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!

SAP SuccessFactors Job Profile Builder Talent Management Integration

SAP SuccessFactors Job Profile Builder (JPB) is a tool used to create and maintain job profiles associated to job roles. Job profile content can be used when creating job requisitions but it can be used for much more. JPB is integrated with many HCM modules and the key that ties all of these modules to Job Profile Builder is job roles.

The job profile components can be used in many modules. These components are useful in many areas of SuccessFactors including:

Performance Management
Career Development
Succession
Employee Profile

First, let’s look at a job profile. Job Profiles are tied to job roles within a job family. The profile can include education, skills and competencies to associate with a job role. This information can get pulled into a req and the position associated with a job will inherit its properties.

An example of a job profile is shown below.

Job Profile

Competencies are a very critical component of a job role. The competencies are selected from a competency library, most notably the SuccessFactors 2.1 Competency Library. Once the job roles are created, competencies are selected to map to roles. Positions associated with a job will then have these competences that can included as requirements on a job req or a way for an employee to track progress on goals.

As you see below, for a role, a competency library is selected and then competencies can be added.

Mapping Competencies to a Job Role

Job codes, skills, competencies and talent pools can be mapped to a job role. Job codes associated with the roles will inherit the skills and competencies. An example is shown below.

The job role below has a job code, 8 competencies, 4 skills and a talent pool mapped to it.

Job Role with Mappings

This means that all positions associated with a job code will then have the associate skills and competencies.

Performance Management
Any job related competencies can be included on performance form template. This allows an employee to be rated on their job specific competencies.

When a form is generated, all competencies associated with the employee’s role will be pulled in when a performance form is generated.

Role Competencies on PM Form

Development Goal Plans

Development goals can have have competencies added. This is especially useful when using Career Worksheet which we will look at next,

Competencies on Development Goal

Career Worksheet
The Career Worksheet is a component of Career Development and is used by an employee to discover development opportunities based on roles that may wish to grow in to. The Career Worksheet is also dependent on job roles and their job role definitions, mapped competencies and expected competency proficiency ratings.

Job profiles will appear throughout the career worksheet, when browsing roles, viewing suggested roles, viewing career paths to name a few.

The employee selects future or targeted roles to view along with the job role’s associated competencies. The worksheet identifies competency gaps which highlight development areas that the employee needs to work on. The worksheet also illustrates how ready an employee is for the targeted role based on their competency proficiency. The worksheet may also be used to view career paths and suggested future roles.

Competency mappings to roles are the sole source of competencies listed on the career worksheet. Only ratings from completed forms are displayed in the career worksheet.

A job role will require a number of competencies and each competency should have an expected proficiency level rating. An employee’s readiness for the role depends on whether the employee’s proficiency rating for the competencies meets the expected ratings.

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.

An employee can browse career paths and suggested roles from their Career Worksheet. Employees can proactively prepare for that next step. By discovering the competencies and skills needed to exceed in a job role, the employee can create development goals that align with a targeted role. This gives employees a sense of empowerment to develop skills, behaviors and competencies to prepare for future roles.

Suggested Roles

Suggested roles can be based on career paths or through an algorithm based on a set of criteria. The suggested roles can be a combination of competencies, targeted roles, career path and roles selected by peer. Clicking within any role will will display the job profile, Selecting a role will add it to the employee’s career worksheet in order gauge their readiness for the role.

Suggested Roles

Clicking the plus sign will add the role the employee’s career worksheet.

The employee can view job roles based on job family. Selecting any will add the role to career worksheet.

View

Career Path

Once a target role is selected, the career path for the role can be viewed. This gives the employee a chance to see the job role progression. Job profiles for the roles in the path may be viewed as well.

On the Career Worksheet, the job profile of a targeted role may be viewed.

Career Path for Target Role

All of the job roles that have been configured for a career path will display. The targeted role will be highlighted. Clicking on the information icon give the employee a view of the job profile which can be used to help them decide if that is a job they may like to grow into.

Job Profile

Role Readiness Form

The Role Readiness form is launched from the Career Worksheet by the employee and is used to rate how proficient they are in the competencies needed for any future roles that they selected. The form is used to help employees plan their career development and identify areas of development needed for the future roles.

