Reviewing the Enhancements in SAP SuccessFactors Learning

AI-assisted writing is available for use in more product areas, and now also includes the Content Translation and Text Analyzer features.

The following modules are adopting AI-assisted writing for the first time in the 2H 2024 release:

• Compensation
• Rewards and Recognition
• Variable Pay
• Calibration
• Employee Central
• Platform
• Learning
• Onboarding
• Dynamic Teams (including Objectives and Key Results)
• Latest People Profile

• Talent Intelligence Hub

We've also added the following new AI-actions:

• Translate: For written text, the user can select this option to choose the target language they'd like it translated to. The following capabilities are supported with this action:
  • One-directional translation: Translation from en-US (US English) to all 46 languages supported in SAP SuccessFactors
  • Bi-directional translation: Full translation between the following languages: English (US), German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified), and Japanese
  Note

  We updated the bullet points under the Translate action to include the terms "one-directional" and "bi-directional" to clarify the difference between translation from en-US (US English) and full translation between select languages.

• Analyze Text: With this option, a safety scan is performed on each text box, prompt entry, or Generative AI output in order to detect bias, and remove discriminatory or violent language. Users can choose to accept or reject the suggested text presented for replacement.

  Text Analyzer scans for the following safety attributes:

• Inclusiveness:
  • Age Bias
  • Cultural Bias
  • Gender Bias
  • Mental Health Bias
  • Racial Bias
  • Religious Bias
  • Sexual Orientation Bias
  • Socioeconomic Bias
  • Ableist/Physical Ability Bias

• Harmful Content
  • Insulting and Offensive Language
  • Firearms and Weapons
  • Hate Speech
  • Slang and Overly Informal Language
  • Self-Harm
  • Sexual Content
  • Toxic and Exclusionary Speech
  • Violent Speech
  • War

The table below lists the SAP SuccessFactors product areas that support AI-assisted writing as of the 2H 2024 release.

With these new enhancements, customers can access content in their native language, reinforce inclusive language, and further enhance the quality of their communication.

What's Changed

In the current version of AI-assisted writing, content translation is supported. In this example for Opportunity Marketplace, the Translate action is being used to translate the assignment description into another language.

Text analysis is also supported. In this example, the Analyze Text action is being used to scan the assignment given to an employee to ensure that it is using inclusive language.

In the previous version, the AI-assisted writing tool only supported the following modules:

• 360 Reviews
• Performance Management
• Continuous Performance Management
• Goal Management
• Career Development
• Opportunity Marketplace Assignments

The Translate and Analyze Text options were also not available.

The Assisted Writing with Text Analyzer option of the AI-Services Administration page was previously called Assisted Writing.

We made several behavior changes and improved the user experience for administrator and peer suggestions.

Enhancements	How It Looks Now
Learners can see whether an administrator or a peer has suggested their learning items, or if they're personalized recommendations on the Course Home page of a suggested course. The Course Details tab of the Course Home now includes the Suggested by label that displays the source of the recommendation, helping learners in prioritizing their learning. When learners add the suggested items to their learning plan, the Suggested By label no longer appears. Instead, the item is shown as self-assigned in the Assigned By label. Hint In Suggested by, the The Learning Team option indicates that the suggestion is from the administrator, while the Personalized Recommendation option indicates that it's generated using the machine learning algorithm to user data.
Learners can now view and access the external links, suggested by administrators, in the Suggested for Me section on the new Learning home page. Learners can bookmark the cards for future reference or mark them as not interested.
Administrator recommendations are now reportable using Story reports. When creating a story, you can now join the Admin Recommendations table with the Recommendations table to generate reports on the following details for learning entities such as items, programs, external learning, and collections: Recommended Date Last Updated By Last Updated
We enhanced the visibility of administrator recommendations in the Recommendations Email Newsletter and Recommended Collections tab of the Collections page for learners. In the current version, the visibility is based only on the enableItemRecommendations property, with no additional configuration required. This is an existing property in the LMS_ADMIN configuration. Previously, the recommendations were displayed based on both the Access Recommendations Tile permission and the enableItemRecommendations property.

We've added a new Browse Library feature for enhanced search.

Learners can use the Browse Library feature to select a category and refine their library search results. A category appears on the list when it is added to a learning activity that is available in the learner’s library. The category title as it appears in the list is drawn from the category Description in References → Learning Activities → Categories. The category won’t appear on the list if the Description field is left blank. If the learner's library doesn't contain any learning activities with added categories, the list will be empty.

We delivered this enhancement to provide learners with a more streamlined way to explore learning activities with enhanced search.

We've enhanced the new Learning experience with loading performance improvements and the ability for learners to access self-assigned learning activities that have been removed from their library.

The following features and behaviors are now supported in the new Learning experience:

• Learners can now use the View More action to load more results in a section on the Program Details page. The action appears when there are more than 5 learning activities available to view in the section. This feature improves performance when loading large programs.

