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.

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

What’s New in Calibration?

As of April 9, 2021, SAP has released their documentation for the H1 2021 release. You can view the full set of documentation in the W hat’s New Vie wer here. As a reminder, preview release will be April 16 and production will be released May 21^st. 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 the 7 new universal features for 2021 Calibration along with the an admin opt-in. Let’s start with the universal features.

Universal

Distribution Range and Group of Ratings in Guidelines

When defining your Calibration template and Performance was selected as the data source on the Data tab, previously an individual percentage could be set for each rating with one rating in a guideline.

It is now possible to create a distribution range for ratings including a group of ratings in a guideline.

In addition to an individual rating, a group of ratings can be used when creating a guideline. As an added bonus, more operators besides “=” can be used:

<
<=
>
>=
is between

This allows you to set a distribution range for ratings and also include a group of ratings in a guideline with different operators.

Group Ratings and Distribution Ranges in Bin View

Here is a feature that works with the new distribution ranges and groups of ratings in guidelines. When a guideline includes an individual rating with a distribution range, in Bin View, you can see the number of subjects in a range that can be added or removed from the bin to meet the guidelines. A warning message will display above the bins if a guideline includes a group of ratings.

You may modify the total number of subjects for groups of ratings to meet the guidelines. You may also adjust the number of subjects displayed as a range within a bin.

Dashboard and Executive Review Bar Charts

Working in tandem with the new distribution range and groups of ratings that can be configured in guidelines, there is a new UI for bar charts for the Dashboard view and the Executive Review view. The bar charts identify actual distribution for each rating from the rating scale. Blue and orange bars are used to identify the distribution that matches or does not match the guideline.

Hover over the chart to see target vs. actual distribution if any of these conditions are met:

A rating appears more than once in multiple guidelines.
Not all ratings are configured in all guidelines.
There is more than one rating in a guideline.
There is more than “equal” configured in a guideline.

When none of these conditions are met, the bar charts will still display the actual distribution and the guideline.

Filters in Manage Calibration Settings

Within Manage Calibration Settings, the “Search Results Fields” tab has been relabeled as “Search and Filter Fields”.

On this tab, the existing columns has been relabeled:

“Include Field” is now “Include Search Results Fields”
“Make Default” is now “Default Search Results Fields”

There is a new column, “Filter Fields”, applies to all views of a calibration session and allows you to identify the default filters.

There are also new filter fields: Name, First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, Title, Username, Email, Gender, Level, and Status.

Manager Created Calibration Sessions

It is now easier for a manager to create his team calibration session. Previously a manager could identify the template, session name and number of reporting levels when creating the session. Now the manager has more options. Session co-facilitators may be chosen, the default co-facilitators changed and the direct reports may also be participants rather than just subjects. The default co-facilitators option will only appear if the admin opt-in on Manage Calibration Settings is used. It will be explained in the admin opt-in section at the end of this blog.

Deep Links to Performance Management

Within a calibration session view, it is now possible to use a deep link to view a performance form:

/sf/viewPMFormFromCAL

Also to use a deep link to edit a performance form:

/sf/editPMFormFromCAL

Appending the deep link to the application server address will go to a Performance Management form in calibration views as well.

My Jobs Downloads

Previously Calibration reports could be downloaded from the Scheduled Reports page in Classic View. Reports may now be downloaded from My Jobs page within Report Center. This eliminates the need to switch to Classic View prior to downloading.

A report with multiple files can be downloaded in a compressed .zip file or downloaded individually.

Admin Opt-In

There is one admin opt-in for Calibration which we touched upon when looking at manager created calibration sessions.

Specify Default Facilitators for Manager-Initiated Calibration Sessions

A manager initiated calibration session can now have default facilitators. To set this up, a user who has access to Manage Calibration Settings would go to the Global tab and use the setting: Choose one or more users as default facilitators for a new manager calibration session to identify active users to default as facilitators.

This can be useful to specify an HR manager to act as a co-facilitator in order to access a manager initiated session.

When creating a session, the New Session dialog window will display the default facilitators but can be edited by the manager.

We have now reviewed what is coming soon for Calibration.

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!

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!

Configuring SAP SuccessFactors Calibration Part I -Provisioning

What is Calibration?

