updated Calibration Rating Changes Email

Calibration Configuration Available in Configuration Center

You can now view, download, and transport parts of Calibration configurations using Configuration Center.

360 Reviews

There are very minor 360 Review updates. Highlights are described below.

Participants are now loaded on demand in the Evaluation Summary section of 360 Reviews forms.

Previously when a 360 form was opened, all participants were all loaded at once. In rare cases where a form had a great number of participants, there was potential to cause performance issues.

With the latest release, if a form has fewer than 100 participants, all the participants are loaded when the form is opened. If the form has more than 100 participants, the first 100 are loaded but users can scroll down to the bottom of the list to trigger further loading.

Deprecation of 360 Reviews v11 Version

The 360 Reviews v11 version will reach the end of maintenance on May 19, 2023 and will be deleted on November 17, 2023.

If you’re using 360 Reviews v11 Version, you should migrate to 360 Reviews – SAP Fiori Version.

Do you need help implementing or supporting your SAP SuccessFactors system? Contact info@worklogix.com for assistance, download our support services brochure, or visit https://www.worklogix.com/implementation.html for additional information.

SAP SuccessFactors 1H 2023 Minor Visual Enhancements in Performance Management & Career Development

SAP has announced the latest updates and changes for SuccessFactors for the first half of 2023.

Preview release is on April 28 with production release on June 2. You can view the full set of documentation in the What’s New Viewer here. For full details on the release cycle, check out the SAP SuccessFactors official product updates blog.

For tips on how to manage a release, check out our blog here.

For your convenience, we’ve summarized the highlights of 1H 2023 minor visual enhancements for Performance Management and Career Development.

Visual Enhancements

There were several minor visual enhancements in this release. The visual enhancements for this release provide a more user friendly and consistent experience.

There are four types of changes:

Text changes (labels, error messages, or roll-over texts)
Iconography (new or changed icons)
Interaction pattern (new position of interaction, new order of list, new or changed buttons)
Styling (layout, spacing, or other design changes)

We will review some of the more notable visual enhancements for Performance Management, 360 Reviews, Continuous Performance Management, Calibration and Mentoring.

Performance Management

Search for users to send completed form to

Each set of filters is now below its category name
The Search Users button is below all the filters

Create New Form from Performance Inbox

When launching a performance form from a user’s inbox, the date fields are now indented and right aligned.

Form Inbox Tooltips

In the Performance inbox, the tooltip for the icon in the Employee column is “View more information about <employee name>”,

The tooltip for the icon in the Action column is “Add <form title> to Outlook”.

Cancel button placement updated

The button to cancel an action has been moved to the right.

This change applies to almost all user interfaces in Performance Management, including: Add Objectives from Objective Plans dialog, Send to Next Step page, Ask for Feedback dialog, Stack Ranker page, Comment dialog, Legal Scan dialog, and Print Setup dialog.

Here are some examples.

Adding objectives tot a PM form.

Ask for Feedback dialog

Ask for Feedback *Cancel* button placement

Stack Ranker

Goal in the goal section or Competency in the competency section

The first column header is Goal in the goal section or Competency in the competency section of a performance form. Previously Expand All and Collapse All were inthe first column table header
The Expand All and Collapse All options now appear in the top-left corner above the table

360 Reviews

Cancel button placement updated for 360 Reviews

The Cancel button has been moved to the right for 360 Reviews.

Changes include opened 360 Reviews form, Goal Weights dialog, Add Participants dialog, Send Back dialog, Find Employee dialog, and Add Competencies dialog.

Here are some examples.

Canceling an opened 360 Reviews form

Canceling a participant search

Cancel confirmation to next step

Continuous Performance Management

The icon for the Request Feedback on the latest home page has two intersecting talk balloons.

Previously the icon had talk balloons that included a question mark and an exclamation mark.

Achievements on Mobile Device

On the Android app, the Visible to my manager switch and the Mark as Achievement switch have wider tracks, and new color mappings.

Career Development – Mentoring

Successful Enrollment Message

When users sign up for an open enrollment or unsupervised program as a mentee there is a “success” message. The message has been enhanced to now include a reminder for the user that they can contact preferred mentors directly if they don’t hear from the mentors for an extended period of time.

Mentor Participation Approval Request

The Mentor Participation Approval Requests have been updated.

The Approve and Decline buttons are now closer to the message text. The buttons used to be at the bottom of the page.

Confirmation for Joining Mentoring Program

When signing up for a mentoring program and a user decides to Save for Later, there is now a confirmation message pop up for them to confirm if they want to save the draft for joining the program for later.

SAP SuccessFactors 1H 2023 What’s New in Career Development

SAP has announced the latest updates and changes for SuccessFactors for the first half of 2023.

Preview release is on April 28 with the production release is scheduled for June 2. You can view the full set of documentation in the What’s New Viewer here . For full details on the release cycle, check out the SAP SuccessFactors official product updates blog.

For tips on how to manage a release, check out our blog here.

For your convenience, we’ve summarized the highlights of what’s new for 1H 2023 Career Development below.

Career Development

There are a few universal updates for Career Development that are reviewed below.

Career Worksheet – General Availability

Career Development Configurations Available in Configuration Center

You can now view, download, and transport Career Development configurations using Configuration Center.

New Action Available in Action Search

On a career worksheet, View my current role in Career Worksheet action is now available for use in the global search box. Users can enter the exact text of the action or select from suggested actions to navigate to the Career Worksheet page.

The new action takes users directly to a selected page and eliminates multiple steps to get there.

Career Worksheet Data in Story Reports Now Limited to Target Population

The Career Worksheet data that users can view in Story reports, including current and target roles, is now limited to their target population.

Changed Permission for Users to Show Target Roles in People Profile

Now a user only needs View permission (User Permissions>Employee Data>Preferred Next Move) in order to select the Make public in Live Profile checkbox in Career Worksheet to show target roles in People Profile.

Previously, View and Edit permissions were required. Now a user can select the option to show a role in Career Worksheet. The role then appears in the Career Goals block in People Profile.

Mentoring – General Availability – Universal

Approvals for Mentoring Requests on the Latest Home Page

In an open enrollment or unsupervised mentoring program, Mentors can now accept or decline the mentoring requests sent by mentees in the Approvals section on the latest home page.

View More Recommended Mentors

When a user signs up for a mentoring program as a mentee, they can now view up to 100 recommended mentors. Previously, only 10 mentors were recommended.

While signing up and choosing Show Recommended Mentors, now there will be two rows of recommended mentor cards with the View More link below the cards.

Customize Mentoring Email Notifications

For any customized program type created with text replacement for a Mentoring programs, email notifications for a specific program type may be customized in Email Notification Templates Settings as well.

Approvals for Mentoring Requests on the Latest Home Page in iOS and Android Mobile Apps

SAP SuccessFactors Mobile users can now search for mentors from a recommended mentoring program they haven’t joined in Opportunity Marketplace. Previously, they had to join the program first.

When a user wants to invite someone they found to be their mentor, choose Submit Request on the Mentor or Bookmarks page. They will be prompted with a message guiding them to join the program first.

After joining the program, users can submit a mentoring request to their preferred mentor directly on the page.

SAP SuccessFactors 2H 2022 What’s New in Performance Management

SAP has announced the latest updates and changes for SuccessFactors for the second half of 2022.

