Describing the Job Architecture and Attribute Frameworks

Job Description Manager (JDM) is the term used to describe the original method in SAP SuccessFactors to store Job Family and Role hierarchy. JDM is also known as Families and Roles or JDM 1.0. This term is also used to refer to the legacy Competency Library tools.

​Job Profile Builder, also known as JPB or JDM 2.0, is the platform component that houses job architecture and related content libraries. It's built on Metadata Framework (MDF) and is highly recommended to enable integrated talent management processes. All new customers start with JPB.

• A Job Role connects and defines all the attributes of one or more jobs that are alike.
• A Job Profile is an optional feature that maps 1:1 to a Job Role and further describes a job. Job Profiles are integrated with Positions (Employee Central), Job Requisitions (Recruiting Management), Suggested Roles and Career Paths (Career Development Planning), and Succession Org Chart (Succession Management).
• Skills are supported in Job Profile Builder, in addition to Competencies.

The Center of Capabilities (CoC), is now considered a "legacy" tool, yet still supported, which was released back in 2021 and included some important changes (only relevant for customers on Job Profile Builder). In fact, Center of Capabilities is enabled automatically with Job Profile Builder, although transitioning to the scenario JPB + Talent Intelligence Hub is recommended.

When Center of Capabilities is enabled along with Job Profile Builder, the following changes apply:

• The Competency entity is removed from JPB and managed entirely from CoC, in the Capabilities Library. It follows the hierarchical structure of Library / Category, like in JDM, but additionally Groups is available as a third level of hierarchy to classify the competencies (a.k.a. capabilities).
• Capabilities Portfolio becomes the central place for employees to manage their own competencies and historical ratings.
• Proficiency Rating Scale is used to measure one’s ability to demonstrate a competency on the job

​The Talent Intelligence Hub is the platform framework that connects individual attributes to people and the experiences throughout SAP SuccessFactors solutions.

• Attributes are stored in a central library called the Attributes Library, which includes migrated competencies from JDM as well as CoC and imported content.
• Attributes use a tagging model which offers unlimited categorization, improving on the prior 3 level hierarchy in the competency framework (Library / Category / Group).
• The Capabilities Portfolio used in CoC evolves into the Growth Portfolio, where employees can view and manage their own Skills, Competencies and other attributes.
• With Talent Intelligence Hub, there's an opportunity to leverage AI capabilities to recommend Skills to employees based on their activities, build a Skills Library from Job Descriptions using AI as well as rating Skills in Performance and 360 Reviews forms that now support Attribute sections of type Skill as well as Competency and can sync ratings from the forms into the employee's Growth Portfolio.

Organizations define competencies according to their direction and culture. Competencies define which job skills, attributes, and expectations that are important to the company.

Competencies can be core or job-specific. Custom or hard-coded competencies can also be added to a Performance or 360 Multi-Rater form template.

Corporate competencies are set as core in the system, which means that everyone within an organization receives them by default. Core competencies are essential to the organization.

Job-specific competencies are specific to the role, the job, or other field of information.

Competencies can be defined relative to goals, as follows:

• Competencies can refer to behaviors, skills, abilities, values, or principles.

• Goals can refer to tasks, targets, or milestones. They're measurable and trackable.