Today marked the end of an era of SAPInsider events. For the past 11 years, these events have been a great venue to reconnect with colleagues and customers. All in the spirit of knowledge sharing, knowledge harvesting, growing the eco-system – without the sales pitch. Customers really appreciated these conferences for this reason. Maybe there will be more opportunities in the future with conferences like this.
The European conferences always offer huge opportunities for speakers, especially from the US. Imagine the irony with a Yankee like myself talking to an EU audience about GDPR and the EU-US Privacy Shield. My joke that the “NSA is listening in now on this very session” draw laughs from the audience, but the room quickly sobers up when we realize what’s at stake when we talk about data privacy and our care with personal data.
Coming to the EU is also a wakeup call to understand struggles with new technology adoption, in particular, HR cloud. It’s easy to make a case to migrate HR to the cloud in a sales presentation, but harder to do so in a context where organizations are not ready (for a multitude of reasons, some of which are more valid than others). These are the conversations that are needed more often together – to understand a context for technology growth and to plan a realistic roadmap.
Reflecting back on over 10 years presenting in Europe at SAPInsider, it’s been a heck of a ride, and looking forward to the next 10 years+ in whatever form that shapes to be. It’s essential to do for all the reasons above. The coffee and croissants are a plus too 🙂 .
Several years ago, SAP found themselves in a situation which happens to many large software companies. Two separate parts of the organization developed new HR functionality to solve for a common gap: usability. On one side, HR Renewal came to fruition – a new landing page built off SAPUI5 with a new navigation and user experience. The other – SAP Fiori – was a cross-function solution (inspired with a Google design team) with a separate entry point (SAP Fiori Launchpad) and its own user interface using SAPUI5.
Many customers are now perplexed on how to move forward given both are viable solutions to solve SAP’s long-plagued usability problems, especially in the areas of Employee and Manager Self-Service.
It’s apparent that the bulk of innovation will go into SAP Fiori apps, since SAP Fiori is being leveraged across all platforms (On premise, SuccessFactors, Fieldglass, Ariba, etc.) It is SAP’s answer to a common UX, despite the disparate systems behind it. Vishal Sikka (ex-CTO of SAP, now CEO and MD at Infosys) layed out his vision at the 2013 SAPPHIRE show.
His “Fiori UX Paradigm” – drawn by hand and reminiscent of the days when the best solutions in software began on the back of a napkin – showed his vision, which SAP is trying to execute on.
So, with all this talk on SAP Fiori, does this mean that HR Renewal is dead? No. The functionalities are still more plentiful in HR Renewal (by a long shot), and are highly relevant for HR Professionals. It is unlikely that SAP will endeavor to re-write these apps in SAP Fiori. Although SAP Fiori is the better choice from a mobile perspective (since it’s responsive and device-agnostic), HR Renewal is still a good choice for companies who want to roll out services to their HR teams (admins, reporting) who don’t want to deal with the SAP GUI. The hard-core services performed in HR Renewal (i.e., Personnel Administration and Organizational Management updates such as employee movement scenarios and organizational updates) would almost certainly be done on desktop and not on device (e.g. I can’t see an HR admin performing a complex promotion/inter-company transfer on their Smartphone). This should relieve some of the frustration from customers when they realize a majority of the transactions that are new with HR Renewal are using the Web Dynpro ABAP technology which is not mobile-optimized (as opposed to SAPUI5).
I will tackle more sound-bytes in future blogs. In particular, the question may not be HR Renewal versus SAP Fiori, but perhaps how could they work together for your organization.
Until then, please leave some questions or comments below…
I did a recent podcast for SAPInsider, the conference producer for HR2015. You can hear the podcast and view the transcript here. Many of the questions were a precursor to the kinds of the questions I am sure we will be hearing from customers this year at the HR 2015 conference as well as ASUG/SAPPHIRE. Questions specifically around the roadmap for HR Renewal versus SAP Fiori and where/when/how these roads will merge within the SAP HCM space. Lots of questions around integration, mashups, and what types of skill sets customers/consultants will need in the future around these technologies.
