Today, I venture out and try a succinct answer on questions like „Is SuccessFactors meant to replace SAP HR? Completely? And if so: where do I find the SuccessFactors equivalent of rule TE20 of the SAP standard time management schema?„. (The very short and simplified answers: „yes„, „yes„, and „you won’t and that’s a good thing„)
Ok, as a consultant, who’s constantly involved in discussions with some the most knowledgeable people in the SAP HCM and SuccessFactors community, and who attends conferences and webcasts to keep up to date, it’s easy to believe everybody knows these answers already. However, we have to acknowledge that many customers as well as support staff, developers and even analysts in big System Integrators don’t have this time, as they spend all working hours in their day job: keeping employees happy, making payroll work, upgrading systems, developing new applications,…
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So here I try to answer it in a nutshell, being aware that you can make the answer much more complicated and probably also more accurate, but aren’t we all supposed to be in „run simple“ mode now? Due to the high dynamic in this space, I can’t rule out that I missed some updates – the article should allow you to get the basic direction, but do confirm with the vendor before making any decisions. Here’s the simplified version – for the less simple one, you probably find 1000 very useful pages on various blogs on the SCN alone.
The Known Roadmap for SAP HCM and SuccessFactors
SAP’s current official roadmap sees the end of life for on-premise HCM 2025 – at least that’s the date it will be supported until. After that, there will be an ERP available on-premise as well as in the cloud, called S/4 HANA, but this does not include HCM. The future HCM solution from SAP is SuccessFactors and available in the cloud only.
So, what are SAP HCM customers or customers not yet on SAP HCM, but looking for a world class HCM solution, supposed to use instead?
- SAP HCM Talent Management (incl. Recruiting, Performance, Development, LMS, Compensation) is being replaced by SuccessFactors Talent Management. This has been the go-forward solution since 2013, i.e. the focus of investment and innovation
- Core HR (personnel administration) is being replaced by SuccessFactors Employee Central. A solution with an amazing recent growth in features as well as number of customers. It is now also the go forward solution and it’s adding new features fast, leaving the old on-premise SAP HCM behind like the talent solutions did before.
- Payroll: this is a special one. SAP’s payroll has been the envy of all global HCM vendors for a while. There simply is no global payroll solution even getting close. SAP is therefore building on this proven solution and wraps it nicely for customers to use in a cloud/hosted version called „Employee Central Cloud Payroll“ integrating with core HR in Employee Central. This makes migration simpler and low risk, but allows the customer to benefit form a save, trusted solution without retaining and infrastructure in their own basement.
- Analytics: SAP BW can still be used in an integration scenario, but the new, powerful analytics solution will be SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics and Planning (WFAP). It may be early days for some features like predictive analytics and embedded analytics, and many customers may not yet be ready – but I’m personally convinced, making full use of WFAP should be the end game for all SuccessFactors customers. Amazing things are already happening and much more will. Before taking the leap to WFAP there are various reporting tools available across the SuccessFactors Suite.
- Time Management: this is what got some users shedding a few tears (in some cases probably tears of joy): the old Time Management will be gone, too. In the cloud, SAP customers will have 2 options:
- a really slick, simple and user friendly solution within SuccessFactors Employee Central (so, no extra fees) made of the Time-Off and the Time-Sheet solutions or
- integrating with a powerful partner solution like WFM or Kronos, who also cover complex rota planning etc.
- Personnel Cost Planning and Simulation: no direct replacement visible yet. Operational Workforce Planning within Employee Central is alleged to cover this, but at time of writing it deals with headcount only rather than cost. SuccessFactors WFAP (Workforce Analytics and Planning) will probably give you an adequate solution. Maybe there’s even a chance of resolving the eternal conflict between cost planning and compensation management and have strategic people management triumph over bean counting by using predictive analytics features with compensation management. We’ll see.
- Travelmanagement (if you want to count that into HR): be honest! It never was a real travel management solution. It only really covered expense management reasonably well. So, no tears shed from me as this is replaced by Concur – a solution I learned to love as early as 2010 in a global rollout, when switching on mobile features was already just a click of a button.
- CATS: there’s currently no plan to build an equivalent of CATS in SuccessFactors. CATS will be available in S/4 HANA ERP.
