SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

2088248 - The My Groups Feature in SuccessFactors

Symptom

  • What are My Groups?
  • How do I enable My Groups in Provisioning?
  • How long will the old Dynamic Groups be supported?
  • How do I create new groups?
  • What field categories are available to define groups?
  • Where can I use groups in the suite?
  • Using Groups in Dashboards Filter Options
  • Using Groups in Matrix Grid Reports
  • Using Groups in Admin Pages: Granting Succession Planning Permission to a Group
  • Does this automate permissions management? (No)
  • How are permissions enforced when a group is used?
  • How do groups work with Administrative Domains?
  • Can I share my groups? (No)
  • Can administrators manage groups for other users?
  • Is admin user perform some report about the groups other users have been created?
  • What are the cool new features in this tool?
  • Reporting on Inactive Users
  • How to configure if Employee Central is enabled

Environment

  • SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite
  • SAP SuccessFactors Compensation
  • SAP SuccessFactors Succession Planning
  • SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting

Resolution

What are My Groups?

  • My Groups is a feature that allow users to create their own people based group definitions which can be used in several locations in the application, like reporting or administrative tasks;
  • My Groups are essentially saved queried criteria on users and is an upgrade to the dynamic groups feature;
  • It includes a Groups Management screen under Options > Groups, a new look and feel for creating and editing group definitions, and major enhancements to group editing for more powerful group definitions;
  • Multiple users can be added to “My Groups” by uploading a CSV file with each members userid. See KB article 2216397 - Manage Groups in Option Menu;
  • Important: groups created within the My Groups feature aren't tied to RBP;
    • Therefore, when loading/rendering a list of users, information related to these users that may aren't granted to you in RBP (such as First name or e-mail) will still be shown in there.
    • It's due to the fact that the standard fields — First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, Job Code and Location — are hardcoded in the view and can't be hidden.

How long will the old Dynamic Groups be supported?

  • Currently, there is no plan to stop supporting the old Dynamic Groups; however, we do not want to add any new customers to the old feature
  • You can go back and forth between the two groups framework without side effect, but there is no way to move the groups definitions between frameworks

Note: There is no migration path from the old dynamic groups to the new dynamic groups. Users will have to create desired new groups from scratch. Turning on the new version of dynamic groups will not harm the old groups. The new groups are kept in a different framework

How do I create new groups (My Groups)?

  • After the "Dynamic Groups V2 (My Groups)" feature has been enabled in Provisioning (please ensure to check the Enable "Manage My Groups" permission in RBP" option), you can log into the application as any user and create a group. To create a group:
  1. Go to "Options --> Groups"
  2. Select the button labeled "Create New Group"
  3. Name your group
  4. Start defining your field categories, i.e. if you want a group of all users hired before October 1, 2009, select the "Hire Date" field category in the drop-down titled "Pick a category…".
  • You can make multiple selections within a single category, and you can select multiple categories, i.e. if you want a group of "All the engineers and product managers in San Mateo", you would define this as with two categories as follows:
  1. Pick category "Department" from the dropdown titled "Pick a category"
  2. Notice a popup with a list of departments presented
  3. Select "Engineering" and "Product Management" from the list of departments
  4. Select the button labeled "Add Another Category"
  5. Pick category "Location"
  6. See the popup with a list of locations presented
  7. Select "San Mateo" from the list of locations

What field categories are available to define groups?

  • Below is a list of field ids from the Succession Data Model that can be configured to appear in Dynamic Groups
  • The actual fields available for each client will differ based on your data model configuration
  • The actual order of appearance for these fields in the Groups Edit Screen will be alphabetized by the field label value in the user's selected language

    • username
    • department
    • division
    • location
    • custom01
    • custom02
    • custom03
    • custom04
    • custom05
    • custom06
    • custom07
    • custom08
    • custom09
    • custom10
    • custom11
    • custom12
    • custom13
    • custom14
    • custom15
    • benchStrength
    • citizenship
    • city
    • country
    • dateOfBirth
    • dateOfPosition
    • ethnicity
    • futureLeader
    • gender
    • hireDate
    • impactOfLoss
    • jobCode
    • keyPosition
    • married
    • minority
    • nationality
    • newToPosition
    • reasonForLeaving
    • riskOfLoss
    • state
    • timeZone
    • title
    • zipCode

Only a predefined number of standard elements can be used as filters, they are the 42 standard elements as listed above and 2 hard coded elements: 'Team View' and 'User', so there are 44 available filters to use for My Group, and only standard elements are supported in My Group. EC Fields are not supported in My Group.

