2082580 - Discontinuance of Customizations for Legacy Onboarding Customers - Onboarding

• In the last several releases, you may have noticed that we have made significant improvements to the self-service configuration tools available to you in Administration.   It is our goal to continue to expand and enhance these features allowing you to be in total control of your Onboarding configuration.

• Quality control and support are important to us. The expansion of the self-service tools allows us to ensure that every configuration in use by a customer is created in a consistent way that can be tested and supported by our engineers. 

• In order to ensure a consistently high level of release quality, effective June 1, 2014, we will no longer be accepting change orders, or new SOWs for customizations.

• You may be wondering what this means for your existing custom work?   We will maintain and support your existing custom work through the end of your current contract with SuccessFactors.  Additionally, we will continue to accept non-custom change orders and related SOW’s, in support of your current configuration.

• We suggest that you build replicas of your current custom panels using the self-service tools in panel designer / Administration.   Similarly, forms and workflows can also be built using available tools in Administration.  After June 1, if you are unfamiliar with the power of panel designer or other Admin tools, you can receive training through the Cloud Learning Center, or you can engage SuccessFactors professional services to build them via Administration on your behalf.     As always, it is our best practice recommendation that such changes are built and tested within your QA environment, before implementing in Production. 

• We’re sure you’ll have lots of questions, to best assist you, please see the attached FAQ.  For more information, feel free to contact your account representative for further discussion.  We value your business and will strive to make the transition away from custom work as seamless, as possible. 

FAQ - Common Questions

• Q: What exactly is ending?
  
  • The SuccessFactors professional services team will no longer perform code-based custom work to create a panel, panel logic, forms, or workflows. 
  • Customer Success will continue to take your cases if there are issues with your current customizations, however we will not perform a change to the panel content, forms, or workflow logic, nor create new panels.
  • We will still evaluate any issue or bug you might report. If we determine the issue is a general bug and not a change in functionality or new work, we will continue to provide support and work towards a fix for
             the issue.

• Q: How does this benefit my organization?
  
  • Quality control is important to us!   We are unable to monitor custom work for unintended impact from changes to the application.    By removing custom work and migrating everyone to configurable changes, we can ensure a high level of quality with each release of the software.
  • Additionally, you are now in control of any changes to your system, no longer needing to fund changes to custom work or coordinate timing of deployment.   All the enhancements and upgrades to the application will be available for you to use with each release, where previously custom work was excluded.

• Q: How do I determine if I have panels that were built using panel designer vs custom by an engineer?
  
  • Have your system administrator navigate to Account Settings à Panels à User Defined Panels.  Configurable
  • panels built using panel designer will have a plus sign next to them (see example below) that will allow you to see the panel built in preview mode. When you click on the panel name it will display with the available fields and the control menu for you to use.  These panels do not need to be migrated and will not be impacted by this change.

• Q: What do I gain by migrating my panels to panel designer?
  
  • Engineering support, including our extensive QA cycles that occur prior to each release to ensure your panels are not inadvertently disrupted by a release or upgrade.

• Q: I don’t know how to use panel designer or the other Admin tools, how do I get trained?
  
  • Effective June 1, training will be available through the Cloud Learning Center.  Additionally, you may engage the SuccessFactors professional services team to build these features on your behalf by contacting your sales representative.

• Q: I want training before June 1, what is available now?
  
  • Many of these features are available to you today in Administration, with more coming soon with the May release.  You can explore these on your own in your QA environment.   Unfortunately formalized training is not available prior to June 1.

• Q: Will there be a cost associated with the training?
  
  • No, you will not be charged to take advantage of the training on this feature.

• Q: Is it possible to rebuild only one panel in a process, or do we need to rebuild them all?
  
  • You only need to rebuild panels that were not built originally via panel designer.
  • Also see FAQ: How do I determine if I have panels that were built using panel designer vs custom by an engineer? For instructions on how to identify if you have a custom panel.

• Q: How do changes made on a panel affect integrations to other systems?
  
  • You will rebuild the panels using the same keys from the data dictionary that were on your current custom panel and place in the same Wizard as your custom panel. This will ensure that your integrations are not disrupted.
  • As always, we recommend that you fully regression test your new panels and all integration points in your QA environment before pushing these changes to production.

• Q: How do changes made on a panel affect populating my forms?
  
  • You will rebuild the panels using the same keys from the data dictionary that were on your current custom panel.   This will ensure that your forms are not adversely impacted.
  • As always, we recommend that you fully regression test your new panels and forms in your QA environment before pushing these changes to production.

• Q: I have a custom form, how do I rebuild this?
  
  • Using the newly available form upload tool in Administration, you can create and self-map your fields to the form you wish to use.  
  • Also see FAQ: I don’t know how to use panel designer or the other Admin tools, how do I get trained.

• Q: What if the administration options cannot perform the same logic / functionality I have today?
  
  • We have made a tremendous effort to enhance panel designer and our other tools to accommodate the majority of known use cases.  In the event you require panel features or logic that is not currently supported, you can submit an enhancement request in the Customer Community and we will evaluate it for the roadmap of continued improvements to this feature.

• Q: I would like to have my customizations evaluated right away, how do I engage professional services?
  
  • The professional services team will be accepting migration SOW requests beginning June 1 only.

• Q: How do I shut off my current customization?
  
  • When you have completed creating and testing your new configuration via Administration, please contact customer support.   We will work with you on disabling your current customization.    Please note, removal of some custom work may require a SOW with the professional services team.

• Q: What does this mean for potential upgrade from KMS XpressHR to SuccessFactors Onboarding?
  
  • Our sales team is able to assist you in defining a path that best aligns with your current and future Onboarding needs.

• Building replicas of your current custom panels via the methods discussed, makes as a great precursory consideration for migration to the new SuccessFactors Onboarding. 
• To learn more about SuccessFactors Onboarding, please visit our website, or contact your sales representative. 
  

KBA , LOD-SF-OBD , Onboarding , How To