Category Archives: Compensation

SuccessFactors Compensation and Variable Pay – Compensation Profile Overview

Compensation, Compensation Profile, SuccessFactors, Talent Management, Variable Pay, , , ,

The Compensation Profile within the SuccessFactors Compensation and Variable Pay modules is not new but has seen limited usage since its availability in Q3 2013.  This short post explains the major areas/functions of this functionality.

To access the compensation profile, you have two options: either selecting the employee’s highlighted name (above) or by selecting the additional details “Open Profile” link (below):

 

Doing so will open a dialog (modal) box, that looks like this:

 

There can be up to four sections included in the Compensation Profile:

  1. Compensation History
  2. Salary Positioning
  3. Promotion Information (hidden in the screenshot above)
  4. Recommendations

The header (top) section of the profile contains fields that cannot be customized by the compensation administrator (e.g. status, location, etc.).  These are fields included in the Employee Profile (User Data File, UDF), or within Employee Central.   The top also includes access to the Quick Card.

Compensation History can be hidden.  The history itself is configured by form under the Compensation Home under the respective Compensation or Variable Pay template, under [Template Name] > Plan Setup > Design Worksheet > Define Compensation Period Data 

Salary Positioning is another area that can be displayed but can also be hidden.  If you want to hide the section, check out the SAP Knowledge Base Article 2084776 (S-User ID required)

 

Promotion information can be included in the display.  The screenshot below contains the platform (non-EC) fields available.  Promotions within Employee Central (EC) are an entirely different subject for another blog.

The Recommendations section of the Compensation Profile contains the exact same fields as the worksheet columns.  In fact, it reads from the same configuration, so whatever is visible/editable on the compensation or variable pay worksheet will be the same in this view.  Same permissions, business logic, etc.

 

A few training points for your change management team as you roll out and support this functionality:

  • Managers lose the visibility to the budget when they are using the Compensation Profile. Even if you use the latest “floating” budgets options, the budget information does not update when the user is planning in this mode
  • Ensure that you tell your users to save after every individual planning (i.e. each screen), before scrolling to the next. The system will prompt as well, but it’s a good reminder to save and save often so there’s no unnecessary loss of data.
  • ‘Previous’ and ‘Next’ buttons will follow the order of how the employees are listed on the worksheet

For your compensation administrators, here are a few SAP Knowledge Base Articles that are of interest in this area (S-User ID is needed to access all of them):

2084775 – Profile – Compensation

2084777 – Profile Compensation History Tab – Compensation

2084776 – Profile – Salary Positioning Section – Compensation

2084767 – Profile not Editable via Executive Review – Compensation

 

SuccessFactors Compensation – Executive Review Export / Import Functionality

Cloud, Compensation, Executive Review, SAP Consulting, SuccessFactors, Talent Management, Variable Pay, , , , , , ,

In traditional annual compensation (focal) processes, performing work offline is typically frowned upon by compensation and HR professionals. Whether it be for merit, bonus, or equity recommendations, discretionary increases and awards should be carefully considered by planning managers based on (typically) performance and market factors (e.g. compa-ratio).  However, there are circumstances where an export and import of recommendations could come into handy during an annual (or periodic) compensation process:

  1. A group of employees (e.g. customer service reps, manufacturing workers, etc) who –  either unionized or non-unionized – need a common increase. This may or may not be driven off a bargaining agreement.
  2. A legal requirement for a country. For example, in France or Spain, where a general or mandatory increase may have been decided by the government
  3. A COLA (cost of living adjustment) that needs to be applied to a particular group of employees by geozone or location.

In the cases above, SuccessFactors Compensation does provide functionality for planners to export and then subsequently import recommendations.

Below are the technical details on how to turn it on and how to use it in a Production scenario.

Assuming you have the permissions to do so, you can turn on the import functionality in the Executive Review by going to Admin Center > Compensation Home > Actions for All Plans > Compensation Settings

Company Settings within Compensation Home
Company Settings within Compensation Home

Select the option “Enable Compensation Excel Offline Edit”.  As the help states, when this setting is checked, compensation planners may download worksheet values to excel, enter recommendations, and then import them back into the system.

