SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

3102983 - Employee Central Release FAQ - Second Half 2021 (2H 2021)

Symptom

This FAQ is to document all important enhancements to be aware of in the 2H 2021 release.

***Please be aware that the documentation links provided in this KBA will not work correctly until after the preview release has been deployed***

Environment

  • SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite
  • SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central - 2H 2021 Release

Resolution

Release Information

FAQ Index:

 

Product Documentation

The following documentation can be also found on the SAP Help Portal under SAP SuccessFactors Release Information:

 

Release Related Blog Posts

 

Must Know New Features for EC

For the 2H 2021 Release, we have consolidated a list of features that are "Must Know' items for Employee Central, Time Off, and Global Benefits:

 

Centralized Services: Data Import and Export

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Updates to Centralized Services

ECT-173254

Universal

Centralized services now universally support Address Imports, Work Permit Imports, and Social Accounts Information Imports. These services are applicable to data imports initiated from the Import Employee Data page or APIs.

Centralized services are applicable for Address Imports, Work Permit Imports, and Social Accounts Information Imports, and are no longer governed by a configuration switch.

This enhancement brings several improvements to these entities by default. You can now configure business rules, suppress identical records, raise error messages, and so on as applicable to each entity.

Please also review the following, which displays a list of all Opt-out features in the 2H 2021 Release that you will need to be aware of for Centralized Services:

Opt-out 2111.PNG

Special Note: Please review the blog highlighted below for additional information about all changes coming in this release related to Centralized Services.

Related Information:

 

 

Centralized Services: Work Permit

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Centralized Services Support Work Permit UI Save

ECT-161690

Admin Opt-out

Centralized services are enabled to support users editing and saving work permit data in People Profile.

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The new option in Admin Center  Company System and Logo Settings, Enable Centralized services for Work Permit to save changes on Editing UI, is selected by default to allow users to take advantage of Centralized services. A validation ensures the UI fields used to generate business keys, which are Country, Document Type, and Document Number, all have values and business keys generated are unique. When this option isn’t selected, you can use another option, Enable Validations on the Work Permit Editing UI (Applicable only when the option "Enable Centralized services for Work Permit to save changes on Editing UI" is disabled), which was introduced in 1H 2021, to control validation of business keys.

Centralized services offer consistent and robust validations that improve data integrity of work permits.

Related Information:

 

 

Centralized Services

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Removal of ‘Enabled Centralized Services’ setting in Admin Center

ECT-174420

Universal

We have removed the "Enable Centralized Services" setting from the Admin Center.

Many HRIS entities are either universally supported on Centralized services or have their own setting for Centralized services.

Related Information:

 

 

Manage Pending Hires

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Internal Hires with New Employment Using Manage Pending Hires

ECT-148148

Universal

You can now use the Manage Pending Hires tool to hire internal employees with new employment when the pending hires are from Recruiting and Onboarding 1.0.

If you select a pending internal hire who is inactive, or has a termination record in the future, you see a new pop-up message with the choice to hire either as an Internal Hire or hire as a Rehire. When you choose to Rehire, the next screens are for adding a new employee that also take into account the permissions that you have.

When transferring an employee with new employment, companies using Employee Central first need to terminate the employee. Also, in Employee Central integration scenarios with Recruiting and Onboarding 1.0, the employees show up as internal hires in Manage Pending Hires tool since they’re applying as internal candidates.

International transfer with new employment is an essential business practice for many international companies. In many companies, even internal transfer within the same country/region results in new employment. We now give your user the choice to rehire such candidates as hires with new employment or proceed to hire them as internal hires as was possible before.

Related Information:

 

 

Job Information

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Prevention of Special Record Creation in Job History

ECT-130989

Universal

You can no longer create new records or edit existing records for specific Hire, Rehire, and Termination events using the Job Information History UI. Instead, these transactions must be made using the Take Action page for such events. This ensures that the status of the employee, along with their employment and/or termination details, is updated correctly.

Here is the list of affected events:

  • Hire (H)
  • Termination (26)
  • Rehire (R)
  • Leave of Absence (10)
  • Return to Work (22)
  • No Show (NS)
  • Add Global Assignment (GA)
  • Away on Global Assignment (AGA)
  • Obsolete (OGA)
  • Back from Global Assignment (BGA)
  • End Global Assignment (EGA)
  • Start Pension Payout (SPP)
  • End Pension Payout (EPP)
  • Discard Pension Payout (OPP)
  • Surviving Spouse Start (SSS)
  • Surviving Spouse End (ESS)
  • Work Order End (ECWK)
  • Add Higher Duty/Temp Assignment (HD)
  • End Higher Duty/Temp Assignment (END_HD)
  • Obsolete Higher Duty/Temporary Assignment (OHD)

We implemented this validation to avoid data inconsistency across Employee Central entities.

