Configuring Position Management Settings

A major part of Position Management, is the vast capabilities when setting up the position object, and designing how the system behaves. The Position Management Settings tool includes multiple tabs that control a variety of position management functions, rules, behaviors and filtering, without a need of back-end access or complex configurations.

In this lesson, you will learn the general position system settings that can be set up. This will be helpful as you go throughout the training and learn about different elements of how positions are maintained and behave in the system.

To access this section, administrators will require the following permissions in RBP

• Manage System Properties → Manage Employee Files
• Manage Position → Access Position Management Settings in Admin Center

In the General tab, it is possible to control the following functions:

• Use Position Types. Position Types can be used, if needed, to define different system behaviors for groups of positions (Regular or Shared Position are the default types), outside of the standard behavior of Position Management.

  Some of the behaviors that can be specifically defined by position type include, execution of workflows, adaptation of the reporting line, or managing transition periods for a group of positions only. More information can be found here Setting Up Position Types

  Note

  Generally speaking, usage of Position Types is only required on certain business scenarios. Set Use Position Types as No if all positions should follow the same standard behavior.

• Position External Code Generation by onSave rule. This setting (Yes/No) can be used to determine whether Position Codes are auto-generated or added manually. If set to Yes, a business rule to auto-generate codes needs to be set up. More information about this topic will be covered in a later unit within this course.
• To Be Hired Status Adaptation. Determines how the system should update automatically the To Be Hired (vacant) value of positions, based on the following scenarios:
  • When an incumbent is assigned or unassigned from a position.
  • When the FTE value of a position is changed.
  • When the FTE value of an incumbent is changed.

The Hierarchy Adaptation tab controls the following options:

• Leading Hierarchy. This is one of the main features in Position Management. The following options are possible:
  • The Position Hierarchy (Default and recommended option) – represents the position-to-position relationship. The Position Hierarchy prioritizes the positions, their relationships to other positions, in order to determine and update the reporting line accordingly:
    • Assigning an employee to a position will make this employee the supervisor for employees on positions below.
    • Moving a position to a new parent position will update the supervisor on the position to become the incumbent of the parent position.
    • If lower-level positions with incumbent has a parent position without incumbent, then the manager of the lower-level position is the next higher-level position that has an incumbent.
  • The Reporting Hierarchy – represents the person-to-person relationship. The Reporting Hierarchy prioritizes the Reporting Structure of Managers relationships to their Direct Reports.
  • None. You can also opt to have no leading hierarchy, meaning that neither the position hierarchy nor the reporting line are changed whenever the other one does.
• Reassign Direct Reports According to Position Hierarchy on Termination Screen and Internal Hire Screen.

  Available options are No / Yes - Always / Yes Optional. Leading practice recommendation is to set this field value to Yes-Always, to reassign the direct reports based on the position hierarchy in any of these two events.

• Defaulting of the Manager or the Position on the Hire UI, MSS Job Information, and Job Information History

  Available options are Yes and No. If Position Hierarchy is the leading hierarchy, it is recommended to set this value to Yes. This option allows the system to default the manager when selecting a position, to automate data maintenance while ensuring consistency and alignment. Selecting No, on the other hand, would allow Position and Reporting hierarchies to diverge.

• Threshold for Running Adoption of Reporting Line and Job Relationships as a Job.

  Once the number of incumbents of either child positions or matrix positions hits the number set as Threshold (only values between 5 and 20 are possible), the updates to the hierarchy or job relationships will be carried out as a scheduled job. If the number falls below the number, then the update will happen immediately. Please note that if the number is 0, then it will never be triggered as a job. Also, this setting is only relevant if the position hierarchy is the leading hierarchy.

  Note

  With Centralized Services enabled for adding or rehiring an employee, adding a fixed term contract, saving a global assignment, publishing compensation promotion data, saving an internal hire, or adding a concurrent employment, the transfer of employees to a new manager runs in the background (asynchronously). In these cases, no job is triggered, regardless if the threshold is exceeded or not.