• Learners can now access their self-assigned learning activities in the Invest in Myself section even after they've been removed from their library.

  Note

  If a class is removed, learners who self-assigned it but haven’t registered can still view the card, but can't register for the class.
• Custom links selected by learners now open in a separate tab. Internal deeplinks still open in the same tab as the parent page.

These improvements streamline access to learning activities and allow learners to engage more effectively with their training.

We now support the new Learning experience for users with an external shopping account type. This includes enhanced search with the Browse Library feature and an improved user experience for accessing coupons and the shopping cart.

The new Learning experience is now available for users with a Shopping Account Type of External.

From the new Learning home page, users can access learning activities and search the library with the enhanced search capability.

Users can easily access their shopping cart, coupons, and other links from the Activities menu.

We've extended the availability of the new Learning experience to allow all users to benefit from new features and improved usability.

The Objectives page now contains the Exam Usage tab where you can see what exams are associated with what objectives. The tab that shows the association to legacy exams is now called Exam Usage (Legacy).

You can view which exams are associated to which objectives by navigating to Learning Administration → Content → Objectives → Exam Usage.

We added the ability to view objective association to assessment exams to make it easy for our customers to adopt assessment exams.

If you are using the new Learning home page, you can now use the new Team View page to view and manage learning assignments for your team.

From the new Learning home page, you can open the new Team View page by selecting Team View from the Dashboards menu. The new Team View page opens with your team members listed in the left-hand region.

You can select a team member to see a detailed view of their learning in the right-hand detail view. If you have permission to view team members as an alternate manager or HR business partner a drop-down menu will appear next to the My Team region header and you can select the appropriate role. Team members are sorted alphabetically, with those who have overdue items appearing first. The More Actions menu lets you perform the following actions for your team members:

• Manage Assignments

• Add to Learning History

• Manage Enrollment

You can also use the Team View page to view and act on the individual learning details for each team member.

We've made several enhancements to the Learning History page.

In the previous version...	In the current version...	How it Looks Now
The Credit Hours column was displayed in the Completed Activities table to show the number of hours a learner earned for completing a learning activity.	We removed the Credit Hours column in the Completed Activities table. You can now find the credit hours of a course, if available in the Completed Activity Details section of the History Details page.
You could add or remove ratings using the rating stars in the Rating column.	We removed the Ratings column in the Completed Activities table. The rating stars are now displayed in the Title column, appearing below the title of a completed activity.
The Type column was displayed in the Completed Activities table to show whether your completed activities were classified as either Required or Other.	We removed the Type column in the Completed Activities table. You can no longer view the type of your learning activity. Additionally, we removed Type from the filter options.

These enhancements are from Customer Influence Idea 321666 and Customer Influence Idea 323790. These changes improve the user experience of the Learning History page.

You can now filter banners, preview banners, easily identify expired banners, and explore additional enhancements on the Banners page (Learning Administration → System Administration).

The Banners page includes the following enhancements:

Enhancements	How it Looks Now
You can filter banners by Target Group and Active Period. Target Group: You can filter banners by their visibility to All Active Users, specific organization IDs, or user group IDs. Additionally, you can use the Search field to locate a target group by finding matches across multiple organizations and user groups. Active Period: You can filter banners based on whether banners are active for a specific period or are always active. The default selection is Always.
You can preview a banner using the Show icon in Actions corresponding to a banner name. The Banner Preview popup displays the banner name and lets you preview how the banner appears on both browsers and mobile using the Display Type dropdown.
As you go through the steps to build a custom banner, the Preview now includes the Display Type dropdown that lets you review the banner for both mobile and browser. Previously, the preview displayed only the browser view.
An indicator is displayed for expired custom banners to indicate that the banners are inactive and aren't visible to the target users. The date range of an expired banner is highlighted to indicate that the banner has passed its active period.
When choosing a banner image for browsers (in the Images wizard), you can use the default banner image, in addition to uploading a customized image in the Browser Image section. The default selection is to use the default banner image. Note The recommended dimensions for customized images have been enhanced to 1920x250 pixels to meet the standard desktop sizing.
When choosing a banner image (in the Images wizard), you can upload a banner image to use in mobile browsers and mobile applications. You can also add alternative text for screen readers for each display type. In the Mobile Image section, you can either use the default banner image or upload your customized image. The default selection is to use the default banner image. Note For the best experience, we recommend the following parameters when uploading banner images for mobile: File type of JPEG or PNG File size less than 2 MB Dimensions of 375x250 pixels

The enhancements provide you with a better experience when creating banners for your learners in the new Learning experience.

You can use the AI-assisted capabilities to associate skills with learning items in bulk through the import process.

