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SAP Learning Journey

Configuring the Goal Plan Fields

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Create and manage standard and custom fields in a goal plan template

Goal Plan Fields

The Goal Field Configuration is a 3 step process:

Define the field (Field Definition).
Grant permission to the field (Field Permission).
Add the field to the plan layout (Field Layout).

Select the icons below.

Standard and Custom Fields

Standard fields are available in Manage Templates as a dropdown list. When you add a field to the goal plan in Manage Templates, the system automatically assigns it a field ID and a field type.

Note

The Data type in bold is the recommended / most common option for each standard field. Those data types marked with an asterisk (*) are not recommended and should be used with caution.

Note

Before you configure tables for your customer, verify that they have a valid business need for one. Adding tables to a goal plan can make the user experience unnecessarily complicated. You can find additional information in the Implementing and Managing Goal Management guide, available in the SAP Help Portal https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_SUCCESSFACTORS_PERFORMANCE_AND_GOALS

Custom Fields

It is possible to define and report on custom fields that are not initially defined in the goal plan template. These goal field types are not listed in the DTD, but they can be defined in the same way as any of the standard fields.

A custom field can be one of the following types:

text
textarea
enum
date
percent
number
link
bool

When you add custom fields, they appear alongside other fields in the goal plan.

In Manage Templates, you can create a field, define the label, ID, and type, and you can indicate whether it is a required field when the goal is created. More extensive configuration needs to be done using XML

Note

Although it is a supported field type for custom fields, bool (checkbox) is not selectable from Manage Templates, but you can define this data type in XML.

Table data type is not a supported option for custom fields.

Configure Goal Plan Fields

The following list shows you important points to keep in mind when configuring goal fields

The order of fields in the goal edit window of the goal plan, follows the order set in Manage Templates and/or XML.
The addition or remove of fields from Manage Templates will be automatically mirrored by the system in the XML

Configuration in Manage Templates

Manage Templates allows the following configurations for the field definitions:

Add and change label (default and localized)
Set a field as required
Show field in People Profile Block
Show field in Mobile Goal Plan (state and done fields)
Add New Value (state field)

Note

When a field is added from Manage Templates, some steps on the 3-step sequence (define field, permission the field, add the field to the plan layout) are done automatically.

New field ID is referenced in all existing field-permission blocks in the goal plan template (except when template has goal plan states. In this case, new field is not permissioned automatically and it needs to be configured in the XML).
New column is added to the plan-layout. For table field types (milestones, tasks, etc), the field ID is referenced in the existing first column for better display.

Any additional configurations must be done from the XML.

Watch the video below to learn how to configure Goal Plan fields in Manage Templates.

Configuration in XML

The addition or removal of fields from the goal plan template XML will require you to work on these sections:

<field-definition>
<field-permission>
<plan-layout>

Fields in the goal plan are controlled by <field-definition> elements in XML.

Field Attributes

In addition to the sub-elements we have looked at, you can also configure attributes (properties) for a <field-definition> element.

Attributes of the <field-definition> Element

Attribute	Valid Values	Default Value	Description
required	true false	false	If true, a red asterisk (*) appears next to the field, and the user is required to complete the field. If false, the user can leave the field blank.
detail	true false	false	The `detail` attribute is not currently used, and should be left at the default setting.
viewdefault	on off	on	Determines whether the View Option (or Display Option) for this field is on or off in the plan view.
showlabel	true false	false	Field labels are not displayed by default when viewing goals in the goal plan, but they are always displayed in the goal edit window. If the goal plan column headings or tasks/targets/milestones column headings are adequate in representing the fields displayed, field labels may not need to be displayed. This helps reduce vertical scrolling when viewing goals in the plan. For this configuration, set the `showlabel` attribute to `false`. On the other hand, consider showing field labels for fields that are not in the first row of the goal plan, especially if the fields in those rows are not the table fields (tasks, targets, milestones). For this configuration, set the `showlabel` attribute to `true`.
reportable	fieldX	n/a	Only custom fields will need this attribute. Standard fields in Goal Plan are already reportable by default. XML reads as `reportable="fieldX"` where "fieldX" is the ID of the field. For example, if the customer wants a custom field to be reportable, you could add `reportable="field02"` in the `<field-definition>`. You can designate up to 20 fields as reportable.
field-show-coaching-advisor	true false	false	If true, the link to the Coaching Advisor displays above the field. This only applies to fields of type textarea.
cascade-update	push-down regular rollup	push-down	This is only applicable for group goals 2.0 and team goals. Set attribute as "regular" to make a field editable by members assigned to group goal or team goal.

