What is the Succession Data Model?
4.3.1 How do you set up the Succession Data Model?
Context
Procedure
1. Download the XML file for the Succession Data Model.
○ If you're setting up the Corporate Data Model the first time for a company, download the most current version from this link:
https://ps.successfactors.com/productcentral/Pages/display/prodinfo/data+models+and+picklists/
default.aspx .
○ If you're changing an already uploaded Succession Data Model, download the XML file from Provisioning under Succession Management Import/Export Data Model .
2. If no changes are required to the XML file, you can proceed directly to step 3. Otherwise, open the XML file in an XML editor and adjust the data model according to the company's requirements.
Note
The XML file for the Succession Data Model is divided into several sections. Only some are relevant for Employee Central. Under "How is the XML file structured?" you can find more information about all sections.
○ Go to the section that includes the HRIS elements. Each HRIS element corresponds to a person or employment object. You can adjust the HRIS elements and the HRIS fields just as you did in the previous step when adjusting the Corporate Data Model. For a list of all possible HRIS elements and fields, see Person Object Tables [page 448] and Employment Object Tables [page 472].
To make any changes, proceed as follows:
1. HRIS elements
You can change the following for the HRIS elements:
○ Delete HRIS elements
You can delete the HRIS element you don't want to use from the data model. For example, a customer might decide that they don't need phone information or compensation information, so you can delete the phoneInfo and compInfo HRIS elements from the data model. You can delete all HRIS elements except for the following mandatory ones:
○ employmentInfo
○ jobInfo
○ personInfo
○ personalInfo
Note
When you delete an HRIS element, the corresponding portlet is also not shown anymore on the UI.
○ Change the label for HRIS elements
If you want to use a different label text on the UI, overwrite the existing label text of the
corresponding HRIS element or, if there is no label included in the standard XML file, insert a label with the corresponding text.
2. HRIS fields
You can change the following for HRIS fields:
○ Hide or show fields on the UI by setting the visibility attribute accordingly
For example, set the visibility of fields the customer does not want to use to "none", so they don't appear on the UI and no data import is possible.
Note
For some fields, you should leave the visibility attribute to "none" or "view", for example, for fields that are calculated by the system and should not be filled by the user. To check for which fields you can change this attribute, have a look at the Person Object Tables [page 448] and Employment Object Tables [page 472].
○ Change labels for HRIS fields by overwriting the existing label text
○ Make fields mandatory by setting the required attribute to "true"
○ Mask data entry on screen by including the pii attribute
○ Configure custom fields
○ You can add custom fields as you did for the Corporate Data Model.
○ Interaction between data models — the "type" attribute
Note
Do not use the type attribute for the field custom-string1 of the jobInfo HRIS element.
○ You can connect custom fields from the Succession or Corporate Data Model to any foundation object to copy its behavior. You do this by using the attribute
type="foundationObject". The custom field is displayed as a separate field with its own label on the UI, and its own attributes if you define them here, but it takes over the following behavior from the foundation object it is connected to:
○ List of values: If the Admin has already created or uploaded data for the company foundation object, this data is shown in the custom field as a list of values to choose from. As soon as the user starts entering a value in the custom field, the possible values of that list are displayed.
○ Effective dating: If the foundation object is effective dated, the custom field will also be, that means the user has to enter a start date as of which the changes are supposed to become effective.
○ Search: If the search-criteria attribute has been defined for the foundation object, it is also applied to the custom field.
See the following example, where the HRIS field "custom-string7" in the Succession Data Model behaves like the company foundation object from the Corporate Data Model:
<hris-field max-length="256" id="custom-string7"
visibility="both" type="company">
<label>Legal Entity of Contract</label>
</hris-field>
○ You can use the type attribute to reference customer-specific foundation objects. For this, you have to create a generic object first (see How do you create customer-specific Foundation Objects? [page 168]). In the Succession Data Model, you can then add a custom field of the type custom-string and add the type attribute referencing the generic object (type="GenericObject"). You have to use the external code of the generic object as the type, as in this example:
<hris-field max-length="256" id="custom-string5"
visibility="both" type="Generic_Object_Building"
<label>Building</label>
</hris-field>
Note
For using the type attribute with generic objects, use only a custom field of the type custom-string.