Preview release was on October 28 and production will be released December 9. You can view the full set of documentation in the What’s New Viewer here . For full details on the release cycle, check out the SAP SuccessFactors official product updates blog.

For tips on how to manage a release, check out our blog here.

Highlights are identified by module and the type of change.

Universal- for modules enabled, universal means no steps are required to have access to the new functionality. These features are automatically made available.

Admin Opt-In – the admin must enable the new feature, usually in Admin Tools

Admin Opt-Out – the admin must disable the new feature, usually in Admin Tools

Provisioning Opt-In and Opt-Out require a Partner or Product Support request
For your convenience, we’ve summarized the highlights of what’s new for 2H 2022 Performance Management below.

Latest Goal Management

The updates are for the latest Goal Management are admin opt-ins. The new features are described below. These features are also now available in iOS and Android mobile apps.

General Availability – Admin Opt-Ins

Copy Goals from Goal Plans using the latest Goal Management

Users can now copy personal goals from their own goal plans as a new option to create goals.

Requirements to use this feature include:

The TGM/CDP Goal Transfer Wizard feature is enabled
The create permission is granted in XML configurations
The write permission for goal fields is granted

Leave Comments on Goals when using the latest Goal Management

Users can now add, edit, or delete comments on their own goals or those of their direct reports. In legacy Goal Management, comments are shown in the goal list or on the goal editing page.

In the latest Goal Management, the updated comment feature is supported and comments are shown on the goal details page.

Comments can also be managed in Performance Management forms, 360 Reviews forms, and Career Development.

Team Goals Now Available when using the latest Goal Management

Users can now create, manage, and be assigned team goals in the latest Goal Management.

Users may:

Create, edit, or delete team goals
Access team goals from their own goal plan
Assign/unassign team goals to people from their team or people found via search
Share/unshare team goal ownership with others
If configured, users can manage team goals assigned to them in Continuous Performance Management.

Users can also manage team goals assigned to them in Performance Management forms, 360 Reviews forms, and Continuous Performance Management.

Group Goals are no longer supported.

These new features are available in iOS and Android Mobile Apps as well.

Performance Management

The majority of the performance management updates involve Multi-Rater 360 forms and Calibration. However there are a few goal and performance related updates that we will begin with.

General Availability – Universal Updates

SMART Goal Wizard not available when using the latest Goal Management

It will not be possible to use the SMART Goal Wizard when adding a goal to a performance form. This feature currently is not supported. Even if you enable the SMART Goal Wizard setting in Form Template Settings this option will not appear when adding a goal.

Enhanced OData Entities for Querying Development Goal Sections on Forms

You can now use APIs to query development goal sections and goal items on Performance Management forms. The FormContent, FormPMReviewContentDetail, FormObjective, FormObjectiveDetails, and FormObjectiveSection APIs. Previously these APIs were used to query performance goal sections and goal items only

General Availability – Admin Opt-In

Confirmation prior to Sending Forms

When users send a form, a message popup appears and allows them to confirm the action.

In the advanced settings for the template, there will be a new option to enable the new experience as seen below.

A pop-up will appear for a user that is sending a form back or forward a step to allows the user to confirm the action. It is also applicable when signing a form, rejecting form or sending a copy of a completed form.

In the route map on the form, clicking Actions in the current step, will display a dropdown list.

Selecting the action will cause a pop-up to display.

Continuous Performance Management

General Availability – Universal

Updated Character Count for Continuous Feedback Topic Field

In the previous version, when users chose the “send” button on a form, a confirmation page appeared.

The character count for the Continuous Feedback topic field to 200 characters.

Replacement of Continuous Performance Management Legacy Version with the Continuous Performance Management Latest Version

The legacy version of Continuous Performance Management (CPM) will reach End of Maintenance on May 20, 2022 and will be retired as of May 24, 2024. The replacement is the latest version of CPM, initially released in 2H 2020, that is currently available in the Upgrade Center. If no action is taken, your company will be automatically upgraded to the latest version after the retirement date.

General Availability – Admin Opt-Ins

New Quick Action to Give Feedback on the Latest Home Page

Employees can now choose to Give Feedback from the Quick Actions section on the latest home page.When the Give Feedback is selected, the user can search and select one person, input a topic, and provide feedback to the other user.

Once selected, the user may select the person, feedback topic, and questions.

OData v4 API Continuous Feedback for the Latest Version of Continuous Performance Management

You can now use the Continuous Feedback OData v4 API with the latest version of Continuous Performance Management.

The OData v4 API for Continuous Feedback has been added to support third-party integrations and extensions for the latest version of Continuous Performance Management (CPM).

Calibration

General Availability – Universal

Remove Subjects from Calibration Sessions

There is a new admin tool, Remove Subjects from Calibration Sessions, used to search for the sessions where an employee has been included as a calibration subject.

When the employee is included in many sessions, you narrow down the search results by selecting a calibration template name. Then, only the sessions created with the specified template are listed.

General Availability – Admin Opt-In

More Gender Values in Calibration Views

Male and Female were supported for visualization in Calibration Views. Now there are the other three standard values: Unknown, Undeclared, and Others.

The gender icon is displayed next to the employee’s name. When the gender of an employee hasn’t been specified in the system yet, it will be indicated as No Selection.

The gender bars in the matrix grid view are now rendered in different colors:

Male: Violet
Female: Green
Undeclared: Blue
Unknown: Dark Blue
Others: Red
No Selection: Grey

Enhancement to Guidelines Enforcement During Mass Finalization

There are more guidelines enforcement scenarios that are supported when you finalize multiple sessions at one time.

More than one rating is included in a guideline defined with a rating group
An operator other than “=” is configured in a guideline defined with a rating range
Not all ratings have a guideline

No longer are guidelines enforced only when finalizing an individual calibration session. With the latest release, multiple sessions can be finalized as long the distribution of subjects doesn’t meet one of the above-mentioned definitions. Distributions would need to be adjusted in order to finalize all of the sessions.

Previously, these guidelines were enforced only when you finalized individual sessions.

360 Reviews

There are several updates for 360 Reviews. Highlights are described below.

General Availability – Universal

Hide Route Map on 360 Reviews Forms

Similar to PM forms, a route map may be collapsed on the form.

This is done through the advanced settings of the 360 Review template by selecting “Hide Route Map on the Form”. Once enabled, when viewing the form, clicking on Hide Route Map will hide the route map from view on the form.

Clicking on Hide Route Map will collapse the route map from view on the form.

Click Show Route Map

Required Fields Marked on 360 Reviews Forms

Fields defined as required are now identified with red asterisks on forms in the Evaluation stage. This now matches how required fields display in PM forms.

Updated Messages for Users Approving or Routing Forms Using Unsupported Tools

In the Approve Form or Route Signature Stage Form tool, once users enter document IDs and chose the buttons to approve or route forms, they weren’t informed that these tools don’t work for 360 Reviews forms.

Now if a user tries to approve or route 360 Reviews forms using unsupported tools in Admin Center, a message will display reminding them that these tools aren’t supported and are shown the correct tool to use.

Messaging when Routing using Unsupported Tools

“competency-filter” Attribute Supported in 360 Reviews Forms

The competency-filter attribute can be used to control what competencies users from different participant categories can view and rate on 360 Reviews.

Within the meta-cat element in the meta section of the form XML, define different participant categories in order to:

After the form is launched, in the Show Assignments dialog, participants belonging to the categories allowed to rate a competency are automatically selected for that competency. However, users can still select any competencies for a participant that weren’t initially included in the competency-filter defined for the participant’s category.

