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Former Member

SuccessFactors Employee customers need to rely on a robust integration of their HR data with other systems in their SAP ERP landscape. Often, there are 10+ other system to be integrated with HR data and typically 50+ (sometimes 100+) integration points - one or bi-directional - to be taken care of. These enormous integration needs for HR data show how important it is to take away the burden of integration from our customers and make their journey to the cloud as easy as possible.

Given the fact that SuccessFactors Employee Central customers can run a hybrid cloud and on-prem solution (and in some cases where they want to integrate with other cloud solutions), one could argue that interfacing between systems is something that everyone can do. The question then becomes, why is SAP better? The right answer to that question is that from an integration standpoint, SAP has a stake in all the solutions which creates a robust and valuable end-to-end scenarios across system borders. Owning the code is simply the key for doing it better.

From a business point of view, SAP’s intention is to support any cloud transition scenario and integrate within the pick-and choose portfolio customers have selected. Integration, the way that SAP delivers it, allows customers to continue to keep the benefits for their end-to-end business processes, such as performing accurate financial costing and profitability analysis and guaranteeing smooth workflows in all systems. The intellectual property prohibits access by others; SAP is the only one to deliver integration as part of the solution. Furthermore, all SAP HCM customers are eligible for the pre-packaged integration upon their maintenance contracts with SAP, which means a major portion of the integration costs are covered already as part of maintenance. Once implemented, SAP guarantees that the integration is compatible with any system upgrades and productive integration operations do not require any upgrading activities due to the changes in the connected solutions. Bottom line: leveraging SAP standard integration is the safest and best solutions for our customers.

Another way SAP integration offers differentiation by the integration features themselves. One of the central integration features is to send employee data from SuccessFactors Employee Central to SAP ERP. In SAP ERP the data is leveraged from the ERP mini master. This guarantees that integration configuration for data and process integration does not need to be reconfigured.

Example Employee Central to SAP ERP integration:

Employee data that used to be sent from SAP HCM and triggered workflow processing in connected SAP systems - such as a purchasing system - or travel management system – are now being sent from SuccessFactors Employee Central and only require leveraging the new SuccessFactors Employee Central to ERP employee data replication. The HR master data sent from SuccessFactors Employee Central feed the infotypes in SAP HCM, all Application Link Enabling (ALE) based configuration continues to work as before. The HR master data integration between SuccessFactors Employee Central and SAP ERP compared to the ERP mini master concept offers additional value, among those as the most important one extensibility. This means that customers as well can add additional fields and transfer additional information as they need it per their processes (This feature is enabled via the foundation objects of EC). Customers can configure the rules engine to control the data transfer based upon the rules they define. Basically, data is transferred automatically from SuccessFactors Employee Central into the infotypes 0001 (org. data), 0002 (personal data), 0008 (basic pay). On the ERP side, to control the further processing of the data, IMG configuration offers flexibility to influence and extend the standard behavior.

The extensibility concept allows customers to build on a standard, but at the same time extend integration configuration if needed. Any extension that is made to the configuration is automatically recognized by the connected systems.

Example Employee Central to SAP Governance, Risk and Compliance (SAP GRC) integration (planned roadmap item😞

Others can leverage the existing public interface between SuccessFactors Employee Central and GRC, based on the compound API features on the EC side and the access request public interface on the GRC side. An alternative concept it is planned to offer new interfaces that  improve the integration quality tailored to the requirements of SAP customers and ensure that standard integration is available for SAP customers.

By offering integration as part of the solution, customers can easily adapt and tailor our solutions to their needs. The technical integration shouldn’t be the primary focus; instead we should focus on the business value that the integration of HR data can enable in the connected systems. A few examples are:

  • Accurately matched employee and enterprise structure information enables efficiency in your production processes
  • Consistent organizational information throughout the entire organization enables overall security and efficient re-organization processes
  • Aligned reporting structures and approval rules allow for clear responsibility definition and smooth workflow processing throughout the entire system landscape

The list could go on and on.

In case you are further interested in the topic of SuccessFactors Employee Central integration with SAP ERP, please have a look at my other blogs or shoot me an e-mail:

Part 1: SuccessFactors Employee Central – An introduction to how SAP and SuccessFactors enable HR da...

Part 3: SuccessFactors Employee Central - What is the integration roadmap & FAQ's

Best regards,

Heike

Solution Manager – HCM Solutions, SAP AG

heike.kolar@sap.com

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