○ You can also use the type attribute to connect a custom field to the user "worker". Then the custom field contains the list of users contained in "worker". This is the same list the system proposes for the HRIS field manager-id. This is an example how to use the attribute for this purpose:
<hris-field max-length="256" id="custom-string7"
visibility="both" type="worker">
<label>Payroll Manager</label>
</hris-field>
○ For jobInfo HRIS fields, you can define sections
For more information, see below under XML Examples, under Sections for jobInfo.
○ Permission group filters
If you want to set permission group filters to enable fields to be available for setting up permission groups, go to the section with the <dg-filters> tag.
Permission groups are used to define which group of people is granted certain permissions. For example, you can set up a group with all members of the sales department located in the USA and allow them to view the employee data of all employees in the United States. Instead of having to search for each member of the sales department to add them one by one to a permission group, you can select the department and automatically include all members of that department in that group. You can set up that you can also use other selection criteria apart from department to set up a permission group by defining it in the Succession Data Model. You select the HRIS element and/or the corresponding HRIS field, for example, the cost center. The cost center will then appear in the dropdown list with all other selection criteria when you set up a permission group under Administration Tools, in the Manage Employees portlet under Set User Permissions Manage Permission Groups . For more information on permission groups, refer to the Role-Based Permissions Handbook.
Permission group filters for the following HRIS fields are included in the standard XML file:
○ For the HRIS element jobInfo:
○ Business unit
○ Cost center
○ For the HRIS element compInfo:
○ Pay group
To add permission filters, copy one of the existing permission group filters and overwrite the value of the refid attribute with the HRIS-element ID of the data object that contains the field you want to use to filter the search for permission groups. Then you have to refer to the field that is part of that HRIS element with the hris-field-ref tag as in this example:
<dg-filters><permission-group-filter><hris-element-ref refid="jobInfo" >
In the above example you define that the cost center, department name and country field for the company are shown in the dropdown list when the user creates permission groups.
For cost center, you enter the HRIS-field ID of the cost center that is part of the jobInfo HRIS element. For department, which is a foundation object that is reused as a field in the jobInfo, you can narrow down the search to a field within that foundation object (name) by using the ref-field attribute.
Note
To get the ref-field value for cost center, refer to the CostCenter object definition table in the Foundation Object Tables chapter.
You can also use country fields for permission group filters as in the example above for the company.
○ HRIS Sync Mapping
With HRIS sync, you can define what information that the user enters in Employee Central is transferred to Employee Profile. With this you guarantee that the information entered in Employee Central is the same in both places, as well as in all other modules that are connected to Employee Profile (for example, Performance Management, Goal Management, 360 Degree Review, Learning & Development and Jam).
The standard XML file includes mapping of the following information:
○ Phone Information
○ Email Information
If you want to have more fields using HRIS sync than delivered in the standard XML file, proceed as follows:
1. Go to the section with the <hris-sync-mappings> tag.
2. Copy an existing hris-sync-mapping.
3. Enter the following information:
○ The field ID of the HRIS element used in Employee Central as refid value of hris-element-ref
○ The ID of the element used in Employee Profile as refid value of standard-element-ref
The standard-elements are listed on top of the XML file for the Succession Data Model.
4. Towards the end of your implementation, you have to define when HRIS sync is triggered. You find more information in Human Resource Information System (HRIS) Synchronization [page 362].
3. Upload the Succession Data Model in Provisioning under Succession Management Import/Export Data Model .
Next Steps
What are the next steps?
The company's Admin can now add employees to the system or import employee data in the system. You might have to show the Admin where this is done in the system:
● To add an employee, go to Administration Tools. In the Manage Employees portlet, select Update User Information Add New Employee .
● To import employee data, go to Administration Tools. In the Manage Employees portlet, select Update User Information Import Employee Data . If you want to know more about data imports, refer to Importing Employee Data [page 327]
Related Information
XML Examples (Person and Employment Objects) [page 91]