Compensation worksheet with Import and Export buttons

When clicking on the Export button (with the Import functionality enabled), the following pop-up is available. You should select the checkbox to indicate that the recommendations will be imported back into the tool. You can download in either Excel or CSV format.

Worksheet Download in Excel – Ready for Input

 

The important thing to note here is that:

  1. the planner should NOT insert or change ANY columns on this Excel , except to update the recommendations (input) in Yellow.  These are the only fields that the system will use when it gets uploaded
  2. the downloaded document does not contain any formulas

The import process is straight-forward.  When the planner has completed their update of the recommendations/awards in yellow, use the Import button to upload the updated records.

Importing Compensation Recommendations

 

Please note the two options at the bottom of the pop-up box:

  1. Send email notification to original planner/manager of the affected compensation form
  2. Send email notification to current reviewer of the affected compensation form

The first email (as of b1705 release) has the first option automatically checked. Be careful to uncheck that if you don’t want emails to be sent.

A current limitation with the functionality is that this functionality only works within the Compensation module and not within the Variable Pay module.  Still TBD on whether or not this will be added to the roadmap.  Those familiar with SuccessFactors Variable Pay know that it is a very different animal.

The other big limitation is that currently (as of b1705 release), there is no way to provide this Import functionality via Role-Based Permissions (RBPs). It’s an all-or-nothing switch, meaning whoever has edit access to the Executive Review (whether it be planner manager, Executive, HR, etc.) will have the exact same privileges to export and import.  This could likely influence your decision to use this functionality or not in Production.

Some helpful SAP notes on the functionality include:

2084851 – Executive Review – Import Button Unavailable – Compensation

2172177 – Executive Review is not populating data after recent import – Compensation

2255189 – Unable to import the excel file in compensation executive review offline editing. – Compensation Management

2084853 – Executive Review – Offline Edit via Executive Review Export to Excel – Compensation

2084863 – Executive Review – Offline Edit Email Notification – Compensation

Any questions or comments, please leave me a comment below.

 

Some other links that you might like:

My ASUG Town Hall presentation on Executive Review (ASUG Webinar with Jeremy Masters)

Executive Review in SuccessFactors Compensation (SAP Blog by Jisha Jithosh)

Top Tips Integrating SAP HCM Core and SuccessFactors Compensation and Variable Pay

Compensation, SAP HCM, SuccessFactors, , , , , ,

This is what happens when you fly on a brand new Delta jet. So new that they haven’t even registered Wi-Fi. At least this blog has come out of it – hope you find it useful! I have jotted down a few of my top tips (so far) when integrating and implementing SuccessFactors Compensation and/or  SuccessFactors Variable Pay.