Calibration is a process used to appraise employee performance in a fair and consistent manner. Managers meet in calibration sessions to discuss employee performance and achieve agreement on performance ratings. At the onset of a calibration session, the definition of each performance rating can be agreed upon to enable a common language to use when discussing and evaluating performance. The intent is to help eliminate any potential manager bias when discussing employee performance and finalizing ratings.

SAP SuccessFactors Calibration provides a framework to objectively evaluate employee performance. This tool provides HR and senior managers the means to impartially review and adjust performance ratings across teams, departments and the organization. A calibration session provides a visual presentation of employee data from multiple sources in multiple views. Evaluating ratings in several formats with different filters may help to find areas of bias.

Calibration may be a standalone process or part of a performance review process, a talent review process, or a compensation review process.

Information used within Calibration may be sourced from Performance Management, People Profile, Compensation, or Succession data. Within Performance Management, overall performance, potential, competency, and goal ratings may be calibrated. The Succession related metrics that may be calibrated are Risk of Loss, Impact of Loss and Reason for Leaving. Compensation ratios may be evaluated using the salary, bonus, stock and variable pay components of a compensation template. Overall potential, performance, competency, objective and two custom ratings may be calibrated from the talent profile section of People Profile. Upon completion of a calibration session, ratings are updated in the original source.

We will focus on calibration based on ratings from a performance form template.

Basic Configuration of Calibration

There are several steps to perform before we are ready to run a calibration session:

Enable Calibration in Provisioning
Configure Succession Data Model
Set role-based permission for Calibration access
Configure data source template
Enable calibration related e-mail notifications
Configure Calibration Template
Configure Calibration Settings
Assign users to Executive Review role
Configure Calibration History Portlet in People Profile

In this blog we will cover the steps to configure Calibration in Provisioning. The steps to configure Calibration in your instance will be covered in the next blog, “Configuring SAP SuccessFactors Calibration Part II – Instance Set Up”.

Enable Calibration in Provisioning

First we must enable Calibration in Provisioning. Within Company Settings, search for “Calibration” to find the section called Enable Calibration. Once found, click the checkbox as seen below.

Additional settings under Enable Calibration may be enabled here. If you plan on using Executive Review, which summarizes calibration activity across sessions, enable this feature here. We will need this feature enabled when creating the calibration template.

If you are going to permit managers to create their own calibration session, click the checkbox for “Enable Manager Calibration Session”. We will need this feature when configuring the calibration settings.

The other features may be set in the instance directly via Manage Calibration Settings and will then reflect as enabled in Provisioning. We will be discussing these features in the next blog, so we can leave the rest unchecked here.

There is also a radio button within Enable Calibration used to identify the permission model used. The default permission model is legacy permissions but you should be using Role-Based Permissions (RBP). Make sure “Use role based permission model”is selected.

Save the settings in this section of Company Settings before moving on to the next set of features to enable.

Calibration Reporting Permission

There are no standard reports or dashboards for calibration. Any calibration reporting will need to be done using ad hoc reports. If you wish to make calibration data available for reporting, go to the Analytics and Dashboard Tabs & Misc Reporting section of Company Settings.

“Additional Adhoc Sub domain Schemas Configuration” and “Enable INCLUDE STARTING FROM USER in people pill” will need to have the following enabled:

Calibration
Calibration Org Chart Coverage
Calibration Activity

After saving the settings, back out of Company Settings and we will continue with additional configuration set up.

Configuring Calibration in the Succession Data Model

There are elements in the Succession Data Model that can be used for calibration. We will need to update the data model to ensure these elements are configured. Export the data model in order to make updates.

Open the file using an XML editor. Here we will be updating the following:

Rating elements
Display options
Filter options
Calibration History Portlet

We will look at each of these.

Rating Elements

The ratings that can be calibrated are based on the available ratings configured in your system. While setting up Calibration in your instance, you identify the data source of the ratings. Earlier we had mentioned that ratings may come from performance form templates. You may calibrate ratings from an existing performance form template or you may decide to create a new performance form template in order to utilize additional rating types such as overall competency, overall goal and overall potential.

In either case, the data model must contain the rating elements that you wish to calibrate. Most likely these already are already in the data model but you will need to verify this. The rating elements are:

sysOverallObjective
sysOverallCompetency
sysOverallPerformance
sysOverallPotential
sysOverallCustom01
sysOverallCustom02

A code segment seen below displays an example of the overall performance rating background element.

sysOverallPerformance Background Element

Make sure all of the rating types that you wish to calibrate are included in your data model.