Notes:

  • In order for these fields to be accessible to the groups definition tool, the field permissions must be configured in the Succession Data Model as viewable by all (also known as "star readable" fields). Meaning when you make a field available for use with groups, by default it will be available to all users anywhere you have it in use. You would not want to use any field that is restricted to only certain roles.
  • The group membership will show all the users matching the criteria defined even if you don't have permission to view that field for all the users. For example, if you have a field called Salary Grade and you can only view the salary grade of users in United States, and you create a group with the criteria of all the users with Salary Grade "B", all the users with salary grade as "B" will be shown in the group membership, not only the ones from United States. So please take care when making some field that is sensible as a filter for the My Groups feature.

An example of star readable fields is:

   <element-permission type="read">
   <description>Allow everyone to read non-sensitive data</description>
   <role-name>*</role-name>
   <standard-element-ref refid="department"/>
   <standard-element-ref refid="jobCode"/>
   <standard-element-ref refid="hireDate"/>
   ………
   </element-permission>

Further Restricting the List of Exposed Fields

  • You can further restrict the fields exposed in My Groups by explicitly listing the field id's to expose
  • This can be done by your Implementation Partner via the Employee Files Data Model, using the <dg-filters> tag as shown below. Consult the sf-form.dtd for more details
  • In the example below, only the data model fields for department and location will be available as filters in the groups feature:

    <dg-filters>
        <my-filter>
            <standard-element-ref refid="department"/>
            <standard-element-ref refid="location"/>
        </my-filter>
    < /dg-filters> 

If you want to use hris-element

The structure of the dg-filters should be as below: if you want to set hris-element, you have to put them in <permission-group-filter>.

  <dg-filters>

    <my-filter>

      ......(only standard elements supported)

    </my-filter>

    <permission-group-filter>

      <hris-element-ref refid="jobInfo" extend-by-n-days="90">

        ......

      </hris-element-ref>

    </permission-group-filter>

  </dg-filters>

Where can I use groups in the suite?

Groups can be defined in Options > Groups and can then be used for sharing Reports, and also in Admin Tools in actions that apply to groups

  • Using Groups in Dashboards Filter Options
  • Using Groups in Matrix Grid Reports
  • Using Groups in Admin Pages
  • Granting Succession Planning Permission to a Group

Important: This does not automate permissions. Instead, permissions will be granted to the users that match the group definition at the moment you grant the permissions. See explanation below 

Does this automate permissions management?

  • No. Automation of permissions linked to dynamic groups requires major infrastructure work to perform properly
  • This is a high priority project that the platform team is currently designing in the project we are calling automated role based security
  • The enhancements made to dynamic groups in this release is an important prerequisite milestone towards the goal of an automated permissions system
  • Until permissions are automated, granting permissions to groups today will grant to the users that match the group definition at the moment the action is invoked, i.e. if you have a group defined as "Dept=Engineering", and there are 10 users in the group, then granting permission to this group will give permissions to the 10 users. If tomorrow a new user is hired into Engineering, they will not automatically get the permission 

How are permissions enforced when a group is used?

  • Permissions are always enforced contextually when a group is used. For example, consider a group defined as "All Employees in San Mateo"
  • If you use this group in the Performance-Potential Matrix report, where your permissions are set to allow you to report only on the Engineering department, then the net result of the report output will be "All Engineers in San Mateo"
  • In tech-speak, this is the intersection of your group definition with your contextual permissions. In summary, permissions are always enforced 

How do groups work with Administrative Domains?

  • Administrative Domains are just another contextual permissions setting that controls access to people
  • The rule above (permissions are always enforced) applies. There is no exception to this rule
  • For example, suppose you have defined a group as "All people in the Sales Department". If your Administrative Domain is restricted to "All people in the Software Division", then using this group to Mass Create Forms would result in forms being created for "All people in the Sales Department of the Software Division"
  • In other words, it is an intersection of your group definition with the administrative domain. This is the same example as above in reporting context
  • Permissions are always applied. In tech-speak, we intersect the permissions restrictions with your group definition 

Can I share my groups?