Here are some of the resources that are available to us out there, specifically around SAPUI5 and its related offerings:
I also suggest you check out some sessions on these topics by two of the finest in the business: Martin Gillet and Brandon Toombs. Both will both give you an independent viewpoint on what’s good (and bad) about these technologies.
Brandon’s session on “Guidelines and requirements for adapting to the HR Professional role UI” will definitely be one to check out for those interested in understanding what’s new for the HR Professional. The rest of his sessions are here. You might also want to check out his blog series on SCN on comparing Employee Central and HR Renewal/SAP Fiori here: Blog 1 | Blog 2
The HR event from SAPInsider is almost upon us. Please visit the website to see more details on what’s scheduled. Please visit me at one of my sessions, or at booth #410 in the Exhibit Hall during the show.
The Bellagio will host this year’s SAPInsider conference, HR2015
I just recorded a podcast with Ken Murphy, Features Editor for SAPinsider & insiderPROFILES, about the conference and some hot topics. It was a great discussion with him, as we exchanged thoughts on HR Renewal, SAP Fiori, SAPUI5, user adoption, change management, security, and other big league topics. I will update this post once that podcast is released so you can have a listen.
For those customers preparing for the conference, this is what I could be curious to listen for during the conference:
What are the latest innovations within the SAP HR space around SAP Fiori? Will there be another wave of HR apps released? If so, when? How will SAPUI5 apps be expanded in the HR space, or will they?
How will HR Renewal continue to innovate, in areas like SAPUI5 replacement (of Web Dynpro ABAP services), as well as a more intuitive navigation scheme? In my opinion, the current lane approach looks fresher than previous homepage layouts, but also can cause more challenges for user adoption. This is something that I will discuss at the conference.
Will HR Renewal and SAP Fiori “merge forces”, or will we they continue to be deployed in separate releases, style sets, etc? It’s important that we hear from SAP on these roadmap items, especially after Vishal Sikka’s (relatively) recent exit.
What’s the “portal of choice” now for customers? Or, is there even a frontrunner? Currently, we have SAP NetWeaver Portal, NetWeaver Business Client (NWBC), SAP Fiori Launchpad, SAP Fiori within SAP Portal, and other 3rd party portals (SharePoint, WebSphere are top). How do we navigate these options, and which one’s best for customers?
What’s new in the HR Professional role? For this, I would attend my co-authorBrandon Toombs‘ session “Guidelines and requirements for adapting to the HR Professional role UI”. Brandon is a force to be reckoned with on this topic.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ensure that all your process inputs (market data, performance ratings, potential ratings, etc.) are configured prior to the compensation worksheet being opened to management.
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”.
Give the compensation team the ability to proof the compensation worksheets before releasing to management. Seems a given, but worth it’s own line.
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.)
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!)
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.
Like many of my colleagues attending HR2014 (produced by the @SAPInsider team), I am getting ready for HR2014 in Orlando March 11-14, 2014. I will be delivering 4 sessions this year:
Interactive discussion forum: Real-world lessons to deploy and optimize ESS and MSS applications – this is not a presentation, but a customer forum where I will facilitate a discussion around deploying ESS and MSS solutions within an SAP and SuccessFactors (and other 3rd parties). It is great because it is more of a knowledge transfer session among customers which always proves to be more engaging for the participants.
I will also be doing an Ask-The-Experts session with several other industry colleagues during one of the evenings. This is an underutilized part of the event where you can grab a beverage and sit with someone in a relaxed atmosphere to discuss anything you want. For this year, the SAPInsider team was able to compile a great group of folks including:
There will be a great group of speakers this year with fresh content. You can see who is speaking here. Too many sessions to mention that sound great, so I won’t even attempt to list…
Some of the hot topics from this year will surely include (in no particular order):
HANA roadmap for HCM, specifically anything in addition to the payroll work that has been done so far…
SAP Fiori and the roadmap for HR apps. Wave 2 brought no HCM apps, will we see what Wave 3 will bring for HR?
SuccessFactors Talent Management enhancements (such as the new “Presentations” functionality which was just released 1402). By the way, if you haven’t already done so, please join the new LinkedIn group dedicated on SuccessFactors Talent Management.