If a participant’s category is changed in the Modify stage, the participant’s competency assignment will be automatically updated to comply with the new category’s competency-filter.

If a participant is added in the Evaluation stage, the participant’s competency assignment will follow the competency-filter defined for the participant’s category.

If a competency is added to the form, filters including or not including this competency will apply to related competency assignments.

Disable Page Setup When Printing 360 Reviews Forms

It is now possible to prevent a user from specifying to print the Summary View or 360 Executive Review form. Instead the form will be printed in its entirety.

In Form Template Settings there is a new option – Disable Page Setup. When enabled, users aren’t allowed to specify the sections to print and the entire form will print.

Show Behaviors in Summary Section by Enabling Rate-by-Behavior

When behaviors are associated with competencies, it is now possible to show behavior names and ratings in the Summary section.

To enable rate-by-behavior, set use-behavior to true and behavior-mode-opt to 0. In the Summary section, add the show-behaviors-in-summary element.

Purge Data of External Users in 360 Reviews

There is a new purge request, DRTM 360 Reviews – External User Purge used to delete data of external users no longer needed in 360 Reviews forms.

The External User Purge for 360 Reviews can be defined by the following purge rules.

A specified number of days have passed since the user declined a form
A specified number of days have passed since the user submitted a form
A specified number of days have passed and the user hasn’t responded to a form
A specified number of days have passed since the user who has never been involved in any form was added to the system

To successfully purge a user’s data who has multiple 360 Reviews forms, each form must satisfy one of the first three criteria.

Deprecation of 360 Reviews v11 Version

The 360 Reviews v11 version will reach the end of maintenance on May 19, 2023 and will be deleted on November 17, 2023.

360 Reviews v11 Version is being depreciated because 360 Reviews – SAP Fiori Version is generally available and includes the majority of features and functions that were available in 360 Reviews v11. In addition the SAP Fiori version has an enhanced user experience and updated visualizations.

If you’re using 360 Reviews v11 Version, please migrate to 360 Reviews – SAP Fiori Version.

Career Development

There are a few universal updates for Career Development that are reviewed below.

Career Worksheet – General Availability – Universal

Enhanced Competency Gap Graph in Career Worksheet

Previously, the gap graph was shown only when a competency had both a last rating and expected rating. With the latest release, if a competency has either a last rating or expected rating, a horizontal bar graph for ratings is shown below the competency.

In the example below, the competency has an expected rating shown in blue with no last rating.

In the previous version, no horizontal bar graph was available if both ratings were not available.

Career Worksheet – General Availability – Admin Opt-Ins

Career Explorer Now Generally Available

Previously, Career Explorer was only available for customers in an Early Adopter Care (EAC) program. It is now generally available.

Career Explorer recommends career opportunities to employees based on the career paths of people who are similar to them in the organization. It provides a means for employees to find relevant opportunities in their organization outside their hierarchy, career moves of people who are similar and paths that they may not have considered.

For a recommended role, an employee can expand the card to see a career path in a lineage chart and view job profiles and recommendation reasons. The role may be added to Career Worksheet to do gap analysis for personal skills, or dislike the role to further personalize subsequent recommendations.

Recommended roles are refreshed every two weeks or when there are enough delta changes to the data. This allows employees to visit the Career Explorer page regularly to explore new recommendations.

Mentoring – General Availability – Universal

Country/Region Picklist Available for Mentoring Matching Questions

A “Country/Region” picklist is now available in the question category to use for automatic matching. Matching rules can be created to allow mentees to define their preferred country/region when signing up for a program, and mentors’ country/region information is pulled from their profile data.

Mentoring Program Available in Cross Domain Table Reports

Mentoring Program is now available as a domain in Cross Domain reports in Table reports. This can be used with Performance Management, Goal Management and Employee Profile domains to gather mentoring program related data.

In Conclusion

We have now covered the highlights of the PM related updates for 2H 2022.

Do you need help managing your SuccessFactors Release cycles? Download our support services brochure or email info@worklogix.com to see how we can help.

SAP SuccessFactors 1H 2022 What’s New in Performance Management

SAP has announced the 1H 2022 SuccessFactors release information.

Preview release is on April 15 and production will be released May 20. You can view the full set of documentation in the What’s New Viewer here . For full details on the release cycle, check out the SAP SuccessFactors official product updates blog.

For tips on how to manage a release, check out our blog here.

Highlights are identified by module and the type of change.

Universal- for modules enabled, universal means no steps are required to have access to the new functionality. These features are automatically made available.

Admin Opt-In – the admin must enable the new feature, usually in Admin Tools

Admin Opt-Out – the admin must disable the new feature, usually in Admin Tools

Provisioning Opt-In and Opt-Out require a Partner or Product Support request
For your convenience, we’ve summarized the highlights of what’s new for 1H 2022 Performance Management below.

Performance Management

The majority of the performance management updates involve Multi-Rater 360 forms and Calibration. However there are a few performance related updates that we will begin with.

General Availability – Universal Updates

Restrict Data Access of Inactive Users’ Forms

This enhanced was designed to comply with data privacy and protection standards.

Currently there is no way to limit a user’s access to inactive employee forms. With this release, there is a role permission that may be enabled which restricts the data in an inactive user’s PM form.

To set this up, open a permission role that should have the restriction.

Under User Permissions>Performance>Restrict Data Access of Inactive Users’ Forms

With this permission set, users with this permission role will not be able to access the data of inactive users’ forms in the following areas:

Home Page (only can review performance related To-Dos but not form pages)
Stack Ranker
Team Overview
Form OData APIs that include form subject information

Use Capability Picker in Performance & Goals

The previous “New Competency Picker”, now the Capability Picker, has a new UI which includes employees’ competencies, behaviors, and skills within an organization.

The Capability Picker can be used to add competencies in competency sections on PM forms.

To this use, Job Profile Builder must be enabled. In Performance Management Feature Settings in Admin Center, Enable Capability Picker must be selected.

New Columns for Performance Management in Story Reports

In Story reports for Performance Management, users can now include feedback comments in the Ask For Feedback table as seen below.

These are the Ask for Feedback comments provided by internal and external users through emails.

In addition, manual overall performance rating, manual overall performance rating description, and locale specific manual overall performance rating description are available in the Performance table.

Enhanced Signed Date Column in Story Reports

Signing a form using Route Form and Sign Form, the Signed Date column in Story reports now shows the date and time when the form was signed using the time of tenant preferred time zones. Only the latest record is shown in the reports if users have signed the form multiple times.

Enhanced OData Entity FormAuditTrail

The FormAuditTrail API has been updated with a permission check. This API can be used to access all audit trail records of forms in the system. Otherwise, users can only access audit trail records of forms in their folders.

Permission is needed to access all audit trail records of forms in the system and the permission role should include Administrator Permissions> Manage Documents>Admin Access to Forms OData API permission.

General Availability – Admin Opt-Ins

There is a performance management related admin opt-in that is applicable for CPM achievements and feedback on a performance form.

View Achievements and Feedback on Forms on iOS and Android Mobile Apps

Performance reviewers with iOS and Android SAP SuccessFactors mobile apps, achievements and feedback linked to employees’ goals on performance forms can now viewed.

On the goal item page, there will be an Achievements row as seen in the example below.