  If you are using business rules to derive event reasons and a threshold is defined for the hierarchy adaptation, you must select an event reason to be used for the hierarchy adaptation in the job from Admin Center → Company System and Logo Settings → Default event reason to use when processing direct reports and job relationships offline.
• Automated Daily Hierarchy Adaptation

  In the past, when an employee got assigned to a position, the derivation of the employee’s supervisor did not take into account any future changes on position side, e.g. when a position was moved to a different parent position in the future or when the incumbents of the position's parent position were changed in the future.

  With the Automated Daily Hierarchy Adaptation set into Yes, the system to automatically adapt the hierarchies using a daily job if they are not in sync. The daily recurring background job checks for each employee, who is assigned to a position, if their assigned supervisor still matches the position hierarchy, and in case the reporting line and position hierarchy are not in sync, the system updates the employee's supervisor assignment accordingly.

  Once this job is enabled:

  • Any changes that are made with effective date TODAY, will be synced automatically in the system and not carried out by the job.
  • Any changes that are made with a future effective date will be carried out by the job running on that specific date.
  • Any changes that are made with a past effective date, will be synced in the next run time of the job, but the effective date of these changes would be affected and according to the job, not to the actual change, which may not be recommended if past dated transactions occur regularly in the organization.
  Note

  The Use Automated Daily Hierarchy Adaption setting cannot be set to Yes, unless a scheduled job "Position Management Daily Hierarchy Adaptation" with daily recurrence is submitted. This type of job can be now set up in Admin Center, using the Scheduled Job Manager tool.

  More information: Setting Up Automatic Daily Hierarchy Adaptation, and the following KBA: 2257661 - Automated Daily Hierarchy Adaptation Admin Opt-In

The Synchronization tab in Position Management Settings includes the following options:

• Position to Job Information Synchronization. When positions assigned to incumbents are updated, and a business rule is set in Rule for Synchronizing Position to Job Information, you can decide on how the system should synchronize this information. The available options are:
  • Automatic: If you choose this, synchronization takes place in the background. RECOMMENDED.
  • User Decision: A pop-up appears after every position change asking whether the incumbents should be synchronized.
  • User Decision If Required: A pop-up only appears if the position and the incumbents are not in sync.
  • Never: No synchronization takes place.
• Rule for Synchronizing Position to Job Information. The rule you select here is used when the position is changed in the Position Organizational Chart or via import and the changes are synchronized to the incumbent’s job information.
• Rule for Synchronizing Job Information to Position. The rule you select here is used to determine which common fields between Job Information and Position are synchronized when Job Information is changed and this leads to a position reclassification or position transfer.

  In Synchronization, you can define rules to synchronize Position to Job Information, and from Job Information to Position. Synchronization and business rules will be covered in depth later on.

  
• Search for Position in Position Reclassification. Choose "Yes" if you want the system to first search for a position that has status To Be Hired before creating a new position.
• Search for Position in Position Transfer. Choose "Yes" if you want the system to first search for a position that has status To Be Hired before creating a new position.
• Stable Headcount Area for Position Control Mode. It is recommended to have "No Selection" for this field as we are not creating positions in the background. You could use an organization level for this if you wanted to have the system automatically transfer/ create/ deactivate positions within the organization entity chosen here or maintain a stable total FTE value.
• Automated Position to Job Information Synchronization. If the "Position to Job Information Synchronization" Job is set up in Scheduled Job Manager, you can set Use Automated Job to Yes, to ensure changes to future records on both positions and job information of employees are always synchronized. If these records aren't in sync as of the start dates of the records of the position or in the Job Information, the job triggers a synchronization from position to Job Information for the fields that are defined in the "Position to Job Information" synchronization rule.
• Offset in Days. You can specify the number of days into the future until which the "Position to Job Information Synchronization" Job considers changes on positions and Job Information records. You can set it to a value between 0 and 30. If there are no changes within the offset to either Job Information or position, no synchronization takes place. If there is no offset configured or value is set to 0, then the job only considers records whose effective start date is the same day as the day the job runs.

If you are using the Position Matrix Relationships association in Positions, you can configure some parameters in this tab, for the synchronization between the Position Matrix Relationships and the Job Relationships of the employees assigned to the positions.