SuccessFactors Employee Central updates. I am looking forward to hearing the 12 month roadmap especially around Time management.
Updates related to the Customer Connection program in areas such as on premise Compensation, Learning (SAP LSO), and E-Recruiting.
Further integration of SAP Jam into everything SAP HCM and SuccessFactors.
HR Renewal 2.0 and the roadmap ahead for SAP Core HR innovations.
Hope to see you there. If you are not able to make one of my sessions, please drop by booth #315 in the Exhibit Hall and say hi to me or one of my Worklogix colleagues during one of the breaks.
During the session, there were several key themes resonating, but one of which was the new program from SAP called HR Renewal.
HR Renewal
HR Renewal is a program started a few years back from SAP that was meant to refresh the user experience for HR. It’s now also being extended to include ESS and MSS start screens, with shipments scheduled later in 2013. The basic idea was to refresh the user experience for the HR functionalities within XSS (think self service for HR Professionals), as well as ESS and MSS. This is a response to some of SAP’s competitors (e.g. Workday) and the overall direction needed from SAP to provide functionality outside of the SAP GUI.
Some other useful blogs on the subject include those from Jarret Pazahanick (SCN | Twitter) in SCN:
Jarret also did a nice podcast not too long ago with the folks from Insider Learning Network. You can listen to that here.
For those of you who have a license to SAPExperts, you can read here about the HR Renewal program from Jean-Bernard Rolland, Vice President, HR Solutions, SAP. (SAPExperts Login Required)
The standard SAP Documentation is here for HR renewal 1.0 Support Package (SP) 10, which is also referred to as “HR renewal 1.0 Feature Pack 3”.
For additional information on the HR Renewal, you can check out the SAP Note 1701634 (HR renewal 1.0: Release Information Note). (SAP Marketplace Login Required). You’ll also want to check out SAP Note 1691232 (Installing SAP HR renewal 1.0 on ERP 6.0 EHP6). (SAP Marketplace Login Required).
If you are on Twitter, you can follow the Solution Owner, Robert Moeller. His handle is @Robert_SAP. In fact, he sat down with the SAP HCM Insights Podcast team to record a session which you can listen to here.
Below is the latest Product availability matrix from SAP, where you can clearly see:
HR Renewal is the successor to the MSS Add-On 1.0
SAP enhancement package 6 for SAP ERP 6.0 is a prerequisite
No current successor products/releases for this at this time
Product availability matrix/version for HR Renewal
HR Desktop
For those companies not on ECC 6.0 Enhancement Package 6, or for those looking for alternatives to SAP’s HR Renewal functionality, Worklogix’s HR Desktop offers another compelling UI for SAP HCM. The HR Desktop offers a full suite HCM visualization, including quick access to employee information and organizational data. HR Desktop forms an important backbone for Worklogix’s eForms (HCM Processes & Forms). For more information about the HR Desktop, click here, or you can contact me directly.
Employee Profile HR Desktop by Worklogix
HR Desktop Form Wizard by Worklogix
Mobile Desktop
In addition to this, the HR Desktop has a mobile framework for customers. The mobile framework – call the Mobile Desktop – offers customers with a cost-attractive solution to manage HR processes end-to-end from a mobile device.
Menu screen for the Mobile Desktop by WorklogixApproval screen for the Mobile Desktop by Worklogix
Regardless of technology choice above (or other options), it is clear that SAP customers are gaining more options on how to deploy their applications, and moreover – how to deploy applications using a user interface that will provide a consumer-grade experience to the end user.
Usability predicts user adoption. In today’s world, this is necessity and not a luxury.
