SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

3360608 - UTC Migration impact on Platform and Metadata Framework (MDF) - SAP SuccessFactors

Symptom

What is the impact of UTC Migration on SuccessFactors Platform & Metadata Framework modules?

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 HXM Suite

Resolution

SAP SuccessFactors is implementing a standardized time usage approach across all our systems (applications, databases, and servers). We are changing our platform to use the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)

The confirmed schedule (as of present) can be found in KBA 3101935

The below sections list all the known areas that will have some change due to UTC Migration. Anything in the Platform/MDF scope not listed below can be considered to be not affected. In case of any deviations to the same, please contact support.

General

After migration, the prior server time zone (e.g. EST for DC68) will be automatically set as the Tenant Preferred Time zone (TPT) for the tenants. Help guide on TPT -> Tenant Preferred Time Zone | SAP Help Portal 

Audit Data

Reporting for both Read Audit and Change Audit will not be affected since the data is already UTC compliant. 

MDF audit timestamps will be migrated to UTC on the database.

Scheduled Jobs

Post migration, Scheduled jobs will be triggered at the same time as when they are running in previous time zone, and the recurring definition in the "Scheduled Job Manager" and Provisioning will be rendered with previous time zone for legacy scheduled jobs.  
As the UTC time is not adjusted for Daylight Saving Time, customers in time zones which use DST will find jobs running one-hour early or late when clock shifts.

Post migration, when pre-existing scheduled jobs are edited or new Jobs created, then it will be based on the current migrated time zone - UTC. The timestamp in the name of files handled by FTP related jobs will continue to use the user local time, we will use TPT based date to match the file. ​

For historical job execution data, we will migrate the timestamps to the new time zone (UTC)

External Events

Previously, External Event Audit Logs were stored based on server time zone in the database.​ After UTC migration, date/time will be stored in UTC time zone in the database and displayed on screen using Tenant Preferred Time zone (TPT).​

The search date/time range should also be TPT.

User Management

The user password expiration uses Data Center time-zone to calculate exact expiration time. After the migration to UTC servers, this expiration time will use UTC to calculate and will have several hours lag or lead, due to the difference between original DC server system time-zone and UTC. 

However this has little practical impact as password expiry is set in days, weeks or months, rather than hours.

Metadata Framework (MDF):

MDF Audit fields related data like Last Modified Date / Create Date fields in a record will be converted to UTC time stamp as we are moving to UTC time zone.

No impact to MDF based API if customers respect the default TPT (default value is the original/prior server time zone). 

Data Privacy Consent Statement (DPCS)

In the DPCS V2.0, all of the date and time display in the following screens use the server time-zone. When Data Center server is migrated to UTC, they will be migrated and shown as UTC time-zone. 

  • “Last Modified Date” field in DPCS Statement and Deleted DPCS Statement tabs​
  • “Publish Date” field in View History for DPCS and Set DPCS Status​
  • User’s DPCS Status Change “date” field in DPCS Audit Log and CSV report ​
  • DPCS editing page 

Role Based Permission (RBP)

In RBP, all of the date and time display in the following screens use the server time-zone. When Data Center server is migrated to UTC, they will be migrated and shown as UTC time-zone.​

  
  • Permission Role Change History and Permission Role Configuration Summary​
  • RBP Permission Group’s Change History, “Last Modified” field ​
  • My Group’s “Last Modified” field​
  • Manage Employee Group’s “Last Modified” field​

Purge / DRTM

All purge activity history will be converted to UTC time zone, such as approval time and purge executed time.

Purge reports are static and are generated during the purge action, which reflects the status at that moment. So all the time information inside older purge reports will be retained as-is. ​

  

See Also

3101935 - SAP SuccessFactors is moving to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) - Table Report/Canvas/Tiles/Report Story - SAP for Me

Keywords

Timestamp, Date, field, change, timezone, MDF, metadata framework, audit, UTC, timestamp, audit data, SF, SuccessFactors,Universal,Coordinated,Co-ordinated,Platform , KBA , LOD-SF-PLT , Platform Foundational Capabilities , LOD-SF-MDF , Metadata Framework , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite 2305