Enabling the enableSkillInference configuration identifies and extracts skills from item descriptions provided in Learning → Activities Items. These extracted skills are then standardized, aligning them with the relevant skills in the Attributes Library, and are automatically associated with the learning items. You can associate relevant skills with all types of items, including online-only courses, instructor-led sessions, and blended learning through the import process.

On the Import Data page, use the entity type, Skills Inference - Items to initiate the automatic skill association process.

Additionally, to provide visibility into skills associated with learning items in Story reports, the Skills Added By and Skills Last Updated On columns are now reportable as part of the Attribute to Items Association table.

This enhancement reduces your effort to associate skills with large batches of learning items, allowing you to efficiently and accurately use the skills from the Talent Intelligence Hub within Learning.

What's Changed

How it Looks Now

We added search capability to custom fields.

You can now search for and select from a list of values for custom fields. The following custom field types have search capability:

• Class

• Cohort

• Curricula

• Instructor

• Item

• Job Codes

• Objective

• Organization

• Program

• User

We added this capability to address a customer request for better search capability on custom fields.

You can now enable Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) validation in SuccessFactors Learning. In order to use this feature you must have a verified email domain in SuccessFactors platform and your Learning instance must be sealed to a platform instance.

You can now enable email domain validation for Learning in Learning Administration → System Administration → Configuration → Global Application Settings → Mail. Once enabled, administrators will receive the following warning on any page where you can configure an email address used as a "from" address: email address contains a domain NOT verified in Admin Center → Manage Email Notifications → Manage Domains. Therefore when Learning sends notifications using this address, the "from" address will be overwritten with the default address system@successfactors.com or system@successfactors.eu."

Whenever the "from" address is replaced by the system default, the application will use the "Reply-to" address that is configured in Learning Administration → System Administration → Configuration → Global Application Settings → Mail along with the original sender's email address.

What's Changed

How It Looks Now

The Email Domain Validation checkbox is now available on the System Administration → Global Application Administration → MAIL page. Once enabled, the Email Domain Verification reporting option becomes visible.

The System Administration → Global Application Administration → MAIL didn't contain the Email Domain Validation checkbox.

You can now send overdue training reminders to your team from the Learning Home Page and the Team View Page.

From the Learning Home Page you have the option to review the list of recipients and decide if you want to be copied on each reminder email. The Team View Page allows you to send individual reminders to team members. These reminders come from the manager's email address and are sent to the team member's email address, both configured in SAP SuccessFactors Learning.

We provided the ability to send overdue training reminders to provide useful features to our customers.

Employees, managers, instructors, and HRBPs with approval roles can now accept or decline pending learning assignment requests sent by learners directly on the new Learning home page.

In addition to task observation requests, the Requests for Me section of the new Learning home page displays the following types of learning requests that require approval:

• Internal training (online courses and instructor-led classes)

• External training

• User account requests

• Course completions with e-signature verifications

• Course completions without e-signature verifications

As approvers, you can either accept or decline the requests (with or without a comment) directly on the cards or follow the View Details link on the card popup to learn more about the requests before responding.

In the Requests for Me section, your approval cards are prioritized based on the most recent submissions, while older ones follow sequentially. Task observation requests are prioritized based on their pending due dates. To view all your approval cards, use the View All link.

As administrators, you can schedule the new automatic process job, Learning Approval Email Notification from System Administration → Automatic Process to send reminder emails to approvers about their pending learning requests.

This enhancement provides approvers with immediate access to learning requests that require their attention, ensuring that important requests from learners are addressed promptly.

What's Changed

The following screen displays an external training request card for approval in the Requests for Me section.

In the previous version, approvers could view and act on their pending approvals only on the Platform home page. These approvals weren't shown on the new Learning home page.

You can create unique custom pages with banners and custom sections tailored to your learners' needs. These custom pages are accessible to learners from the Activities menu on their new Learning home page.

You can also allow learners to access custom pages through banners and custom cards, which serve as entry points that make it easier to find and use the custom pages.

You can create up to 5 custom pages from System Administration → Application Administration → Custom Pages. Within a custom page, you can add banners and create up to 6 sections, containing custom cards in each section.

Depending on the active period, the status of cards and banners, and the organizations or user groups to which learners belong, they can view the following content on a custom page:

• the top 5 banners
• the top 8 cards in each section

We added the ability to display custom pages on the new Learning home page, allowing you to address specific business needs and facilitate the adoption of the new Learning experience.

What's Changed

In the previous version, there was no option to create custom pages integrated with the new Learning home page. Learners could only view the custom pages, created through the Landing Page Settings page (System Administration → Application Administration), in the new Learning experience.

When managers or supervisors (delegator) assign another user (delegate) to act on their behalf under certain requirements, for example, in their absence, the delegate user can now switch their role temporarily to act as their manager directly on the new Learning home page.

