• Regarding the 1H 2024 release New Diagnostic Tool for Employee Central Transactions. Could you please let me know how to use it and what is the benefit and please let me know the Test case for this Diagnostic tool.
• What is diagnostic tool and what features it has?

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SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central

This tool is for self-diagnosis/ self-analysis of the entire data transaction and entire workflow processing details in one view so that customers or internal users can solve the issues by themselves and also to help to reduce resolution time.

This Handbook page explains the process of enabling the tool: Using the Diagnostic Tool

Enable the tool:

 We recommend creating a permission group to restrict access to this tool to only a few people/admins. This tool does not respect RBP access at field levels therefore the provided admins can see restricted employee's data. To avoid such issues or concerns please create a separate permission role for this access and give the access to few admins/users so that it can be easily monitored and controlled.

Provide RBP access for the Diagnostic tool:

• In required permission role, for the tool access in the permission role under section 'Administrator' >  'Admin Center Permissions' category >  'Access Diagnostic Tool' permission.

Important points to consider:

• Only HRIS Element are supported for both workflows and centralized services save transactions tracing. MDF based workflows or data cannot be traced in current version. For example: Time off, Position, Benefits, Advances, Income Tax Declaration, custom MDF based workflows and transactions are not traced in current version.
• Mass changes, API and imports save transactions are not traced.
• After enabling the tool, you need to reproducing the issue and then you can go to Admin Center > Diagnostic Tool and Search for the transaction trace for issue analysis.

How to use diagnostic tool for Type of Transaction = Workflows?

Provide RBP access for tracing only workflow transactions in Diagnostic tool:

• In required permission role, under the 'Administrator' section > 'Diagnostic Tool' category> provide access to 'Workflows Diagnostics Data' permission. (Including tool access: 'Admin Center Permissions' category >  'Access Diagnostic Tool' permission.)

Important points to consider for workflow tracing:

• The approval or actions on the workflow should be done only from "workflow details page".
• If the workflows are approved from the "home page quick action" or "mobile device" or "Manage workflow requests" admin tool by taking action on the workflows by admin and changing workflow approvers or status, then such changes will not be traced. In the diagnostic tool for such scenarios only the initiate data with pending workflow status will be shown because other approval or send back actions was not traced.
• Workflows tracing will start and keep capturing from the date the Role-based permission (RBP) is provided to the Diagnostic tool > Workflow Configuration Data. However, after 10 days of no action on the workflow the tracing data will get auto-deleted. If any action is done on the workflow like approval or send back, the tracing data will stay for + 10 days and so on.
• Workflow trace will be only if the workflow is actually submitted. No simulation tracing is available.

Using search fields for searching the workflows tracing results:

• Requested By = user doing the transaction
• Requested For = user whose data is getting changed in the transaction
• Date Range = Workflow initiate date Or when the changes on employee was done/ issue replication date. At a time only 3 days can be selected and searched.

Search fields for Type of Transaction = Workflows

Search Results Listing Page:

Here you'll be able to see the search results. You can select one of them by clicking anywhere on the record, to see the results associated with that workflow trigger:

You can decide which results to check by identifying the Triggered Date, Request Type, Requested By and Requested For user details for the workflow as shown in search list.

Results details Page:

Here in Type of Transaction = Workflows, you can find most of the workflow configuration associated details in first glance. Such as workflow configuration ID, workflow derivation rule ID, Current workflow status etc.

You can expand different section below the main information to see further details.

• Details about workflow approvers
• Email trigger information
• Email template used Standard or custom and external code of the custom template.
• Each workflow action details like initiate, approval, send back, re-submit and who performed the action. 
• For SAP internal users: Direct link to Server log for each individual action.
• Selected Workflow ID, Workflow Configuration ID, Workflow Derivation Rule, and Escalation Configured values when clicked will take you directly to respective detail.

How to use diagnostic tool for Type of Transaction = Centralized Services?

Provide RBP access for tracing Centralized Services transactions in Diagnostic tool:

• In required permission role, under the 'Administrator' section > 'Diagnostic Tool' category> provide access to 'Diagnostics Tracing Configuration' permission, Centralized Services Diagnostics Data permission, and Workflows Diagnostics Data permission (optional).
• For the tool access in the permission role under section 'Administrator' >  'Admin Center Permissions' category >  'Access Diagnostic Tool' permission.

