Setting Up Workflows in Position Management

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to configure approval workflows to protect the position data integrity.

Workflows

The Position Object is the key field on an Employee’s Job information, showing which Position an employee is attached to, and exists both as foundation object and a transaction object at the same time. A position exists independent of its incumbent (individual who holds the job), and by that definition, it’s a foundation object.

Due to this multi object existence, the Position Object is subject to multiple data updates and must be viewed as a trusted source of truth for an Organization’s Position information. It is leading practice to use workflows to protect the Position Object against changes, to ensure data control, integrity and accuracy. Some typical scenarios are :

Workflow when making changes on the Position object.
Workflow when Creating or Copy Position
Workflow for Synchronizing Position to Job Information
Workflow for Position to Job Synchronization

Note

The prerequisite SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Core Academy training explains in more detail how to implement, configure and manage workflows. You can refresh your knowledge about Workflows in the learning journey: Configuring workflows during implementation or check the guide: Implementing and Managing Workflows

Some examples on Business Rules that will trigger these Workflows for Position Management changes will be explained in Unit 4 of this course.

Workflow Configuration

Position Management will include additional options to define approvers, dynamic roles or dynamic groups based on Position Hierarchy.

Position Relationship as Approver Type

Position Relationship allows you to define an approver based on the position incumbent from the Position, Parent Position or Parent Parent Position. The workflow request goes out to participants under a selected position hierarchy. May include:

The position itself
The next position-level, reporting, or management relationship to the selected position.

The position can be that of the workflow subject user or the workflow initiator, which you can select from the Relationship to Approver dropdown list:

Employee Position (The subject user's position)
Initiator Position (The workflow initiator's position)
Position (The position MDF object, relevant only when the workflow is assigned to the position object)

Note

In Workflow Configuration, Position should never be used as a Role. Position is an object based instance, which does not belong to one user, they simply have an incumbent, so the system cannot determine the participants for these roles based on the incumbent of the position. You should use Position Relationship instead.

When using Position Relationship as an approver on Position Creation, always make sure to select Target as a Context and not Source, and select Position as the Relationship to Approver. Otherwise, any workflow on Position Creation will not be sent to the approver.

Dynamic Role as Approver in Position Workflow

The Dynamic Role based on Position can only be used in workflows for MDF Position objects, and the system uses the changed position information to determine the dynamic role assignment. For example, you have moved a position from US to Canada. If this position is still used in a dynamic role for US workflows, the relevant approval requests regarding employees in US are still sent to the incumbent of this position who is based in Canada

Note

This type of dynamic role requires the Base Object field to be enabled in the Corporate Data Model XML to successfully use Dynamic Roles for Position Changes. The following procedure below will explain the required steps to enable this field.

Learn how to add Base Object field in the Corporate Data Model XML

The following steps will demonstrate how to add the Base Object field in the Corporate Data Model XML to allow the creation of Dynamic Roles based on Position.

Steps

Navigate to Admin Center→Import/Export Corporate Data Model and select Export from the Select the action you want to perform drop down. Click Export button to download the XML template.
Open the XML template with your XML Editor and complete the following actions:
1. Make sure the DTD file corporate-datamodel.dtd is on the same folder to be able to validate your template
2. In the XML, change the line 4 to replace this URL "http://svn/viewvc/svn/V4/trunk/src/com/sf/dtd/corporate-datamodel.dtd?view=co" so it only reads "corporate-datamodel.dtd">
3. Locate the <hris-element id="dynamicRole">.
4. Add the code below. Validate the XML file and Import it back from Import/Export Corporate Data Model code
  Code Snippet
```
123
<hris-field max-length="128" id="baseObjectType" visibility="both"> 
             <label>Base Object</label> 
             </hris-field>
```
  Note
  You can also Import/Export Corporate Data Model from Provisioning to complete these steps, however, a customer doesn't have access to Provisioning and the option from Admin Center detailed here is the only possible way to Import and Export the Corporate Data Model.

Summary

Workflows can be used to approve changes on the Position MDF object, creating, maintaining or copying positions, as well as synchronizing position data to job information data.
Position Relationship is one of the possible approver types in workflows, which will determine the approver based on the position hierarchy, like Parent Position.
If dynamic role assignments are used for Workflows, the Dynamic Role can be assigned according to the position details. The Base Object field should be defined on the Corporate Data Model to allow selection of Position in addition to Foundation Objects.

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