  • Data, data, data! OK, do we need to go through this again? Regardless of the systems being integrated, we are always attacking the same gremlins, aren’t we? As Compensation professions (or those IT Professionals supporting Compensation), there’s nothing like going through a compensation process to see how painfully obvious it is that the integrity of your core HR data is vital in your talent management processes – especially compensation.  Take, for example, an employee’s FTE % (sometimes referred to as employee percentage). If incorrect, this one data element can wreak havoc on your merit, merit budget, and incentive calculations.
  • If SAP HCM core is your system of record, be sure you are using the existing SAP provided integrations. With Integration Add-Ons 1.0 and 3.0 for SAP ERP HCM and SuccessFactors HCM Suite, both the SuccessFactors compensation and variable pay modules have pre-delivered content. You will need to time this integration with your current Foundation UDF “User Data File” file that you are using.
  • Be kind to your PI (Process Integration) middleware resources. Take them out to lunch and buy them a pizza since you will need their help. The integrations provided by SAP are SAP PI based and will need to be activated in your middleware environment. This is often a project plan task forgotten in the plan and will end up biting you if you don’t plan for it.
  • If you are migrating from ECM (Enterprise Compensation Management), don’t try to do too much with this. The new integration uses staging tables and is entirely decoupled from ECM. You may end of leveraging IT0759 or IT0761 so LTI handling, if you still intend to interface to your stock plan provider.  Also, you may need to do some incentive number-crunching for segments (e.g. “legs”, “assignments”, “rows”, etc.) in a custom infotype. You should consider keeping your existing bonus engine if your incentive plans have not been able to simplify / conform to the SuccessFactors variable pay model.
  • Don’t forgot that all of your compensation and variable pay templates need to have the <comp-group id=”xxxx”/> tag in the XML if you are sending your data from SAP HCM, where xxxx is a string with no capitalization. As the time of this writing, this can only added via the XML configuration. This tag is important since it tells the SuccessFactors system which forms (that use that template) to update during a refresh from SAP HCM. Like any tags of an XML template for compensation in SuccessFactors, the placement of this tag is very particular near the end of the XML. Read the SuccessFactors documentation carefully and be careful when you are downloading/uploading or editing the template in Provisioning.
  • Remember the power of the pay matrix (e.g. salary ranges) which drives everything from the compa-ratio and range penetration, as well as guidelines (if included as a dimension). Don’t try to interface this over ( not worth it) –  this would just be an upload every year.  If a range range/midpoint changes, the onus would be on your SuccessFactors compensation administrator to manually update that. This shouldn’t happen once the process has started unless there was an error or your compensation manager is trying to make your life more interesting…
  • Think carefully how you will leverage the Executive Review. Unlike the name implies, this functionality isn’t necessarily just for executives, but rather for calibration purposes in general. Based on Role-Based permissioning, you can define a group with display access and a group with edit access. I will be talking about this topic during the ASUG Compensation SIG (login required) later this month. If you are a SuccessFactors customer, please plan on joining me for this learning event!

That’s it for now.  Please send along any questions and comments in the area below.

Oh, and Worklogix is a Silver Sponsor at the upcoming SAP SuccessFactors conference, SuccessConnect.  If you are in Vegas, please visit us in booth #35.

Sending you my best,

Jeremy  @jeremymasters

ECM Nugget: “Lock Objects” in transaction PECM_PROCESS_SUPPORT

Budgeting, Compensation, ECM, SAP HCM, Talent Management, , ,

I wanted to share a useful piece of information about the use of the “Lock Objects” functionality in the program RHECM_PROCESS_SUPPORT_FOR_PLNG (transaction code PECM_PROCESS_SUPPORT) since it seems to come up in every ECM deployment that Worklogix is involved in.

Transaction PECM_PROCESS_SUPPORT for process support during ECM cycles
Transaction PECM_PROCESS_SUPPORT for process support during ECM cycles

First, there is a common misunderstanding that it’s about locking employee records. However, the “Lock Object” flag is only about locking Budgets (i.e., budget units)

Imagine you have an organizational structure having the depth of 4 hierarchical levels and the top node is A, subordinate from A is B, subordinate from B is C, and subordinate from C is D. Since Enhancement Pack 5 (EhP5), SAP ECM supports the employee-level budgeting approach (bottom-up).  This means we have 1) the budget structure as a mirrored org structure (BU-BU and BU-O) and 2) the employee budgets (BU-P).

Whenever a manager is logged into Manager Self-Service doing compensation planning, certain objects get locked. The system locks the employee itself (i.e. P and IT0759), the budget unit (BU) connected to the employee is locked (BU-P) and finally the budget unit (BU) connected to the org. units where the manager is the chief of is also locked. This leads to the dilemma that two functions of the Process Preparation Report (transaction PECM_PROCESS_SUPPORT) mitigate:

1) Option Update Planning and Budgets: Whenever an employee is turning eligible / ineligible, the employee budget is getting created or deleted. Therefore also the roll-ups are getting refreshed. This refresh doesn’t work when any manager is logged-into the Compensation Planning / Approval iView within the portal locking a budget connected to the org unit.

2) Option Recalculate Budget: Functionality doesn’t recalculate budget whenever any manager is logged into the Compensation Planning / Approval iView within the portal locking a budget connected to the org unit.

