Stay current with the SAP SF Succession Planning & Career Development Planning: 1H 2023 Release Highlights

Hi Readers,

In this blog, we’ll be discussing all the latest release changes in SuccessFactors SPCDP.

I have dedicated a separate blog post for Performance management and goal management (PMGM) release changes. Click here to view the blog post

Below is a summary of all the changes for 1H 2023 Succession Planning & Career Development Planning.

1. Minor Visual Changes in 1H 2023

These are very minor UI changes. You can ignore this and jump to the 2nd release change if you are looking only for the significant updates.

SAP made various minor visual enhancements. SAP categorized the changes into four types:

Text changes (labels, error messages, or roll-over texts)
Iconography (new or changed icons)
Interaction pattern (new position of interaction, new order of list, new or changed buttons)
Styling (layout, spacing, or other design changes)

1.1

Before

In the previous version, when users signed up for an open enrollment or unsupervised program as a mentee, a page with a success message informed them that they had signed up for the program.

After

In the current version, the success message is enhanced and reminds them that they can contact preferred mentors directly if they don’t hear from the mentors for a long time.

1.2

Before

In the previous version, the Approve and Decline buttons for approving or declining an employee’s request to be a mentor were at the bottom-right corner of the page.

After

In the current version, the Approve and Decline buttons are close to the message text

1.3

Before

In the previous version, when users chose Save for Later on the signup page of a mentoring program, the program was saved without a confirmation message.

After

In the current version, a message pops up to users to let them confirm if they want to save the draft for joining the program later.

1.4

Before

In the previous version of the Talent Search page, the date picker widget was narrower, and two date pickers that made up a date range search criterion were side by side on the same line.

After

In the current version of the Talent Search page, the date picker widget is wider, and two date pickers that make up a date range search criterion are vertically aligned.

1.5

Before

In the previous version of the Talent Search page and the Add Criteria area, the dropdown list of a filter was narrower than the filter itself.

After

In the current version of the Talent Search page, the dropdown list of a filter is at least as wide as the filter and expands automatically to fit the longest value in the list. In the Add Criteria area, the dropdown list of a filter is as wide as the filter.

1.6

Before

In the previous version of the Talent Search page, the labels of multiple-field search criteria weren’t aligned.

After

In the current version of the Talent Search page, the labels of multiple-field search criteria are right-aligned.

2. New Picker to Choose Attributes

SAP introduced a picker that allows an organization’s people to choose different attributes from Talent Intelligence Hub.

To use the new picker, ensure that you’ve upgraded to Talent Intelligence Hub. If you don’t upgrade to Talent Intelligence Hub, you can use the existing picker to add competencies and skills.

Talent Intelligence Hub is in the early adoption phase and is available only for customers who have enabled Job Description Manager or Job Profile Builder.

Succession Planning

To add competencies as search criteria from the Talent Search page.

Career Development

To add competencies and skills to development goals.

To answer questions about competencies and skills on the signup form of mentoring programs.

To filter job roles by competencies in Suggested Roles.

3. Access Employee’s Growth Portfolio from Talent Cards

You can now access an employee’s Growth Portfolio from the talent card used in Calibration, Presentation, and Succession.

With appropriate permissions, you can view the employee’s Growth Portfolio by selecting the link in the overview section or from the dropdown menu of the talent card.

Upgrade to Talent Intelligence Hub.

Enable Growth Portfolio.

With this feature, managers can easily refer to employees’ Growth Portfolio to know more about them.

4. Career Development Configurations Available in Configuration Center

Configuration Center simplifies the user experience for configuring the change management process, viewing configurations, downloading configurations, and transporting tested and certified configurations across tenants.

To view Career Development configurations, make sure you’ve enabled CDP Full (Development Plan) or Enable Development Plan V12 in Provisioning. The configurations available for you depend on the features you’ve enabled in Provisioning for both source and target tenants.

To view Calibration configurations, you’ve enabled Enable Calibration in Provisioning.

5. Career Development Configurations Available in Configuration Center

You can now view, download, and transport Career Development configurations using Configuration Center.

These configurations are available in the Talent configuration area. See the following screenshot.

6. New Action Available in Action Search

The View my current role in Career Worksheet action is now available in the global search box. Users can enter the exact text of the action or select from suggested actions to navigate to the Career Worksheet page.

