Reviewing SAP SuccessFactors Performance and Goals Enhancements in the 1H 2024 Release

If you've enabled AI-assisted features in your SAP SuccessFactors application, an acknowledgment message is displayed when users choose any AI-assisted capability on the user interface.

The acknowledgment message informs users about the possible inaccuracies of the results generated by AI systems and recommends them to review all AI-generated content before completing their work. The following is a screenshot of the AI Usage Acknowledgment dialog.

Users can choose one of the following options on the AI Usage Acknowledgment dialog to determine whether to use AI-assisted capabilities in their work:

• Continue: Confirms that the user is aware of the possible limitations of AI-generated content. After choosing this option, they can use AI-assisted capabilities in the SAP SuccessFactors application.
  Note

  Once users choose to continue, the acknowledgment message doesn't appear in subsequent sessions when they engage with AI-assisted features across any SAP SuccessFactors application. However, users can view the acknowledgment statement again by choosing the AI Usage Acknowledgment option from their user profile menu.
• Decline: Confirms that the user doesn’t prefer to use AI-assisted capabilities in their work. The acknowledgment message appears every time they sign in to any SAP SuccessFactors application and choose an option that triggers an AI-assisted workflow.

We introduced the AI usage acknowledgment to ensure the following:

• All users understand that AI models may introduce errors and inaccuracies in generated content. It's important for users to review and make any necessary corrections to ensure the accuracy of AI-generated content.
• Each individual user has the option to choose whether or not they want to use AI-assisted capabilities in their work.

The user profile of the logged-in user includes a new AI Usage Acknowledgment option that allows the user to view the acknowledgment statement anytime later.

We’ve introduced a new page named AI Services Administration in Admin Center. This page contains the options to enable AI-assisted features in your SAP SuccessFactors applications.

Here's a screenshot of the AI Services Administration page.

With this enhancement, you can enable AI-assisted features for all SAP SuccessFactors applications from a single page.

Employees can use the AI-assisted writing tool to enhance the quality of the content they write in the text fields in SAP SuccessFactors applications.

AI-assisted writing is an interactive tool that uses generative AI capabilities to assist employees with their writing tasks. The following is a summary of the capabilities offered by the AI-assisted writing tool:

• Uses language processing capabilities to understand the context of a sentence and suggest enhancements in grammar, spelling, vocabulary choices, and phrasing.
• Ensures improved readability and a consistent tone (professional, personable, or constructive) to suit the communication needs for different audience groups in the organization.
• Provides the options to communicate a message in fewer or more words and transform paragraphs to bulleted lists.
• Provides additional actions in the context of the tasks that users perform in their SAP SuccessFactors applications. For example, the AI-assisted writing tool provides an additional action in Continuous Performance Management to make feedback actionable.

For more information about the options available in the AI-assisted writing tool, refer to AI-Assisted Writing.

In the current release, the following SAP SuccessFactors modules support AI-assisted writing capabilities.

The AI-assisted writing tool helps to enhance employee experience, optimize productivity, and improve the overall quality of the organization's business communication.

The AI-assisted writing tool offers some common options to improve users' content. In this example, it is being used to change the tone of comments provided on a 360 Reviews form.

It also supports module-specific actions. In this example for Continuous Performance Management, it comes with an extra option that makes users' feedback more actionable.

How It Looks Now

With the latest Goal Management enabled, users now have a new dialog when adding goals from the linked goal plan to 360 Reviews forms.

We built this enhancement to provide a more consistent and simplified user experience across SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals.

How It Looks Now

In the current version, when users choose Add Goal → Add from Goal Planon a form, a dialog pops up for them to select personal goals and assigned team goals from their goal plan.

How It Looked Before

In the previous version, users added goals from their goal plan on a separate page.

Users can now view expected ratings for behaviors after they've given ratings on a 360 Reviews form.

