SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

3599069 - Different behavior of BOOLEAN type field on Position Object vs other MDF objects

Symptom

When inserting new record, without inputting any information in Manage Data for GO Object e.g. Department, and performing the same steps on a Position Object, a custom Boolean field hidden behind a condition auto-populates to ‘false/no’ for Dept. but remains hidden for Position (expectation).

This behaviour differs only if you:

  • Take action -> make correction on initial record (any field e.g. description).
  • Immediately insert new record.
  • Field remains hidden, as per expectation and logic of Boolean fields hidden behind conditions.

"Image/data in this KBA is from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental." 

Environment

SF Employee Central

Reproducing the Issue

  1. Log in to instance.
  2. Go to Configure Object Definitions and observe condition set on fields in both Dept
    (EtestGo) and Pos(EtestPop) object.



  3. Go to Manage Data – Department – Select any
  4. Insert New Record and save, without inputting any information



  5. EtestGo populates to No despite not meeting condition value
  6. Repeat for Position – works as expected i.e. field remains hidden.



  7. Repeat steps for Dept but this time edit first record then immediately insert new record – works as expected i.e. field remains hidden.

Cause

This is expected behaviour.

Resolution

  • When the Dept. related object or Foundation Objects were initially moved to MDF, product development team decided to set the default value to false for Boolean fields, if the customer does not choose any value.
  • This decision was made to ensure uniform behavior across UI, Reports, and API, where false is treated as the default value if not explicitly provided. Without this decision, the manage data UI would display false for boolean fields where the value is not explicitly provided, while other scenarios would show the value as empty or null.

Due to above historical reasons this is an expected behavior for foundation MDF objects and there are no plans to change this because this might end up causing regressions to existing customers who expect the existing behavior.

Workaround:

  1. Take action -> make correction on initial record (any field e.g. description).
  2. Immediately insert new record.
  3. Field remains hidden, as per expectation and logic of Boolean fields hidden behind conditions.

Keywords

Boolean, MDF object, Foundation Object, Position Object, Manage Data, condition, hidden, false. , KBA , LOD-SF-EC-FOO , Foundation Objects (Organisation, Pay and Job Structures) , LOD-SF-EC-POS , Position Management , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors HCM Core 2505