Reviewing SAP SuccessFactors Performance and Goals Enhancements in the 2H 2024 Release

In the latest Goal Management, users can now link their performance goals with another user’s goals or unalign goals as needed.

Users can link goals using either of the following ways:

• In their own goal plan, choose the Link Goal option on a goal card and follow the on-screen instructions.
• Go to another user's goal plan, choose the Link with Mine option on a goal card, and complete the linking steps.

Once goals are linked, an alignment relationship is established and displayed in the goal alignment chart. Users can also unalign goals using the Unalign Goal option on the goal card. This option is available for goals that were previously linked or cascaded in their own goal plan.

This feature is from customer idea 292079, customer idea 299384, and customer idea 46944. It increases goal visibility and fosters collaboration by allowing goals to be interconnected, making it easier to track and manage aligned goals across users.

The turnoff-add-personal-goal-button switch is now supported in the latest Goal Management, allowing you to hide the Create from Scratch goal creation option for performance goals.

Once you set it to on in the goal plan template, the option to create goals from scratch becomes unavailable, and users will be guided to use other predefined options, such as Copy from Goal Plan or Create from Library, depending on your configurations.

This feature is from customer idea 309792, customer idea 312142, and customer idea 314937. It promotes a more controlled and cohesive goal-setting approach.

With the latest Goal Management enabled, users can now add, edit, or delete custom learning activities on 360 Reviews forms.

Custom learning activities can be used to define development goals. By supporting custom learning activities in 360 Reviews, we help customers build an aligned approach to employees' career development across SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals.

What's Changed

How It Looks Now

Users can choose Custom Learning Activity under the Add New Learning Activity menu to create a new custom learning activity.

Users can define various attributes of a custom learning activity.

We have introduced two new module-specific action items in the AI-assisted writing tool to help generate comments and improve feedback.

The following two action items are now accessible from the context menu of that tool:

• Improve My Feedback: Available when there is text selected, this item assists users in providing clear, concise, and professional comments that are pertinent to a specific skill or competency and its rating. Users can view the improved feedback or evaluate multiple attempts in a separate dialog before applying a result.

• Generate Comments: Available when no text is selected, this item suggests six topics dynamically based on the rating assigned to the current competency or skill. Users can choose one topic and let the tool generate detailed comments relevant to the competency or skill and its rating, without needing users to provide initial text input. Users can further edit the comments manually or with the help of the tool. Previously, users had to enter some content for the tool to expand or otherwise process.

This enhancement simplifies the process of providing meaningful feedback on an employee's performance.

What's Changed

The AI-assisted writing tool provides two new module-specific action items, Generate Comments and Improve My Feedback, for 360 Reviews.

We made several enhancements related to filters, form lists, and form creation on the latest My Forms page.

Here are the details:

• Filters:

  • You can customize the visibility of standard and custom filters for different users based on their roles.

    The filters are displayed to all users by default. You can hide them all by selecting Use RBP to control visibility of filters on the latest My Forms page in Performance Management Feature Settings → Form Filters. Then, grant users the User Permissions → Performance → Form Filters permission to show all or certain filters to them.

    This enhancement is from customer idea 311655.

  • Options in the Template filter are dynamically changed based on the templates of forms in a folder. Previously, all form templates were displayed in the filter. This enhancement is from customer idea 312722.
  • The All or Reports filter is available when a user has direct, matrix, or HR reports. Options in the filter depend on the types of reporting relationships that apply to the user. Previously, this filter and all its options were shown to all users.
  • Users can use the Reset button to clear all filters.
  
• Form Lists:
  • Users can view the number of forms in the title of the form list.
  
• Form Creation:
  • To view the Create Form button, users must have Permission to Create Forms for at least one Performance Management or 360 Reviews form template. Previously, this button was visible to anyone with this permission, regardless of specific form template types covered by their permission. This enhancement is from customer idea 311350.
  • In the Template dropdown list on the Create Form dialog, form templates are grouped into two categories: Performance Management and 360 Reviews.
  