Achievement details may be viewed by clicking Achievements for the goal. If the employee had any achievements linked to a goal, they would appear as seen below.

If there is any feedback for an achievement, it will noted with the number of feedback given.

Clicking the feedback indicator, reviewers can view feedback for the achievement.

To take advantage of this feature, the latest version of CPM must be enabled.

Reviewers will have to the View permission for User Continuous Performance Management Achievement in their permission role.

360 Reviews

There are several 360 Reviews – SAP Fiori Version updates. One is also applicable to 360 Reviews v11.

General Availability – Universal Updates

Participants Able to Recall Completed Forms

A participant may recall a 360 Reviews form after providing feedback and submitting it. However this recall feature available for raters but is not applicable to process owners, managers, employees, HR representatives, or approvers.

A Recall button will appear in the action column of the Evaluation Summary section of the form.

Using the Recall button moves the form back to the participant’s inbox.

Select Multiple Employees on Advanced Search Dialog

Previously, managers were only able to select/add one employee from the search results at a time. To add more, filters had to redefined for each selection.

Managers can now select multiple employees from a search done on the Advanced Search Dialog and add them all to the Participant List at once.

Refill the Participant List After Declines Occur

Process owners may now add alternative participants to the participant list if some of the initially added participants have declined to evaluate. This helps ensure that process owners get enough feedback for evaluations.

In order to use this feature, in the advanced settings of the 360 form template, all check boxes should be deselected for the option Hide the Decline to Participate button on the 360 Form for as seen below.

In the advanced settings of the 360 form template, select at least one role for the option Enable Add New Participants after 360 Evaluation starts for. This allows the selected role to add participants after the evaluation has begun.

Form Titles Editable in 360 Reviews

It is now possible for users to edit titles of 360 Reviews forms received in their Performance Inbox folder. Already available in 360 Reviews v11, it is now available in the SAP Fiori Version as well.

In the advanced settings of the 360 form template, select the option Enable form title editability in Form info page (V10) or Enable form title editability in the Form (V10), depending on where you want to change titles.

Process Owners Able to See Participants on Anonymous Forms

Process owners now can see the participants who have given evaluation feedback even on anonymous 360 Reviews forms. This provides participant information such as employee name, email, division, department, location, manager and category.

The Evaluation Summary will still show “anonymous” for each rater, but the Rater List will show rater names instead of “anonymous”.

In order to use this feature of a Multi-rater form, some set up is needed.

The 360 template to be used should have Anonymous 360 configured in Provisioning >Form Template Administration.

Within Form Template Settings for the form, on Show Participants in Status Summary (Applicable to Anonymous 360’s only) needs to be enabled.

Enable Show Participants in Status Summary

Improved Reminders Buttons

The Reminder icon in the Evaluation Summary section has been transformed into a button. Previously the Actions column contain a reminder icon as seen below.

This has been replaced with a Recall button in the Actions column. Users can now send reminders to those who have not given feedback yet; to a one or multiple participants. There is a new Send Reminder to All button will send a reminder to any rater that has not given feedback yet (a status of Pending). The user will also receive a confirmation of this action before reminders are sent.

Add “First Matrix Manager” and “All Matrix Managers” as Default Rater Categories 360 Reviews v11 and 360 Reviews – SAP Fiori Version

Within the Manage Templates tool or by editing the XML form template, First matrix manager and All matrix managers are now options as default rater categories in both 360 Reviews v11 and 360 Reviews – SAP Fiori Version. When selected, the employee’s first matrix manager or all matrix managers will then show on the rater list by default when a 360 Review form is launched.

The feature saves users from manually adding a first matrix manager or all matrix managers as raters after the form is launched.

Enforce Start Date in Route Map

A feature currently available for PM forms is now available for 360 forms.

Within the route map associated with the 360 template, select the Enforce start date option and then enter the start date for the step. This may be done for any step in the Modify and Evaluation stages on the route map.

Before the step start date, forms are read-only, but participants can open the forms to check the details.

Support for Learning Activities in Development Goal Section in 360

It is now possible to use Learning activities in the Development Goal section of a 360 Review form. A user may view details of a learning activity, add LMS learning activities, and delete LMS learning activities or Transcript-enabled custom learning activities.

In Provisioning>Company Settings make sure to select the option: Transcript — requires “Version 11 UI framework (ULTRA)”.

Show Behavior Descriptions When Not Rating by Behavior

If competencies have behaviors associated with them, behavior descriptions may be included in the Competency section of a 360 multi-rater form, even if the behaviors are not being rated.

When including behaviors, the behavior name displays but descriptions are hidden by default. Clicking the arrow button will show the behavior’s description.

In order to use behaviors on the form, the XML form template needs to have behavior-mode-opt in the competency-sect set to a non-zero value (1, 2, 4 or 5) and use-behavior should be false.

General Availability – Admin Opt-Ins

Hide the Nonremovable Checkbox in 360 Reviews – SAP Fiori Version

You can now hide the Nonremovable for Raters checkbox on a 360 Reviews form if it’s not needed.

In the advanced settings of the 360 form template, enable the Hide the Nonremovable checkbox on a form in the Modify stage.

Previously, the checkbox always appeared on a form, even if a rater was not permitted to use it for editing linked skills.

Deprecation of 360 Reviews v11 Version

November 18, 2022 is the end of maintenance for 360 Reviews v11 and will be deleted on May 20, 2023.

360 Reviews – SAP Fiori Version has been Generally Available and now includes the majority of features and functions that were available in 360 Reviews v11.

It is recommended if you’re using 360 Reviews v11 Version to migrate to 360 Reviews – SAP Fiori Version.

Goal Management

General Availability – Universal Updates

There are no universal updates for Goal Management.

General Availability – Admin Opt-Ins

Create and Edit Goals in Non-Goal Management Modules

When the latest Goal Management is enabled, you can try out the latest Goal Management to create and edit goals through an embedded dialog.

When you create or edit a goal in the following modules, you’ll be prompted with a dialog with brand new UIs offered by the latest Goal Management:

Career Development
Continuous Performance Management
360- Multi-Rater
People Profile
Performance Management
Succession

Calibration

General Availability – Universal Updates

There are several universal updates for a calibration session.

Manager Template Permission for Creating Calibration Sessions

It is now possible to identify which calibration templates managers can access when they create calibration sessions. The new permission, Manager Template Permission for Creating Sessions, is added under User Permissions >Calibration for a permission role.

Permission for Manager Calibration Sessions

Total of Expected Number of Subjects Equals Actual Number of Subjects

Logic has been enhanced for subject distribution in scenarios where the guidelines are defined with rating groups or when not all ratings have a distribution guideline.

When the guidelines are defined with rating groups or only part of the ratings have distribution guideline, but these are not met:

Ratings are included once in the guidelines
All guidelines are defined with “=” operator
Total of distribution guidelines is 100%

The system sums up the decimal parts and distributes the whole numbers to the ratings if there are decimal parts in the calculated results. This is done to ensure the total number of expected subjects for all ratings is equal to the actual number of subjects in the session.

Enhancement to Guidelines Enforcement

Distribution guidelines have been enhanced to support more guideline scenarios. Finalizing sessions individually, enforcement is now supported in three more guideline scenarios.

Distribution Guidelines are set in the Data tab of Manage Calibration Templates.

The enhancement only applies to finalizing sessions individually.