• Synchronize Position Matrix Relationships to Job Relationships of Incumbents. You can use this option to determine whether and how the synchronization of position matrix relationships and job relationships is executed. The possible options are:
  • Always: Synchronization takes place every time when the position assignment of the employee is changed or when the matrix relationships of the position are changed. RECOMMENDED.
  • Never: No synchronization takes place
  • Only when position assignment of the employee is changed: Position matrix relationships are only synchronized to job relationships of incumbents when the position assignment of the employee is changed
  • Only when Matrix Relationships of the position are changed: Position matrix relationships are only synchronized to job relationships of incumbents when the matrix relationships of the position are changed
• Synchronize Job Relationships for Vacant Matrix Positions. You can use this option to determine how to synchronize job relationships for vacant matrix positions. You can use one of the following options:
  • No: When the setting is set to No, the options for transferring job relationships are shown on the Termination and Internal Hires pages.
  • Delimit Job Relationships: When this setting is set, the options for transferring job relationships are no longer shown on the Termination and Internal Hire pages. This setting checks if there is another incumbent available for a given matrix position, for example, if the job relationship manager's employment is terminated.

    - If there is another incumbent available, this user is assigned as the new job relationship manager.

    - If there is no other incumbent available for this matrix position, then the given job relationship type is delimited (this means that the system sets an end date for the job relationship that is equal to the termination date.)

  • To Incumbent On Next Higher-Level Position: When this setting is set, the options for transferring job relationships are no longer shown on the Termination and Internal Hire pages. This setting checks if there is another incumbent available for a given matrix position, for example, if the job relationship manager's employment is terminated.

    - If there is another incumbent available, this user is assigned as the new job relationship manager.

    - If there is no other incumbent available for this matrix position, the search proceeds to the higher-level positions of the user whose employment is terminated until the system finds an incumbent. This incumbent is assigned as the new job relationship manager.

• Automated Position Matrix Relationship to Job Relationship Synchronization. If the "Position Matrix Relationships to Job Relationships Synchronization" Job is set up in Scheduled Job Manager, you can set Use Automated Job to Yes, to ensure changes to future records on both position matrix relationships and job relationships of employees are always synchronized. If these records aren't in sync as of the start dates of the records of the Position Matrix Relationships or in the Job Relationships, the job triggers a synchronization from Position Matrix Relationships to Job Relationships.
• Offset in Days. You can specify the number of days into the future until which the "Position Matrix Relationships to Job Relationships Synchronization" Job considers changes on Position Matrix Relationships and Job Relationship records. You can set it to a value between 0 and 30. If there are no changes within the offset to either Job Relationships or Position Matrix Relationships, no synchronization takes place. If there is no offset configured or value is set to 0, then the job only considers records whose effective start date is the same day as the day the job runs.

The UI Customizing tab in Position Management Settings includes some of the options that determine the behavior in regards of Positions from a user interface (UI) perspective.

The following options will be available within the UI Customizing tab:

• Rule for Defining Copy-Relevant Position Fields. You can assign a Default Position Attributes in Position Organization Chart scenario business rule to default position field values according to the source position when creating Lower-Level or Peer Positions from the Position Org Chart.
• Respect Workflow at Copy Position in Position Organizational Chart. If a workflow for Position creation is triggered, you can decide on this option whether the same workflow should trigger if an administrator mass creates positions using this option. Unless there is a business reason to specify otherwise, normally this option is set to No.
• Use Company Filter for Positions in Manager Self-Service Job Information, History and Quick Actions. If set to Yes, the available positions from the position field in the Employee File will be filtered according to Legal Entity / Company to display only the relevant positions. The positions will be still filtered by company (Legal Entity) in the Hire process even if this value is set to No.
• Allow Selection of only Positions that have Status 'To Be Hired' in Manager Self-Service Job Information, Hire and Quick Actions. If set to Yes, the available positions from the position field in the Employee File and the Hire Wizard will be filtered to show only To Be Hired or Vacant positions. This will be not applicable to the Job Information History UI, which displays all positions regardless of TBH status.
• Display 'Enter Manager to Filter Positions' field in Hire, MSS Job Information, History and Quick Actions. This option enables the field in the Position Information section to filter positions available in the position field based on the incumbent of the parent position.
• Show "Deactivate Position" Option in Employee Termination Screen. If set to Yes, users can determine to deactivate or not the position upon terminating the employee holding the position.

