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:
The following documentation can be also found on the SAP Help Portal under SAP SuccessFactors Release Information:
- SAP SuccessFactors Release Information
- SAP SuccessFactors What's New Viewer
- SAP SuccessFactors Notable Fixed Issues
- SAP SuccessFactors Known Issues 1H 2021 (Important)
- SAP SuccessFactors Test Cases
- SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Product Page - Employee Central & other related SuccessFactors Handbooks:
- Implementing Employee Central Core
- Implementing Business Rules in SAP SuccessFactors
- Employee Central Company Structure Overview
- Implementing Advances in Employee Central
- Implementing Deductions in Employee Central
- Implementing Apprentice Management in Employee Central
- Employee Central Document Generation
- Employee Central Country/Region Specifics
- Implementing Employee Central Time Management
- Implementing Employee Central Service Center
- Implementing Alternative Cost Distribution in Employee Central
- Employee Central Position Management
- Implementing and Configuring Concurrent Employment in Employee Central
- Implementing and Configuring Global Assignment in Employee Central
- Contingent Workforce Management
- Employee Central Payment Information
- Employee Central Address Validation Service
- Implementing Global Benefits in Employee Central
- Implementing Dependents in Employee Central
- Employee Central Workflows: Implementation and Administration
- Employee Central Imports
- Managing User Information
- SAP SuccessFactors Data Model Reference Guide
- People Profile
- Managing the Employment Lifecycle (from Hiring to Termination) in Employee Central
- Manage Pending Hires
- Setting Up and Using Business Configuration UI (BCUI)
- Using Role-Based Permissions
- Integrating SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central with SAP Public Sector Management Funds and Grants Management
- Implementing Higher Duty or Temporary Assignment
- Implementing Pension Payouts for Employee Central
- Implementing Russia Data Residency Solution
- Location Based Payments in Employee Central
- Must Know New Features for EC in 2H 2021
- Employee Central Centralized Services with Second Half (2H 2021) Release
- Work Permit Validation
- Configurable New Hire in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central
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:
Special Note: Please review the blog highlighted below for additional information about all changes coming in this release related to Centralized Services.
Related Information:
- Blog – Employee Central Centralized Services with Second Half (2H 2021) Release – Innovation Alert
- KBA 3086778 – Centralized Services: Checks to be Completed Prior to Submitting Support Cases
- KBA 3086787 – Centralized Services: Correct Components for Creating Support Cases
- KBA 3091459 – Service Layer Logger FAQ
- Mass Changes in Employee Central – Centralized Services for Employee Data Imports
- What’s New Viewer
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.
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:
- Blog – Work Permit Validation
- Implementing Employee Central Core – Enabling Centralized Services to Save Changes on Editing UI of Work Permit
- Implementing Employee Central Core – Additional Information for Work Permits
- What’s New Viewer Link
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:
- Blog – Employee Central Centralized Services with Second Half (2H 2021) Release – Innovation Alert
- Mass Changes in Employee Central
- What’s New Viewer Link
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:
- Implementing and Managing the Employment Lifecycle (from Hiring to Termination) in Employee Central
- What’s New Viewer Link
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:
- KBA 3103944 – Prevention of Creation of Certain Events via Job History
- Implementing Employee Central Core - Events
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:
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:
- SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite OData API: Developer Guide (V2)
- Tenant Preferred Time Zone Available in Admin Center
- What’s New Viewer Link
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:
- Mass Changes in Employee Central – Configuring the Mass Change Request UI
- Mass Changes in Employee Central – Creating a Mass Change Request
- What’s New Viewer Link
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.
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:
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