Just back from a great conference held by the SAPInsider team from Wellesley Information Services. Like past years, this year was great. Here are some of my takeaways, impressions, and lasting thoughts while still fresh in the brain:
The messaging was clearer, but the sales pitch needs to go. The good news from the conference was that SAP and SuccessFactors did a much better job at the positioning of the strategy/roadmap than last year. I thought David Ludlow did a nice job with the message delivery at the keynote. Outside of the keynote, the sessions largely had the same quality and diversity in previous years (great job to SAPInsider, Riz, and Amy Thistle). My session on mobility really resonated with the audience, as did many important subjects on integration and HANA. The only downer for me was that there was selling in some of the vendor-led presentations. This is a customer-driven event and it should focus on ‘how-tos’, case studies, and best practices. Let’s focus on describing the options for our customers and how we can help drive successful deployments.
Impressed with access to SAP and SuccessFactors staff. This year more than any other we had more SAP/SuccessFactors representation at the conference. Also, some SAP folks were available on Twitter throughout the conference, such as @watchthewave and @brianclendenin which enabled us to clarify some items right then during the conference. For example, I had a question around Plateau’s performance management offering that was clarified by a SuccessFactors VP in about 1 hour. I learned first hand how powerful social can be, especially in a conference setting.
Innovation around HR Renewal and deployment challenges. Like others, I saw some cool things around HR Renewal, but am concerned around how quickly it can be adopted by the bulk of customers. First , it does require the customer to be at a certain version/patch: SAP ERP 6.0, Enhancement Package 6 on with SP Stack 03. What’s difficult here is that we have alot of things being thrown in front of customers from an ESS/MSS perspective: there was the conversion to Web Dynpro ABAP (which is now complete, as of EhP6), then there was CORBU, then HR Renewal for the HR Business Partner, then an extension of this for ESS and MSS. Also, throw in the mix of SAP Portal versus NetWeaver Business Client (NWBC). For those customers who are a SharePoint shop, NWBC is a consideration (to be consumed in a web part), but the challenge now is that SAP Portal is pretty well entrenched in SAP customers and it’s hard to rip that out at this point. When surveyed at my ESS/MSS customer session, about 80-90% were using the SAP Portal. Net new clients might be a different story. So we need to guide our customers in this hazy area. [As a side note, I was disappointed with the demo during the keynote, as it appeared slow (due to connectivity issues). At one point, the screen went blank. Also, the Employee Central demo appeared a bit slow during the keynote, and it was given shorter airtime (not sure why?).
Some thoughts around functionality offerings of SAP/SuccessFactors:
Jobs2Web adds huge capability for the Recruiting solution from a social (SocialMatcher) and candidate User experience perspective. However, the recruiter functionality (original SuccessFactors Recruiting) needs improvement, which I hope is an area of innovation for SAP/SuccessFactors.
Performance management (and goals) continues to be a strong and compelling offering. I’m not sold on the use case of the new goals app for my iPhone, but the offering in sum is functionality rich.
Qualifications management is a key issue needing a solution. Since many customers maintain a qualifications catalog within their core HR system, and since the go forward solution is SuccessFactors, there needs to be a well-thought out plan to sync this within a hybrid environment.
I believe the SAP on premise Enterprise Compensation Management (ECM) and SuccessFactors comp/variable pay are comparable in terms of functionality. I heard from several customers who will stay on premise with compensation since their variable pay calculations/business process need special attention. Those that have SAP Payroll on premise, I also see value in coupling the comp with the payroll.
We need more clarity in the Workforce Analytics and HANA areas. From the information I gathered, and from the customers I met with, there is still alot of confusion around the strategy on premise v. cloud, around these two items. I suspect we will hear more about these items during SAPPHIRE in May.
Employee Central needs to grapple with the concurrent/ global employment use case since it currently cannot handle multiple contracts. Again, an area SAP/SuccessFactors needs to invest in.
Time management was largely absent during the sessions and throughout the conference.
Cloud Payroll was mentioned at a very high level. When will we hear more about this?
Next stop is the 2013 SAPPHIRE/ASUG conference. Hope to see all my friends there, and learn more!
On November 27th, I hosted another SAPInsider Q&A forum with over 50 participants. The good turnout did not surprise me as I have talked with many customers asking about the new ESS and MSS functionality and also the deployment options available (NWBC, SAP Portal, 3rd party, vendor-provided, Cloud, etc.). There were a ton of great questions. You can check out my the recorded session here.
