Configuring the People Profile

SAP SuccessFactors People Profile connects employees and supports talent decisions by delivering relevant, community-enriched employee information through an integrated repository.

With People Profile, you can view and edit a person's entire profile on one simple, consolidated page and take immediate action. You can quickly find the most important or most recent information and drill down to see more detail when needed. The responsive SAP Fiori design means that People Profile adjusts to fit your device, for optimal viewing on desktop, tablet, or smartphone.

Administrators can use a convenient drag-and-drop configuration tool to set up People Profile for your company. You can select which data fields to highlight at the top of the page and control the layout and organization of profile content for your company. Visibility of employee data on the profile is controlled by Role-Based Permissions.

The People Profile page is organized into sections, subsections, and blocks. Related information is grouped together in "blocks" and appears directly on the page background. Details are hidden at first view, to reduce clutter and make the page easier to scan quickly. You can expand or collapse subsections and blocks to show or hide details as needed.

To navigate to the Employee Profile, proceed as follows:

1. In the upper left-hand corner of your instance, choose the Navigation Menu and choose My Employee File.

2. This takes you to your People Profile.

3. You can see your personal information, such as name, e-mail, location, and so on. The fields listed in this portlet vary depending on your company’s configuration as well as your permission level.

The People Profile includes a configurable page header that displays the profile photo and basic information about an employee.

As you scroll down the page, the header then reduces into a collapsed state and sticks to the top of the page, for easier navigation, as shown here.

The People Profile page is made up of the ‘profile header’ and one or more profile ‘sections’. Each section consists of one or more ‘subsections.’ Each subsection, in turn, consists of either one or two ‘blocks.’

Some blocks are predefined and are not configurable, such as the Succession block, while other blocks are customizable and allow you to configure which data to display, such as User Info or Background blocks.

Most blocks take up one column of a two-column subsection. So, in most cases, you can fit two blocks in each subsection. Some blocks, such as Badges or Skills, take up the full width of the subsection.

People Profile is configured using both Admin Center and the Succession Data Model. The Succession Data Model is an XML file. If you do not have prior experience working with XML, please review the previous lesson, Describing the Basics of Extensible Markup Language (XML).

Both Admin Center and the Succession Data Model are required to configure People Profile. The following table details the capabilities of each tool in relation to the configuration of the People Profile.

The Standard Elements are the fields that you see in your instance, such as name, hire date, address, phone number, and so on. Defining the fields can include changing the labels as well as determining if a field is required. You will then configure the permissions for the Standard Elements. This helps the system determine who has access to each field and the level of access, read or write. For example, an employee may be able to see, but not edit his or her hire date.

If you want custom-filtering fields, these are maintained in the data model as well.

Once you have made the appropriate changes to the data model and imported the file, you can change the field order within Admin Center.

Note

To make updates to the data model, you must open the XML file with an XML editor. Oxygen and Notepad++ are very popular throughout the industry. XMLPad is a Windows only software and is available for download online using CNET.

When reviewing the XML Data Model, you will see three primary elements:

• Standard Elements: Used to define the fields and labels used in the Employee Profile.

• Background Elements: Used to define data field mappings to the SM_Background table (no updates to this element will be made in this course).

• Custom Filters: Used to turn one or more of the 15 custom fields into a filter that can be used in the system for tasks, such as reporting.

When working with data models in SAP SuccessFactors, there are some file management considerations. First, we have created a folder specifically for the versions of the data model. In the figure, File Management of the Data Model, file A is our original data model. This is the backup and should never be edited. Files B and C are version one and version two of the data model file. Using Save As and creating file versions is a best practice when working with SAP SuccessFactors data models and should always be followed.

The Succession Data Model is located in Provisioning under the header Succession Management. It is very important to note that the data model is a single file that overwrites upon upload. When downloading and making changes to a data model, it is crucial that you back up the original data model and use very strict version control to avoid time-consuming or critical errors, particularly when working in a customer environment. To download the Succession Data Model from your instance, proceed as follows:

1. Log into Provisioning and select your instance.

2. Scroll down to Succession Management and select Import/Export Data Model.

3. Select Export File and then Save As.

It is possible to back up multiple versions of the Succession Data Model in Provisioning and restore a version for the instance. This feature helps protect the configuration and track data model changes. In case of issue, it can speed up the instance recovery.

Comments can be added during the import. It is then easy to download a certain version.

The system keeps up to 100 versions of the Succession Data Model backup. Earlier versions are deleted when the limit is reached.

Note

The version control does not record changes made from BCUI, but only pertains to data model loaded via Provisioning.