Dependent on how the compensation cycle is setup (is it a global or country compensation review; global organization or just within a region/country) the likelihood is high that there is at least one manager logged into Manager Self-Service during an ongoing compensation cycle. To bypass this dilemma, SAP has recently implemented the “Lock Object” flag. Whenever the flag is unchecked, the system is not checking any longer if a budget unit connected to an org unit is locked by a user or not. It always pushes changes into the database. Again, the “Lock Object” flag has nothing to do with locking an employee. It’s only about locking the budget structure by managers.

Here are the pros and cons of this functionality.

Pros:
As usually at least one manager is logged into MSS all the time, this facilitates the update of budgets significantly. Simply uncheck the flag and budget structures can be updated all the time. Additional programs which may kick out (or prevent) managers to perform budget updates are not needed any longer.

Cons:
The manager experience can be a bit tricky with these budgets, and proper communication should be made available to managers involved in the process. Let’s take an example where a manager who is logged into MSS and initially sees a budget of 100,000 USD. While the manager is logged in, you execute PECM_PROCESS_SUPPORT to perform a recalculate budget which reduces the budget in a lower org unit for example by 10,000 USD. This update is not immediately visible to the manager, but rather only when he/she opens another iView and then returns to Compensation Planning / Approval iView to get a refresh. This means that a manager who plans to keep his org unit budget at 100,000, but  in reality he only has 90,000, because someone executed PECM_PROCESS_SUPPORT in the meantime.

I would recommend to always use PECM_DISPLAY_BUDGETS to monitor any potential inconsistencies in the budget structures which can always be repaired using the button “Update Spent Amounts” in the budget audit report in case they exist.

Audit Report for Budgets

Hope this helps you. 

Top Ten Gotchas when Implementing SAP Enterprise Compensation Management (ECM)

Compensation, ECM, SAP HCM, Self Services, Talent Management, Variable Pay, ,

Thought I would share a few lessons learned around Compensation management using SAP ECM (Enterprise Compensation Management), but these could be used for any compensation system.

  1. ECM supports the annual compensation (“focal review”) process, but not the off-cycle (ad hoc) increases associated to promotions, laterals, downgrades, etc. Don’t force the off-cycle process in the tool or it will turn ugly.
  2. Ensure budgeting requirements are well understood early in the project between the compensation and project teams.  For example, what is the budget/organizational freeze date (or, is there a freeze date?), can budget funds be re-allocated during planning, what  do you do with terminated employees during the cycle, etc.
  3. Don’t rely too much on “macro-eligibility” to drive your compensation eligibility rules. Infotype 0758 (Compensation Program) is where “macro-eligibility” is defined.  Putting too much intelligence in this infotype is a recipe for disaster because you are at the mercy of master data maintenance (PA30/PA40 transactions).  Bake your eligibility requirements into your “micro-eligibility” rules (including the eligibility BAdI) since you have absolute control over the logic.
  4. Listen carefully to the requirements around compensation planning and approvals. For discretionary plans, ensure that the system is configured to handle the appropriate workflow and business logic to handle compensation worksheet level approvals, routing and escalation rules.
  5. Ensure that all your process inputs (market data, performance ratings, potential ratings, etc.) are configured prior to the compensation worksheet being opened to management.
  6. Agree with the compensation team on which master data will be entered by them in Production versus input by IT in Development (and transported to the upper environments).  Time-sensitive information such as Business Unit Results, Black Sholes/Fair Market Value, Bonus modifiers/kickers, etc. should be controlled by the business in the Productive environment.  This data may also be very confidential as well, for “comp’s eyes only”.
  7. Give the compensation team the ability to proof the compensation worksheets before releasing to management.  Seems a given, but worth it’s own line.
  8. Conduct your system testing with a dedicated QA system with unmasked employee/compensation data. (This may not be realistic for all companies due to budgetary and/or environment  constraints, I understand, but shoot for the stars and maybe you will reach the moon.)
  9. Just because functionality is offered, doesn’t mean you should use it. Test the waters within a demo environment with the compensation team to ensure they really do want all the functionality offered. There is nothing wrong with hiding functionality until if (or when) it’s needed. For example, the Compensation Profile is neat but also can backfire on you if you expose too much data that’s difficult to explain (or – even worse – wrong!)
  10. Don’t over-engineer the stock granting process.  At maximum, collect and split the stock recommendations, but all other activities (vesting management, exercising, life events, etc.) should be handled by your stock plan administrator.

