Part 2: RCM, RMK Integrations | Part 3: Data Movement Between Systems
This is the first installment in a three-part blog series focused on the power of integration within the SuccessFactors (SF) platform. We will explore the benefits achieved via meaningful integration of the three recruiting-focused modules and multimodule integration with the HRIS system of record, whether that be SAP or Employee Central (EC). Initially we will outline the impacts of integrating the position creation, approval, and management solution with the Recruiting Management (RCM) module.
The second of the three-part series is dedicated to the integrations between RCM, Recruiting Marketing (RMK)/Career Site Builder (CSB), and Onboarding (ONB) modules. The final piece covers the movement of data back into the EC or SAP Human Resource Information System (HRIS) solution from both the RCM and ONB modules. In each, we will highlight the benefits that can be realized exclusively via these integrations more than those more associated simply with a successful, well-thought-out implementation of any of the relevant modules in a standalone manner.
Through my implementation and consulting tenure, I have been fortunate enough to have worked on many client projects spanning multiple modules in the SF Human Capital Management (HCM) suite, involving significant and meaningful integration between both the modules and either EC or SAP HRIS solutions. Despite the vast differences in client profiles, geographies, business areas, etc., the definition of success for the implemented solution is usually quite similar.
Clients undertaking these initiatives are typically looking to move the needle in three main areas: efficiency, data integrity, and process/workflow compliance. As stated above, implementation of the modules, when done correctly, can lead to advances in efficiency. Now, let’s look at how the integration portion of the solution can increase advances significantly and facilitate meaningful positive impact to the other two areas: data integrity and process/workflow compliance.
Complex organizations of all types need robust tools to help them manage headcount, recruiting and hiring activity, and position structure to ensure they are effectively providing the required resources within the mandates of the overall corporate strategy, budget, and approved relevant processes. When a hiring need arises, managers need to know what positions they have currently approved for hire and/or how to create and request approval for a position to meet their current needs.
EC Position Management supports these efforts for companies by allowing positions to be easily and accurately created. Data can be pulled into the position object from various other objects in the BizX data structure and use rules logic where appropriate to auto-populate fields based on other field values previously associated with the position. Positions can also be copied and modified as needed to support position creation based on previous openings. Access to both data and functionality is controlled via permissions, providing a proper level of protection for sensitive data that can be associated with a position.
A robust workflow to support both ad hoc and rules/logic-based approval paths is also included and used to ensure that the proper process of headcount approval is applied to each potential opening. For clients without EC but rather a more traditional SAP HRIS solution environment, GP Strategies offers our own proprietary solution: Mana. Mana provides the same functionality as EC Position Management, supporting the entire position request, creation, approval, and management lifecycle.
Whether the client uses EC Position Management, or a blend of SAP HRIS system data and MANA or similar solution, thoughtful and meaningful integration with the downstream SF RCM module can provide significant benefits that are otherwise unable to be achieved. By working to align and map the fields on the various requisition form versions to fields within the position structure and then leveraging position data to create and populate requisitions via integration, clients can realize several significant benefits. This is especially true if the integration between the position management tool and RCM is the only mechanism by which requisitions can be created. Let’s look at the specific benefits of the three categories of success criteria.
Efficiency:
This solution architecture is rooted in leveraging existing approved data throughout the process lifecycle. Positions are created, and structural data is leveraged along with rules logic to populate other position fields to make the creation process less burdensome and ensure that positions conform to all corporate policies and standardizations. That data is then leveraged to support dynamic approval paths based on rules logic and values in specific position fields (for example, if field “Grade” > 14, add the CFO approval step).
Once approved, that same position data is reused to populate the vast majority of the fields on the requisition form and all that require organizational approval. The leads to not only a much more accurate and efficient requisition completion process, but more importantly, a significantly compressed requisition approval process, an area of challenge for many organizations. As the data has been previously approved in the position-focused solution and used to populate the requisition form in read-only manner, one can consider it approved. Most clients simply have a single route map step for the recruiter to create or modify the posting content and strategy documentation prior to approval and posting.
The elimination of a lengthy, multiuser approval process for the requisition allows for open positions to be brought to market faster, hopefully leading to shorter wait times for new productive employees to fill them. These benefits can be realized without giving up any control over position structure or the mandated approval process.