SuccessFactors integrates with SAP on-premise, but it’s no 1:1 replacement of any old solution
- SuccessFactors constitutes the HCM counterpart of S/4 HANA and exists in the cloud only. However, it can integrate to S/4 HANA ERP in the cloud as well as on-premise
- Whilst SuccessFactors is replacing all those on-premise HCM modules, it is NOT meant to replicate them feature by feature. There is no 1:1 translation. Don’t even try looking for it! And that’s good. Attempting that 1:1 replacement would have been the equivalent of building mechanical horses with combustion engines and let them draw carriages rather than building cars. There are a lot of things, horses can do, which cars can’t. I love horses! But cars were the better solution for 20th century individual transport.
- You don’t have to take one big leap. There are various integration packages available to allow you using some on-premise elements at the same time as other Cloud elements. Yes, SAP was a bit slow at the start with providing integration, but they are catching up quickly.
- SAP HCM on-premise (as long as it is going to be supports) integrates with S/4 HANA – in a separate box (today via ALE) or in the same box.
There is no guarantee that SAP HCM on-premise can not be used any more after 2025
(nor the other way round)
- Is 2025 the ultimate date? Well, my Crystal ball says….
…ooops: it’s gone blind.
Sure: many customers believe that there will be extensions of maintenance available, once we get close. If not from SAP them from 3rd party providers. Many of the big system integrators will probably love having a number of customers to support on-premise beyond that date. After all, that allows them to sell more of those customisations, which in turn make the systems high maintenance allowing them to sell even more services. - Seriously: where there is money there is a way, but the fact that the way is expensive, doesn’t mean it’s a good way
- However, there is far too much focus on the 2025 date as a driver of decisions. For most customers, it shouldn’t really matter. If you want a cutting edge HCM solution in a few years‘ time, it’s gotta be cloud frm all we know today. Not only, because SAP (as most other vendors) is focussing most of its investment there, but also, because the cloud model just does allow for faster innovation.
- So, don’t say: we’ll move to SuccessFactors, because the old system will die in 2025. Do say: we’ll move to SuccessFactors, because it’s the cutting edge solution. And if it really doesn’t do what you need yet today in some processes: wait a bit and watch. But don’t wait, until it does look exactly how your old solution looks like, because that would be like waiting for a mechanical horse to be available at your Porsche dealership.
If you think, Successfactors is too expensive for medium sized businesses, think again!
- This is a common stereotype, but that’s no longer true. There are deployment models and pricing models in place to make SuccessFactors affordable for businesses between 100 and 1000 people.
- Actually, it’s a big opportunity for medium sized businesses to overcome the people related barriers to growth they used to hit somewhere between 100 and 500 employees:
- unable to hire the right people fast enough
- retention problems, as they didn’t have the right pay structures
- engagement issues, as young professionals were taken aback by the old fashioned internal processes
- lack of alignment between individuals‘ efforts and business objectives
- not allowing their workforce to learn the right skills fast enough
- If you are a business leader – or a business minded HR or IT leader – in a medium sized business, I’d love to talk to you. Let’s find out together, how people management can become a driver rather a barrier of growth for your business. Just as it should be given the agility of your organisation – as long as you have the same tools available as corporate competitors on the labour market.
Where to look for more information
Well, there are the obvious places like the SAP Community Network, SAP and SuccessFactors websites, conferences, webcasts, etc. I want to point out a few people worth following to keep up to date:
- Luke Marson: Twitter @lukemarson, SCN-Content
- Jarret Pazahanick: Twitter @SAP_JARRET, SCN-Content
- Thomas Otter: Twitter @vendorpricey, SCN-Content
- The SAP HCM Insights Podcast: a virtual fire side chat with experts from the US and Europe discussing SAP HCM, SuccessFactors and HRIS in general
- And out own sources:
- this blog and the corresponding e-mail newsletter
- Twitter: @svenringling
- Our Youtube channel
Or just get in touch, so we can sit down to discuss your situation
In Latin America there are many companies that do not handle clock systems, but that also have a very complex time scheme with concepts such as (prize
perfect attendance etc), there is also the case of clock systems that only have a record of start time, end time and breaks, and all the concepts of overtime, night bonuses, overtime with percentages depending on the amount accumulated in weeks, etc are driving by time schema. I can assure you that 80% of the companies that I have had the opportunity to work on their SAP implementations in this area of the planet are handled like this. How can they handle that in Success factors
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Great information, thank you for writing this. I love the mechanical horse analogy.
