SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

3764674 - Stuck Manage Pending Hires Candidate When Contingent to Regular Transition Was Processed as a New External Hire - Onboarding

Symptom

A contingent worker is being transitioned to regular employment. After the transition, a candidate remains stuck in Manage Pending Hires (MPH) and cannot be hired. Submitting the candidate from MPH > Drafts returns one or more of the following errors:

  • "You can't proceed with the transfer because a future termination date for current employment doesn't exist on the system"
  • "java.lang.IllegalStateException: com.successfactors.personandemployment.api.servicelayer.exception.ServiceLayerException: Failed to trigger HrisSync"
  • "An application error occurred. Please try again later, or notify support (with the error information of errorId=..., timestamp=...)"

Adjusting the work order end date on the contingent record is also blocked by: "You can't set the work order end date to [date] as there is a regular employment from [date] to 12/31/9999. Adjust the date to avoid any overlap."

Environment

SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding

Reproducing the Issue

  1. A contingent worker exists with Start Contingent and a subsequent End Contingent record on the original user ID.
  2. The transition to regular employment is initiated as a new external hire from Recruiting or Onboarding, which generates a new user ID for the regular employment record.
  3. The MPH candidate created from the new external hire fails to complete the hire due to overlap or HrisSync errors.
  4. The original user ID holds the contingent termination, while the new user ID holds the regular employment record. There is no person record continuity between the two.

Cause

Transitioning a contingent worker to regular employment by initiating a new external hire creates a separate user ID for the regular employment. The system holds the contingent termination on the original user ID and the regular New Hire record on a different user ID, with no link between them.

The Manage Pending Hires candidate cannot reconcile because:

  • A regular employment already exists for the person on the alternate user ID, so the 2H 2025 validation introduced under Restrict Update of Work Order Dates During FTE Transition (feature ID ECT-259334) blocks any date adjustment on the contingent record.
  • HrisSync triggers fail when the system attempts to write the same person across two unrelated user records, especially when overridden hard-coded HRIS Sync mappings amplify the inconsistency.

The supported path for a contingent to regular transition is Rehire with Legal Entity Transfer initiated on the original user ID, which preserves person record continuity and lets the system manage the termination date automatically.

Resolution

For Live Customer(s)

Scenario 1: Regular employment is NOT active or functional

  1. Identify both user IDs involved: the original (contingent) and the new (regular employment created via external hire).
  2. Confirm the duplicate user ID has no system access, is not receiving payroll, and is not showing as Active in People Profile.
  3. Open Admin Center > Data Retention Management.
  4. Create a DRTM Master Data Purge request for the duplicate user ID that holds the orphaned regular employment record.
  5. Wait for the purge to complete and confirm via the purge request status.
  6. Re-initiate the transition via Rehire with Legal Entity Transfer on the original user ID. See Help Portal, Initiating Legal Entity Transfer from SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting:  Initiating Legal Entity Transfer from SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting | SAP Help Portal 
  7. Retry submission from Manage Pending Hires.

NOTE: DRTM Master Data Purge is destructive and irreversible. Confirm the duplicate user ID has no business data that must be preserved. The "Ignore Retention Time" option bypasses standard retention safeguards and should be reserved for cases where retention policies genuinely cannot be respected for a specific recovery action. Validate the purge with the customer's Data Protection Officer or equivalent role before submission. If overridden hard-coded HRIS Sync mappings are also present (Check Tool flags issues under HrisSyncMappingsNoOverriddenHardcodedMappings), address them per KBA 3606828 before retrying the hire, otherwise HrisSync errors may persist after the purge.

Scenario 2: Regular employment IS active and functional

  1. The hire is structurally already in place via the alternate user ID.
  2. Reject or cancel the stuck MPH candidate, since the equivalent hire already went through another path.
  3. No work order extension on the contingent record is required.

For Implementation Partner(s) and Consultant(s)

  1. Review the hiring process configuration to ensure contingent to regular transitions are routed through Rehire with Legal Entity Transfer rather than New External Hire.
  2. Provide training to hiring admins on selecting the correct event type when transitioning a contingent worker, to prevent recurrence and avoid the need for destructive recovery actions.

Keywords

, KBA , LOD-SF-OBX-EC , Integration EC - MPH, Hire , Problem

Product

SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding all versions