The Standard Elements are where we define the standard, single value fields that are seen in the Personal Information section of the People Profile. Each of the fields that we see in the Personal Information portlet relates to a Standard Element in the data model. For example, the Last Name field is controlled by the Standard Element that begins on line 13 in this sample data model. The order of the elements, however, is not defined within this data model.

Many elements (fields) already exist in the data model downloaded from Provisioning. You can search for these elements using the search functionality of your XML editor. One of the first and most common tasks requested is to change the label of a standard element. For example, if the default label for the first element is Username but you would like it to read Login, proceed as follows:

1. Locate the Standard Element, Username.

2. Look for the <label> tags and update the text in between those tags to say Login.

When configuring a Standard Element, other common changes include the following:

• Making a field a required field, by setting the required attribute to "true".

• Changing labels to reflect multiple languages.

• Adding a picklist to a field.

To see the changes reflected in your instance, you must save a new version of your data model and then import the file into Provisioning. Follow the same instructions as when you downloaded the file; however, this time, simply chooseImport File. Once you receive the message that your template has successfully uploaded, you can log onto your instance to see the updates.

These are elements where a "one to many" relationship exists between the field and the data it can store. There are two kinds of background elements. Those consisting of data fields and those with rating fields. Some examples of background data elements are Education and Work Experience.

Rating fields can be the ones from the Performance Management module or can be imported, or can also be those entered in the People Profile. The kind of rating depends on the field used and its configuration.

The background element contains an ID which must be unique. This ID is used in the export and import live profile background and rating files.

Any ID that begins with ‘sys’ means this section is a special system section and it has certain restrictions when modifying it. You cannot remove or comment out data-fields or rating-fields from a ‘sys’ section. If a field should be removed, then set the hidden attribute to true for the data fields and the visibility attribute to ‘none’ for the rating fields.

The attribute max-entries defines the maximum number of rows that could be added from the UI. This limit does NOT apply when importing data items.

The ID must be unique for each background element data field. This is the name used in the templates.

The Type Id is the global identifier for this section. It must be unique.

The field-name is the database field name to use.

There are different options available:

• text/varchar fields (eg. vfld1)
• date fields (eg. dfld1)
• integer fields (eg. ifld1)
• real number/float fields (eg. ffld1)

The following names are supported: name | desc | vfld1 | vfld2 | vfld3 | vfld4 | vfld5 | vfld6 | vfld7 | vfld8 | vfld9 | vfld10 | vfld11 | vfld12 | vfld13 | vfld14 | vfld15 | startDate | endDate | dfld1 | dfld2 | dfld3 | ifld1 | ifld2 | ifld3 | ifld4 | ifld5 | ffld1 | ffld2 | ffld3 | ffld4 | lastModified | attachment1

The required attribute is used to force the user to input information for that field.

The max-length attribute defines the maximum number of characters that can be entered.

With the document-type-id attribute, each background element can have ONE field of attachment type. It allows customers to classify uploaded documents for easy search. For example, customers can do a search on all the documents of the type "Classification", in this case, any document with type-id = Classification will be returned. This attribute is optional, if not specified, the system just considers this document as not classified.

The following types are supported: RESUME | COVERLETTER | HRIS_ATTACHMENT | PERFORMANCE_ASSESSMENTS | 360_MULTI_RATER_ASSESSMENTS | CERTIFICATIONS | PUBLICATIONS | USER_DEFINED | HISTORY | ATTACHMENTS | APPLICATION_INTERVIEW_ATTACHMENTS

With the max-file-size-KB attribute, we can define the maximum size file that can be uploaded. The size must be smaller than the size specified by "Attachment max file size" in Provisioning.

The file-formats attribute determines what file extension is allowed. For example, if only pdf files are allowed, then the value is pdf.

With the attribute text-area-enabled set to true, the input area becomes a text area which support multiple lines.

Below is an example of xml code for a background that contains an attachment and a text area field.

As an end user, you can add the attachment by selecting the paper clip icon and then on the next window, on the "+" icon.

Background elements can contain fields linked to a picklist. Cascading picklists are also possible when adding the parent-field-id in the picklist configuration. Below is an example of xml code with a cascading picklist. The xml code is continuous, although it is presented in separate figures here for easier reading:

In this example, the connection between the picklists variant and language also exists at the picklist level by adding the parent picklist code from the language picklist in the corresponding child value in the picklist variant.

These background elements are rating sections.

The feedback-type attribute is a unique integer that specifies the source of feedback for the section:

• 5: Overall Competency Rating

• 6: Overall Objective Rating

• 7: Overall Potential Rating

• 8: Overall Performance Rating

• 27: Custom1

• 28: Custom2

The xml code is continuous, although it is presented in separate figures here for easier reading:

As mentioned before, there are 15 custom fields available. To use these fields on a People Profile requires the following two steps:

1. In your data model, change the label to meet the customer’s requirements.

2. In Admin Center, configure the People Profile to include the new custom field.

To enable filtering based on custom fields, you must add the <custom-filters> element to the XML data model. This element is not included in the system default data model of the training instance, so the code must be added manually as follows:

1. Since this new <custom-filters> element must be added after the last background-element and before the first element-permission, locate the position to add the custom filter file.