Until next time!

Jeremy

@jeremymasters

SAP and SuccessFactors Compensation Management Q&A

Cloud, Compensation, HR2014, PaaS, SAP HCM, SAPInsider, SuccessFactors, Talent Management, Variable Pay, , , , , ,

Yesterday, SAPInsider hosted a Q&A on SAP and SuccessFactors Compensation Management.  You can view the full transcript here. It is always challenging and fun to do these live Q&A blogs because when you are in the “hot seat”, you need to think (and type!) fast.  Because we only had less than two weeks of marketing for this online event, I was skeptical on the amount of attendees who would show up, but the turnout was a lot higher than I thought. I did see a ton of questions flood in but was only able to answer an hour’s worth.

Compensation

Some takeaways from my chat were the following:

  1. Customers are still confused about the longevity of SAP ECM (Enterprise Compensation Management). I had to (again) reinforce that SAP will not be stopping support of this module. In fact, there is a program called “Customer Connection” which SAP exclusively has for listening to the user community for minor enhancements to the product.
  2. SAP is currently building an integration between SAP HCM On premise and the SuccessFactor’s Variable Pay module. One of SAP’s Product Managers for Compensation/Variable Pay, Deeksha Mittal, was nice enough to join me in on the conversation to articulate some high level timelines for this. She mentioned: “we are working towards an integration between Variable Pay and SAP HCM as well and is definitely on the roadmap for 2014. By the end of 2014 (your next planning cycles) you should be able to take advantage of the integration between Variable Pay and SAP HCM.”
  3. Regardless of using on premise or cloud compensation, customers’ pain points are focused in similar areas, such as: data integrity, process efficiencies (workflow/approvals), and integration with payout process (payroll and/or data extract to equity 3rd party administrator). It doesn’t matter where you deliver your compensation – these themes follow us regardless of platform.
  4. As in other modules, customers who have implemented on premise solutions  are trying to understand how extensible SuccessFactors Compensation/Variable Pay is. I briefly mentioned the introduction of the MDF (Meta Data Framework) as well as SAP HANA Cloud Platform as ways that SAP/SuccessFactors are opening up the platform. Will cloud compensation ever be fully customizable? No, but these tools can be evaluated by the customer to see if their processes’ complex and/or unique logic can be incorporated into SuccessFactors’ technology.
  5. Some mention was made with respect to  future modeling capabilities coming in SuccessFactors. Deeksha Mittal mentioned: “At present, the SuccessFactors Compensation & Variable Pay modules provide flexible ways for defining budgets. We are definitely looking at more advanced modeling features that will help HR to develop more effective comp and bonus plans that are in-line with the company’s financial and HR goals.”

I think it would be beneficial to do another compensation session later in the year since there was so much interested. I will talk to SAPInsider about that.

And hope to see some of your this year HR 2014 in Orlando or Nice, France. I will be doing several sessions this year, including one on compensation: “A guided tour of compensation management functionality: On-premise vs. cloud”

Please remember to follow me on Twitter @jeremymasters

 

Until next time!

Jeremy

Attention All Comp Geeks: Conference Time, 2013!

Compensation, Talent Management, , , ,

Hear ye, Hear ye, calling all Compensation geeks… will you be joining me at the WorldatWork Conference in Philly at the end of this month?  There’s still time to register.

WorldatWork

Total Rewards 2013
Total Rewards 2013

The annual WorldatWork conference will be held April 29-May 1, with loads of great information for those in the Compensation profession.  This is the quintessential event for Total Rewards Professionals. Check out the quick schedule of the event here and the complete list of workshops here.

This year, I am happy to be presenting a case study with one of our customers, Perrigo, on how we used technology (specifically SAP’s Enterprise Compensation Management module) to deliver a best-in-class compensation solution for their employees, managers, and HR Professionals worldwide. Our session is at 9-10am ET on Tuesday, and official session title is: “Leveraging HR Technology to Build a Strategic Human Capital Platform” (Session Code T07T1). I am privileged to be presenting with Stacey Petrey Ed.D., CCP, VP of Global Compensation and Benefits, Perrigo. Stacey is a compensation visionary and truly understands how technology can support the needs of the business.