The Detailed 360 Report displays expected ratings for behaviors in both graphical and tabular views, similar to how expected ratings for competencies have been shown.

This improvement increases the consistency of how expected ratings are viewed on the Detailed 360 Report.

How It Looks Now

Expected ratings for behaviors are shown as vertical bars, accompanied by numeric values, in the Graphical Summary view.

We are introducing a series of user experience improvements to 360 Reviews that include revised UI text, visual tuning, and an optimized interaction.

Here is a detailed breakdown of the enhancements:

Enhancement	User Interface (UI) Affected	Description
New tooltip	The Participant Selection section of a form in the Modify stage	We added the following tooltip to the button Edit Assignments to explain its usage: View and edit how participants are assigned to rate individual competencies.
Visual tuning-up	The Evaluation Summary section of a completed form	The Open Detailed 360 Report button has been redesigned as a primary button to make it more prominent and less likely to be missed.
Optimized interaction logic Revised UI text	The Graphical Summary view on Detailed 360 Report	We added a filter, Display in radar chart, to give users more control over what to show in the radar chart. We also changed the previous filter label for the bar chart from "Bars to Display" to "Display in bar chart". This is how it looks now: The enhancement is from two Customer Community Ideas: Idea 1 and Idea 2.
Revised UI text	The Rank view on Detailed 360 Report	Immediately after the current UI text, "The below item cards are ranked by {participant type} in order from {sort order}", we added "Use settings at the top to change ranking criteria" for more clarity.
New UI text Optimized interaction logic	The Print Setup dialog	We added a new subhead, Common information to include, to group general information. We created a hierarchy to present options under Views to include. We made sure that what is shown in print preview corresponds to the options selected. This is how it looks now: And how it looked before:
New UI text	360 Reviews forms in the Evaluation stage	We added the following description to the special rating "Unable to Rate": Performance reviewers can select this rating if they think it's too early to give a regular rating for a goal, competency, or skill of an employee. You can view such rating descriptions by choosing the Information icon alongside "Rating". This is how it looks now:

The enhancements improve the user experience with 360 Reviews, making it more intuitive, engaging, and productive.

We improved the way users add external participants to 360 Reviews forms.

Enhancements to the Add Participants dialog include the following:

These enhancements combine to provide a more guided and intuitive process for adding external participants.

How It Looks Now

How It Looked Before

Changes made in a few Calibration scenarios are now automatically saved. Previously, users had to save the changes manually.

In the following scenarios, autosave is available and users see a reminder message. If users don't take any action, changes are automatically saved in 15 seconds.

• Users mark or unmark employees as "discussed".
• Users drag and drop employees within individual bins to change their rankings.
• When comments for changes of ratings are not required, users change ratings of employees in different views.
• When comments for changes of ratings are required, users save comments and close the dialog. In this case, autosave saves any rating changes after 15 seconds of inactivity.

In addition, unsaved changes are immediately saved when:

• Users open the stack ranker tool to review and adjust multiple employees' ratings.
• Users export or print calibration sessions.
• The session is going to expire in the system.

This new feature is from a Customer Community Idea. We built this feature to reduce risk of accidental data loss and improve user experience.

You now have six more filter options to narrow down employees to be displayed in a calibration session.

The new filter options are based on the following rating elements:

• sysOverallPerformance
• sysOverallPotential
• sysOverallCompetency
• sysOverallObjective
• sysOverallCustom1
• sysOverallCustom2

Here's a screenshot of the new filter options you can use to filter employees in a calibration session.

This feature is from a Customer Community Idea. It enables more efficient employee searches tailored to users' needs.

• You've configured the rating elements in the Succession Data Model.
• You've enabled the rating elements in Filter Fields at Admin Center Manage Calibration Settings Search and Filter Fields.
• You've selected the rating elements in the Data tab of a calibration template at Admin Center Manage Calibration Templates.

A REST API reference for Achievements is added to the Continuous Performance Management REST API on the SAP Business Accelerator Hub.