Role Readiness Form

Readiness Meter

Once the form has been completed, the readiness meter on the career worksheet will show how ready the employee is for the targeted role.

Readiness Meter

Gap Graphs

There is a gap graph for each competency comparing the last competency rating of record for the employee with the expected rating for that role. All job roles mapped to a competency will be included. The graph shows the actual competency rating from the latest rating form against the expected rating for the competency.

For any large gaps for the competencies, the employee may decide to add a development goal to help them become more proficient. This will add the development goal to their development plan. The development goal will also show the linked competencies.

Succession

Job roles can be tied to talent pools. When a talent pool is mapped to a job role, all positions tied to the job code will then become members of the talent pool. Talent pools associated with a position display in the position card when accessed from the Succession Org Chart or Position Tile view.

An employee’s talent card will also show the talent pools their position is associated with as seen below.

Talent Pool on Talent Card

The Position card will also show talent pool successors.

Position and role information may be viewed as well. Within the Succession Org Chart, when viewing a position, the associated job role details may be viewed. Clicking ‘View Role Details’ will open the job profile associated with the role.

Role Details

Employee Profile

The skill profile is linked to JPB.

Employees can add skills whick can be used for employee development and succession planning,

Skill Profile

Conclusion

I hope you can see that Job Profile Builder can be used beyond Recruitment. The job profiles created can be extremely useful in developing the people within your organization and not just for finding new talent.

For more information on the Job Profile Builder and Talent Management Integrations, check out o ur book here!

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 SuccessFactors Release Latest Goal Management Features and Integration

SAP SuccessFactors H2 2020 release updates finds us with several admin-opt “latest” versions including Home page, Goal Management and Continuous Performance Management (CPM). Here we will focus on the latest version of Goal Management and discuss how it fits into the new home page and how it integrates with CPM. See my earlier blog post for more information on performance management updates and my blog post for what’s new in CPM.

There is a new admin opt-in for the latest version of Goal Management. The latest version of Goal Management provides users with a streamlined view of goals to make it easier to access and manage. Performance Goals and Development Goals are now housed within Goal Management and have improved integration with CPM. Access to Goal Management contains both plans with a tab for each as seen in the example below.

New Goal Management View with Both Goal Plans

For managers, the new look is especially helpful. It is easy to navigate to direct report’s plans or any other users in their target population. They can swap between between their reports and within the two plans. An example the manager’s goal plan view is seen below.

Latest Goal Plan Features

The latest version of Goal Management still allows for the following existing functionality:

Creation of personal goals.
Development goals can have competencies and learning activities added.
Receipt of goal notifications.
Edit, view, and delete all goals except group goals v1.
Access to other’s goal plans with proper role-based permission.
Existing integration with other modules.

New functionality includes:

Personal goals not yet at the completed stage and approaching or past due date can appear on the latest home page.
Linked achievements for the latest version of CPM may be created and viewed here rather than having to go out of the goal plan and navigating to CPM.
Activities can be added directly to goals and linked activities may also display. An example of activities tied to a goal is shown below.

However, only the latest version of Goal Management may be used with the latest version of CPM.

Latest Goal Management Limitations

Since this is a new version for Goal Management, there is some goal plan functionality not yet available including:

Mass import of goals.
Ability to cascade and assign goals.
Use of Group and Team Goals.
Changing goal plan states within goal plan.
Use of metric lookup tables.
Use of Coaching Advisor for development goals.
Assigning custom learning activities to development goals.
OData APIs.
Some mobile features which will be identified shortly.