I have been lucky to be part of an organization (Worklogix) that has one of its core competencies in Compensation. We have several robust solutions, including a Compensation solution that will knock your socks off.   I have authored five books from SAP PRESS including Enterprise Compensation Management. For a full list of my titles, you can also check out my author page on Amazon.

Some of the other sessions that I plan on attending (and why!) include the following:

“New Frontiers in Reward Design: Six Key Learnings from Behavioral Economics” (Session Code: C19T5)  by David W Cheatham, CCP, Director Compensation, Coca-Cola Company.  I know David from compensation work we did with The Coca-Cola Company, and am always impressed with what he has to say.

“Fantasy and Reality in Academic Research on Rewards” (Session Code: C09T2) by Barry Gerhart, Ph.D., Professor, University of Wisconsin; Kevin F Hallock, PhD, Director Institute for Comp Studies, Cornell University; Gerald E Ledford, Jr, Senior Research Scientist, Center for Effective Organizations; Michael H. Schuster, Ph.D., CHRS, Professor and Consultant, U.S. Coast Guard Academy.  I am always intrigued at what academia can teach us in the business world.  Of course, I am also always supportive of anyone from my alma mater, Cornell.

“Perception Is Reality: The Importance of Pay Transparency to Employees and Organizations” (Session Code: C07M3) by Robert J Centonze, CBP,CCP, CEBS, VP Global Compensation & Benefits, Campbell Soup Company; Nora E Costa, CCP, GRP, Sr. Director, Corporate Compensation, CVS Caremark; Rena Rasch, Ph.D., Manager, Research, Kenexa High Performance Institute; Mark A Szypko, CCP, GRP, Managing Director Compensation, Kenexa, an IBM Company.  I like the topic as well as the mix of speakers between industry experts and analysts.

“From New Technology Smog to Cloud 9: An Overview of Today’s Hot Technologies and What’s Right for Your Organization”, Session Code: T05T5 by Kimberly L. Seals, CCP, Senior Partner, Mercer. Love the title, and session topic is just up my alley.

Will I see you there?  If so, please be sure to say hello at my session, or anytime during the conference. If not, I will be providing some coverage on my Twitter account @jeremymasters.

See you soon (I hope)!

Jeremy

 

Top 5 Things I Plan to Do at HR2013 in Vegas

Compensation, ESS, HR2013, SAP Consulting, SAP HCM, SAPInsider, , , , ,

Given that SAPInsider’s HR2013 conference is only a few days away, I wanted to give you my suggestions on what things you should not miss while you are there. I have been attending and presenting at the SAPInsider conferences since 2006. These conferences are the best forum out there for providing SAP HR information to customers (prospective and current) as well as consultants (old school and newbies), since there is so much variety in the sessions. There are sessions that are strategic in nature (e.g. SAP HCM’s roadmap), functional in nature (e.g. what are the selected innovations in SAP’s Compensation functionality?), as well as technical (e.g. step-by-step guide on how to configure/deploy a specific module, functional area in SAP).

During my time there, these are some of the things that I plan to do, which I hope you take advantage of too:

  1. Check out great sessions with the HR speakers. This year we have more sessions than ever – it’s insane! For example, I will check out hyperCision‘s Brandon Webb in his session Guidelines and tips for mobilizing HR applications. Brandon has done some neat things in the mobile space which you should see. Also, I will be speaking about mobility in my session Guidelines and best practices for deploying ESS and MSS on mobile devices.
  2. Visit the SAP PRESS bookstore. The SAP PRESS bookstore is always well-located so I am sure you won’t miss it. Don’t forget to say hello to Sir Jon Kent (ok, I made up the Sir part, but I believe he should be knighted). Jon and the rest of the SAP PRESS team are a great group – they are now offering eBooks for their titles which customers are loving. I have worked with Jon for many years, as well as other awesome SAP PRESS folks, including acquisitions editor, Katy Spencer and Developmental Editor, Emily Nichols. The later two are helping me with my latest SAP PRESS book SAP HCM Infotypes. New this year there will be Q&A sessions with authors of some of the latest books. Venki Krishnamoorthy will be with me on Wednesday, Feb 27 at the SAPInsider Booth for the SAP PRESS Authors Q&A on SAP ERP HCM InfoTypes. If you haven’t met Venki, you should – he is a knowledgeable consultant, and all-around great person. Also, on Tuesday, Feb 26, Joe Lee and Luke Marson will be at the SAP Insider Booth for the  SAP PRESS Authors Q&A on Talent Management. Their informative book on SAP Talent Management came out last year.
  3. Hang out with some knowledgeable folks at the Ask-The-Experts sessions. This year we have an incredible batch of experts on both Tuesday night (from 6-6:45pm) and Wednesday night (5:45-6:30pm) during the Evening Reception. This is a nice forum where you can (literrally sit down) and grab some quality time with Karie Willyerd, Doug Whittle, Jeremy Masters, Luke Marson, Prashanth Padmanabhan, Brandon Toombs, Danielle Larocca, Jennifer Adams, Martin Gillet, Jacob Crane, Mark Ingram, Brigid Sternberg, Sylvia Chaudoir, Jarret Pazahanick, Steve Bogner, Sharon Newton, Eric Wood, and Paul Hopkins. Wow, that’s quite a group.
  4. Listen to the new SAPExperts panel discussions. New this year is a forum where you can spend some informal time with select authors from the HRExpert magazine (as part of SAPExperts). Check out Luke Marson‘s SAPexperts LIVE: A consultant’s view of how the SuccessFactors acquisition affects SAP customers; Jennifer Adams‘ SAPexperts LIVE: How to use standard configuration to automate declining negotiated leave balances, Venki Krishnamoorthy SAPexperts LIVE:  Talent groups in SAP E-Recruitment target the right candidate.  Also, I am also hosting a panel session, SAPexperts Panel Discussion: Recent Enhancements to Employee Self-Service/Manager Self-Service, Moderator: Jeremy Masters, Worklogix; Panelists: Gertrud Beisel, SAP Labs; Jacob Crane, EPI-USE America; and Michael White, Exaserv. These should be excellent sessions since you can actively dialog with the authors on your most burning questions.
  5. Meet Amy Thistle, the conference producer. Tell her your feedback directly. Amy is great because she listens. Our candid feedback enables her (and the entire SAPInsider team) to make the conference better and better each year.

In summary, I am excited about this year’s conference. Participation is way up, and I am sure there will be lots of energy. It will be great to meet up with my friends and meet new ones. Please stop by at one of my sessions, or you can also visit me at the Worklogix booth (#640) in the Exhibition Hall.  To see the full list of sessions, exhibitors, and all the other action, you can check out the SAPInsider website.  Also, follow tweets from the gang (and others) mentioned above during the conference, hashtag will be #HR2013

Good bye for now, and see you in Vegas!

Jeremy

Singapore Conference 2012

Compensation, SAP HCM, Self Services, SuccessFactors, Talent Management, , , ,

I am excited about my upcoming trip to Singapore for the first ever SAPInsider HR conference, October 16 through October 18.  For additional details on the conference, check out the website here: www.hr2012.com

A few weeks back, I was able to sit down with Dave Hannon, Senior Features Editor with SAPinsider & insiderPROFILES at Wellesley Information Services (twitter: @Daveatwispubs) and record a short podcast on the sessions I will be delivering in Singapore.

To read about my session on ESS and MSS, click here:

To read about my session on Usability and User Experience, click here:

I will be doing an “old school”, “back to basics” session on Org management. Click here for more info.

And, of course, one of my favorite topics (always), compensation management.

Obviously, one of the themes throughout my sessions will be around the recent acquisition of SuccessFactors, and what this will mean for SAP customers now and going forward.  I have had many conversations with my customers since SAPPHIRE around this topic, and it’s evident that many questions still exist out there.  I have previously listed some of the top integration challenges between SAP and SuccessFactors in a prior blog.

Thanks, and for those of you who will be in Singapore, I look forward to meeting up with you!

Jeremy

@jeremymasters