2. Add in the custom filter element with the appropriate standard element references. In the figure, Add a Custom Filter, you can see that we are adding a filter for custom field 01.

3. Save a new version and upload the updated data model to Provisioning.

You can manage the content and layout of the People Profile using the Configure People Profile admin tool.

With it, you can add and configure the sections, subsections, and blocks you want to include on the People Profile and adjust the way these are laid out on the page. You can also configure the information that appears in the profile header, set the data source and date range for ratings data, and add localized translations of custom labels.

To access the configuration tool, you can use search or go to Admin Center → Employee Files → Configure People Profile.

To use the Configure People Profile admin tool, you must be granted the Manage Employee Files permission. To grant this permission, complete the following steps:

1. Go to Admin Tools → Manage Permission Rolesand select the role to which you want to grant these permissions

2. Select the Manage System Properties tab, in the Administrator Permissions section.

3. Select the Manage Employee Files permission.

4. Choose Done to save the changes.

Header settings enable you to configure the appearance and functionality of the profile header.

You can also enable or disable the profile completion feature within the header settings.

Finally, in People Profile, you can configure which employee data fields appear in the profile header, using the Configure Header Fields dialog. You can also access this dialog within the header settings.

1. Go to Admin Center, Configure People Profile → General Settings → Header Settings

2. Select the desired settings. For a description of each setting, see the link below.

3. Save your changes.

The following table describes the available header settings in the People Profile.

You can use header settings to configure what employee data fields are displayed in the profile header.

The Configure Header Fields dialog is used to configure the appearance of the profile header only. You can select the fields which are most useful and most relevant to your company and display them more prominently, at the top of the profile page.

By default, the profile header contains the following basic employee information: photo, display name, username, title, department, division, location, time zone, local time, e-mail, two selected phone numbers, and links to Facebook or LinkedIn. You can also add up to three other custom fields.

Remember, all of this employee data is also controlled by Role-Based Permissions. If the logged-in user doesn't have permission to view a particular field on a particular profile, it does not appear in the header. If you want to hide a particular field everywhere in the system, or if you want a particular field to be visible only to certain users and not to others, you can do that using Role-Based Permissions.

You can add up to three custom data fields to the profile header.

A custom header field can be any of the basic user information fields defined in the data model for your system. You are not limited to only the fifteen ‘customizable fields’ in the data model but can select any of the defined ‘standard’ and ‘userinfo’ fields as well. These are the same fields that are available in custom ‘user information’ blocks (and portlets) on the profile and that are present in your basic employee data CSV export.

1. Go to Admin Center → Configure People Profile → General Settings.
2. Select the Configure Header Fields link.
3. In the Configure Header Fields dialog, select one of the Custom Field checkboxes.
4. In the dropdown menu, select the desired field.
5. Choose Save to save your changes.

• The photos should be uploaded to a directory on the ftp site configured by SuccessFactors operations for use with your instance. It will typically be /photos.

  As with all other photos, JPEG file format is recommended, and should adhere to the same size and dimension guidelines described above.

• In addition, a csv file must accompany the photos to map the photo filenames to the username of the employee they correspond to.

  Load the csv file into the same /photos folder as the images. The csv file should be named "employee_photos_yymmdd.csv", where yymmdd is the year, month, and day that the file is loaded.

  The csv file should include a header of "Username" followed by "Filename". The following figure shows an example.

  
• You can upload employee photos in ZIP files. This option is off by default.
• There is also an option to delete each photo file from the FTP site immediately after it is imported, including ZIP files. Always select this option if using a SuccessFactors FTP server.
  

• After the upload completes an e-mail will be sent to the administrator named in the scheduled task.

• Important: at this time there is a limit of 5,000 photo files that can be processed in a single pass. If you have more than 5,000 photos to upload, make sure that they are separated into different CSV files and different scheduled uploads.

Note

We no longer support the upload of photos hosted at an external URL.

With the export, the exported files include a csv file with two columns the username and the file name and the related employee photos.

The exported files will be stored on and FTP server according to the job configuration.

Note

If the user does not have photo, it will not be included in the exported files. The exported files could be reused for batch with the upload employee photos job in Provisioning.

• Every customer is entitled to have two SFTP accounts for Bizx, One for Test/Preview and one for Production.

• In order to have an SFTP account created for themselves, customers can contact customer support. Credentials can only be shared to an e-mail address from within the Company Domain.