Attributes that may be Configured

Listed below are the the goal plan XML attributes that may be configured in the latest Goal Management:

max-goals
max-weight
max-weight-per-obj
min-goals
min-weight
min-weight-per-obj
new-obj-share-status-public
show-total-goalscore

Unsupported Goal Plan Field Types

Additionally, there are some goal plan field types that are not supported:

Bool
Checkbox
Comment
Link
Table
Text when used for achievement text, actual achievement text, object plan field 1, go to url

Changes to Goal Plan Fields with Latest Version of Goal Management

Name field is required with a maximum length of 500 characters.
Description and metric fields have a maximum 1000 character limit.
State. For use on the latest version of the home page, set the final enum value of the state field to “complete” in order to trigger the change of the goal state which enables incomplete goals to appear on the latest home page.
When using weight, if min-weight-per-obj and max-weight-per-obj attribute values are not met, goal creation is not possible.
For development goals, competencies can only be used in conjunction with Job Profile Builder.
Cannot select a single competency to link to a development goal in the UI.

You may convert existing goal plan templates but the goal plan field types that are not supported will not appear in converted goal plans.

After the upgrade, goal plan templates will need to be converted. Convert a template only once and and one at a time. Only convert the goal plans in use. Goal plans not converted will be read-only. Once converted, the goal plan templates may be used in the latest version of Goal Management.

Mobile Apps Limitations

There are some limitations using the latest version of Goal Management in mobile apps. For Performance and Development goals:

Cannot delete a goal from the goal card.
Cannot enter a negative number in the number field type.
Cannot revert back to the legacy view to see unsupported fields.

For Development goals:

Unable to search for a specific competency.
Unable to display the number of competencies on the goal card.
Unable to add competencies by library or category.
No integration with Learning.

Latest Goal Plan on latest Home Page

The latest Goal Management may be used in the latest version of the home page. There is a new admin opt-in for the redesigned home page. It is available for early adopters in both Preview and Production. Any existing legacy home page custom tiles or permissions are not impacted by the new page. An example of the new Home page is shown below.

The view is less cluttered with customized user and organization content. Tiles are replaced with cards and are system generated and more interactive. The page is divided into three sections:

Quick Actions. For frequent or quick actions.
For You Today. Dynamically generated user content. Displays any recently added goals and CPM activities.
Organization Updates. Contains custom organization content.

The new Home page shows content from Goal Management, Continuous Performance Management, and Continuous Feedback. On the latest home page, you can view personal goals when the state of these goals is not yet complete and these goals are approaching their due dates or already overdue.

The latest version of the home page handles only personal goals in the following manner:

Updates of goals on the home page appear on for those manually created, modified or deleted.
Goals from an import are not reflected on the home page.
Performance goals appear based on status, if not yet complete and 15 days before due date.
Development goals appear based on status, if not yet complete and 30 days before due date.
Overdue Performance and Development goals will display.

Performance and development goals disappear from the new home page when:

Goals are completed.
Goals are deleted.
Goal due dates are past the due dates configured on the goal plan template.

To-do items list can be opened and acted upon in a side panel on any page. You can take action on each to-do directly from the side panel.Overdue to-do items are indicated in red.

Is the upgrade right for you?

After upgrading to the latest version of Goal Management, you cannot reverse the update, so be sure to fully understand what features you will be gaining and losing. It is wise to fully test in a preview instance before committing to an upgrade to production.

Because there are some substantial limitations to the latest version, it may be premature to upgrade but it is at least worthwhile to anticipate how Goal Management is changing and to gain an better understanding of how modules continue to be more tightly integrated with each release.

Do you need help with your H2 2020 release? Download our support services brochure or email us at info@worklogix.com to see how we can help!

H2 2020 SAP SuccessFactors Performance Management Release Updates

What’s New

There are new universal and admin opt-in features in the H2 2020 Performance Management release along with a large number of universal features. We will start with what’s new. There are two admin opt-in updates and two universal 360 related updates.

New Admin Opt-ins

There are two new admin opt-ins available and we will look at them both.

Latest Version of Goal Management

The latest version of Goal Management provides users with an upgraded user interface with a comprehensive view of goals and development goals. This streamlined tool also enables access to the latest version of Continuous Performance Management (CPM) to create and view linked activities.

A notable change is combining performance goals and development goals within the navigation menu. Development goals now appear as a tab within Goal Management. An example is shown below.

For both plans, the view is cleaner and more visually appealing. Goals are more prominently displayed and may be viewed by status as well. You can see what the new goal plan looks like below.

