2401469 - Getting Started with Mentoring Program

Symptom

This article provides information on SAP SuccessFactors Mentoring feature. Where to start, what is needed, and what are some of the Pre-requisites required before enabling and using the Mentoring feature. Mentoring can assist in relationships between mentor and mentee, to further progress and growth.

Environment

SAP SuccessFactors Career Development Plan
SAP SuccessFactors Mentoring

Resolution

What is Mentoring?

Mentoring typically refers to a development relationship where a more experienced or knowledgeable person provides guidance or coaching to a less experienced person. These relationships can be focused on things like personal growth, specific tasks, or professional development. Formal mentoring or coaching programs often involve a high degree of manual processing to match mentors and mentees. They also provide limited opportunity to track progress or report on results.

The Mentoring solution from SAP SuccessFactors provides a central and integrated tool to set up and run programs to manage an organization's structured mentoring relationships. It provides a framework for development program management and can be applied to leadership development, coaching, enablement, or job shadowing programs, just to name a few.

Why is it important?

Most organizations have mentoring programs, but no integrated way to administer them. Hours of work are required to match by hand or import data and configure niche solutions. SF Mentoring is integrated with the entire suite.

Are there any prerequisites?

Mentoring is part of SAP SuccessFactors Succession & Development Product, and it is necessary to have Succession & Development license and Career Development Plan enabled in the instance.

To enable Mentoring program, the following must be enabled:

Role-Based Permissions;
Metadata Framework (Generic Objects);
CDP Full (Development Plan).

How to enable the Mentoring tool?

The Mentoring tool can be enabled via Upgrade Center in Admin Center. Detailed instructions are available in the section "Enabling Mentoring" of the Mentoring Administration Guide.

How to assign permissions?

Mentoring relies on the role-based permission features of the SAP SuccessFactors platform to allow mentoring administrators, owners, and participants different levels of access to mentoring programs.

Mentoring uses certain APIs to call and populate data for employees participating in mentoring programs. The access required for that data flow is controlled by certain role-based permissions and should be assigned to all users, including your mentoring program administrators and owners. Included among the common permissions is access to view employee data, like first name and last name, and user search. You can still restrict who can see what using target populations that differ based on a participant's role.

Because Mentoring uses the Metadata Framework, all users require basic read and write permissions. Mentoring administrators and program owners also require admin access to the MDF oData API. And finally, mentoring administrators require an additional permission that allows them to create and manage mentoring programs. If you plan to use dynamic groups for mentoring programs, or to integrate with SAP Jam, then those permissions are also required.

A visual overview of the permissions assigned to a role for mentoring administrators and owners and one for all other mentoring participants, can be found in the section "Example: Role-Based Permissions for Mentoring" of the Mentoring Administration Guide.

Administrators - How to create Mentoring Programs?

With Mentoring, you have the flexibility to define the following different types of programs:

Open Enrollment programs have no defined end date and are not managed by inviting participants but rather by allowing all employees, or a subgroup of employees, to see and sign up freely for a program. Users can sign up as both mentor and mentee in the same program.
Supervised programs require the mentoring administrator to oversee the matching of mentees to mentors through auto-generated and manual matches. Mentoring administrators define program dates and manually push the program through each step. The program dates strictly control the program process, for example, mentor sign-up ends as soon as mentee sign-up starts.
Unsupervised programs allow mentees to make direct requests to mentors without administrator intervention. The system still suggests mentors based on the same matching criteria used in the supervised programs but no automatic matching occurs. The system automatically triggers the next step or status based on the program dates defined. Administrators can still push the program to the next step manually if they want to. The program date flexibility also allows mentors to sign up even after mentor sign-up has started.

Regardless of the type of mentoring program created, each program follows a common general process. Once you've enabled Mentoring and assigned your administrators, create programs and define who can participate. Mentee and mentor matching takes place, either independently or with oversight, and you run and track the program before closing it.

See below sections of the guide for relevant information on how to create each type of program and match mentors and mentees:

How to use the Mentoring program?

See below sections of the guide for relevant information on how to use the Mentoring tool and manage the Mentoring program:

Ad Hoc Reporting in Mentoring

For details on the mentoring information available in Ad Hoc Reports, access the section "Ad Hoc Reporting in Mentoring" of the Mentoring Administration Guide.

E-mail Notifications in Mentoring

For details on the e-mail notifications triggered by Mentoring, access the section "E-Mail Notifications" of the Mentoring Administration Guide.

Note on Upload Document feature: This feature appears if approval is by program administrators or owners, then users must upload supporting documentation with their application. If approval is by manager, an e-mail notification is sent to the manager to approve the user's application as a mentor and the 'Upload Document' feature no longer appears in the Mentoring program.
Supported file types: PDF, .doc, .docx

Keywords

Mentoring Tool CDP Career Development, create Mentoring Programs, Reporting, Reports, Adhoc, Email Notifications success factors SF SCM , KBA , LOD-SF-MEN , Mentoring , LOD-SF-MEN-PER , Permissions, RBP, Roles , LOD-SF-CDP , Career Development Planning , LOD-SF-MEN-ADM , Admin Center and Setttings , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors Succession & Development all versions