The self-service feature could be considered one of the most critical aspects of an HR system to empower the employees in an organization by giving them direct control over their employment information. The comprehensive and built-in self-service features of SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central allow users to simplify their job-related functions, such as employees updating their data and accessing time off, managers initiating a promotion for their direct reports, etc.
Three elements support the self-service transactions in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, these are:
- Workflows
- Event and Event Reasons
- Business Rules
Let’s take a quick look at each one.
SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central uses workflow as its approval mechanism. Workflows provide the necessary control to oversee the initiated changes before any data is saved.
For example, you can set up a workflow that identifies the approvers for promotion and have a separate set of approvers for transfer requests.
The events in Employee Central are standard pre-delivered picklists by SAP SuccessFactors and are used to identify the significant milestones in an employee’s life cycle. You can only use the standard events provided by SAP SuccessFactors. Examples are hire, promotion, termination, and rehire events.
The event reasons are custom-specific and created to break the events into a more granular category. For example, a termination event could be categorized as a voluntary or involuntary event reason. Similarly, a Hire event could be classified as a new or internal hire event reason. Event reasons are also tied to employee status. A new hire event reason sets the user to active status, while a voluntary termination would set the employee to terminated status.
Events and event reasons are used to ensure any job and compensation-related changes adhere to the compliance and reporting requirements of the organization.
Business rules automate and identify the correct workflow and event reason necessary for the self-service transaction. A business rule is comprised of the following:
- Condition (IF)– The logic must be met before the system takes action.
- Action (THEN) –The logic that defines how the system reacts when the condition is met.
- Trigger – The event type that initiates the rule processing.
For example, you can create a business rule that identifies the event reason as promotion with pay change when the transaction involves a change in an employee’s pay grade, job title, and salary increase. While a self-service transaction with just a change in Job Title could be considered a data change event reason. Using the business rules, you can also create a logic that will automate the approval process for each event reason. For example, the promotion with pay change event reason will need four approvers, while the data change will only require one approver. Business rules are used across all SAP SuccessFactors solutions, not just in deriving workflows and event reasons.
Here are the best resources to learn more about managing self-service transactions (some links require logging in with your SAP ID):
Configuring Employee Central in LSC
Implementing Employee Central in the Help Portal
Implementing and Managing Workflows in the Help Portal
Implementation Design Principles