Additional Elements to Calibrate

There are three standard elements that may display in some of the views in a calibration session. If you are using SAP SuccessFactors Succession, these most likely are in used for Talent Flags and Matrix Grid reports.

riskOfLoss
impactOfLoss
reasonForLeaving

A code sample of the flags is shown below:

Display Options

Calibration sessions can display data in many views. In Part II of this series, you will learn how to create these views. There is a display option feature that is particularly useful for the List view tab. Here the data is displayed in a table with a row for each employee being calibrated. If there are several columns for this table, there could be a lot of back and forth scrolling. With the display option feature, some columns may be hidden. There is an icon for display options that enables users to add or remove certain columns from the view. Some are hardcoded and will always show up as display options in a calibration session:

First Name
Last Name
Count
Quickcard (if enabled in the calibration template)

The Quick Card display option may be enabled when configuring the Calibration template which we will discuss in Part II.

When clicking on the display options icon within the calibration session, any of these fields may be deselected and those columns will no longer display on the view.

There are some icons that may be added as a display option fields. Any display option fields defined for Succession in the Matrix Grid Classifier tool in Provisioning or the flags be set in Matrix Grid Report Icon Reconfiguration may also be used as display options in a calibration session. In the list view, any of these icons selected would appear in a new column called “Attributes”. Bin and matrix views the icons appear underneath an employee’s name. Having these icons readily visible for each employee may be useful when comparing employees.

Filter Options are used in a calibration session to narrow the list of the employees that display. If there are a large number of subjects, this is a way to view a smaller group that meet the filter criteria. It may be more manageable to view subsets of employees during the session.

Within a calibration session, the standard fields that are available as filter options are:

Manager
Division
Department
Location
Jobcode

These will always appear as filter fields for a calibration session. If Risk of Loss, Impact of Loss and Reason for Leaving are also in your data model, these fields will also be filter fields. The 15 custom fields that may be defined in the data model may also be added as filter options. To set this up, the custom fields must be part of the default filter in the data model as shown below in the code segment sample.

Adding the custom fields as default filters

These custom fields may also be used in as filters in calibration. Module specific filters are defined within <custom-filters>. Identify the calibration module filters by adding this tag:

<filter-module-id=”calibration”>

Include the custom elements that you wish to use as calibration filters. This should be placed after the default filter as shown below:

There is one additional calibration specific element that may be added to the data model. We will look at this next.

Calibration History Portlet

Calibration data may appear in People Profile when the Calibration History Portlet is configured. This portlet provides a snapshot of calibration session data along with ratings. The background element for the portlet must be added to the data model. A code segment sample is shown below.

<background-element id="calibrationHistoryPortlet" type-id="138">
   <label>Calibration History Portlet</label>
</background-element>

If you also wish to use the portlet in the Employee Scorecard, the portlet must be added under the view-template “employeeScorecard”. A code segment sample is shown below.

Adding Calibration History Portlet to Scorecard

After making the data model updates, save and import the data model.

Congratulations! Calibration is now enabled and you are ready to set up Calibration in your instance. Coming soon will be my blog, Configuring SAP SuccessFactors Calibration Part II – Instance Set Up to learn how.

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

Do you need help setting up your Calibration implementation? Contact us at: info@worklogix.com

What’s New in SAP SuccessFactors Calibration

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

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

Customized Weighted Ratings now used in Calibration

There is a new universal feature that allows ratings from the Customized Weighted Rating summary section of performance form template to be used in Calibration. Prior releases of Calibration could only use ratings from the Overall Performance, Overall Potential, Overall Objective and Overall Competency sections of a performance form templates as rating sources.

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

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

Customized Weighted Rating Section of PM Template

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are four universal enhancements for Calibration.

Subjects List Page Enhancement

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

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

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

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

Enhanced Comment Details

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

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

Calibration Template with Authorized By Enforced on Rating Change

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

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

Full Screen Mode Matrix View

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

Matrix View with Full Screen Icon

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

Matrix View in Full Screen Mode with Toolbar

New Reporting Columns

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

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

Sample Calibration Report with New Fields

Wrap up

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

Do you need help with your calibration implementation? Contact us at: info@worklogix.com