Create and enable Diagnostic tracing configuration:

• In Manage Data, you have to set up the Diagnostics Tracing Configuration MDF object in your system.  You can also use the direct link in diagnostic tool page, where a link to "Enable Tracing" is provided.
• In Diagnostic Trace Configuration you need to enable tracing by selecting values similar to below screenshot and provide current time and time zone.
• Create new or modify existing trace, by entering any code, status= active and Activate Diagnostic Trace = Yes.
• Enter user name who will be doing the transaction in Requested By field(if proxying someone enter that user's name). 
• Save the object and then reproduce the save action on a user.
• Once this object is saved from the start time provided the tracing will be active for 15 minutes.
• Within this time frame you can do any Save transaction to capture the details for a user whose data transaction you want to trace and analyze in EC HRIS elements related Entities by doing any edit/insert or create action in for example Job Information, Compensation Information, Personal Information, Add new hire, etc.
• If you want to trace only specific Business Action then you can specify Manager Self-service for actions that you take via actions menu, Employee Self-Service if you do changes on other entities like personal information or addresses element. Select Business Action ='Hire if you want to trace only Add new hire or Rehire inactive user data transaction.

Important points to consider for centralized services save action tracing:

• Centralized Services Save transactions are for HRIS elements/entities save actions for all Employee Self-Service(ESS) and Manager Self-Service(MSS), edit and history updates are traced including the 'Add new hire' and 'Rehire inactive employee' actions from Admin tools.
• Manage Pending Hires is not traced hence candidates coming from Onboarding and Recruiting cannot be traced.
• Centralized Services Save transactions are not always enabled after RBP permission is provided. However, there is 'Diagnostic trace configuration' object in manage data that needs to be enabled for 15 minutes by creating a new object with any code or utilizing existing code and modifying the date time stamp before reproducing the issue.
• Tracing will turn off after 15 minutes every time.
• The traced data will auto delete after 10 days.
• Centralized Services save transactions will be traced as soon as save button is clicked. If an error or workflow pops up and you cancel the pop-up and do not save transaction and navigate away or do not submitting the workflow. Then the tracing will be already captured as we clicked on save button before. This will be simulated tracing. We will be introducing a status to distinguish between actual save transaction and simulated or cancelled one.
• Snapshot View shows the snapshots or the records starting from the fields that were changed till the related changes, rules, end date corrections, forward propagation and final save action. In each stage a tabular data will be shown for all related cross-entities or sub-entities involved. You can compare the field changes in each stage to get an idea of which stage the field values changed.

Using search fields for searching centralized services save actions tracing results:

• Requested By = user doing the transaction
• Requested For = user whose data is getting changed in the transaction
• Date Range = Data transaction tracing date when the changes on employee was done/ issue replication date. At a time only 3 days can be searched.

Search fields for Type of Transaction = Centralized Services

Search Results Listing Page:

Here you'll be able to see the search results. You can select one of them by clicking anywhere on the record, to see the results associated with that save action.

Results details Page:

Here in Type of Transaction = Centralized Services, you can find details of Save transaction on HRIS Elements details in first glance. Such as ...

You can expand different stages under the Snapshot View to see further details.

• Tabular records details are shown after each stage processing in the background.
• Data Changes: Shows the data entered or field values changed for the transaction manually by the user.
• Related Changes: Shows the other field or data changes due to the fields changed originally in Data Changes stage.
• Rules: Shows the record status after all the business the rules applied. If any changes are done on the fields/records for respective entity it can be checked by comparing with previous Data Changes Stage. Note: This snapshot view will not show the Rule names. Please use rule trace feature.
• End-Date Correction: This stage shows the changes/correction of the end date field values relative to the record being inserted or created. Use this to check if any end date issue during transaction.
• Forward Propagation: This stage shows the changes in other records above the inserted record due to inserted record. Here you can get clarification on which field values are propagated and which are not propagated to higher effective dated records compared to the new effective dated record inserted/created.
• Save: This stage shows final saved records and how it looks like. Note: this section will still show as soon as the save button is clicked even if an error or workflow pop-up was cancelled and actually the transaction was not submitted after such error or workflow pop-up. 

Following info fields and Snapshot view with different background data processing stages are shown:

Expand the stages to see the data records after each background processing stage:

Compare the data changes between stages to analyze your issue. In below screenshot example, Data Changes stage is expanded and it has 3 entities associated changes due to action on Job Information and Compensation Information and Compensation Information entity has sub-entity Pay Component Recurring associated with it.

For more details of known issues and scenarios please see "See Also" section.

Handbook page: Using the Diagnostic Tool

What's New Viewer Documentation: New Diagnostic Tool for Employee Central Transactions

  
Scenarios:

3469437 - Incorrect email notification, workflow approvers, business rule for workflow or workflow configuration is selected by system - Employee Central
3469432 - Centralized Services save actions are resulting in incorrect data update - Employee Central

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SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central 2405 ; SAP SuccessFactors HCM Core all versions