Introducing and Configuring Continuous Performance Management

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to introduce, enable and configure Continuous Performance Management

Introduction to Continuous Performance Management

Performance is not something that should be measured just once each year. To truly impact performance on a positive basis, employees and managers should have regular check-ins to ensure employees are working on the right aspects of their jobs in the right way.

Watch this video for a brief overview of Continuous Performance Management. 

Note

This training guide is based on the Latest Version of Continuous Performance Management (CPM), generally available and the only possible option for new implementations.

Continuous Performance Management is upgraded to the latest version with the 2H 2023 release. Those customers still using the legacy version will be upgraded to the latest version, though have a temporary option to rollback to legacy version from the Upgrade Center. The universal upgrade to the latest version occurs with the 1H 2024 release.

More information can be found on the Customer Community Legacy Continuous Performance Management Retiremen... - SAP Community Groups

Getting Started with Continuous Performance Management

Continuous Performance Management has been designed using a platform functionality known as ‘Metadata Framework’ (more commonly called MDF). The necessary MDF files are automatically imported from SuccessStore when you enable ‘Continuous Performance Management’ in the application.

Setting up Continuous Performance Management in your instance involves assignment of role-based permissions to intended user groups and enabling permissions to access Continuous Performance Management on the mobile application. The mobile application configuration is optional.

The prerequisites to use Continuous Performance Management are:

  • License for Performance Management and Goal Management.

  • Role-based permissions to access Continuous Performance Management.

  • Role-based permissions to access Continuous Performance Management settings.

  • Permission to access these employee data fields: First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, Title, and Manager.

  • Generic Objects and Attachment Manager enabled.

  • Enabling Intelligent Services if you want email notifications. Configuring email for feedback notifications requires Intelligent Services. You can enable it from Upgrade Center.

Enable Continuous Performance Management

Steps

  1. In Provisioning → Company Settings the following prerequisites need to be enabled:

    • Role-based Permission (This will disable Administrative Domains)
    • Enable General Objects (requires "Enable the Attachment Manager")
    • Enable the Attachment Manager

  2. From the instance, navigate to Performance Management Feature Settings using Action Search, and select the option Enable Continuous Performance Management.

  3. Save.

Result

Once enabled, the required MDF Objects (Activity, Achievement, and Discussion Topic) are also automatically imported from the SuccessStore.

Configuration of Role-Based Permissions

It is important to identify the user groups to which you want to provide access, and then accordingly enable the required role-based permissions for each group. You can either use an existing user group or create a new user group for granting the permissions that are needed to access Continuous Performance Management.

Enablement of Role-Based Permissions for Employees

Go to the employee role and under User Permission, select Continuous Performance Management, then, select Select All.

  • Access to Continuous Performance Management allows the individual access to the feature.

  • Access Continuous Feedback allows users to view the feedback that they receive and the feedback received by their direct reports.

  • Give Continuous Feedback allows users to give feedback to employees included in the target population of the role being configured.

  • Request feedback from others allows users to send feedback requests to the employees included in the target population of the role being configured.

    This permission works in conjunction with the permission Limit about whom feedback can be requested.

  • Limit about whom feedback can be requested works in conjunction with the permission Request feedback from others.

    When Request feedback from others has been enabled, this permission allows users to request feedback about the employees included in the target population of the role being configured. For example, managers can only request feedback about members of their team.

MDF Object Permissions

Select Continuous Performance Management and then View and Edit options for Achievement, Activity, and Discussion Topic objects.

Unlike other MDF Objects, Field Level Overrides permissions are not supported in Continuous Performance Management.

Note

If the feature Enable Attachments on Activities is checked from Continuous Performance Management admin console, you need to consider the following permissions:

  • To grant permission to upload and download attachments, select Activity → Visibility: View and Action: Edit

  • To grant permission to only download attachments, select Activity → Visibility: View

Main Navigation

Once you have successfully enabled the employee access within the application, the Continuous Performance option appears in the application’s main navigation dropdown list.

Enablement of Role-Based Permissions for Managers

The same permissions that are enabled for the employee role in Continuous Performance Management are also enabled for the manager role.

Enablement of Role-Based Permissions for Administrators

Under User Permissions select Continuous Performance User Permission and then Select All.

Select Continuous Performance Management → View and Edit options, under Achievement, Activity and Discussion Topic.

Select General User Permissions → Organization Chart Navigation Permission, Company Info Access and User Search.

In addition, scroll down toAdministrator Permissions → Manage Continuous Performance → Access to Administrative Configuration page.

Admin Access to Delete Continuous Feedback Page can be also enabled to allow administrators to delete continuous feedback.

