Understanding SAP SuccessFactors People Analytics

Watch the video to get started on SAP SuccessFactors People Analytics unit.

SAP SuccessFactors People Analytics is the overall solution for all reporting in SAP SuccessFactors.

The reporting solutions in People Analytics offer both simple lists, and more advanced cross-tabs/pivots, which can be combined with charting and formatting into multi-page reports for distribution within the company. The report output formats include Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Excel. You can manage the access to build and run reports by granting the permissions only to authorized users.

Report templates are available for all core areas of the SAP SuccessFactors suite, including Performance, Goals, Succession, Recruiting, and Employee Central. Templates are being continually scoped and added.

The reporting capabilities in SAP SuccessFactors also allows users to build interactive dashboards and tiles, which enable managers to view a summary of information for their teams.

Report Center consolidates report builder tools into a modern interface where you can build and run reports.

Report Center centralizes all the reporting components from different analytical tools in SAP SuccessFactors. The analytical tools are Tiles, Dashboards, Table, Canvas, and Story reports. This centralization allows you to edit and run reports from a central location.

The primary actions available in Report Center are:

1. Run: You can run a report by selecting the name or the run button.
2. Actions: You can take additional actions on a report with the actions button.
3. Search: You can search for reports by name.
4. New: You can create new reports using the New button.

To access Report Center, select Reporting on the main navigation menu. If Report Center has not been permissioned to the user, they cannot access Report Center.

The Story report type in Report Center is part of the People Analytics solution and is based on the integration of SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite with SAP Analytics Cloud. A story report is a presentation-style report that uses charts, visualizations, text, images, and pictograms to describe data. It mainly involves building a query and using the query to create the report. The story report can then be shared with others.

With story reports, you can:

• Search across all schemas, reporting on fields from different schemas that are linked using auto joins and semi-hard joins
• Report on data from product schemas that are not supported by other reporting tools in SAP SuccessFactors, such as:
  • Onboarding (2.0)
  • Job Profile Builder
  • Spot Awards
  • Custom MDF Objects
• Use additional calculated functions not available in other SAP SuccessFactors reporting tools (for example, CONTAINS, LENGTH, UPPERCASE).
• Perform date calculations.
• Perform calculations on Boolean fields.
• Create and display ratios in the story report (for example, gender ratio).
• Create reports irrespective of your data access permissions. This means you can add fields to the query even if you don't have the relevant data access permission; however, when you run the report, you won't see any data for such fields.
• See relevant fields automatically for the data elements linked using joins, without needing to manually navigate the data model.

Table Reports are designed to be extremely simple to use and provide a flexible, intuitive platform for users to create custom list reports and share them across the organization.

Table Reports can be deployed as:

• Personal Reports are created by users who have authorized access. Reports contain data to meet local needs that users can export.
• Additional custom reports created to support specific business cases. These reports will reside within the Report Center.

Table Reports provide basic metrics for standard reporting requirements. The Table Reports are part of the platform and provide real-time reporting.

These reports are list reports for simple data extraction to Microsoft Excel, CSV, Adobe PDF, Microsoft PPT. The report data sources include all modules, excluding SAP SuccessFactors Learning, and data within the Metadata Framework (MDF) framework.

Canvas Reports allows you to visualize data in a formatted and presentation-ready report.

Canvas Reports utilize Page Designer, a self-service tool that can be used to easily drag-and-drop components onto a report page.

These components can include Tables, Charts, Images, or Text.

The reports can include Live Detailed Reporting data, LMS data, Advanced Reporting data, or Workforce Analytics measures and dimension data.

By using the Report Distributor or Report Scheduler, administrators can send the reports as attachments to emails or FTP.

Dashboards are interactive, enabling managers to view summary information for their teams. When managers first access the Dashboards tab, the data shown is based on their entire team. The managers can then filter the data to view different sets of information or drill down to a Drill to Detail view to get to the detail behind the chart and take action.

The features of Dashboards include:

• Use Dashboard Settings & Filters to refine data.
• Click in charts to filter and drill down to a list.
• Download lists as CSV or Excel files.
• Zoom into particular charts for more information.
• Get extra insights in mouse-over tool-tip.

Dashboard tiles provide a fast and flexible way to display information. Each tile is independent, so administrators can mix and match tiles into the dashboards as needed, and even build their own tiles.

Dashboard and Tiles framework will be deleted (deprecated) on November 21, 2025. Tile and Dashboard reports are not available for new customers provisioned after the 2H 2023 release.

SAP SuccessFactors has announced the plan to delete (deprecate) Table reporting and Canvas reporting, but no official date has been determined.

It is recommended that all new reports be created as Story reports.