Here’s a screenshot of the new action.

The new action takes users directly to a desired product page that is otherwise accessible through multiple steps in the SAP SuccessFactors system.

7. Changed Permission for Users to Show Target Roles in People’s Profile

With only the View permission of User Permissions Employee Data Preferred Next Move, users can now select the Make public in Live Profile checkbox in Career Worksheet to show target roles in People Profile.

Previously, they needed both the View and Edit permissions.

Here’s a screenshot showing when users select the option to show the Project Coordinator role in Career Worksheet, the role appears in the Career Goals block in People Profile.

8. Export Talent Search Results to an XLSX File

You can now export your search results from Talent Search to an XLSX file which supports up to 16,384 columns. Previously, the exported file was in XLS format which supports no more than 256 columns.

SAP has changed the file format to enable you to export far more columns of data than before. This enhancement is from a Customer Community Idea.

Mentoring

9. Approvals for Mentoring Requests on the Latest Home Page

Mentors can now accept or decline the mentoring requests sent by mentees in the Approvals section on the latest home page.

In an open enrollment or unsupervised mentoring program, when a mentee sends a mentoring request to a mentor, the Mentoring Request to-do task appears on the mentor’s home page. Here’s a screenshot of an example.

The mentor can accept or decline the request directly on the home page. Or, they can follow the View Details link to learn more about the program before responding to it.

Home page users want their most urgent, pending tasks to appear on the home page. These new tasks give them immediate access to mentoring requests that need their attention and ensure important requests are processed promptly.

10. Approvals for Mentoring Requests on the Latest Home Page in iOS and Android Mobile Apps

In iOS and Android SAP SuccessFactors Mobile apps, mentors can now accept or decline the mentoring requests sent by mentees in the Approvals section on the latest home page.

11. Customize Mentoring Email Notifications

You can now customize Mentoring email notifications in Admin Center Email Notification Templates Settings. According to your business needs, you can customize email subject and body in all supported languages, or disable certain types of email notifications.

If you customized program types with text replacement, you can also customize email notifications for a specific program type in Email Notification Templates Settings. For example, your organization may use “coaching program” other than “mentoring program” as a program type. In the following screenshot, if you select Coaching Program under Mentoring Program Text Replacement Option and customize the email content, users in coaching programs receive the customized email notification.

11. View More Recommended Mentors

When a user signs up for a mentoring program as a mentee, they can now view up to 100 recommended mentors. After filling up the signup form and choosing Show Recommended Mentors, they’ll see two rows of recommended mentor cards and the View More link below the cards.

This enhancement provides a way for users to explore more recommendations and find the best match.

Before

In the previous version, users were recommended with up to 10 available mentors.

After

In the current version, users are recommended with up to 100 available mentors. They can view additional recommendations by choosing View More.

12. Use Mentoring in iOS and Android Mobile Apps

Users can now use Mentoring in iOS and Android SAP SuccessFactors Mobile apps to explore and manage mentoring opportunities.

These’re a few typical things they can do:

Explore recommended mentoring programs and mentors.
Join mentoring programs as a mentor or mentee as recommended.
Contact mentors and mentees by phone or email.
(For mentees) Submit mentoring requests to preferred mentors, cancel requests, or end mentoring relationships.
(For mentors) Accept mentoring requests, or decline them with or without comments.
Check their progress in mentoring programs and the status of mentoring relationships.
Edit mentoring preferences as necessary.

Text replacement at the program level is also supported in Mobile Mentoring.

Here’s a screenshot of the Mentoring landing page, which includes mentoring requests, recommended mentors and programs, and entries to My Mentoring.

Here’s a screenshot of the My Mentoring page, which includes lists of mentors, mentees, and programs with mentoring status.

These features combine to provide users with a more streamlined experience that enables them to access mentoring information and complete relevant tasks more efficiently.

That’s it !! Those were all the release changes we have for SP and CDP.

To get more information on all the release changes, please refer to the link below.

What’s New Viewer: Click here

Please feel free to share your ideas and questions in the comment box of this blog. I’d be glad to share what I know with you.

Also, do share your thoughts on the latest changes, and the features you valued the most. Share this blog with your colleagues.

Thank you!!