Please Note: This only impacts the creation of new records or editing existing records in the Job Information History UI. You can still make changes using these events via Take Action or when completing a full purge import.

Related Information:

 

 

Data Import and Export

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Enhanced Forward Propagation on Import of Addresses, Personal Information, and Global Information

ECT-170144

Admin Opt-out

Forward propagation of a changed field value is now supported when you insert a new record to modify the field value of an existing record through import of Addresses, Personal Information, and Global Information.

Here's a screenshot of the enhanced feature:

2.png

The enhancement helps ensure consistent data propagation of effective dated records and reduces maintenance efforts.

Related Information:

 

 

Data Import and Export

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Removal of Compound Non-Effective Dated Entities Option

ECT-166786

Universal

The Compound Non-Effective Dated Entities option has been removed from the drop-down menu of the Select an entity list in the Import Employee Data screen.

The Compound Non-Effective Dated Entities option has been removed from the Import Employee Data page because importing data entity by entity offers more flexibility. You can instead continue using the single entity import of Biographical Information, Employment Details, National ID Information, Email Information, and Phone Information.

Related Information:

 

 

API

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Restrictions on the API Fields for the Last Modified Date and the Snapshot Date

ECT-146284

Universal

Queries that pull data from the last_modified_on or snapshot_date fields of the Employee Central CompoundEmployee API are now restricted to a maximum of 3 months in the past in ALL instances - preview and production.

This improvement increases the performance and enables faster synchronization between Employee Central and target systems.

Related Information:

 

 

API

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Date Time Fields of Employee Central OData Entities Represents UTC Time

ECT-164175

Universal

After the server migrates to UTC, the date time fields lastModifiedOn and createdOn of Employee Central OData entities will represent date information in UTC time.

We built this feature to keep date and time information consistent after the server migrates to UTC.

Related Information:

 

 

Employee Central Compensation

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Improved Comparison in Salary vs. Team Widget

ECT-166636

Universal

For teams with employees in different locations, the system shows the currency of the selected employee for all employees. All prerequisites for Compensation Widgets must be met for the widget to show all the data.

Showing only one currency allows for better comparison of the salaries for team members. This allows better performance of the widget with more consistency for users since it is clear which currency is shown and why.

Related Information:

 

 

Employee Central Compensation

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

One Time Deductions Allowed for Inactive (Terminated) Users

ECT-166635

Universal

Administrators can now create one time deductions for terminated users with the status Inactive for any period after the hire date, including after the termination date.

This allows admins to create a deduction, for example, for cases where a laptop isn’t returned to the company or union membership fees are due.

Related Information:

 

 

Organizational Management

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Position Matrix to Job Relationship Sync Enhancements

ECT-140702

Universal

We’ve enhanced the processing for Position Matrix to Job Relationship Sync during Job Information Imports and transition period.

The enhancements include:

  • Transition Period - The Position Matrix Relationship to Job Relationship sync is now triggered even when an incumbent is assigned to a position with matrix relationships during the transition period.
  • Job Information UI - The administrator now has the option to choose whether to trigger Position Matrix to Job Relationship sync or, to retain all existing relationships when a position is changed or assigned.
  • Job Information Import - You can now trigger the Position Matrix to Job Relationship sync during job information imports. You can enable this from the Imports tab in the Position Management Settings.

This enhancement maintains the consistency of Position Matrix to Job Relationship sync across all the channels.

Related Information:

 

 

Organizational Management

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Support for Mass Changes to Matrix Relationship

ECT-164619

Admin Opt-in

With this feature, you can now add or update matrix relationships for multiple positions using Mass Data Management.

You can perform the following actions:

  • Add a new matrix relationship for multiple position records.
  • Update the existing common matrix relationship records of the same relation type.
  • Add Matrix Relationship as an additional column to your search results table.
  • View the matrix relationship changes using the Modified link in the Position column.

We've introduced this feature to support mass changes for matrix relationships in Mass Data Management.