Linked achievements for the latest version of Continuous Performance Management (CPM) may be viewed here rather than having to go out of the goal plan and navigating to CPM. Activities can be added directly to goals and linked activities may also display. An example of activities tied to a goal is shown below.

For managers, the new look is especially helpful. It is easy to navigate to direct report’s plans or any other users in their target population. An example the manager’s goal plan view is seen below.

Job Profile Builder Support for Writing Assistant and Coaching Advisor

The other new admin opt-in feature pertains to competencies when Job Profile Builder (JPB) is used. Previously, to use Writing Assistant and Coaching Advisor for competencies in a performance form, the Teasers and Tunings were added to a competency library via an import file in Provisioning.

Now this task may be accomplished in the UI with the tool “Manage Writing Assistant and Coaching Advisor“. This update fills a gap between JPB and Job Description Manager. Within this tool, a competency library overview page will display. After selecting the library and finding the competency to update, teasers and tunings can be added to the performance details. An example is shown below.

This new feature enables users without Provisioning access to create and modify the writing assistant and coaching advice content.

New Universal Updates

There are two new universal updates for H2 2020 both for 360 Reviews.

Advanced Search of Universal People Search Available in 360 Reviews – SAP Fiori Version

Advanced Search of Universal People Search is now available for 360 reviews. When searching for employees, when the “Find Employee” dialog box appears, there will be advanced search options. This search can be used in the “Add Participants” dialog box, in the “Send a Copy” dialog box and in the “360 Executive Review” page. The updated search screen is displayed below.

Detailed 360 Report in 360 Reviews – SAP Fiori Version

There is a revised version of the Detailed 360 Report. It has cleaner and easier to read layout. An example is shown below.

The settings are now housed at the top of the report and fonts are bigger and brighter for the gap values. Comments are more visible and appear beside ratings.

There is a radar chart to display competencies and ratings on the Graphical Summary tab. The print set up dialog box now offers an option to print specific views.

Admin Opt-in Updates

There are three admin opt-in updates available: New Competency Picker in Forms, Qualtrics Surveys for Steps in Performance Reviews and Customized Labels for Calculated Rating and Manual Rating in Customized Weighted Rating Section. Since there are sever

New Competency Picker in Forms

This opt-in is available when Job Profile Builder (JPB) is enabled and is used when adding competencies to a performance form. The new competency picker is used on PM forms to find competencies to add. Competencies can be found using a hierarchy structure and a search option. Competences can be selected by competency library or job roles and using keywords search. An example is shown below.

Qualtrics Surveys for Steps in Performance Reviews

If you are using Qualtrics surveys in your performance process, the current version only allows the survey to appear after the employee signature step. In the new version, you may select which steps and for which roles the survey should display. The survey can be used for single role, iterative, and collaboration steps.

Customized Labels for Calculated Rating and Manual Rating in Customized Weighted Rating Section

The labels for the calculated rating and the manual rating in the Customized Weighted Rating section can now be customized using an XML file. In the previous version, the labels for the calculated rating and the manual rating were hardcoded as Calculated Form Rating and Overall Form Rating.

Universal Updates

There are several universal updates for Performance Management. Many revolve around the Customized Weighted Rating Section of a performance form. We will look at these but first we will look at the other universal updates.

Message to Remind Users Before Removing Signers

In a performance form that allows for a signer to be removed, there is now a reminder in the Remove Signer confirmation pop-up. The message is to remind users that by removing a singer, the form automatically routes to the next step. If that is not the user’s intent, they need to add a new signer before removing the current signer. An example of the new reminder is shown below.

New Feedback Data in Goal Plans

Feedback from Continuous Performance Management (CPM) is now available to display in 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.

New 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.

If any achievements or feedback is deleted in CPM, the data is also deleted from PM forms, including completed forms.

You can check out my blog on the H2 2020 CPM Release Updates to see what else is new.

The remaining universal updates that we will discuss pertain to a very specific summary section of a performance form: Customized Weighted Rating.

Removal of Enable Customized Rating Calculation from Form Template Settings

“Enable Customized Rating Calculation” no longer appears in Form Template Settings as seen in the example below.

Current Method to Enable Customized Rating Calculation

“Enable Customized Rating Calculation” was a prerequisite to enable the calculation.