As a delegate, you can go to the Dashboard menu and choose Act as to see a list of all managers who have assigned you as their delegate. When you choose a delegator from Act as, you can access their new Learning home page and perform tasks for the manager and their team members, based on the assigned permissions.

For example, if a manager assigns the Approvals permissions to a delegate, the delegate can access the approval cards directly in the Request for Me section of the new Learning home page to act on pending approvals on behalf of the delegator. Delegates can also access the Approvals link from the Activities menu that navigates to the Pending Approvals page.

In the delegator's view, an information message appears confirming that you're acting on their behalf across all pages you access.

Additionally, to optimize the integration of delegate functionality with the new Learning home page, we renamed several permission names for Selected Permissions, which managers assign for delegates on the Options and Settings page.

The enhancement streamlines the process for delegates to handle learning tasks on behalf of their managers directly from the new Learning home page, eliminating the need to navigate to the legacy Learning experience. It also allows administrators to meet specific business needs and facilitates the adoption of the new Learning experience.

What's Changed

In the previous version, delegates had to navigate to the legacy Learning experience to act on behalf of their manager as there was no option available from the new Learning home page.

The integrated external user feature reached End of Development in November, 2020, as is deleted as of November 15, 2024. New implementations of the integrated external user feature aren’t supported and should no longer be pursued by SAP SuccessFactors Learning customers and partners.

Sign-in for native users has been replaced with Identity Authentication. Native User Learning Sign-In is deleted as of November 15th, 2024.

We've removed the option to disable the New Learning Experience.

The option to disable the New Learning Experience has been removed from Learning Administration → System Administration → Application Administration → Integrated Learning Settings. You can still select the New Learning Experience switch default setting to determine which experience displays by default.

We removed the option to disable to New Learning Experience to progress towards the deprecation of the legacy experience in a future release.

What's Changed

The Disable New Learning Experience check box and associated information no longer appears.

The Disable New Learning Experience check box and associated information was visible.

You can use the AI-assisted capabilities to associate skills with Open Content Network (OCN) items based on the predefined skills provided by the OCN providers.

Enabling the aiAssistedSkillAssociationEnabled configuration in the Learning Administration tool standardizes the predefined skills provided by OCN providers, aligning them with the relevant skills in the Attributes Library. As OCN items are imported from Content → Open Content Network, the standardized skills are automatically associated with the OCN items.

You can view the associated skills in the Attributes section of the OCN items from Learning Activities → Items.

To enable OCN providers to import skills along with their learning content into Learning, we enhanced the metadata of the existing API /learning/odatav4/public/admin/ocn/v1/OcnCourses (Open Content Network Course Import) to add the skills parameter. The parameter allows OCN providers to import skills and their associated ratings, along with their courses. When using the skills parameter, ensure that the locale value is in a valid format, for example, en_US.

Additionally, you can now include information about Open Content Network Course Skills in a Story report. You can join the Open Content Network Course Skills table with the OCN Course Details table to report information on:

• Skill Name
• Attribute ID
• Rating
• Locale
• Skill Mapping Status
• Is Deleted
• Last Updated
• Lasted Updated By

This enhancement reduces your effort to associate skills with OCN Items, allowing you to efficiently and accurately use the skills from the Talent Intelligence Hub within Learning.

What's Changed

In the current version, you can enable the aiAssistedSkillAssociationEnabled configuration to automatically associate skills with OCN items.

In the previous version, you had to associate skills with OCN courses manually. There was no option to automate the process.

You can now automatically import learning content from Open Content Network (OCN) providers to make their courses available to your learners.

However, OCN courses, which are already available in Content → Open Content Network before you enable auto-import, aren't imported automatically. You need to manually import the items into Learning.

This enhancement saves you time by eliminating the need to manually import learning content from OCN providers and ensures a seamless integration of OCN courses into Learning.

What's Changed

In the current version, you can enable the auto-import feature on the System Configuration page to automatically import learning content from OCN providers into Learning.

In the previous version, you could only manually import OCN courses from Content → Open Content Network. There was no option for automating the import process.

The Copy User functionality in SuccessFactors Learning will reach End of Development on June 2, 2023 and will be deleted on June 6, 2025.

Deprecation Details

The Copy User menu item will be removed from the following page: Learning Administration → People → Users → Actions → Copy.

The copy user functionality will be deprecated because it is an artifact of Plateau products and does not work correctly in SAP SuccessFactors Learning.

To create and manage custom content, such as banners, custom cards, and custom pages, in the Learning Administration tool, you need the new permission, Manage Custom Experience.

You can enable the permission from System Administration → Security → Role Management.

Previously, the Edit System Configuration permission was required to create and manage custom content. However, the permission is no longer needed.

The enhancement is from the Customer Influence Idea. We made this change to provide a more granular permission model for creating custom content for learners, accessible on the new Learning home page.

What's Changed