Tag Archives: SAP Consulting

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

SAP and SuccessFactors: My Top 9 Integration Challenges

SAP HCM, Self Services, SuccessFactors, ,

I have had the fortune of gaining exposure to some of the latest information on the ongoing SuccessFactors and SAP integration. At the SAPPHIRE conference, and again at the recent HR2012 conferences, SAP has laid out their plan for integration with SuccessFactors (SFSF).  It is obvious that everyone at SFSF and SAP knows this topic is paramount in moving forward with its customers.  Clearly, SAP is pouring lots of R&D into these integration packages, and promising frequent minor releases (to combat poor reception to the slowness of earlier Enhancement Package releases). We are yet to understand what the rhythm will be, but certainly they will need to have frequent innovations around these process and data integrations so that customers can leverage a standard integration.

For the SAP customers who decide that a hybrid orientation (SAP as Core/Payroll/Time/Benefits and SFSF for Talent) is their new platform, I have identified a few challenges that will need to be addressed for SAP and its customers as they move forward:

  1. An interface is still an interface. Customers understand that an interface is still an interface no matter how standardized it will be. The current download/upload via .CSV was a quick and dirty solution to get SAP customers on SFSF but we need to mature this integration – SAP and SFSF  know this and is actively working on further improvements in their integration packages.
  2. Workflow/approvals and notification management.  How will workflow and approval routing be handled? SAP arguably has one of the best workflow engines out there, so will this be leveraged, or perhaps workflow/notification management will be handled from SFSF.  When organizational structure changes and employee movement occur, we will be reliant on SAP Core master data to update SFSF in a timely and consistent manner. This is easier said than done as know from our past experiences connecting systems.
  3. Security and provisioning models. How will the security models be shared between the two systems?  How will the security and provisioning models be integrated/shared/leveraged across platforms? How will established GRC and identify management processes be incorporated into SFSF?  This could be an audit and controls field day.
  4. Global employee management. Most SAP customers are not using true concurrent employment (global employment) functionality, but almost all have their own way of identifying expatriates, inpatriates, and other global employees.  This is a pain point for a lot of customers since it’s already hard to manage this population in SAP.
  5. Portal navigation including ‘deep linking’. How will customers achieve “one, unified self service experience” if some services reside in both portals (Employee Central and NetWeaver)? Years ago, we were foaming at the mouth on the importance of having one portal with seamless look-and-feel, linking, and access to web content regardless of where it resides (intranet, internet, etc).
  6. Usability / user experience between the two systems needs to be addressed.  Right now, it makes sense that this is prioritized lower since there are ‘bigger fish to fry’ (i.e., data integration) but we know that we want a beautiful user experience, but we also want a beautiful, consistent user experience.
  7. Data model. How are the two data models being integrated, merged, or otherwise made seamless?  SAP’s Infotype framework is one way of organizing data; SFSF has another. When data is sent to SFSF (and/or back to SAP), will we need any transformation of data, or is the data models close enough to support tight integration?
  8. Terminology. Every system has its own set of terms (‘system vernacular’). How will we integrate these? Examples include (from the SAP side), Personnel Area, Personnel Subarea, Employee Group, and Employee Subgroup – how do map over to SFSF data, and what are they referred to as?  Additionally, we need to be sure translations are handled consistently as well. Internationalization needs to be seamless and consist across the two systems.
  9. Content management. Centralized content management will be difficult if not impossible.  For the interim, I suppose parallel content management strategies would exist until one system is used, as I don’t think Employee Central and SAP Netweaver could be managed from the same CMS.

These are the top considerations that have been swirling around in my head of late, and I am sure there are more considerations.  There are certainly specific ones depending on the type of business. For example, public sector versus private as well as within industry (e.g. Pharmaceutical vs non-Pharmaceutical).

The good news is that SAP and SFSF are committed to tackle these items, but our community must be diligent and honest on how we approach and solve for each of them.  Time will tell on how these are solved. Hopefully SAP and SFSF will use their large vendor network to help.

– Jeremy Masters

@jeremymasters