Managing Development Goal Plans

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to create and edit Development Goals, and configure goal notifications.

Goal Plan Access for End Users

In general, end users (employees) will need access to Goal Management and the Goal Plan template, which is granted from Role-Based Permissions (RBP).

However, the available permissions for actions and fields in the Development Goal Plan will be determined by the Goal Plan template configuration in the back end, set up by an SAP SuccessFactors consultant.

Therefore, as an employee, you might be able to create your own goals, and as a manager, you might be able to edit the goals of your direct reports or even delete a goal from your direct report’s development goal plan.

With the Goal Management Access permission, users can navigate from Home→Goals or select the Manage My Goals quick action on the Home Page.

Note

If needed, the Manage My Goals quick action can be disabled by an Administrator from Manage Home Page→Quick Actions, where you can choose which actions you want to show on the home page.

The Goals section is highlighted on the SuccessFactors application page.

Development Goal Plan Selection

Before creating a new development goal, the user needs to select the development goal plan to which they’ll be adding the development goal. The Goal Plan Permissions will determine which Development Goal Plan templates are available.

An end user can toggle between any development goal plans that are currently active in the system and permissioned to be viewable in role-based permissions.

Those templates that are still not converted to the Latest Goal Management will have a "Legacy View" for read-only access, but they are no longer editable.

Select Goal Plan from the Career Development Plan dropdown.

Development Goal Creation

An end user may add goals using several different methods: Create Goal from Scratch, Copy a Goal from another Goal Plan, or Create Goal with Generative AI (covered in the Using Generative AI in Development Goal Management lesson).

Development goals can also be created for a user by their manager. Managers can navigate to a user's goal plan and copy personal goals on the user's behalf. The source goal plan can be either a legacy or latest goal plan, but the target goal plan must be a latest one.

Create a New Development Goal

Steps

Choose Create Goal from the Development Goal page.
The Goal Creation Options screen opens.
Select how you’d like to create the development goal:
1. Create from Scratch – allows user to create a development goal with a blank goal form. AI is also present to assist, if AI capabilities are enabled in the instance.
2. Copy from Goal Plan – goals can be copied over from other goal plans, including from those not converted to Latest Goal Management, as long as the goal plan is available to the user. A maximum of 10 goals can be copied at a time.
The Create Development Goal screen opens.
Enter the details of the development goal. The fields available for your development goal will depend on the fields added to the Development Goal Plan template.
1. If enabled, the Coaching Advisor can be used to assist with writing the goal.
2. Legal scan can be enabled to facilitate compliance with regulations.
3. When the Competencies field is enabled and an employee associates an attribute to a development goal, if that attribute isn't present in the Growth Portfolio of the employee the attribute will automatically be synchronized to the employee's Growth Portfolio. The Timeline section of the attribute in the Growth Portfolio will indicate that the attribute was added from a development goal.

The Goal Creation Options are displayed.

Choose Save to save the development goal.

Result

The Create Development Goal page is displayed.

The screenshots of Select and Edit Goals are displayed on the Copy from Goal Plan page.

Development Goal Editing

Development Goals can be edited from the Goal Card, or from the Goal Details screen.

Actions Available from the Goal Card

The Goal Card offers the following actions from the Action Menu:

Edit Goal - opens the Edit Development Goal window to make changes to the Goal fields.
Delete Goal - deletes the goal from your Goal Plan.
Create Activity - if Continuous Performance Management (CPM) is enabled, this option allows users to create an activity in CPM that will be linked to the goal.

Users are also able to change the status of the Development Goal from the Goal Card.

Select Edit Goal to update the status of the goal on the Current Development Goals page.

Actions Available in Goal Details

Once a Goal Card is selected, the Goal Details screen opens. In addition to editing and deleting a development goal, users can also view the audit history for the goal, link activities, and add comments.

The Audit History allows users to keep track of changes to goals. An audit history record is created when a goal is created, modified, deleted, assigned, copied, or replaced. Users can see a list of records showing what changes were made, who made the changes, and when. If a goal was modified or replaced, users can see a comparison between the previous values and the new values of the changed fields.

Changes made to the following features are not logged in Audit History: comments, activities, and learning activities.

The Improve Communication Skills goal page is displayed.

If Continuous Performance Management is enabled, the Linked Activities section allows users to create activities and display the existing ones, as well as achievements (completed activities). To add a linked activity, choose +Create Activity.

The Comments feature allows users to add comments (feedback) on any development goal in a goal plan. Just enter a comment in the blank comment space and choose Post (arrow button). An email notification can also be sent whenever a user receives a feedback/comment on a goal. The email notification can be customized from the Email Notification Template Settings in Admin Center and the notification is called Goal Comment Notification.

Create Development Goals

In this exercise, you'll create a new Development Goal.

Steps

Add a new development goal.
1. Using the Main Menu, navigate to Goals and select the Development Goals tab.
2. Choose Create Goal and Create from Scratch.
3. Enter the goal data. Required fields are denoted by an asterisk (*).
  - Goal Name: Improve Business Writing Skills
  - Start Date/End Date: enter Jan 1 of the current year for Start Date and Dec 31 of the current year for End Date.
  - Status: On Track
  - Competencies/Attributes: Select a couple of appropriate attributes.
  - Purpose: Future Role
4. Save your new goal.

Goal Notifications Enablement

Goal Notifications

This lesson focuses on available selections for goal notifications.

As development goals are created, the administrator can select options for goal-specific e-mail notifications. Notifications are shared between goal management and development, so development management consultants should check the Goal Management configuration and confirm their changes won’t negatively impact Goal Management.

If you do not want to enable notifications for ALL goal plan templates, you can selectively disable notifications for specific templates. After enabling notifications, select the Customize Settings for Goal Plans option and select the templates for which you wish to enable notifications.

The Enable Goal Notifications table displays the three available goal notifications. These notifications are shared with Goal Management.

Enable Goal Notifications

Notification	Trigger	Recipient
Goal Creation Notification	Sent when a new goal is created	User the objective was created for (not self)
Goal Delete Notification	Sent when a goal was deleted by manager from the Direct Report's goal plan view	User
Goal Modification Notification (daily)	Sent daily when a goal was modified in the previous 24 hours	User (unless the user made the change)

To enable goal notifications, use action search to navigate to E-Mail Notification Templates Settings.

The Email Notification Templates Settings page is displayed.

To edit the text or the setting of the notifications, select the notification you wish to edit and fill out the necessary details. Keep in mind that Goal Management notifications are shared between Goal Management and Development Planning.

Configure Goal Notifications

In this exercise, you will enable and modify the settings of the Goal Notifications. The purpose of these notifications is to communicate when changes are made to development goals within the Development Plan.

Hint

Goal notifications are shared between the Goal Management Module and the Career Development Planning Module. Keep in mind that any configurations will be implemented in both modules.

To enable goal notifications:

Steps

Using Action Search, locate E-Mail Notification Templates Settings.
Confirm the desired notifications are enabled.
Choose Save Notification Settings.
To edit the text or setting of the notifications:
1. Select the appropriate notification link.
2. Select or edit the preferred options.
  - You may select the High Priority checkbox.
  - Be sure to select the Private checkbox in addition to the public goal, because most development goals will be private.
  - Use the Customize Settings for Goal Plans link to select the goal plans to be affected by the notification settings.
3. Edit the email subject and body as desired.
4. Select Save Changes.

Next lesson