Related Information:

 

 

Organizational Management

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Display Inactive Records in Mass Data Management

ECT-166868

Universal

You can now view inactive records for all the filterable fields and in the Position result list that is found using a filter criteria.

With this enhancement, we're closing a gap in the software by displaying records where the status is set to inactive in Manage Data.

Related Information:

 

 

Time Off

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Cancellation of Leave Payout Requests After Approval

TIM-25097

Universal

It is now possible to cancel leave payout requests after they've been approved.

We now show the Cancel button in an approved request. The Delete button no longer appears on the UI, but deletion is still possible using Manage Data. For the mail notification, the workflow status has been added to the existing template.

The Payout object isn’t deleted. You can view the request in the workbench where it has status Cancelled.

We built this feature to improve the traceability and auditability of leave payout requests.

Related Information:

 

 

Time Off

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Option to Configure Additional Restrictions to the Target Population for the Employee Time Object

TIM-18758

Admin Opt-in

You can now define target criteria on the Employee Time object under the role-based permissions, in addition to the target population.

We're addressing certain use cases with this change. For example, you can now configure the system such that a work council member can access only the absences of type Overtime Compensation for all users in their location. This enhancement is from a Customer Community idea .

Configuration Requirements

Under Permission Role Details  Employee Time, restrict the target population with the setting Restrict target population to.

Under Configure Object Definitions  Security Settings, the Employee Time object is set to Secured.

3.png

Related Information:

 

 

Time Off

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Deprecation of External Time Record

TIM-11585

Universal

External Time Record will reach end of maintenance on November 19, 2021 and will be deleted on April 8, 2022.

Key Dates

Future dates are subject to change:

4.png

Deprecation Details

We’re deleting External Time Record (MDF object and API) and its composite API External Time Segment. You can use External Time Data instead.

External Time Data supports a wider range of time data than External Time Record. You can use External Time Data to import both clock times and durations. External Time Data also supports cost centers and time types. You can even distinguish between attendances and breaks.

Related Information:

 

 

Global Benefits

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Employee Self-Service for Reporting a Life Event

BEN-8547

Admin Opt-in

Employees can change their benefit enrollment outside of open enrollment periods if they experience a life event, such as childbirth, legal adoption, change in marital status, death of a dependent, and so on.

Employees can now report their life events themselves using the Report a Life Event form. The life events that can be reported are based on the company or local regulations. On submission and approval of a life event, the system triggers the process to automatically create, update, end enrollments or create benefit exceptions.

This feature automates the process of changing benefit enrollments to manage life events. This enhancement is from a Customer Community Idea .

Configuration Requirements

  • Define qualified life events for specific legal entities using Define Life Event for Benefits.
  • Configure Benefit Event Determination for system event Life Event.
  • Create Benefit Work/Life Event Configuration for the relevant Benefit Work/Life Events.

Role-Based Permission Prerequisites

To report a life event on behalf of the employee, the administrator should have the Administrator  Manage Benefits  Manage on behalf of Employee permission.

Related Information:

 

 

Global Benefits

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Rerun Job from Admin Center

BEN-9617

Universal

The administrator can rerun the Create or Update Benefit Enrollments for Employee Master Data Changes job from the Admin Center using Scheduled Job Manager.

We developed this feature as it simplifies the process of rerunning the Create or Update Benefit Enrollments for Employee Master Data Changes job in case of any failure. Note that the first run of the job happens in Provisioning. However, if the job needs to be run again or for any ad hoc run the customers can run the job from the Admin Center instead of requesting the job run in Provisioning.

Related Information:

 

 

Global Benefits

Feature Name

Reference Number

Configuration Type

Support onSave Rules in Compensation for Benefit Type Allowance

BEN-4197

Universal

Global Benefits now supports the onSave event type for rules associated with Compensation Information when you save an Allowance benefit enrollment entry.

We've introduced this enhancement to meet customer requirements for onSave rules in the Compensation block that should be triggered when an entry is saved in the Compensation block.

Related Information:

 

Keywords

EC, 2111, b2111, 2H2021, Release, ECT-146284, ECT-164175, ECT-170144, ECT-166786, ECT-174420, ECT-173254, ECT-166636, ECT-166635, ECT-140702, ECT-148148, ECT-161690, ECT-130989, ECT-164619, ECT-166868, TIM-25097, TIM-18758, TIM-11585, BEN-8547, BEN-9617, BEN-4197 , KBA , LOD-SF-EC , Employee Central , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central 2111