Guideline is defined in a rating group when there is one more than one rating
Guideline is defined with a rating range with an operator other than “=”
Not all ratings have a guideline

When the distribution of subjects doesn’t meet the guidelines for any these scenarios, the session cannot be finalized.

More User Information of Calibration Subject Available in Story Reports

You can now include the name and external user ID of a session subject in a Story report. The first and last names and external user ID are supported in the auto-joins for calibration subjects. This makes it easier to get calibration subject information.

General Availability – Admin Opt-Ins

Qualtrics Feedback Opportunity for Calibration Session Finalization

Manage Qualtrics Integrations in the Admin Center now includes the Calibration Session Finalization option in the Event Name field’s drop-down list for Talent.

Intelligent Services events can be used to send employee information to Qualtrics so when an employee finalizes a calibration session, a Qualtrics feedback survey may be sent via email.

Calibration, Intelligent Services and Integration Center must be enabled and a Qualtrics Employee Experience license for Lifecycle projects is required.

Continuous Performance Management (CPM)

The legacy version of Continuous Performance Management (CPM) will reach End of Maintenance on May 20, 2022 and will be retired as of May 19, 2023.

The latest version of CPM, initially released in 2H 2020 is available in the Upgrade Center. If no action is taken, your company will be automatically upgraded to the latest version after the retirement date.

In Conclusion

We have now covered the highlights of the PM related updates for 1H 2022. See our blog for 1H 2022 Career Development release features.

Do you need help managing your SuccessFactors Release cycles? Download our support services brochure or email info@worklogix.com to see how we can help!

What’s New in the 1H 2021 SAP SuccessFactors Performance Management Release

As of April 9, 2021, SAP has released their documentation for the H1 2021 release.

Preview release will be April 16 and production will be released May 21^st. You can view the full set of documentation in the W hat’s New Vie wer here. For full details on the release cycle, check out the SAP SuccessFactors official product updates blog here.

For tips on how to manage a release, check out our blog here.

For your convenience, we’ve summarized the highlights of what’s new for 2021 Performance Management below.

The updates for Performance Management are primarily targeted for 360 Reviews so we will start with those. The PM form updates will be discussed after these features have been reviewed. Calibration updates can be found in our separate blog here.

What’s New for 360 Forms – Fiori Version

Here are the 10 universal updates made for the Fiori version of 360 forms to provide the same features that are available 360 Reviews v11.

Add Approvers in 360 Reviews

Approvers may now be added in the Modify stage.

Development Goal Section Available in 360 Reviews

A development goal section may be added to a 360 Review form template. These enables employees the opportunity to add and edit development goals.

Display a Data Table for a Chart

Within a 360 Executive Review and Detailed 360 Report, a user may select the table icon on a chart to see a data table. This provides text equivalents for non-text content.

Display External Users in Search Results When Adding Participants

It is now possible to add external users as participants without having to disable the system setting Hide External Users from search results.

EZ Rater Available in 360 Reviews

When enabled, the EZ Rater option provides a more condensed list view for rating goal and competencies.

Form History Available in 360 Reviews

Prior performance and 360 forms are now available within a 360 Review. The History button will display options to view either form type if available.

More Form Actions Available in 360 Reviews

Additional action options are now available for 360 forms. Information about the form may be viewed and the form may be deleted.

Print Preview Available in 360 Reviews

When the user clicks the Print button, a popup displays a preview of the form. This provides the user the opportunity to select the entire form or selected sections to print.

Stack Ranker Available in 360 Reviews

Stack Ranker can be enabled which allows side by side ranking of employee competencies. Ratings may be modified and comments added.

Section Descriptions Fully Displayed by Default

Now section descriptions are fully displayed by default and can be collapsed. Clicking Show Less to hide content. Previously sections were collapsed and the user had to click Show More to see the content.

What’s New for PM Forms

There are 5 universal updates for PM forms.

Customized Weighted Rating Supported in Import Overall Scores

Previously it was only possible to import overall scores into the Objective Competency Summary, and Performance Potential Summary, and Summary sections. The new release enables you to update overall scores for the Customized Weighted Rating section.

On the import file, use <PERFORMANCE> rating in the CSV file. The rating field is also used to update the Summary and Performance Potential section overall rating. If there is more than one PERFORMANCE rating, there is a priority for updating. The section order for uploading from high to low is:

Customized Weighted Rating
Performance Potential Summary
Summary

Deep Link to Performance Management Forms

There is now a deeplink available to access a performance form: /sf/openFormByDocId

New OData V2 API Entity FormCustomizedWeightedRatingSection

There is a new OData V2 API Entity: FormCustomizedWeightedRatingSection. It can be used to get the Customized Weighted Rating section details of a performance form in order to update the manual ratings section of the performance form.

Target Population in Role-Based Permissions for Import Overall Scores

This update pertains to the Customized Weighting Rating import that we just covered. Role based permissions may now be used to restrict users to importing scores for only their target population.

Select a role in Manage Permission Roles. Go to Permission>Administrator Permissions>Manage Document and select “Import Overall Scores Only for Target Population” and “Include All Employees” which allows granted users to update manual overall scores for all employees.

Live Profile Section Deleted

A Live Profile section can no longer be added to PM forms. Information in the existing section is no longer available. A link to People Profile can be used on the form instead.

What’s New in Continuous Performance Management (CPM)

There are some new early adapter features for the latest version of Continuous Performance Management (CPM). They are admin opt-in or opt-out features. We won’t cover these here since the latest version is not widely enabled. When the latest version of CPM is enabled, these email reminder notifications will become obsolete: Conduct 1:1 Meeting, Update Status, along with Activity and Achievement reminder notifications.

The latest version will handle notifications differently since multiple roles can be used and meeting channels can be created. Requests and meeting notifications can be created for anyone in the user’s meeting channel.

We have now covered the highlights of the PM related updates for H1 2021. See our blog for Calibration release features.

Do you need help managing your SuccessFactors Release cycles? Download our support services brochure or email info@worklogix.com to see how we can help!

SAP SuccessFactors 2H 2021 What’s New in Performance Management

SAP has announced the 2H 2021 SuccessFactors release information.

Preview release is on October 15 and production will be released November 19. You can view the full set of documentation in the W hat’s New Vie wer here. For full details on the release cycle, check out the SAP SuccessFactors official product updates blog here.

For tips on how to manage a release, check out our blog here.

Highlights are identified by module and the type of change.

Universal- for modules enabled, universal means no steps are required to have access to the new functionality. These features are automatically made available.

Admin Opt-In – the admin must enable the new feature, usually in Admin Tools

Admin Opt-Out – the admin must disable the new feature, usually in Admin Tools

Provisioning Opt-In and Opt-Out require a Partner or Product Support request

For your convenience, we’ve summarized the highlights of what’s new for 2H 2021 Performance Management below.

Performance Management

There is not much in the way of new functionality, just one universal update.

General Availability – Universal Updates

Configuration Center Support For Performance Management Form Templates

You can now view, download, and transport Performance Management form templates across tenants using Configuration Center. Prior to this release, only Feature Configuration was available under General Configuration for Performance Management. Now System Configuration and Manage Templates are available.

New PM Configuration In Configuration Center

General Availability – Admin Opt-Ins

The admin opt-ins require the latest version of the home page.

PM Related Updates “For You Today” Section of the Latest Home Page

When the latest home page is used, a “For You Today’ card will appear for PM tasks.

You can enable to-do tasks on the latest home page in the Upgrade Center.