In the new version, simply adding the Customized Weighted Rating section to a form template acts as the prerequisite to enable the calculation of the overall customized weighted rating.

The business rules that trigger the calculation must also be configured.

Rating Scale for Customized Weighted Rating Section

In the previous version, the rating scale for the Customized Weighted Rating section used the same rating scale as the other rating section. In the new version, the Customized Weighted Rating section has its own rating scale.

“Unrated” and “Too New to Rate” in Previous Ratings of Customized Weighted Rating Section

In the previous version, “Unrated” and “Too New to Rate” were not in the Previous Ratings table of the Customized Weighted Rating section of a PM form and just displayed as 0. In the new version, “Unrated” and “Too New to Rate” are displayed in the Previous Ratings table of the Customized Weighted Rating section and both are ignored in the calculation of the overall customized weighted rating.

Allow Override of Unrated Manual Rating for Customized Weighted Rating Section

In the Customized Weighted Rating section of a form template, there is now the option to override the unrated manual rating. The option, Allow Override of Unrated Manual Rating has been added so this summary section can work like the others as seen in the example below.

In the previous version, the unrated manual rating displayed as Unrated. In the new version, the unrated manual rating can be overridden by the calculated rating.

Too New to Rate in Customized Weighted Rating Section

Like the other summary sections, there is now the option to provide a label to explain why an employee is not rated. An example using the current summary section is displayed below.

The summary section example above shows the Unable to Rate field will be available as an option in the Customized Weighted Rating section of a form template.

Calculated Rating from Customized Weighted Rating Section in Ad Hoc Reports

If you are using the calculated rating in the Customized Weighted Rating section of a form template, ad hoc reports use the unadjusted calculated rating from the performance template summary section instead. An example of creating an ad hoc and selecting rating columns is shown below.

In the new release, when creating an ad hoc report, when this same field is selected, the Unadjusted Calculated Overall Performance Rating from the Customized Weighted Rating section is used. This means reporting will accurately reflect the ratings in the performance forms. This is especially important when the template has both the Summary section and the Customized Weighted Rating section. The calculated rating from the Customized Weighted Rating section overrides the unadjusted calculated rating from the Summary section.

Customized Weighted Rating Section and Ratings Displayed in En Route Folder

In the prior version, when a form with the Customized Weighted Rating section was in the En Route folder, this section’s ratings were not in sync with the in-progress form. In the new version, the Customized Weighted Rating section section of a form will display in the En Route folder and will be synced with the in-progress form. The Previous Ratings table of the section will contain the ratings from the previous steps for the login role and by other roles.

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.

Label for Rating Scale Scores in Previous Ratings of Customized Weighted Rating Section

In order to get a clear picture of what the numeric rating means, labels are now visible. In the previous version, the ratings in the Previous Ratings table in the Customized Weighted Rating section were displayed only as numeric values.

An example is shown below.

In the new version, the ratings in the Previous Ratings table of the Customized Weighted Rating section are displayed as numeric values with corresponding text labels. If rating numeric values are mapped to labels in the manual rating scale, the label display next to the rating’s numeric value. If no labels were mapped, the rating will continue to just display its numeric value.

And example is shown below.

Customized Rating Section with Rating Labels

There is a checkbox in the form template for this section: “Hide numeric rating values (only show text labels)” similar to other summary sections.

If a rating’s numeric value is mapped to a certain label for the manual rating’s rating scale scores, the corresponding label can be displayed next to the rating’s numeric value in the Previous Ratings table. Otherwise, the rating is displayed as its numeric value.

There is an added checkbox for this form section in ” Manage Templates“. There is the option to hide numeric rating values and only show text labels.

Customized Weighted Rating Section in Print and Save as PDF

In prior versions, the section calculated rating details were not displayed in the printed or saved performance form. Now the calculated rating details of the Customized Weighted Rating section of a performance form will be included in the printed or PDF version of the form.

To Learn More

All in all, there are over 20 items being changed or enhanced in this release for Performance Management and we didn’t cover every detail here. For more information, check out the What’s New Viewer here.

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