Data Integrity:
By reusing our foundational approved position data throughout the recruiting and onboarding processes, clients can ensure, through thoughtful integration configuration, that data is kept in alignment between the approved position, and any related requisitions, applications, and offers before being used to satisfy the vacant position post-hire in either EC or SAP. When foundational approved data is sent to the requisition, it will have already had all of your HRIS validation checks performed on the fields. This eliminates the burden of the recruiting system requiring mirrored validations on the data to facilitate the new-hire process. Not only does this decrease the amount of configuration required in recruiting, it also ensures that the data going back to your HR database is consistent with your existing rules and dependencies.
Clients can decide which, if any, fields should be modified on the requisition if changed on the corresponding position and vice versa. This ensures that data stays in alignment where needed to support organizational standards while still supporting the individual recruiting needs of each open position to ensure the proper resource is employed.
Process/Workflow Compliance:
When requisitions can only be created from approved positions via integration, overall process controls over headcount, budget, and recruiting/hiring activity can be better supported. While supporting dynamic approval roles is difficult and manual in the recruiting module alone, by leveraging your HRIS, you can traverse your organizational structure much more easily to dynamically determine approvers and route requests to them as appropriate.
By leveraging data-based rules logic to mandate approval paths based on attributes of the position and by only allowing requisitions to be created once these approval workflows have been successfully completed, the solution ensures that recruiting resources and budget are only expended on openings the organization feels are critical to be filled at any given time. By requiring changes to the requisition to depend on changes to approved data in the position, controls on hiring parameters can be maintained throughout the recruiting process, ensuring that no issues arise at the offer or hire steps of the process.
In conclusion, by integrating the position management and recruiting aspects of their SF/SAP HCM solution, clients are able to realize benefits that are otherwise unachievable. These benefits range across the three most common categories of success criteria: efficiency, data integrity, and process/workflow compliance. In our next installment, we’ll focus on how the integration between the RCM, RMK/CSB, and ONB modules can provide significant additional benefit than that realized from standalone implementation.
The Power of Integrations Within the SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Platform
This is the first installment in a three-part blog series focused on the power of integration within the SuccessFactors (SF) platform. We will explore the benefits achieved via meaningful integration of the three recruiting-focused modules and multimodule integration with the HRIS system of record, whether that be SAP or Employee Central (EC). Initially we will outline the impacts of integrating the position creation, approval, and management solution with the Recruiting Management (RCM) module.
The second of the three-part series will be dedicated to the integrations between RCM, Recruiting Marketing (RMK)/Career Site Builder (CSB), and Onboarding (ONB) modules. The final piece will cover the movement of data back into the EC or SAP Human Resource Information System (HRIS) solution from both the RCM and ONB modules. In each, we will highlight the benefits that can be realized exclusively via these integrations more than those more associated simply with a successful, well-thought-out implementation of any of the relevant modules in a standalone manner.
Through my implementation and consulting tenure, I have been fortunate enough to have worked on many client projects spanning multiple modules in the SF Human Capital Management (HCM) suite, involving significant and meaningful integration between both the modules and either EC or SAP HRIS solutions. Despite the vast differences in client profiles, geographies, business areas, etc., the definition of success for the implemented solution is usually quite similar.
Clients undertaking these initiatives are typically looking to move the needle in three main areas: efficiency, data integrity, and process/workflow compliance. As stated above, implementation of the modules, when done correctly, can lead to advances in efficiency. Now, let’s look at how the integration portion of the solution can increase advances significantly and facilitate meaningful positive impact to the other two areas: data integrity and process/workflow compliance.
Complex organizations of all types need robust tools to help them manage headcount, recruiting and hiring activity, and position structure to ensure they are effectively providing the required resources within the mandates of the overall corporate strategy, budget, and approved relevant processes. When a hiring need arises, managers need to know what positions they have currently approved for hire and/or how to create and request approval for a position to meet their current needs.