The tasks are:

“Review Employee Performance” task available for managers
“Review Employee Performance” task available for employees

To give managers a view of the form that need their review, cards are grouped into Direct Reports, Matrix Reports, and Other on the stack view. An example is shown below.

Users can go directly to the performance review forms from this card to complete the tasks.

Goal Management

There is one universal update for Goal Management. The majority of the new functionality is for the latest version of Goal Management. With each release more and more features become available.

General Availability – Universal Updates

View, download, and transport Goal Management configurations using Configuration Center.

It is now possible to use Configuration Center for Goal Management to view configurations, download configurations, and transport configurations across tenants. Configuration Center permission is required.

The view feature enables the admin to view configuration as well as see the username who made changes with a date and timestamp.

The download feature is useful to take a backup of your application’s configurations as well as for troubleshooting by an Implementation Partner or Customer Support.

The export feature can be used to export configuration in order to copy from the preview system to production.

With this release, after selecting the Talent configuration area, Goal Management is visible. The admin can then select the features to download.

After selection, the admin goes to the “Transport Mode” tab to initiate the download process.

Upon completion, the configuration bundles is downloaded in ZIP format. Configuration types are available as separate files.

Latest Goal Management

With each release, the latest version of Goal Management has functionality added that is already available in the current version,

Now supported in the latest version of Goal Management:

Beta Goal Import
Changing goal plan states in Goals
User search
Matrix relationships

Now available in the latest version of Goal Management:

Spell Check
Legal Scan
Advanced user search by criteria

We will look at the new supported functions that are available for those using the latest Goal Management. We will start with the universal updates.

Early Adopters – Universal Updates

Mass Import Personal Goals in Latest Goal Management

It is now possible to use the “Import Performance Goals” for the latest version of Goal Management.

Change Goal Plan States in Latest Goal Management

It is now possible to update the goal plan state in the latest version of Goal Management. The ability to lock and unlock goal plans will be available and provides visibility of the goal plan state using the latest version of GM.

Goal plan states are used to control the action and field permissions before and after a goal plan is approved. Users with the “change-state” permission in the goal plan XML can now change the goal plan state in a more straightforward manner.

An example using goal plan states in the latest version of a goal plan is shown below. The current state has a dropdown list.

Latest Goal Management Goal Plan Current State

In addition, employees will be able to receive email notifications when their goal plan state changes. The notifications will include who changed the goal plan state and what the current goal plan state is.

Enhanced People Selector in Latest Goal Management

When using the latest version of goals management, the people selector will include matrix manager and matrix reports. If these matrix roles have permission, they will have access to view goal plans.

An example of the people selector in a goal plan is shown below.

People Selector with Matrix Manager and Reports

If these matrix roles have permission, they will have access to view goal plans.

360 Reviews

General Availability – Universal Updates

View, download, and transport 360 Reviews configurations using Configuration Center

Similar to the Goal Management being available in Configuration Center, it is now possible to use Configuration Center for 360 Reviews to view configurations, download configurations, and transport configurations across tenants. Configuration Center permission is required cross tenants.

Before this release, 360 was not available in Configuration Center Now when selecting the Talent configuration area, 360 is visible. The admin can then select the features to download fro the Transport Mode tab.

Add External Participants When Users Have No Search Permissions

Users without permission to search for external users may now add them as form participants by email address. Users can enter the email address of an external user in the “Add a New External Participant” dialog box.

If the external user already exists in the system, the First Name and Last Name fields are automatically filled and users can select “Add” to add the external user as a participant.

An example is shown below.

General Availability – Admin Opt-Ins

360 Reviews Tasks on the Latest Home Page

When the latest home page is used, a “For You Today’ card will appear for 360 Review tasks:

“Complete 360 Evaluation task” available for managers
“Complete Your 360 Evaluation task” available for employees

Found on the latest Home Page, for any 360 forms for an employee, manager or raters, there is a card to prompt the user to review and complete the 360 Reviews form in the Performance inbox.

Users can go directly to the 360 review form from this card.

Calibration

General Availability – Universal Updates

There is a universal update for a calibration session.

Set max rating change span

In “Manage Calibration Templates”, if your data source is “Performance”, it is now possible to set a maximum rating change span. This setting can be found on the “Advanced” tab.

Once the span is set, if you make rating changes in the session, the following rules apply:

If the rating change made doesn’t exceed the maximum rating change span, the rating will be changed
If the rating change exceeds the maximum rating change span, an error message displays and the rating reverts to the original rating.

Shown below is the Calibration Template “Advanced Settings” tab.

Continuous Performance Management (CPM)

There are only admin opt-ins for this release of Continuous Performance Management.

General Availability – Admin Opt-Ins

New Qualtrics Survey for Continuous Performance Management

It is possible to integrate Qualtrics surveys with Continuous Performance Management. This integration allows you to collect feedback from employees after 1:1 sessions with their managers.

To use this feature:

CPM must be enabled
Qualtrics license for website and app feedback projects required
“Manage Qualtrics Integrations” feature is enabled in Upgrade Center

The Qualtrics account is used to create the survey and view survey feedback.

An employee will be prompted to complete the survey. An example is shown below.

The user will see questions to answer.

Once completed, the admin may view the survey feedback.

Early Adopter – Admin Add -Ins

Enhanced Achievement Experience for Continuous Performance Management

This feature is only available if the latest version of CPM is used.

Achievements can be the default view on the CPM landing page, which enables quick access to achievements. The admin would have to select “Achievements view” as the default on the “Continuous Performance Management Configuration” page. An example is shown below.

When a user accesses CPM, the default view will now be the Achievements tab.

Feedback Integration with Microsoft Outlook

Continuous feedback may be enabled from a Microsoft Outlook add-in to make giving feedback easier.

In order to use this feature:

Latest version of CPM must be enabled
SAP SuccessFactors user attributes are mapped to Microsoft Active Directory
Continuous Feedback outlook integration is enabled and the manifest file downloaded
SAP SuccessFactors user attributes mapped to Microsoft Active Directory.

The employee will see an option to give feedback.

The feedback questions display and enable the employee to provide feedback.

Upon submission, a confirmation message displays. An example is shown below.

Depreciation

Deprecation of 360 Reviews v11 Version

November 18, 2022 is the end of maintenance for 360 Reviews v11 and will be deleted on May 20, 2023.

We have now covered the highlights of the PM related updates for 2H 2021. See our blog for 2H 2021 Career Development release features.

Do you need help managing your SuccessFactors Release cycles? Download our support services brochure or email info@worklogix.com to see how we can help!

An Introduction to 360 Evaluations in SAP SuccessFactors

As year-end approaches, it is common for many companies to take a second look at their employee performance and goal setting processes. In the past few weeks, I’ve been helping multiple companies revamp their employee performance processes. While some are just tweaking current forms and processes, others are considering including a new and often enlightening process – 360 evaluations.

What is a 360 evaluation?

The idea behind a 360 evaluation is to get a picture of how others view your performance from all angles. This means that in addition to getting feedback from your manager (top down), you also get feedback from your own direct reports (bottom-up), peers (side), and even external sources (vendors, business partners, customers, etc.).

Why do companies implement 360 evaluations?

