ECI 5/27/20: H1 issues that will not be resolved until November

Curated SuccessFactors Employee Central news, information, and commentary

May 27, 2020

Volume 77

Headlines

Several Issues Introduced Release That Will Not be Resolved Until End of Year Release
As I reviewed the SuccessFactors KBA's since the last newsletter, I noticed a worrying trend. There are several issues that have been introduced in the mid-year release and part of the normal cycle. As I have mentioned previously, to SuccessFactors credit there are a lot of improvements in this release. The part that is worrying is the fact that many of these issues will not be fixed until the year-end release.

When SuccessFactors moved to a twice-annual release schedule, this was greeted with acclaim. However, with the longer length of time between releases, the assumption was that any issues introduced would be resolved through a patch long before the next release comes along. This seems to not be the case. In the KBA section below you'll notice five issues identified with the mid-year release that will not be resolved until year-end release. This is just in the Employee Central area (and there are still a few unresolved b2005 issues), so it is likely that this is not an exhaustive list.

If SuccessFactors is going to introduce issues into the release that customers will need to live with for six months, customers are going to need to pay just as close attention to the errors introduced by the release as they do to the cool stuff on the way. However, that will not be easy to do either. None of the highlighted issues below are included in the known issues KBA, meaning that unless you are trolling through KBAs (or reading this newsletter) you would not be aware of them.

My hope is that this is a one-time issue caused by the chaos of the pandemic. I know I have not always been operating at peak efficiency over the past several weeks. The good news is that there are six months before the next release so hopefully there will be time for SuccessFactors to clarify what sorts potential issues customers will need to expect to live with in-between releases.

EC Blogs/Articles

The New Master Data Integration Service for SAP SuccessFactors
Luke Marson picks out emerging topics and blogs about them in a clear and concise manner, and this blog is a perfect example. Definitely enjoyed reading this blog since I've been curious about this topic.

SAP Success Factors Time Off – Accounts without Time Account Type
Article title is a bit confusing but this blog does a good job explaining the use of take rules with time types

SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central: Optimizing Business Rules For Specific Scenarios.
Great new Implementation Design Procedure (IDP) that covers some specific EC business rule scenarios. I still don't necessarily agree with all of the conclusions, but it's still an excellent document that all consultants/customers should read.

Legacy Report Distributor Tool – Email
How-to for emailing ORD/table reports.

Handling Prima Vacacional for Mexico Time Off
Nice blog that goes over how to handle Mexico statutory requirements

Highlighted KBAs

Below are some noteworthy KBAs (aka SF Notes) released since the last newsletter.

General

2930175	Unable to Change Personal information Due to Security Key Mismatch Error	If you use a warning message in personal information you'll get an error. You need to switch over from WARNING to INFO. Won't be fixed until b2011.
2929223	Unable to submit Concurrent Employment hire from Manage pending hires	Check back. Engineering is investigating
2928802	Workflow page does not respect order pre defined for the object	Happens if you have conditional fields configured
2926880	All Drop Down list values are not displayed when doing changes from Manage My Team tile	Check back. Engineering is investigating. You can use down arrow to see the full list.
2926874	Insert New Record button is Active in Address Portlet History despite not having permissions	Insert button appears despite there not being any security. Won't be fixed until b2011.
2926784	How to use a Deep Link for Termination action in Employee Central	Link list listed in the KBA
2926422	Hide "Birth-name" custom field in the Biographical information based on country	Not supported
2926376	Contingent worker : Address field order not consistent in primary emergency contact portlet	Check back; Engineering working on a fix.
2926357	Field widths across multiple portlets are inconsistent in Employee Central	Won't be fixed until b2011.
2926299	Blank error when trying to rehire an employee - Employee Central	Sm-mapping has mapping to "primaryEmail" field. Remove this mapping and use "ContactEmail" on SM-Mapping
2925795	Horizontal Layout in Preview Instances for Non-Modifiable PP3 blocks	Engineering is investigating.
2925757	b2005 Internal System error when importing Personal Information	Personal information import is not working for employees with global information after b2005. Engineering is investigating.
2925463	Does People Search supports National ID ?	No
2925443	Create Document generation template and group is empty	Happens when Document Generation Screen Look Up isn't maintained in Manage Data.
2925330	Person-id-external field not available in import template	Person-id-external not supported for Job, Comp, or Pay Recurring which makes sense.
2925224	Payment Information RBP limitations	You cannot provide "correction" permission without "Histroy" permission for Payment Information Portlet
2925220	Different field types in country specific configuration for homeAddress element	It is not possible to synchronize both country specific configuration and standard configuration when the field type is different

Time-Off/Time Sheet

Number	Title	Commentary
2930681	b2005 - When Flexible Requesting is Enabled Updated Requesting Amount Resets back to Original Value	Issue will be corrected in b2011.
2930653	Property is not upsertable. Please check the property setting.	Field in question needs to be updateable on the Object Definition for Time Off.
2927953	All Cost Centres Aren't Displaying In Time Sheet mobile	Happens when there are > 1000 cost centers
2927303	Change In Run Time Of Jobs Scheduled By TLMTriggerTask Job	The TLMTrigger job is now running at some time between 12 midnight and 6AM instead of 12 midnight on the dot
2926853	Employee remains in 'Unpaid Leave' status even after return from leave record is added	Happens when importing time off with actual return date. Won't be fixed until b2011.
2926776	"Employment status propagation is not possible" error when applying for a Leave of Absence	Incorrect employee status picklist configuration
2925558	DRTM Time management purge: Cannot Purged user because the unprocessed payroll replication proxy with external code	Options to resolve are in the KBA text.

Benefits

Number	Title	Commentary
2926363	Hyperlinks disappear after Enrollment in Global Benefits	There's an issue with the hyperlinks in benefits enrollment but the KBA is not written clearly and I'm not 100% what the issue is. Regardless, it's not getting fixed until b2011.
2925107	System Event field missing in "Benefit Work/Life Event" after 2005 release.	This is intended as part of the release.

About Me.

I've been working with SAP HR Technology for 20+ years and with SuccessFactors Employee Central for the past 4. I'm a working EC Consultant with 15+ engagements so far, so I live this stuff every day. Feel free to reach out to me at brandontoombs@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @brandontoombs

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