EC Position Management supports these efforts for companies by allowing positions to be easily and accurately created. Data can be pulled into the position object from various other objects in the BizX data structure and use rules logic where appropriate to auto-populate fields based on other field values previously associated with the position. Positions can also be copied and modified as needed to support position creation based on previous openings. Access to both data and functionality is controlled via permissions, providing a proper level of protection for sensitive data that can be associated with a position.
A robust workflow to support both ad hoc and rules/logic-based approval paths is also included and used to ensure that the proper process of headcount approval is applied to each potential opening. For clients without EC but rather a more traditional SAP HRIS solution environment, GP Strategies offers our own proprietary solution: Mana. Mana provides the same functionality as EC Position Management, supporting the entire position request, creation, approval, and management lifecycle.
Whether the client uses EC Position Management, or a blend of SAP HRIS system data and MANA or similar solution, thoughtful and meaningful integration with the downstream SF RCM module can provide significant benefits that are otherwise unable to be achieved. By working to align and map the fields on the various requisition form versions to fields within the position structure and then leveraging position data to create and populate requisitions via integration, clients can realize several significant benefits. This is especially true if the integration between the position management tool and RCM is the only mechanism by which requisitions can be created. Let’s look at the specific benefits of the three categories of success criteria.
Efficiency:
This solution architecture is rooted in leveraging existing approved data throughout the process lifecycle. Positions are created, and structural data is leveraged along with rules logic to populate other position fields to make the creation process less burdensome and ensure that positions conform to all corporate policies and standardizations. That data is then leveraged to support dynamic approval paths based on rules logic and values in specific position fields (for example, if field “Grade” > 14, add the CFO approval step).
Once approved, that same position data is reused to populate the vast majority of the fields on the requisition form and all that require organizational approval. The leads to not only a much more accurate and efficient requisition completion process, but more importantly, a significantly compressed requisition approval process, an area of challenge for many organizations. As the data has been previously approved in the position-focused solution and used to populate the requisition form in read-only manner, one can consider it approved. Most clients simply have a single route map step for the recruiter to create or modify the posting content and strategy documentation prior to approval and posting.
The elimination of a lengthy, multiuser approval process for the requisition allows for open positions to be brought to market faster, hopefully leading to shorter wait times for new productive employees to fill them. These benefits can be realized without giving up any control over position structure or the mandated approval process.
Data Integrity:
By reusing our foundational approved position data throughout the recruiting and onboarding processes, clients can ensure, through thoughtful integration configuration, that data is kept in alignment between the approved position, and any related requisitions, applications, and offers before being used to satisfy the vacant position post-hire in either EC or SAP. When foundational approved data is sent to the requisition, it will have already had all of your HRIS validation checks performed on the fields. This eliminates the burden of the recruiting system requiring mirrored validations on the data to facilitate the new-hire process. Not only does this decrease the amount of configuration required in recruiting, it also ensures that the data going back to your HR database is consistent with your existing rules and dependencies.
Clients can decide which, if any, fields should be modified on the requisition if changed on the corresponding position and vice versa. This ensures that data stays in alignment where needed to support organizational standards while still supporting the individual recruiting needs of each open position to ensure the proper resource is employed.
Process/Workflow Compliance:
When requisitions can only be created from approved positions via integration, overall process controls over headcount, budget, and recruiting/hiring activity can be better supported. While supporting dynamic approval roles is difficult and manual in the recruiting module alone, by leveraging your HRIS, you can traverse your organizational structure much more easily to dynamically determine approvers and route requests to them as appropriate.
By leveraging data-based rules logic to mandate approval paths based on attributes of the position and by only allowing requisitions to be created once these approval workflows have been successfully completed, the solution ensures that recruiting resources and budget are only expended on openings the organization feels are critical to be filled at any given time. By requiring changes to the requisition to depend on changes to approved data in the position, controls on hiring parameters can be maintained throughout the recruiting process, ensuring that no issues arise at the offer or hire steps of the process.
In conclusion, by integrating the position management and recruiting aspects of their SF/SAP HCM solution, clients are able to realize benefits that are otherwise unachievable. These benefits range across the three most common categories of success criteria: efficiency, data integrity, and process/workflow compliance. In our next installment, we’ll focus on how the integration between the RCM, RMK/CSB, and ONB modules can provide significant additional benefit than that realized from standalone implementation.
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