We made these enhancements to meet your customization needs and improve users' experience.

Leveraging generative AI capabilities, users can gain synthesized insights from participant feedback, both overall and for individual skills or competencies.

The generative AI in the Detailed 360 Report can be used in two scenarios:

• Overall understanding of a Detailed 360 Report: Users can access the feature by selecting the Generate Insights button in the new Overall Insights for 360 Report section. The insights are organized into sections to help users grasp the most important aspects of the report:

  • Employee Summary: Provides a high-level overview of the employee's performance.

  • Key Points: Reveals both strengths and weaknesses of the employee by extracting commonalities from all the rating data.

  • Suggestions for Improvement: Offers actionable recommendations for areas needing improvement.

• Consolidated analysis of a specific skill or competency: Users can access the feature by choosing the View all comments link below a skill or competency, followed by the Generate Insights button. The insights are organized into sections to provide an in-depth analysis of the employee's performance in a specific area, along with tailored growth recommendations:

  • Topics: Reviews how the employee performs in key topics mentioned in comments.

  • Suggestions for Improvement: Identifies growth areas and provides achievable suggestions for upskilling and career development.

  • Summary: Summarizes the employee's performance by analyzing received ratings and comments.

To include AI-generated insights on a printout of the form, users can select the Include Overall Insights and Include Comment Insights options in the Print Setup dialog.

Generative AI connects the data in a way that helps deliver a deeper understanding around an employee's performance and areas of growth.

What's Changed

The overview insights help users understand the most important aspects of the report.

The insights for a skill or competency provide a detailed analysis of the employee's performance in a specific area.

New options in the Print Setup dialog enable users to include overall insights and comment insights in printouts.

You can now set numerical distribution guidelines in Calibration templates for ratings from Performance Management forms. Previously, you could only define percentage-based distribution guidelines for ratings.

This feature allows you to specify the target number of subjects you want to assign to each rating. Here are the details:

• You can configure both numerical and percentage-based guidelines for the same rating. The numerical guideline will take priority. If the number of subjects in a session matches any numerical guideline, it will be applied. Otherwise, if a percentage guideline exists, the percentage guideline will be applied instead; if no percentage guideline exists, no guideline will be applied.
• You can set several numerical distribution guidelines for a single rating, but for the same total number of subjects, you can have only one guideline. For instance, if the total number of subjects is 5, and you already have the guideline "Excellent=1, Good=3, Fair=1", you can't create another guideline for this total number of 5. In other words, another guideline like "Excellent=2, Good=2, Fair=1" would not be allowed.
• In each guideline, you can use operators = and ranges from...to.
• If the following prerequisites are met, the configured distribution guidelines for the current template can be retained when you switch to another template. If any condition is not satisfied, you will need to manually reconfigure the guidelines:
  • The rating types configured for each template must be identical.
  • The rating scales, including labels, for each rating type within each template must be identical.

You can set numerical distribution guidelines in the Data tab of the calibration template under Admin Center → Manage Calibration Templates.

When templates have identical rating types and scales, the configured distribution guidelines can be retained during template switching.

This new feature is from customer idea 288113 and customer idea 314958. It gives you more flexibility to tailor the calibration process to your organization's unique needs, particularly for smaller groups.

You can now choose to enable or disable the autosave feature in Calibration by changing the new setting, Enable Autosave, in the Manage Calibration Settings admin tool.

When the option is enabled, changes made in Calibration will be automatically saved after 30 seconds of inactivity. If disabled, users need to manually save any unsaved changes.

This enhancement is from customer idea 324491. With this change, customers can easily control the autosave feature to align with their specific requirements.

What's Changed

In the current version, the option in Admin Center → Manage Calibration Settings → Global Settings is selected by default. You can decide whether to disable this feature.

