Saturday, August 24, 2013

SuccessFactors Release: Faster, easier adoption of the latest innovations - A Good one for SAP Admins...!!!

I just celebrated my birthday a couple of weeks ago.  I received all the latest technology gadgets, including a Fitbit Flex, an iPad mini, and Apple TV.  These are all great gifts, and the best part is that they are all plug-and-play.  No more messing around with technical guides and detailed set-up instructions.  I turned these devices on and was immediately guided through the activation process in a couple of quick and easy steps – I was up and running in a few minutes. 

What if you could get the latest innovations for your Human Capital Management system that would simplify business processes and help you work smarter, and like my birthday presents, they were easy to activate? 

With SuccessFactors quarterly product releases, SAP Provides access to hundreds of innovations and enhancements throughout the year to make sure your HCM system is equipped to support the ever- changing demands of your workforce and business.  We understand that it can be a challenge to track and activate the right enhancements and innovations for your business, but fret no more.  We have a solution for you! 

With SAP August 2013 release, they’re excited to announce that the SuccessFactors Upgrade Center is now available to our Enterprise Edition customers.  Since its release to Professional Edition customers in May, 125 companies have performed over 209 upgrades of opt-in features on their own via the Upgrade Center. With built-in documentation and self-service activation of new features, the Upgrade Center is accessible from the OneAdmin page and makes learning about and activating key enhancements quick and easy from a centralized location.

“The Upgrade Center represents a major step forward in the ease of deployment for business SaaS applications. In years past, with on-premise software, an upgrade would mean months of effort and a risky migration process. Cloud software delivered a major step forward by offering customers a simpler upgrade process and common benefits to all customers, but it still required paying close attention to release notes, configuration details, and feature dependencies,” said Will Doolittle, Vice President, Product Management. “Now, with the SuccessFactors Upgrade Center, all the information and control is presented to system administrators in a single, easy to understand, and easy to use panel. Customers will enjoy unprecedented control over their software deployments, and find it easier than ever to take advantage of the improvements that come out with every quarterly release. And, they can do so with confidence, knowing that the Upgrade Center gives intelligent recommendations based on the existing configuration of the system and dependent features, and that it will respect company rules for dividing responsibility across multiple administrators.” 

The Upgrade Center intuitively displays upgrades that are recommended for your system and provides additional information including a detailed description and video of the innovation, system prerequisites and gives you the ability to perform the upgrade in a single click! With self-activation of key innovations available in the Upgrade Center, you will no longer have to submit a case to Customer Support to perform these upgrades.

The Upgrade Center also features a summary of the upgrades performed from the Upgrade Center.  You can track the status of upgrades and see past upgrades performed.  You also have the option to undo upgrades that have been performed in the Upgrade Center within 10 days of that enhancement being activated. 

The Upgrade Center is just one of the many innovations delivered with this release. The August release also features a new compensation profile, cross-domain reporting across the talent modules, simplified mobile activation, expanded localization support for EC, increased flexibility of FTE calculations, redesigned learning orders page, and easier creation of new groups in SAP Jam with customizable group templates and dynamic content widgets.