Tag Archives: Self-Service

Refreshing the UI: HR Renewal, HR Desktop and Mobility

April 22, 2013ESS, HR Renewal, MSS, Self ServicesESS, HR Renewal, MSS, Self-ServiceJeremy Masters

During the HR2013 Conference in Las Vegas this year, I was honored to be the moderator of a panel “SAPexperts LIVE! Panel Discussion: Recent Enhancements to Employee Self-Service/Manager Self-Service”. You can also check out the video posted on Youtube video here.

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:

New SAP HCM Functionality – HR Renewal 1.0 – Initial primer (dated June 1, 2012)

SAP New HR Renewal Functionality and Roadmap – Additional information (dated Oct 10, 2012) from Jarret on HR Renewal.

SAP HCM Enhancement Package 6 and HR Renewal – Overview (from Dec 19, 2012) of a key points of an HR Renewal Podcast

HR Renewal, ESS, MSS — Landing Page for HR for HR Renewal

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

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

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.

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.

Until next time,

Jeremy

Top 5 Things I Plan to Do at HR2013 in Vegas

February 20, 2013Compensation, ESS, HR2013, SAP Consulting, SAP HCM, SAPInsiderESS, HR2013, MSS, SAP Consulting, SAP HCM, Self-ServiceJeremy Masters

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:

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.
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.
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.
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.
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

My Impressions from the HR2012 Singapore Event

October 22, 2012SAP HCM, Self Services, SuccessFactors, Talent ManagementEhP6, MSS, Self-Service, SuccessFactorsJeremy Masters

Hi there,

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.

@jeremymasters