No, My Groups are not shared. Groups created by a user are visible only to the user that created them. This may be reconsidered at a future date

Is admin user perform some report about the groups other users have been created?

No, there is no report available to see this information

Can administrators manage groups for other users?

No. My Groups are private to the user. Only a user can see the groups they create

What are the cool new features in this tool?

My Groups are useful because users can save lots of group definitions to make repeatable tasks like reporting or administrative actions easier. A summary of the cool new features in this release is listed below:

  • Lots of new user fields available to define a group.
  • New Groups Management page under Options.
  • Major Team Filter Enhancements.
  • Multiple People Pools.
  • Group membership can be locked.
  • Group Membership count displayed, with drill in to view users.
  • New Fields
  • We increased the number of user fields available to define groups. See the section above that describes what fields are available.
  • New Groups Management Page under Options
  • The Groups Management page under Options gives you a central page to perform tasks like create, edit, delete and clone your groups. You can also hide or show your groups. This will control whether the group appears in the drops downs lists where groups are usable in the suite (like Dashboard Filters) 

Hiding a Group

Deselect the SHOW checkbox in your groups list

  • Team View Enhancements - allows you to define hierarchical groups with multiple levels, even when using Matrix, HR and Custom reporting relationships, i.e. define a group of two levels deep using the Matrix Reporting relationship in the following fashion:

Carla Grant's Matrix Reports, and the Direct Reports of Carla's Matrix Reports

  • Multiple People Pools - each group can have multiple people pools. People pools are used to identify people who meet your criteria. For example, say you have 2 different offices: Office A and Office B. Each office has a Sales team and a Finance team

    • Use one Pool when everyone fits in your search criteria, i.e. you want to include Sales employees and Finance employees from both offices
    • Use multiple Pools when only some people fit in each search criteria, i.e. you only want to include Sales employees from Office A and Finance employees from Office B. You'll need to create two separate pools 

Locking Group Membership

  • Group definitions are basically stored queries. Their membership is therefore dynamic. The number of people in the group today can be different than the number of people in the group tomorrow
  • For example, if you have a group defined as "Everyone in the Engineering department", then if a new person is hired tomorrow, the membership is augmented by one
  • If you do not want your membership to change, you can lock the group membership. This will save the list of users that meet the group criteria at the time you lock the group
  • Once a group is locked, you cannot edit the group membership. To edit the membership, you must unlock the group

Note: Unlocking a group will lose the locked membership, and the group will return to being dynamic

Group Membership Count with Drill Down

  • You can view the list of members in the group by selecting the membership count. The group membership count is displayed in the Groups Management page and in the Group Edit page
  • While in the Group Edit page, to view the latest count on the group membership, select the "Update" button 

Reporting on Inactive Users

  • Special consideration needs to be made when you are using My Groups when you need to report on inactive employees. Keep in mind deactivated users are totally removed from any dynamic groups they may have been a part of
  • When running the detailed document search report and you want to find forms for inactive users, then you must uncheck all the Groups filters
  • Think of the groups filters as exclusive, not inclusive. When including the group filters you are saying don't include people not in these groups, so forms of inactive people will not be in results
  • To report on forms for inactive users just use the other filter options such as div, dept, location etc. and uncheck the Include Active Users Only option. You will see the inactive people show in the results

How to configure if Employee Central is enabled

Please consult KB article 2432747 - My Groups - Dynamic Groups - How to configure if Employee Central is enabled

See Also

  • KB article 2216397 - Manage Groups in Option Menu
  • KB article 2432747 - My Groups - Dynamic Groups - How to configure if Employee Central is enabled

Keywords

my groups, manage my groups, groups, global groups, target populations, create groups, KM-19620 , KBA , LOD-SF-PLT-DYG , Dynamic Groups (My Groups - Not RBP) , LOD-SF-CMP-FRM , Forms & Templates , LOD-SF-RCM-CRM , Candidate Relationship Management , LOD-SF-SCM-MXG , Matrix Grid Reports (9 Box) , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors Compensation all versions ; SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite all versions ; SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting all versions ; SAP SuccessFactors Succession & Development all versions