A transition period occurs when an employee leaves a position and a successor is appointed to that position before the incumbent leaves it. This means that the position is overstaffed for that time by incumbent or FTE. This means that you can assign a successor to a position while the employee who is leaving the position is still assigned. The transition period can be enabled Globally or based on Position Type, which would allow to define transition periods for only a group of positions or specify different periods to allow over staffing of positions.

To enable Transition Period in the system, some steps need to be completed

• In Position Management Settings → Transition Period tab, set Use Transition Period to Yes.
• In Period you can define a number which over staffing a position by incumbent or FTE will be allowed.
• In Unit, you can set into Days or Months

Other tabs that can be found in Position Management Settings are related to:

• Right to Return. Only relevant if Global Assignment or Leave of Absence are enabled in the instance, this tab allows to set up the business rules and event reasons to create a right to return to a position and be unassigned from a position in those scenarios. You will explore the Right to Return from Global Assignment in Unit 4 of this course, and more information can be also found in the Implementation Guide: Right to Return.
• Integration. In this tab, you can turn on the integration with Recruiting Management and select the business rules to derive job requisition template and field mapping between position and job requisition. Additionally, you can select to Raise Events in Intelligent Services whenever a position is created or updated. More information can be found in the Unit 5 of this course.
• Import. This tab is used to define how the system behaves in import scenarios. Typically, the settings will be set to No during initial load to avoid possible performance impact, and then set to Yes. A good resource to find out more about these import settings is the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Position Management: Design Considerations and Recommendations document:Implementation Design Principles

The following checks are available in the Check Tool. Under the System Health tab, you can run all checks selecting the application Position Management.

• All mandatory Position Management settings have been made (PositionManagementSettingsMandatoryFieldsCheck).

  Verifies all the mandatory Position Management Settings are enabled.

• Position to Job Information sync rule has been correctly defined (PositionToJobInfoSyncRuleCheck).

  Possible errors from this check are:

  • Your Position to Job Information rule contains a statement that sets the sync rule supervisor in Job Information. This is not allowed, since the non-leading hierarchy is automatically updated by the system.
  • Your Position to Job Information rule contains a statement that sets the sync rule company in Job Information. This is not allowed when using the Company Filter in Position Management Settings
• Business rule for position code generation has been correctly defined (PositionRuleAutoCodeGenerated).

  Reviews the code generation for the newly created position objects.

• "Pending Data" setting for position object definition is active (PositionPendingDataFlag).

  Checks that the pending data flag is set to 'Yes' in the position object definition.

• Mandatory fields are filled in Position (PositionMandatoryFieldsCheck).

  Checks for missing mandatory (non-conditional) fields for all active position records.

• Mapping rule for Recruiting Management Integration has been correctly defined (PositionCheckMappingRuleForCOAPIBasedRCMIntegration).

  Make sure that the value entered in the field name of each mapping exists in the OData object Job Requisition. You can find this in Admin Center → OData API Data Dictionary. If a field refers to another OData object, you need to use the dot notation.

  The value before the dot is the name of the field in the Job Requisition and the value after the dot is the name of the field in the referring object. For example: hiringManager.usersSysId

  Caution

  This check is visible only if Use Recruiting Management Integration setting in Position Management Settings is set to Yes and if you've set up the mapping rule for Recruiting Management Integration.
• Basic Rule in Position Management Settings Exists (PositionTypeNoBasicRules).

  This check can be found on the Migration tab. We recommend that you migrate Position Management rule scenarios which belong to the basic category to the specific category. Rule scenarios in application-specific categories are simpler to create and less likely to cause configuration-related issues.

• Position Management Settings is one of the main administration tools to control the behavior of Position Management in organizations, such as defining the Hierarchy Adaptation, Synchronization between positions and incumbents, UI Customizing or enable the integration with Recruiting Management. Some of these settings might have other dependencies.
• The general tab controls the TBH Status adaptation settings or whether position codes are auto generated, and the hierarchy adaptation tab controls the leading hierarchy, which should always be Position Hierarchy as a best practice recommendation. Other tabs will allow to define business rules to synchronize data between position and incumbent, or default position attributes when positions are created from the Position Org Chart.
• Some checks applicable to position management are available in the Check Tool and should be validated when administering the solution.