SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

2183206 - Unable to relate/find an employee's externalId from USR-XXX number when using a background API

Symptom

  • A user is fetching information from a Background API (Example - Background_education)
  • They are not able to find the externalId of the employee from its USR-XXX number

Image/data in this KBA is from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental.

Environment

SAP SuccessFactors

Reproducing the Issue

You may be using a similar query as below to fetch background information (sample user from SuccessFactors SalesDemo):

background api.jpg

  • We can see that this fetches the selected fields from Background_education API entity (SFAPI)
  • We cannot find the externalId or employee's name from the obtained results since Background API doesn't provide those details
  • This is because these fields are not available in Background_education API entity. (Shown below)

background DD.jpg

Relating the above results such as USR-93 to its corresponding employee details is a challenge.

Cause

Background API stores information such as Employee's education/qualification/previous experience and so on.. but not their current employment details

This is the product behavior

Resolution

We can relate USR-XXX and externalId with the help of SFAPI User Entity. This is possible as explained below:

  • We have a USR-93 without any employee information.
  • Now, run a Query for User entity such as: SELECT firstName, lastName, externalId FROM User WHERE id IN ('USR-93') and explore the results

    usr no.jpg


  • From the aove results, We can easily find that USR-93 is related to the externalId "mhoff1" whose name is Marcus Hoff

Keywords

SF SuccessFactors Background API issue, USR and externalId, USR - Name query cannot unable to return find relate , KBA , LOD-SF-INT-API , API & Adhoc API Framework , LOD-SF-INT , Integrations , Problem

Product

SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite all versions