Very good information and very easy to understand.
Hai, thanks for sharing nice information. here you can go for demo.
I have to disagree with Sven’s reply back to Vinodh re customisation of time and payroll.
We have customers who, due to their Enterprise Agreements (EAs, Australian awards) have been forced into, or dreamed up, some weird and wonderful conditions. This entails either heavy config in Time Eval, and sometimes even customisation.
For years with these customers I’ve advocated doing to easier EAs with easier conditions, but for various reasons they haven’t or couldn’t. As a result they introduce new EAs, with more complexity. This further complicates the system, i.e. Time Eval, as we have to build for the current EA as well as the previous ones, to cater for retro. We’ve even sat with their Industrial Relations people, during the negotiation process, to ‚help‘ them with the wordings and proposals with the aim of reducing complexity.
Arguably a WFM such as Kronos can deal with this, so that is probably the future in this brave new world. But then integration becomes the bane of our/their lives, with interfacing from WFM to EC to SAP backend and back. That is what I see as our immediate pain point as we move into the cloud.
Hi Paul,
I don’t think we are in disagreement here. If course there are many customers, who’ll need more complex options than EC timesheet offers and I understand Australia is a hotbed for this. But there are also many customers, who can move to EC time and will be happier.
And then between these two groups there are customers, where simplification and move to EC would make a lot of business sense, but a lack of willingness to change or political reasons make it practically impossible.
Thank you Sven for the concise write up and all the great questions!
I’ve got a question, too. In ECC 6 CATS is feeding other SAP applications such as Payroll, PM, and Controlling. Using time management in EC manages staff entitlements and integrates with payroll nicely. How is it dealing with the other requirements where work orders and project information need to be updated? Is the integration via CATS (which I would assume considering your point in the article) or directly to the relevant SAP apps (which might be an option considering customers may also have non SAP integration needs)?
thanks
Frank
Hi Frank,
so far, SAP still sticks to the statement that EC timesheet is not meant to replace CATS in any shape or form – it allows for one simple field for a cost object. At the moment, imo, it’s either or, although you could probably move timesheet times into CATS. How CATS does / will looks like in S/4, I don’t know.
It’s probably safe to assume that the eco-system will produce various options to move EC time data to S/4 in future in some shape or form.
We need to keep in mind that EC time is meant to be and stay lean and simple. So, I trust that it won’t develop into an ABAP-hours eating monster like CATS to feed our consulting profession ;-)
Hi Sven,
thank you for your answer. I feared/expected that and agree – no ABAP monster ;)
A possible solution scenario would be to untangle CATS from Payroll, use EC Time for its core purpose (as automatic as possible) and CATS on an exception basis (only for time that need recording against work order etc.). That would avoid/limit double data entry.
so if on-prem goes away. how do other apps that rely on mini-master (like cats etc.) get this data?
Hi Howard,
an HR mini master as required for CATS or any other processes, where you need to assign an employee will be part of S/4 HANA. It can (and should) be fed from SuccessFactors as part of the standard integration scenario.
Are you saying there is not a road map for on premise with an EC front end. That seems odd given that there are customers deploying that now.
Hi David,
I’m not sure what you mean with „on-premise with an EC front end“. If you are referring to a scenario where payroll runs on premise and everything else is in EC, this is currently covered by the core hybrid integration scenario and the long term roadmap is going to EC Cloud Payroll. It can still make sense to implement on premise payroll now: the transition is relatively easy because for almost all practical purposes EC cloud payroll IS the existing on premise payroll. New implementations just should not go for a lot of custom development as it’s unlikely you can carry that over.
If you really mean EC as a pure frontend – like a replacement of ESS/MSS for on premise: I am aware that some customers let themselves be lead into that screnario by big system integrators / „consultancies“, who are in dire need to get their huge bench of people with obsolete programming skills busy.
Whilst you can always imagine a scenario where something like that could make sense as an interim solution, because you need the new „front end“, but really can’t make teh full move fast enough, assuming it as a long term scenario is, with all due respect, ludicrous.
To begin with: yes, it does fly into teh face of the current SAP roadmap and even though some customers bank on extensions, I wouldn’t bet on any significant roadmap changes. (The calculation of the big SI is different: is they have e few of these customers they can offer them to host and maintain their obsolete solutions at excellent margins, once SAP pulled the plug).
