2521562 - Frequently Asked Questions on Business ByDesign and SuccessFactors Employee Central Integration

This document lists most common queries related to ByDesign and SuccessFactors Employee Central Integration.

SAP Business ByDesign

Please check these links to access important documentation:

Integrating Business ByDesign HCM with SuccessFactors Employee Central - Blog (Updated on February 2019)

SAP Business ByDesign and SuccessFactors Employee Central Integration Guide - Help Portal (Version - August 2021)

You can download the PDF version here.

Below are some of frequent queries related to this topic:

1. How to perform the CodeList mapping for those elements which we are unable to find in the ByDesign like "APC_V_PAYM_FORM_CODE"

In fine tuning activity Code List Mapping for Integration with External Applications and Solutions > Code List Mapping. Here, we could find "APC_V_PAYM_FORM_CODE" and it is possible to add other Local Data Type names using Add Row. It is also possible to add code list mapping.

2. How to configure the ID mapping for BYD - SF integration?

ID Mapping can be performed through Application and User Management > Common Tasks > ID Mapping for Integration.

3. Is it possible to map existing employees/users in SAP ByDesign and SuccessFactors?

Refer to knowledge base article 2530553 - SAP ByDesign and SuccessFactors Integration Pre-Requisites.

4. You have assigned a service agent to an organizational unit and the organizational unit is delimited now in both ByD and SF, but the service agents are still shown as active users and consuming licenses.

If an organizational unit is delimited, it doesn't mean the employee and the service agent assigned to that org unit will become inactive. Once you terminate the service agent in SF EC, then ByD will pull the changes from EC and perform the necessary change.

If you do not want to terminate the service agent in EC, then you can lock the user in ByD manually from the Application and User Management work center

5. User wants to replicate Employees from SF EC to ByD, but would like to know whether it is possible to ignore replication of Job ID along with Employee details.

The Job is the mandatory field for employee replication, so it always expects value from the SuccessFactors system. Hence, it is not possible to disable the job.

6. User wants to integrate SAP Business ByDesign with SAP SFSF Employee Central Payroll to post payroll results to accounting in ByD, is this possible?

As detailed in the User Guide for ByD and SF EC integration, only master data integration as HR systems is available. Currently, we don't support any integration for payroll purposes.

7. You have observed that there is some delay in replicating the Employee data from Staging Area to Employee Data. What is wrong with the replication request?

When you replicate the employees from SF to ByD, the employee data will be in staging area and there is a background job which runs everyday to replicate the data to employee from the staging area, so the employee data will be replicated within the same day.

8. It is possible to trigger replication for more than one employee, but not all employees (instead of using Replicate All button)?

This is not possible. Either use Replicate All or replicate one employee at a time.

9. You are unable to manually update the org units to add or update employees. You can only find service agents, however none of the employees are available for selection in the value help.

This is the expected system behavior. If the Employee Central replication is set up, you won't be able to edit employee data manually. It is only possible to update or add employees to org units is via replication.

10. You notice that after replication of Reporting Line Units, an employee is not shown as manager to his team in ByD system.

This could be because the employee's last replicated files are copy of an older replication request, hence data in ByD system is not as in the EC. Or it could be due to some validity changes done which can be seen in the change history of this org unit. Because of these data changes in the ByD System, appropriate hierarchy is not getting displayed.

In order to have consistent data in the system, please pull the latest file from EC and replicate that in the system.

11. Is it possible to replicate Time Recording from SF EC to ByD?

Time recording replication from EC to ByDesign is not delivered as a Business ByDesign standard delivery. But it is possible to create custom implementation for time recording replication to Business ByDesign.

12. Does the ByD integration with Employee Central support employee rehire?

Yes, but only of type Rehire Inactive Employee. The option Rehire Inactive Employee with New Employment is not supported.

In case you have already rehired a few employees with the Rehire with new Employment option in Employee Central, it might cause replication issues in Business ByDesign Integration.
 
If needed, SuccessFactors has an option of purging the rehired employee data. Please see knowledge base article 2545988 - How to Purge/Delete users in SuccessFactors Cloud. The user ID of the unintended rehire record from Rehire with New Employment must be used here and is the user to be purged (the user rehired this way would have two user IDs with the same person ID).