Note

The Admin Access Permission to all Continuous Performance Management Data has been developed exclusively for the Data Protection Officer role. Do not enable this permission for anyone other than the DPO role to ensure that they have the ability to carry out the duties prescribed under the regulation. You can find further information in the Implementing and Managing Data Protection and Privacy guide, available in the SAP Help Portal.

Permissions Dependencies

All users will need the following permissions in order to use Continuous Performance Management:  

  • In Employee Data, View Permission is required for the following fields: First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, Title, Manager. 
  • In General User Permissions, the following are required: Organization Chart Navigation Permission, Company Info Access and User Search. 

Note

These permissions are already enabled for all users in the Employee Search permission role.

Configuration of Continuous Performance Management

The tool used to configure Continuous Performance Management is called the Administrative Console. To access the Administrative Console, navigate to Continuous Performance Management Configuration, from the Action Search bar.

Within the Administrative Console the following areas can be accessed: 

  • Configuration Validation Tool
  • Default View
  • Activity Status Label
  • Feature Configuration

In this series of interactions, you will learn more about the four areas inside the Administrative Console and their features.

Configuration Validation Tool

Through the validation tool, it is possible to run a system diagnostics report that will check whether CPM has been configured and permissioned correctly. This includes checking:

  • Prerequisite features: Whether all required CPM prerequisites are enabled in company settings in Provisioning

  • OData API: This checks whether the Continuous Performance Management OData APIs are available.

  • Metadata Framework Object Definition: Whether the CPM MDF entity definition exist in database, and the RBPSecured field of each entity is set to the correct value.

  • Role Based Permission Configuration: Whether all necessary role-based permissions have been granted (does not include voluntary permissions, for example, requesting feedback on activities)

  • Initial Configurations: Whether the initial configuration has been done and that the pre-import CPM entities (activities, achievements, and topics) exist.

Default View

This feature makes the selected view the default landing page for all Continuous Performance Management users. The default view of Activities can be switched into Achievements View as a landing page when users access Continuous Performance. Users must have permissions to both Activities and Achievements.

Activity Status

This feature allows for the following actions: 

  • Changing the labels, translations, and the colors associated with activity statuses

  • Adding new custom activity status values

  • Deleting unwanted activity status values

  • Ordering the activity status values

  • Defining the default activity status value

  • Choosing which value will prompt the achievement creation dialog

  • Choosing which value(s) and corresponding activities will clear from the queue after capture meeting is executed

Feature Configuration

The following features can be enabled/disabled from the Administrative Console:

  • Enable "Discussion Topic": Allows employees and managers to keep track of the topics that they want to discuss together. This feature creates a "Discussion Topics" section within the "Meeting" menu, to add topics to be discussed in addition to the review of current Activities. Users will need view/edit access granted in Role-Based Permission in order to be able to view and add discussion topics in the meetings.
  • Enable Meeting Notes: This feature allows you to take private notes during the 1:1 meeting that are only visible to the owner. Notes will be captured and saved in the Meeting History.
  • Enable Continuous Feedback: This feature enables the Continuous Feedback in the main navigation menu, where you can display all Feedback Received, Feedback Given, and Requests Sent. Users will need to have access granted in Role-Based Permission in order to use all the Continuous Feedback options available.
    • Enable Activity-Feedback Linking: This feature allows employees and managers to request feedback on activities and to link feedback messages to activities.
    • Disable Deleting Feedback: This option prevents users from deleting feedback that they have received.

    • Enable Continuous Feedback Outlook Integration (Step 1 of 2): To create an Outlook add-in for users to directly provide Continuous Feedback, enable this option. Then choose Save Configuration to activate the download file (Step 2 of 2). This option requires to set up mapping between SAP SuccessFactors user attributes and Microsoft Active Directory.

  • Enable Multiple Role Support: This feature expands Continuous Performance Management functionality to be used by roles other than the manager and their direct reports. A user can invite another user to a 1:1 meeting and create activities and discussion topics together. To enable this feature, you must configure the respective target based permissions.

  • Enable Attachments on Activities: This feature allows adding attachments on activities for all users with activity edit permissions. Anyone with access to view that activity is able to view and download the attachment.

  • Hide the meeting histories of previous managers from the new manager: This option enables the meeting histories between a direct report and their previous managers to be hidden from the new manager. The new manager is shown only their own meeting histories with their current direct reports. Direct reports are shown all meeting histories with their current and previous managers.

  • Automatically Hide Prior Feedback Requested or Given by Former Manager from the New Manager: This feature allows feedback given or requested by the previous manager for an employee to be automatically hidden from the new manager.

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