Setting up Incentive Management

The first step in a new implementation is ensuring the right people have access to the Incentive Management system. To do this, let’s take a look at the security model.

Incentive Management uses a role-based security model, allowing the administrator to grant permissions to all users assigned to a role. Each user is assigned a role based on the level of access required by that user to complete their tasks.

A User is the assigned login name and password for each person who uses Incentive Management.

A Role is a group of permission settings that apply to all users assigned to that role.

Permissions represent the level of access to an object or the ability to perform a specified action.

Permissions to objects or actions are grouped into Permission Sets. You can specify permissions for individual objects or actions or an entire permission set.

In the Incentive Management Security Model figure, our users are assigned one of two roles: Finance/Operations admins and HR Compensation admins. The HR Compensation admins can edit participants, while the Finance admins can only read these records.

Business Units allow organizations to control data level access within the organization

Business Units restrict user access to data and segregate compensation data for dashboards and analytics. Generally, this is done if the organization has different compensation teams for business segments. This can be based on geography, line of business, division, or any other segment.

In this example, each business unit (Automotive, Aerospace, and Rail) has its own compensation administrator. Bob Smith can view all Automotive data, Amy Lee can view all Aerospace data, and Cindy Ritt can view all Rail data. The Vice President of Compensation, Tam Dodson, can view data in all business units.

Some key points about business units are:

• Each user can see only records in their assigned Business Unit.
• Users can be assigned to multiple Business Units.
• Elements with no assigned Business Units are visible to all users.
• Security and Global Data are not assigned to Business Units.
• As a best practice, start your implementation with at least one Business Unit.

A Processing Unit allows calculation processing for subsets of data. Use processing units if your requirements include running compensation calculations at different times or on different compensation cycles. When using processing units, data is partitioned logically within a single tenant.

• Processing units are defined by associating them with business units. There is no limit to the number of business units associated with a processing unit.
• When creating processing units, segments are created in database tables. This increases performance and data level security.
• Calculation runs are completed separately for each processing unit.
• Reference data such as compensation elements, organization data, and classification data can be assigned to multiple processing units.
• Some data, including positions, transactions, orders, and results data, can be assigned to only one processing unit.
• As best practice, even if you don’t need to segment processing, create a single processing unit and assign all business units.

Calendars are used to structure the fiscal pay periods used to calculate compensation. Each calendar is composed of a hierarchy of periods called the period tree. The period tree represents units of time for which your company manages compensation.

The smallest or lowest level period in the hierarchy is called the Leaf level period, usually a month or two weeks.

The most common calendar structure uses a month as the leaf level period, three months as a quarter, and 12 months or four quarters as a year. In this case, the quarters and years are the higher-level periods.

The Calendars figure below shows the Main Monthly Calendar, which is included in the system by default. In this calendar, each year contains four quarters, and each quarter contains three months. The month in this calendar is the most granular period, so all calculations are done monthly. You can see that the months nest within the quarters with no overlaps or gaps.

If the Main Monthly Calendar doesn’t reflect the calendar used by your organization, you can customize the calendar or create a new one. Organizations can use multiple calendars to manage different payment schedules or pay periods.

Typically, the data used to calculate compensation originates in various source systems. The Data Integration process ensures that this data is properly mapped and updated regularly before each calculation is run.

For example, payees enter their sales transactions into a CRM tool. The Transaction data is integrated into the system, where the payments are calculated.

When using most data integration options, inbound data moves to a series of staging tables.

Incentive Management offers several solutions for data integration to and from outside systems.

File-based options include the Excel Data Loaders and Express Data Loader.

• Excel Data Loaders are used for ad hoc data loads on the user level. It is not designed for high-volume data transfers.
• The Express Data Loader is an ideal solution for small to medium-sized businesses. This tool is included with the system and uses an SFTP dropbox to load high volumes of data. The data transfer is completed using SAP HANA procedures.

Direct Database access integration can be configured with Smart Data Integration (SDI). This tool is designed for high data volume and data transformation. It uses Web IDE, a graphical tool, to define flow graphs for data transformations. SDI requires technical expertise to accomplish data integrations.

In many cases, it makes sense to use multiple solutions depending on the scenario and the system that holds the source data. For example, you may use SDI for scheduled imports and XDL for ad hoc data transfers.

API-based data integration can be done using REST APIs or the SAP Integration Suite.

• REST APIs are new configured APIs. Typically, APIs are used for smaller volumes of data, with real-time integration.
• The SAP Integration Suite connects applications to transfer data from one system to another through the cloud using API to API or file-based integrations. This solution integrates and extends your SAP landscape using the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). Connectors for many applications can be purchased through the SAP Cloud Marketplace. The SAP Integration Suite is also known as Cloud Platform Integration (CPI).