SAP SuccessFactors Continuous Performance Management (CPM) provides APIs to communicate with other internal and third-party applications to perform tasks with CPM.

These new Continuous Performance Management REST APIs replace the v2 APIs for those objects that were previously used by the legacy version. The legacy version of Continuous Performance Management is scheduled to be deleted with the 1H 2024 release.

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The legacy version of Continuous Performance Management (CPM) reached End of Maintenance on May 20, 2022 and will be deleted as of May 17, 2024. Your company will be automatically upgraded to the latest version after the deletion date.

Future dates are subject to change.

In the latest Goal Management, users can now use the alignment chart to get a visual representation of cascaded goals.

Users can access the alignment chart from a goal card or the goal details view. The goal alignment chart displays three levels of alignment by default, and users can drill into the levels for more details.

The new goal alignment chart works for one or more goal plan templates in which goals were cascaded. Previously in the legacy version, you could configure the alignment chart for just one goal plan template in every instance.

This feature is from Customer Community Idea 292032 and Customer Community Idea 292079. This feature helps users visualize the alignment of a cascaded goal and track the goal's progress easily.

In the latest Goal Management, a search box is now available in the Unassign Team Goal dialog.

Team goal owners can use the new search function to easily locate a person and unassign them from the team goal.

Prior to this enhancement, team goal owners were required to scroll through the entire assignee list in order to locate the person they wished to unassign.

This enhancement is from Customer Community Idea 309235. We made this enhancement for team goal owners to quickly locate the assignee.

Remember: As a customer, you don't have access to Provisioning. To complete tasks in Provisioning, contact your implementation partner or Account Executive. For any non-implementation tasks, contact Product Support.

The Initiatives feature is now supported in the latest Goal Management.

For users with the Manage Initiatives permission, they can do the following in Admin Center → Manage Initiatives:

• Create initiatives and initiative groups and further manage them.
• Assign initiative groups to users or to specific goal plans.
• Share initiative groups and their administrative privileges with other users.

With an initiative group assigned, users can link their goal, no matter whether it's a personal goal or a team goal, to one or multiple initiatives when creating or editing the goal.

Users can make changes to initiatives in the "edit" step when assigning team goals. However, editing initiatives is not supported in these processes: copy goals from goal plans, create goals from library, and cascade goals.

This feature was developed to allow users an easy way to link their goals to organizational strategic imperatives.

You can now use the REST API reviewRouteMaps to query and update a form's step information that is predefined in the linked route map. The updatable steps are those that are in the Modify or Signature stage and haven't started yet.

You can update the following information of a step:

• Step name
• Step type
• Roles or users in the step
• (For iterative and collaboration steps only) Entry and exit users of the step

For more information on how to use this API, refer to REST API reviewRouteMaps for Performance Management in Related Information.

We developed this API so that you can build extensions to update step information for forms.

We redesigned the user interface of Stack Ranker in Performance Management for managers to review and compare employees' competency or skill ratings in a more efficient way.

Here's a screenshot of the latest version of Stack Ranker:

In addition to a more engaging look and feel, the new page brings the following changes:

We developed the new Stack Ranker to let users personalize their grid view, making it easier for them to review and compare information. The new Stack Ranker incorporates the latest design pattern from SAP SuccessFactors for viewing and rating attributes of multiple individuals, ensuring a more consistent and intuitive experience.

In the latest Goal Management, users can now create personal goals, including both performance and development goals, using generative AI capabilities.

Users are offered a text box where they can write a brief description of what they want to achieve. When users choose Generate, the generative AI creates content based on their input. Upon content review, if users update their input and regenerate content, they can compare the original content with AI-generated content and choose to accept or discard the generated content.

Alternatively, users can use the traditional option Create from Scratch to create a personal goal, but can choose Generate at any time during the creation process.