In the previous version, this option was not available. The autosave feature was enabled by default for all users and could not be turned off.

You can now turn off the email notification Notify Calibration Rating Changes during Session Finalization under Admin Center → Email Notification Templates Settings.

When you disable this notification, managers will no longer receive emails about changes to their employees' ratings after sessions are finalized.

This enhancement is from customer idea 223208 and customer idea 306533. It allows customers to easily turn off notifications for all sessions, without the need to adjust settings for each template individually.

What's Changed

In the current version, you can disable the notification, which applies to all the sessions.

In the previous version, you could not disable the notification. You could only disable it at the template level by deselecting the option Manager notification with rating changes on session finalization in the Advanced tab of the calibration template under Admin Center → Manage Calibration Templates. In this case, the notification was turned off for sessions based on the corresponding template.

You can now enable automatic creation of channels between matrix managers and matrix reports to reduce manual effort.

In the Continuous Performance Management Configuration admin page, we added an option: Enable matrix managers and matrix reports to be shown as people selections for Channels by default.

This option is by default unchecked. By enabling it, each pair of matrix manager and matrix report will have a 1:1 channel automatically created. If they already have a channel, no additional ones will be created for them. In the Continuous Performance page, these channels will be grouped into two new categories: Matrix Managers and Matrix Reports. The categories only exist when the option is enabled and a user has any matrix relationship. If you later disable the option, they won't show and the related channels will be moved to Other Channels.

Previously, channels for matrix managers and matrix reports couldn't be auto-created, and they weren't categorized into groups. Therefore, we made the enhancements to relieve users of some manual work, and make the channels for matrix relationships easy to locate and manage.

Both users and administrators are now able to delete channels as needed. New email notifications are provided to keep everyone related informed of the changes.

As a user, you can now delete the channels that you own. Channels involving your current direct reports and matrix reports can't be deleted. You have two options:

• Single deletion: Select the trash bin icon that shows when you hover on the channel item in the list, or select the Delete Channel button in the channel details page.
• Bulk deletion: Choose Select And Delete Channels button on the header of the channel list, and in the Delete Channels page, select and delete up to 50 channels in one time. Declined channel invitations can also be deleted there.

As an administrator, you can now search and delete the channels and declined channel invitations in the new Delete Channels admin tool. The channels that involve the existing employee-manager and employee-matrix manager relationships can't be deleted.

Three new email notifications are available for different roles:

• Channel Deletion Notification to Owners: Notifies channel owners when the administrator deletes a channel for them.
• Channel Deletion or Move Notification to Participants: Notifies channel participants that a channel is deleted or moved to Hidden Channels because the channel becomes ownerless after the owner leaves it, or the administrator removes the owner from it.
• Channel Deletion Notification to Administrators: Informs administrators of the deletion result of each channel. A deletion job will run in Provisioning when more than 50 channels need to be deleted at once. If an administrator chooses to delete 50 or fewer, the result immediately pops up in a message, then the system won't send the email.

This enhancement allows for greater flexibility in managing channels. It enables users and administrators to remove unnecessary or outdated channels, helping to keep the channel list organized and relevant.

Users can now send bulk invitations for 1:1 meeting channels in the Continuous Performance page.

Users can use the advanced search, in addition to the basic search, to find and select multiple employees as the invitation recipients. There's no limit on the total number of selections. Previously, only certain basic search criteria were available and users could select no more than one employee at a time.

We also provide a new email notification, Delivery Status of Multiple Roles 1:1 Meeting Invitations, to update on the delivery status of each invitation. The inviters receive this follow-up email if the results of the mass delivery can't be immediately displayed in a pop-up message or if any delivery fails.

The enhancements to the channel invitation process reduce repetitive work, and redirect focus to the later tasks that matter in continuous performance management, such as meetings, activities, and achievements.

What's Changed

In the current version, users can search for target employees by more criteria, and send invitations in bulk.

