SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

3604868 - Unable to Change Internal Person ID Sequence

Symptom

  • When attempting to update or "jump ahead" the Person ID sequence in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, users may find that the internal Person ID sequence cannot be modified directly.
  • This typically occurs in scenarios where instance is being cloned or refreshed  and there is a need to avoid duplicate Person IDs for integration purposes.

Environment

SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central

Cause

  • The Person ID is a primary key in the per_person table and is automatically generated by the system through a database sequence.
  • The internal Person ID sequence cannot be directly altered because it is referenced by multiple tables and is designed to increment automatically.
  • SAP does not support manual updates to the internal Person ID sequence.

Resolution

While direct modification of the internal Person ID sequence is not possible, the following workaround can be implemented to advance the sequence:

    1. Import Dummy Biographical Information Records
      Import dummy biographical records for users. This will create new records that automatically use the next available Person ID in the sequence.

    2. Purge Dummy Records
      After importing the dummy records, you can purge them by using the Compound Delete functionality.

Additional Information:

  • Internal Person ID cannot be reused once an employee record is purged. The sequence will continue incrementing, leading to gaps in the Person ID values.

  • Person ID External can be modified using the GUI Import functionality, but this does not affect the internal Person ID sequence.

  • Direct intervention or support for changing the internal Person ID sequence is not possible due to database integrity considerations.

Important Note :This workaround is a supported method to advance the Person ID sequence, but be mindful that gaps will appear in the sequence due to the non-reuse of purged Person IDs

See Also

2786737 - How to delete an orphaned Person ID with Compound Delete functionality - SAP for Me

Keywords

SAP SuccessFactors, Employee Central, person ID, sequence, internal, change, clone, production instance, Canvas, Missing data, reports, replication, dummy biographical info records, purge, orphan persons. , KBA , LOD-SF-EC-ADM , Admin Tools (EC Core only) , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central all versions