Receiving feedback from a variety of sources helps create a more complete picture of how an employee is performing and/or perceived to be performing from different angles. 360 evaluations can help uncover trends and gaps in these different angles. For example, a manager may consider an employee a top performer, but when feedback is asked from peers or external sources on an anonymous basis, the employee might get different feedback (“He’s always on top of his own tasks, but sometimes at the expense of the team as a whole when we need his support”). Similarly, an employee may not be considered a top performer by a manager, but feedback from others could reveal a lot of solid performance feedback into which the manager never previously had sight (E.g. “She’s been so helpful in getting my career on the right path and helping me with work tasks at the expense of her own!”). Allowing this feedback to come to light can help employees and managers work to truly improve employee performance. We’ll take a look in a moment at how SAP SuccessFactors 360 evaluations aid in attaining this kind of feedback.

Walk-through of a 360 form in SAP SuccessFactors

360 forms are launched just like performance forms are. However, it is important to note that 360 forms use a separate screen for launching (don’t worry, this screen pretty much works the same as the other launch forms screen you are used to. After picking a target population, the admin can launch just like a normal performance form.

Search bar showing separate launch screen for 360 forms

360 forms will also show up in the performance inbox like other performance forms, but with a different icon. It is important to recognize that 360 forms use a template type than regular performance forms and get treated slightly differently in these respects.

View of Performance Inbox with both 360 and regular performance reviews

Once the first person in the route map gets the form (in this case the employee), they need to choose who will be involved in the evaluation. The system can be configured to default in people for categories like direct reports, manager, and peers.

Employee nominates raters step of 360 review

Users also have the option to add external participants as shown below by simply providing a first name, last name, and email and then choosing in what category the person should be included.

Once the user is finished adding participants, there is usually an approval step prior to the evaluations being sent out. Evaluations can be designed using sections similar to those you are used to seeing in a standard performance review form. There are sections for objectives, competencies, as well as an introduction and a section for the subject’s information. Unlike regular performance forms that can be configured heavily on the online editor in “Manage Templates”, 360 forms can only be fully setup by partners or SAP (though much of the config is done in the online editor).

For internal participants, the evaluation is sent to the user’s performance inbox like the typical performance reviews where they can then open the form as shown below.

In the case of external participants, after approval of the evaluators, an email is sent with a link that allows external users to access the form. This can be a security consideration for some organizations since the link is only as secure as the receiving email system.

After all evaluations have been completed, the form is put in the completed status and the employee / manger / etc can view the results depending on permission settings. You can see an example completed performance form below.

Completed Review showing Anonymous ratings

One key advantage of the 360 form in SuccessFactors over the typical annual performance review is that the 360 feedback comments and ratings can be made anonymous. Obviously the user would know who their manager is, or they might be able to derive who the other evaluators are based on category if there are only one or two – so the forms allow you to configure minimum counts in each category as well as rollups to combine categories to help keep anonymity. The user can click on the link for each reviewer to see the details of each review and create an HTML or PDF printout of the details as shown below.

Printed Detail of Individual Review Feedback

The form also has a nice detailed report showing the combined feedback comments and overall ratings by category. This can help the employee and manager understand where any gaps between self and manager evaluation ratings may exist along with other types of ratings from other categories. For examplem we can see below there is a large gap between the manager’s perception and the employee and other’s perception of “Prioritizing and Organizing Work”. Perhaps the manager is getting too much priority and the employee needs to focus on the work the team as a whole needs completed!

Wrap Up

After this quick walkthrough, hopefully you can now see the advantage of 360 forms as an insightful tool to get employee performance feedback from a variety of sources and understand what a typical end-to-end 360 process looks like.

For more information about 360 forms and other talent management modules in SAP SuccessFactors, check out our book here!

Do you need help implementing or changing your 360 form or other performance and goals processes? Contact us at info@worklogix.com.

H2 2020 SAP SucessFactors Calibration Release Updates

As of October 9, 2020, SAP has released their documentation for the H2 2020 release. You can view the full set of documentation in the What’s New Viewer here. As a reminder, preview release will be October 16 and production will be released November 20^th. For full details on the release cycle, check out the SAP SuccessFactors official product updates blog here. For tips on how to manage a release, check out or blog here. For your convenience, we’ve summarized the highlights of what’s new for 2020 within Calibration below!

With the H2 2020 release, there are additional features introduced for the latest version of Calibration. There are new universal and admin opt-in features along with five universal updates. We will review the updates starting with what’s new.

New Admin Opt-in Features

There are three admin opt-in features that provide additional access to employee information to make better decisions when calibrating ratings along with some enhanced admin functionality.

Access to Comments from Other Calibration Sessions

Currently within a calibration session, reviewers have access to subject’s comments on the session detail page. Based on the calibration role permissions, the reviewers may add, edit, delete or view comments. An example of the current functionality is shown below.

With the new release, it is possible to reference comments from prior sessions. Seeing comments from prior sessions gives the session reviewers a more complete picture of subjects in order to make more objectively.

This option is set in the Advanced tab of “Manage Calibration Templates” as seen in the example below. Enabling “Roll up comments from the other sessions based on the same template” will give calibration reviewers access to comments from prior sessions.

As seen in the example below, when adding or viewing subject comments during a session, the comment dialog box will now contain two tabs: “From This Session” and “From Other Sessions“. Comments for the current session may be added, edited, deleted or viewed. Other session comments are view only.

However, comments from prior sessions will only display in the new tab if the other sessions use the same calibration template.

Replace Facilitator that becomes Inactive

There is a new setting that will be available in “Manage Calibration Settings”. Enabling “Choose a user to replace a calibration session’s only facilitator who has been inactive” will allow a new facilitator to replace the sole facilitator of a session who becomes inactive. Once a replacement facilitator is identified and the inactive user is purged, the facilitator is automatically replaced for the session.

Omit “Too New to Rate” from Rating Options using Employee Profile

On the Global Settings tab within “Manage Calibration Settings“, there is a new option that may be enabled. “Remove ‘Too New to Rate’ from rating options for the rating types from People Profile data” will omit “Too New to Rate” as an rating option when selecting Employee Profile as the data source for ratings. This will be apparent on the Data tab within “Manage Calibration Templates” when Employee Profile is selected as the data source for ratings to be calibrated. With this setting, “Too New to Rate” will not be displayed as a rating option.

New Admin Opt-in Feature

Odata API for Session Comments

A new OData API entity called “CalibrationSubjectComment” is now available so comments are exposed for interfacing. A query can be used to get a single comment made for a calibration subject using comment ID or to get all comments made in a calibration session. An example of the URI for getting all session comments is shown below.

https://<API-Server>/odata/v2/CalibrationSubjectComment?$format=json

Universal Update Features

We will now review the four universal features found in the latest release.

Access to Subject Comments

Currently, there is a comments column in the List View of a calibration session as seen below. If a comments icon appears for a subject, the reviewer would click on the icon and would be able to see existing comments. If the session reviewer also has “Write” permission, they could also add a comment. The vertical dots menu for each subject would be used to get to the link to add a comment as shown below.

The comments column appears in the Subjects List for Executive Review as seen below.

Current Comment Column in Subjects List View

In both views, the column would contain a comment icon if there was a comment for the subject.

In the latest release, it will be easier to view and add comments. The comments column which houses a comment bubble will no longer be used in the List view of a calibration session or in the Subjects List within Executive Review. An example of the new comment feature is shown below.

In the new release, the comment icon will appear with the subject name along with the comment count regardless of a user having any comments. If comments exist for a subject there will be a number count next to the icon. To add or view a comment, click the comment icon.