In the previous version, users could only use certain basic criteria to find and select one employee and send an invitation at a time.

The job type Goal Modification Email is now available in Admin Center.

Instead of going to Provisioning, you can now create a goal modification email job in Scheduled Job Manager by navigating to Job Scheduler → Create Job Request. A new value, Past Week, is now supported for Job Parameters.

Please note that the date range displayed in Admin Center aligns with your browser's time zone, while the job synced to Provisioning remains in the UTC+0 time zone. To avoid discrepancies, it's recommended not to edit the job in Provisioning once it has been created in Admin Center.

This feature streamlines the job creation process and makes it easier for you to manage goal modification email jobs directly within Admin Center.

Talent Intelligence Hub can now use AI-assisted capabilities to infer and recommend skills to employees in their Growth Portfolio using Continuous Performance Management data.

When an employee enters details in the achievements, activities, or feedback section in Continuous Performance Management, this feature infers skills based on the employee's inputs.

If the inferred skill exists in the Attributes Library of Talent Intelligence Hub, it is displayed as a recommended skill in the employee's Growth Portfolio. Employees can either add the recommended skill to their Growth Portfolio or reject the recommendation. If the inferred skill doesn't exist in the Attributes Library, the skill will be added to the Attributes Library and can be confirmed by Administrators for organizational use.

We've built this feature so that more relevant skills can be recommended in the Growth Portfolio of employees. This feature replaces the previously rolled-back skill inferencing feature.

With the delegation feature, users, usually managers, can delegate their performance review tasks to other people within a specified time period. It also allows administrators to create delegations on behalf of managers.

The delegation workflows are different for users and administrators.

On the Settings → Delegation page, a user can:

• Create a delegation request for themselves.
• View and manage the delegations they created and those created by administrators on their behalf.
• Accept or decline the delegation requests they received.
• Go to the delegated task they accepted.

Here are two screenshots of the user Carla's view. One is her as delegator, and the other one as delegatee.

On the Admin Center → Delegation Management page, an administrator can:

• Create a delegation request for another person.
• View and manage the delegations they created on others' behalf.

The following screenshot shows the administrator Marie's view of the delegation requests that she initiated on behalf of others.

When delegatees are reviewing delegated forms, some form features are not available to them. For details, refer to the Delegation for Performance Reviews section in Related Information.

We developed this feature to help ensure an uninterrupted and efficient performance review cycle when a user is absent or overloaded with work. Previously, customers could use the proxy feature to achieve this, but now with the ability to specify a particular task, they have more flexibility and safer access control to ensure a smooth review process.

In the latest Goal Management, managers can now navigate to a user's goal plan and copy personal goals on the user's behalf. The goals created through copying remain within the user's goal plan.

The source goal plan can be either a legacy or latest goal plan, but the target goal plan must be a latest one. This means the Copy from Goal Plan option is available only for latest goal plans.

This feature is from customer idea 280751. It enhances collaboration and efficiency by offering a more cohesive and streamlined goal-setting experience.

We've made several enhancements to AI-assisted goal creation in the latest Goal Management.

• Updated AI tag: On the goal creation page, the tag for fields with content generated by AI is now "AI-generated content", replacing the previous "AI-enhanced content".
• Streamlined content comparison: The Compare Generated Content page has been removed, making the process more efficient by eliminating the step where users had to choose between two versions of goal content. Instead, the AI-assisted writing tool is now in place to enhance content directly at the field level.
• Improved prompt template: The prompt template is now optimized to automatically apply goal plan configurations, such as start, due, and maxlength, to AI-generated goals.
• Support for custom fields: Custom fields of text and textarea types are now supported for performance goals. By providing meaningful text for <field-description>, you specify the context, which in turn helps improve the quality of AI-generated content. This ensures that the AI can generate more accurate and relevant suggestions for your goals.

The enhancements improve the user experience with AI-assisted goal creation, making it more engaging and productive.