Goal fields available for AI generation are name, desc, metric, start, due, and milestones. Custom fields of text and textarea types are additionally supported for development goals. On the goal creation page, fields with content generated by AI are tagged with "AI-enhanced content". On the goal details page, such a goal is marked "This goal is enhanced by AI."

Once the feature is enabled, users can create goals using generative AI from Performance Management, 360 Reviews, and Continuous Performance Management.

Goal creation entrance page with the AI feature enabled

The feature saves users time by automatically generating relevant content during goal creation.

In the latest Goal Management, a new Goal Creation Options page is introduced for users to choose how they'd like to create a personal goal.

The Create Goal button takes users to the new page with goal creation options Create from Scratch, Copy from Goal Plan, and Create from Library, according to your configuration.

Previously, the options were shown in the dropdown list of the Create Goal button.

Additionally, we added a breadcrumb trail that allows users to navigate back and check information provided in a previous step during creation of a personal goal.

The enhancements are also applied to Performance Management and 360 Reviews.

The user experience enhancements offer users better context regarding options when creating a personal goal.

How It Looks Now

How It Looked Before

In the latest Goal Management, users can now include Continuous Performance Management (CPM) activities and Learning activities in the PDF output.

Linked Activities and Linked Learning are shown as optional items to be included in a printing task. Linked Learning appears only for development goals.

We made this enhancement to support offline review of more comprehensive goal content in PDF format.

The Spell Check feature will reach End of Maintenance on May 17, 2024 and will be Deleted on November 15, 2024.

The Spell Check feature enables you to check spelling in many places where you enter text, in the following product areas:

• 360 Reviews
• Compensation
• Goal Management
• Performance Management
• Career Development
• Recruiting

It also includes the Manage Company Dictionary tool in Admin Center, which enables you to maintain a company dictionary that's used by the Spell Check.

We're deprecating the Spell Check feature, including the Manage Company Dictionary tool, because most modern browsers have a built-in spell check function that you can use instead.

In the latest Goal Management, goal weight is displayed in the goal plan header and on goal cards.

On a goal card, a percentage preceded by a balance scale icon indicates the weight of this goal. In the goal plan header, the total weight at the goal plan level is shown in a percentage value.

You can also define maximum or minimum total goal weights for goal categories. When the total weight doesn't meet the values predefined for a category, users will see a warning icon next to the category name. It opens a pop-up that shows messages about the recommended total weight and current total weight.

This feature is from Customer Community Idea 281416, Customer Community Idea 300901, Customer Community Idea 303748, and Customer Community Idea 306865. This feature gives users immediate access to goal weights of individual goals and the total weight of the entire goal plan.

In the latest Goal Management, users can now use the Legal Scan feature to check whether their input for goal comments comply with their organization's legal requirements.

With Legal Scan, words that don't comply with the requirements are highlighted, with possible corrections suggested.

We made this enhancement to help users quickly identify inappropriate words in their input and correct them.

With this feature, employees and managers are able to view linked continuous feedback from the Activity Details or Achievement Details views in Continuous Performance Management.

Employees and managers link their feedback to activities to provide a relevant context to the activities toward goals. This new feature provides the ability to see linked feedback in the details area for activities and achievements without having to search in Continuous Feedback.

This feature simplifies your user experience by providing easy access to your feedback from the Continuous Performance details page for an Activity or Achievement.

How It Looks Now

When you select an activity or an achievement, the Details view is shown. With this release, any feedback that was linked to the activity or achievement will be shown. Each card is feedback received that is linked to the activity or achievement. To learn more about the feedback, you choose View more.

When you select View More for a feedback card, a details dialog box is shown. The Linked Activity can be changed using the dropdown.

Note

An achievement doesn't have the Linked Activity field.

You can change Make visible to my manager. When you choose Close the view returns to the Details view.

How It Looked Before

Previously, feedback linked to an activity or achievement wasn't shown in the Details for the activity or achievement..