A few takeaways from the event for me were as follows:
Still a lot of interest for customers wanting to implement basic ESS and MSS (even for the first time). Basic time entry and attendance is still much in demand for customers, as well as benefits, pay statement, and other more “basic” self services. This is especially true for many of the smaller or mid-size customers.
There is lots of talk around the newer EhP5 and EhP6 services, including the new deployment options. I have seen some customers looking at SharePoint and WebSphere for their portal (content management), but by far customers seem to be sticking to their SAP NetWeaver Portal investment. Since becoming enterprise-grade years back, I feel confident the SAP Portal is here to stay for most customers already running it for their HR services (and/or as their enterprise portal). Ripping it out and going NWBC might not make much sense for them right now given their provisioning is already being handled via the portal.
Confusion around prerequisites and sequencing of Enhancement Package upgrades. Whether the customer is going to EhP5 or EhP6, there seems to be a lack of good content. You can start here for MSS content, and here for ESS content. Also, check out SAP Note 1588625 (Release information for Manager Self-Services Add-On 1.0) as well as SAP Note 1450179 (ESS Based on Web Dynpro ABAP Available as of EHP5) . These two notes should provide some good high overview of the current ESS and MSS offerings. Customers are realizing the differences between the Enhancement Pack and the Business Functions – Enhancement Packs are a BASIS activity versus Business Functions are for Functional consultants (this is a generalization, but the point is that the business functions is where we actually switch on the functionality). For those who want a baseline, please check out my ESS/MSS SAP PRESS book as well as Marin Gillet’s SAP PRESS book.
I am hosting another HR Forum on Talent Management, on January 23 at 12:30pm EST. Please join me then and let’s have another great conversation about Talent!
I just returned from Singapore this weekend, and I wanted to provide some impressions from the HR 2012 conference that I attended and presented at. I know that not all my colleagues had the opportunity to attend, so I thought I would write a few quick thoughts that I took away.
Same challenges, different time zone. No matter which time zone you’re in, country you live in, or language you speak, I am continuing to see the same challenges with HR and IT professionals. User adoption (usability), roadmap questions on SFSF and SAP, and the need for strong online form processing (eForms)-among others!- continue to plague SAP customers in all areas in the world. This year, I had the fortune to speak in Vegas, Milan, and now Singapore, so I got a decent sampling from customers in the North America, EMEA, and AsiaPac markets.
User experience continues its dominating theme. User adoption of self service for employee, managers, and HR is still a huge part of successful implementations. My session on usability was well-received, with many heads shaking in the audience as we looked out for usability challenges with SAP portal applications as they are today. The audience was intrigued by the new HR Renewal functionality that I discussed. A good blog with some screenshots can be found here, authored by Jarret Pazahanick. SAP has hit a cord on this one, as I imagine most on premise customers will be interested in exploring how to exploit this innovation.
SuccessFactors story re-introduced. Raj Sundarason, VP Human Capital Management Solutions from SAP, did a nice job at the HR Plenary address, especially re-introducing the SuccessFactors story and the benefits offered by a cloud solution. The options (full cloud, on premise, and hybrid) were again explained to the customers, and there was definitely some interested faces in the crowd. There was also the same general concern on the roadmap and, especially questions on how talent management in the cloud would/could play into their existing framework since some of them were already implementing (or had recently implemented) some or all of SAP’s talent management modules. This is a work in progress of course, but kudos to Raj for a job well done.
Mobile. Interest in mobile, but not as pronounced as I was expecting considering how heavy SmartPhone usage is in this area of the world. However, I suspect folks (desperately) want this but know that they need to “walk before they can run” with respect to their existing situation (i.e., most customers I talked to were still trying to nail down a self-service strategy).
Singapore is a fabulous city and country. This was my first time in Singapore and had a great time, meeting some really great people, and seeing some really amazing sites.
Looking forward to the opportunity of being back next year for the AsiaPac HR2012 conference. Although the flight was a tough one (20 hrs in all: JFK-NRT-SIN), it was well worth the trip.
Thanks again to everyone at SAPInsider for this opportunity, and for the customers and friends I met while there.