It also doesn’t make any sense from an architecture point of view: these are two completely different systems. It’s not even like trying to fit a Boing engine into an Airbus plane. It’s like building a Tornado jet around a Spitfire engine (or a Mustang for our American friends). EC has a very different philosophy and there aren’t teh easy 1:1 matches you’d need.
Finally, from an IT strategy point of view, it deserves nothing, but a life time sentence. With your cloud subscription you pay for the infrastructure as well as for the software. You should be freed of all infrastructure chains – no longe rneed that space, hardware, software and, most notably, know-how. This moves gives you the worst of both worlds. Also, the speend of innovation the cloud concept should bring you is out of the window, because not only does your „backend“ hold it back, but the a complext interface you need slows you down even more.
Just scratching on the surface, but I hope it gives you an idea. Only go for this, if it’s an interim scenario and it’s the only alternative (waiting to be ready for a proper move is also an alternative) for very very good reasons.
Anyway, thanks for asking this question, a sit hopefully helps some other reader to spot their system integrator’s plan to install a money printing machine for themselves.
Hi Sven,
you wrote THE definitive summary – nice.
Personally, I would expect to see the 2025 date extended again. There are companies having strong reasons against moving to the cloud; plus given that the EC Payroll is – to all effects – the HCM hosted solution, it will be maintained… so why not extend its official life? it is being ported to S/4 (but not in a simplified version).
As a reply to Vinodh, EC payroll is a hosted HCM Payroll solution. So much of the schema and requirements should be possible, although I expect some limitations based on the hosting model.
Not so when it comes to Time Management – and as Sven correctly states, EC contains a simplified Time-off and Time Sheet approach (that keep being extended), or requires a complementary, integrated approach.
Thanks a lot, Chiara!
it’s certainly a matter of speculation, but if there are enough customers, I believe there will be a deal in some shape or form. For most customers, there should be better reasons to switch than the deadline
Hi Sven, good opinions and clarity, thank you. Totally agree SuccessFactors is completely affordable as an HR system for the SME space.
From speaking to our current SAP HCM clients, I can’t see the ROI for SAP HCM Payroll users to move to the Employee Central payroll given the underlying engine is the same unless their current SAP Payroll is over customized and they want to re-implement. EC Payroll is great for those completely new to SuccessFactors and is still the „envy“ (as you rightly put it) to other cloud providers as it is so mature.
Best Regards, Steve
Hi Steve,
I could see one easy biz case for cloud payroll: if payroll the last piece you have in SAP on-prem, TCO for infrastructure and operations are enormous.
There is an argument for moving existing customers to EC-Payroll. By going to EC the customer can move away from Fiori and the portal. They get a nice new ESS/MSS, and mobility thrown in for free. If you have customers on an old portal, and/or don’t have mobility yet, it gives them a lot for a minimal cost.
It also gives them a far better user experience than the old grey/blue R3 screen.
I agree in principle Paul, but:
– no way you get away from Fiori. SF is just in the process of Fiori-isation. Seen the new ee profile recently?
– EC payroll still does have a lot of old blue/grey moments for core users
Thanks, Vinod.
I’m not saying EC will cover everything you can do in old PT. Customers have the two choices for a reason:
– EC timesheet for the less complex cases, where the new solution will be much simpler to maintain and more uset friendly
– the partners solutions that cover complex cases better than on-premise PT
I am convinced that many customers will be able to use EC timesheet, if they don’t try to replicate the old stuff 1:1, but re-think, what they really want to achieve.
Nice post. Thanks for keeping us updated on the development’s.
Do you really think that all the customization’s that we do in Time schema’s & Payroll’s schema as per client requirements can be accommodated in Success factors ?
Hi Vinodh,
definitely not.
I believe that 75% of these customisations are currently unnecessary:
– half of it is done. because consultants at work don’t understand the system and process and therefore can’t leverage the standard as well as they should
– half of the remaining 50% could be avoided, if customers would go after business value and let themselves be guided towards lean processes, rather than emulating what they had in th epast plus every other new non-value-adding idea of individuals.
When really scrutinizing potential for simplification, a lot (if not most) of customers can migrate to EC time at some point in the future.
The remaining customers will need to go with a partner solution as mentioned.