13. Using the Plain Rehire option, the history of Job Information would be available to the new Line Manager. This may contain sensitive information that the company would not wish to share with the new Line Manager.

Currently we only support "plain rehire" option of employee rehiring in SuccessFactors for Business ByDesign Integration and “Rehire with New Employment” option is not supported. So this history will be visible to the new Line Manager. We don’t have any other alternative available to resolve this issue.

14. In SFSF section Employment Details, some important fields would be overwritten including: Original Start Date, Protected Start Date, Continuous Service Date. Where would this information be held for the previous employment under the Plain Rehire option?

In the SuccessFactors system, these details will be overwritten, but in the Business ByDesign system, these details will be available for an employee in the different employment details which will be created by rehired employee replication. User can get these employee details via business analytics reports.

15. The error handling of the integration means that any issues experienced with a discrete number of staffs are causing the whole batch job to fail. Is there any way to exclude the problem records to allow the rest of the integration run to continue to perform while the individual problems are addressed?

Currently this is a limitation in the Business ByDesign and SuccessFactors EC Integration.

16. At present, ByD SF Integration is supported through SOAP API. Is there a way to connect via OData to ByD?

SFAPI is outdated for the service used to update cost centers to EC, it is not outdated for the Compound Employee API that brings employees to ByD.

The update of the cost center service to odata API is not planned, as we know that a lot of EC customers continue to use the SFAPI services, and support for them will not be withdrawn in the near future.

17. For a few cases the support needs to investigate the payload from the Success Factor side, this can achieved by following the articles below.

2639894 - [1805 Feature] API Audit Log Availability

2694943 - How to download API logs on SuccessFactors

18. Common issues in the configuration between SAP Business ByDesign and Success Factor.

3018781 - Error Message "Log-on to Employee Central failed" While Replicating Employees from Employee Central to SAP Business ByDesign

19. There is an incorrect Holiday for employees in ByDesign System with respect to Success Factors system.

As per the guide in the what's new link:

Help, the Holiday Calendar which needs to be assigned to the employee should have the same code in both Bydesign and Success Factors.

Holiday Calendar Replication from SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central to SAP Business ByDesign

The SAP Business ByDesign system now supports the holiday calendar from SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central as part of the employee replication request. If the Holiday Calendar ID from SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central matches with the one in SAP Business ByDesign, then it will be captured in the replication request. If they do not match, then the Holiday Calendar ID will be blank in the replication request.

However, if you wish to maintain the holiday calendar from SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central in SAP Business ByDesign and the Holiday Calendar ID does not match, then you must change the External Code of the holiday calendar in the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central system so that it matches with the Holiday Calendar ID in SAP Business ByDesign. For example, if the Holiday Calendar ID for the country Italy is ‘IT’ in SAP Business ByDesign, then you must provide this value (IT) in the External Code field of the holiday calendar in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central.

20. You are unable to descope Integration of Employee Data from External Application to Cloud Solution or Employee Central Integration Scoping Option  or  Integration with SuccessFactors Employee Central.

Refer KBA 2923450 - Not Possible to Deactivate the Employee Central Integration Scoping Option

If you are still unable to descope the configuration, follow steps below:

Backend Error - Descoping SF Integration not permitted;Successful replication file exists

It is not possible to descope the setting Integration of Employee Data from External Application to Cloud Solution because you have already some successful replication requests between SuccessFactors and Business ByDesign and once this is the case, descoping won't be allowed.

The best way to restore the system to the pre-integration state is to create a service request from the Service Control Center to restore the system to its previous restoration point, when the integration was not scoped. If your test tenant does not have an active restore point created, it will not work, because it is only possible to rollback the tenant to a restore point if it is created accordingly.

In case this tenant does not work anymore for you, it is possible to terminate it and request a new tenant from Service Control Center. Please check both Knowledge Base Article that is attached in this incident.

KBA 1941544 - How to Delete or Terminate a Test System?

KBA 2136036 - How to request a New Tenant for SAP Business ByDesign or SAP Cloud for Customer from Service Control Center

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