I am delighted to announce details of the 2nd edition of the best-selling SAP PRESS title SuccessFactors with SAP ERP HCM that will be released on December 3rd 2014. Authored by amy.grubb2 and myself – along with contributions from atif.siddiqui – the title is not just an updated edition, but also includes brand new content. SAP Jam also continues to feature in the book.
Some background
Just over a year ago saw the release of the first edition of the SuccessFactors book. It was a long awaited release that became an SAP PRESS best seller and helped educate thousands of individuals about the SuccessFactors suite and what it has to offer.
But getting there was no easy task. The book came together from a team of 6, most of whom spent every waking hour writing. And also while maintaining their career, social, and personal lives! In addition, we were delighted to get plenty of support from SAP and SuccessFactors and I enjoyed some personal sessions with product management experts to show me new and upcoming functionality. We were also blessed to have Dmitri Krakovsky, SVP of Product Management at SAP write a wonderful foreword for the book. He has been a real proponent of the book and both its quality and accuracy.
For the second edition the team became 3 and despite being "just" an "update", the level of effort for the authors and contributor was much more than expected. 5 quarterly releases, terminology changes, evolving products, changes in strategy, and new integration content made sure that we were very busy with content changes, taking new screenshots, and re-writing chapters. Just to punish ourselves further, we decided to add some new chapters! But thanks to the great work of amy.grubb2 and atif.siddiqui we achieved an even better title with more content and featuring the latest innovations and integration content from SAP and SuccessFactors.
Now, let's take a brief look at what's new.
Updated and Revised Chapters
There have been 5 releases of SuccessFactors since the first edition – 1308, 1311, 1402, 1405, and 1408 – and so each chapter of the book has been updated to reflect new features, terminology, and UI changes. In addition, SAP have released numerous packaged integrations and updated their roadmap and strategy. Changes to the suite terminology, UI, and logos have been updated throughout.
Both the Integration and Employee Central chapters have been extensively re-written to provide the latest and greatest information and functionality, as well as further ensure that the chapters provide maximum value to the reader. Both chapters also include around 30 new pages of content each, which we’ll cover below.
New Content
Updating the content was not enough for us, so we decided to add some new content! This includes:
- New 118-page chapter on the SuccessFactors Platform and extensibility
- Over 30 new pages of integration content
- Over 30 new pages of Employee Central functionality
- New chapter on administering SuccessFactors
Platform and Extensibility
For the first time, features of the SuccessFactors Platform have been documented to enable readers to learn about those features not covered under each of the main applications. This includes Role-Based Permissions, Company Info, Presentations, Job Profile Builder, and more. It also now contains the previous technical architecture, security, Metadata Framework (MDF), and Employee Profile content, fully updated.
Integration
As well as a full update and inclusion of the latest Talent Hybrid packaged integrations, the integration chapter has been extended to include details of the APIs available in SuccessFactors, other talent integration content (such as Recruiting integration to 3rd party vendors), and Employee Central integration for both the Full Cloud HCM and Side-by-Side deployment models.
Employee Central
Since Employee Central is evolving at such a fast-pace, it was necessary to re-write and extend the chapter to include some of the new features in detail. The new features covered include:
- Hiring and terminations
- Job changes and transfers
- Concurrent Employment
- Global Assignments
- Global Benefits
- Advances and Deductions
- Alternative Cost Distribution
- Leave of Absence and Time Off
- Position Management
- Workflows
- Employee Central Service Center
- …and more!
In addition, detailed explanation of concepts such as employee status, effective-dated data model, and Event Derivation has been included.
Administering SuccessFactors
For the first time, some of the most practical ongoing administrative activities have been documented. Common tasks like managing the password policy, Picklists, data retention and workflow requests can now be discovered in detail.
Summary
The book is more than just an update of the first edition. In addition to including features from the previous 5 releases, it also includes brand-new content never before made available to customers or partners. On top of that, significant content has been re-written to add additional clarity, relevance, and detail to existing topics. Read more on the SAP PRESS website and order your copy!
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