Watch the video below to learn how to configure Goal Plan fields in XML.

Configure Fields

Business Example

Managers in your company want to repurpose some of the existing standard fields, and report on metrics not defined in the goal plan template or DTD. To allow this, you must re-define some standard fields, and create and configure custom fields.

Learn how to configure standard and custom fields in the Goal Plan from Manage Templates and XML.

ExerciseStart Exercise

Steps

Delete the standard fields Milestones and Sub-Goals.
1. Log into the instance and navigate to Manage Templates using Action Search.
2. Choose the Goal Plan tab, and select the template you have been working on the previous exercises.
3. Expand Edit Fields.
4. Delete the following fields: Milestones and Sub-Goals. You can select the bin icon and confirm the action by choosing Delete button on the pop-up dialog.
5. Choose Save to confirm changes.
Modify the Status field.
1. Expand Edit Fields and select the Status field.
2. Remove the following dropdown options: Postponed and Cancelled.
3. Rename the dropdown option Behind to Delayed
4. Rename the dropdown option Not Started to On Hold. Change the background color into yellow (you can add #ECF80F and choose Apply.
5. Use the arrows to place the On Hold dropdown option below Delayed. Choose Save to confirm changes.
Add a standard field and a custom field
1. Click the green plus icon to Add a New Field.
2. From the available list of fields, select Tasks and click Save.
3. Reorder the table columns. and make the Task column to be the first column.
4. Change the label to Assigned Tasks.
5. Choose Save to confirm changes.
6. Select the green plus icon to Add a New Field.
7. From the available list of fields, select Custom Field.
8. Add the following details, and choose Save when finished.
- Field ID: validation
- Field Label: Manager Validation
- Field Type: text
Note
Since the custom field should be a checkbox (bool) and it cannot be selected from Manage Templates, you will be changing the field type in XML
Modify the custom field from the XML.
In this part of the exercise, you want to modify the custom field validation that was created in the previous step.
1. Navigate to Provisioning → Import/Update/Export Goal Plan Template.
2. Select the option to export your goal plan template, and open it with your XML editor.
3. Locate the following definition and change type="text" to type="bool"as shown below:
Code snippet
<field-definition id="validation" type="bool" required="false" detail="false" viewdefault="off" showlabel="true" field-show-coaching-advisor="false" cascade-update="push-down"> <field-label>Manager Validation</field-label> <field-description>Manager Validation</field-description> </field-definition> Expand
Create a Comments field from the XML template.
1. Copy the code-block from the custom field id="validation"and paste it below, so a new field is added in the XML.
2. Change the field-definition id, type, label and description, as shown in the following example below:
  Code snippet
  <field-definition id="comments" type="comment" required="false" detail="false" viewdefault="off" showlabel="true" field-show-coaching-advisor="false" cascade-update="push-down"> <field-label>Comments </field-label> <field-description>Comments </field-description> </field-definition>Expand
When finished configuring the XML template, validate, save as a new version, but do not upload to provisioning yet.
Note
Field definitions are not visible to the end user until they have been defined (what we just did in this exercise), permissioned, and added to the plan layout. After the fields that have been created in this exercise are permissioned and added to the plan layout, you will import the XML template to Provisioning and test the fields as an end user in the instance.

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