The Calibration History block on People Profile will display the comment icon with the comment count for each subject as well.

Autocomplete Search of Universal People Search

The Calibration module has adopted autocomplete search. This allows the admin in the “Manage Calibration Sessions” page and calibration users in the session list page and session details page to use the autocomplete search of the Universal People Search.

The current calibration sessions list page search options are seen below.

Current Calibration Session List Search Options

With the new release, there will be an “Add People” icon which enables the autocomplete search of Universal People Search. An example is shown below.

Start typing to search for a name in the module search box. The system predicts names you are searching for. All matches will display as separate entries to choose from.

Enhanced Experience using Matrix Grid Views

The current matrix grid view within a calibration session is shown below. To see the talent card of a subject in a zoomed out cell, the “more” icon for a subject would need to be clicked and then “Open Talent Card” selected.

Available in full-screen and normal modes in the new release, the cards will be visible in zoomed out cells. There will be a scroll bar when a cell is too small to see all of the people cards. This feature makes it easier to compare subjects in zoomed in and out cells. An example of the new functionality is shown below.

Select Permission Model Obsolete

Within provisioning, in the “Enable Calibration” section of Company Settings, the option to select the permission model will no longer exist.

Now that all customers are using role-based permissions, the default permission model option is no longer viable so this selection will no longer appear.

Calculated Rating from Customized Weighted Rating Section in Bin View

There is a another feature available when a calibration template is based on a performance form template that contains a Customized Weighted Rating section. Currently, when the data source for a calibration template is a performance form template with this summary section, either the manual or the calculated rating can be calibrated. However, the calculated rating cannot be displayed in the Bin view of a calibration session.

With the latest release, the calculated rating from the Customized Weighted Rating section may display in the Bin view if this calculated rating comes form a PM form and the “Show calculated rating in addition to manual rating (only applicable to Bin view)” setting is enabled. An example is displayed below.

Wrap Up

The latest release improves managing calibration sessions for the admin and improves the calibration reviewer experience.

Do you need help managing your SuccessFactors Release cycles? Email info@worklogix.com to see how we can help!

H2 2020 SAP SuccessFactors Continuous Performance Management Release Updates

The latest version of Continuous Performance Management (CPM) was restricted in the H1 2020 release and now will be generally available. The H2 2020 release builds on the redesign of the user interface for CPM that began this year.

There are four new admin opt-ins, two universal updates and one admin opt-in update available when using the latest version of CPM. We will start by reviewing what’s new.

New Admin Opt-ins

Latest Version of Continuous Performance Management using Upgrade Center

The upgrade to the latest version of CPM must be done as an admin opt-in using Upgrade Center. There are some features are automatically applied when upgrading:

Activities View- which uses a Kanban board for activity management.
Meeting View – to manage conversations.
Achievements View – with a new layout that shows activities linked to achievements.
Ability to link activities to development goals as well performance goals.
Activities must be used to create achievements.

When upgrading to the latest version, all current CPM users are impacted. It is worth noting if you are contemplating the move to the latest version of CPM, once the latest version is enabled, you can’t go back.

Once the upgrade to the latest version of CPM is completed, there are some additional admin opt-in features that may be enabled.

“Discussion Topics” replaces “Other Topics“. Any existing content within “Other Topics” gets converted to “Discussion Topics“.
There is also a new feature called “Meeting Notes“.
Multiple roles is a new permission based feature which allows users to have 1:1 meetings with anyone in their organization.
“Enable Activity-Feedback Linking ” to link activities and activities tagged as achievements to feedback.
Use of the latest version of Continuous Feedback.
“Disable Deleting Feedback” is a carryover from the prior version that is now available in the latest release which prevents a user from deleting any existing feedback.

Several features are no longer available with the latest version of CPM:

Achievement Feedback
Achievement Linking to Goals
Achievement Linking to Development Goals
Coaching

Link Activities to Development Goals in Continuous Performance Management

Another new admin opt-in available for CPM is the ability to link an activity to a development goal. In the H1 2020 release of the latest version of CPM, only performance goals could be linked to activities. An example of creating an activity and linking to a development goal is shown below.

Some additional functionality is available as well:

In addition to viewing activities by status and by goal, the Activities view will now have a tab for development goals.
When viewing an activity in the Activity Details view, the development goal linked to the activity will display.
Linked development goals will display in the Meeting view and in the Meeting History page.
Linked development goals in the Activities Kanban board may have name and details edited.
Goal linkage may be changed in the Activities Details page.
Integration with the Career Development Plan and the Development Goals section of a Performance Management form when an activity is tagged as an achievement to a development goal.

Goal Management

If you are using the latest version of Goal Management, Development will no appear in the navigation menu. Instead, performance goals and development goals are housed together within Goals with a tab for each. An example is shown below.

The integration between Goals and CPM allows users to create and view activities within Goal Management. As it already functions for goals, it will now be possible to create and view activities in the Development Goal view.

Multiple Role Support for Continuous Performance Management

The final new admin opt-in feature allows roles beyond the manager/employee hierarchical relationship to use CPM. Currently CPM is limited to the view between a manager and their direct reports. The new Multiple Roles feature allows a user to invite someone else to share a CPM view which contains access to the Achievement, Activity, and Discussion Topic views.

This feature involves a concept called “Channels”. A user invites another user to a channel which contains the CPM Activity view and a Meeting view. An example is shown below.

This feature enables users to have ongoing conversations with those they work with but are outside the traditional employee/manager roles. Users can view achievements and drilldown into individual activities. The Multiple Roles option needs to be enabled in CPM configuration view to use this.

Admin Opt-in Updates

Latest Version of Continuous Feedback for Continuous Performance Management

There is an improved process to request and provide feedback when using the latest version of CPM. Continuous Feedback is not housed within CPM but instead is found in the navigation menu. An example is shown below.

There are tabs for feedback received, feedback given, and feedback requests sent. There are also buttons to ask for feedback and to give feedback.

New is the use of a topic and questions when requesting and giving feedback. Feedback is more targeted and based on questions asked of the feedback provider. Users could select from standard provided questions, admin created questions or allows users to write their own questions.

An example is requesting feedback is shown below.

This flexibility enables users to get constructive feedback on specific topics rather than receiving generic feedback.

Feedback details may also be viewed. An example is shown below.

Filtering of feedback has also been enhanced. Feedback may be filtered by linked activities, shared feedback or feedback by date range. An example is seen below.

Universal Updates

There is two universal updates for latest version of CPM that relates to feedback.

CPM Feedback Data in Goal Plans

Feedback from CPM is now available to display in the performance and development goals plans. The CPM achievements column for a goal currently shows the count of achievements tied to a goal. With the latest version of CPM, achievement related feedback will also display. In the CPM achievements column, clicking on the count will now display the feedback topic title along the topic title and three sets of questions/answers from the Achievements tab.

CPM Feedback Data in Performance Management Forms

The CPM achievements column in the performance and development goal sections of a PM form currently shows the count of achievements tied to a goal. With the latest version of CPM, achievement related feedback will also display. In the CPM achievements column for a goal, clicking on the count will now display the feedback topic title along with the three related feedback question/answers.

Wrap Up

We have now seen what new features you can look forward to utilizing with the latest version of CPM.

Do you need help managing your SuccessFactors Release cycles? Email info@worklogix.com or download our support services brochure to see how we can help!