E-Verify Implementation for Onboarding 2.0 Simplified

The purpose of this blog is to at least provide a starting point if not a one stop shop for all things E-Verify in SuccessFactors Onboarding for both consultants and client administrators who are either considering or in the process of implementing onboarding 2.0.

While implementing E-Verify as a client administrator, I noticed that there was no consolidated documentation on the E-Verify process in Onboarding 2.0. Hopefully this blog saves you time and effort during your implementation.

In my opinion, setting up the configuration was the easiest part of this implementation. The process however, what it should look like after the setup is complete, how to test it and when to know that it is fully functional were the most difficult parts of this implementation. Now let’s get into it!

E-Verify is a system used by US employers to confirm the eligibility of a candidate to work in the United States whereas I-9 forms are used to verify the identity and employment authorization of individuals hired to work in the United States. Note: Before you implement E-Verify, please ensure that I-9 has been implemented in your system.

Must Do: In order to enroll your company in E-Verify through SuccessFactors, you will have to reach out to the SAP enrollment team via the enrollment email in KBA 2421435 to create an MOU. SAP will request for your company to fill out the sheet with the Locations/Legal entities that you will want to set up for E-verify. E-Verify account will not be activated in production until the MOU is signed. Note: SAP does not charge additional fees for this enrollment. It is advisable to include the Company’s legal team in the review of the MOU earlier on in the process in order to avoid any last-minute delays. Once the implementation is fully moved to production, all flyers provided by SAP must be placed in visible places such as on the bulletin boards, in the cafeteria etc.

Must Not Do: If your company is already enrolled in E-verify before the decision to fully migrate the process into SuccessFactors, avoid terminating the contract prematurely. I will suggest you give yourself time to work through any unforeseen glitches in production before initiating the termination process. You will be given 30 days post the termination date to close all existing cases in the non-SuccessFactors E-verify account but trust me when I tell you that these 30 days are as short as short can be and trying to get this revoked or extended is a very painful wait plus the Company is becoming legally non-compliant with each passing day.

Configuration

The configuration of E-Verify is for the most part centered around compliance settings and role-based permissions in Admin Center.

In the compliance settings you can define the following:

Client company ID – If your client already has an existing E-verify contract outside of SuccessFactors, the client company ID can be found on the top page of the existing MOU/Contract. This is typically 4 to 7 numerical characters. Note: In production, the “Client Company ID Number” on the MOU shared by SAP is what will be filled out here.

Legal Entity – This is the qualifying company configured in Employee central. This is the company code that was configured in manage data as part of the organizational structural set up during the Employee Central implementation. You can add more than one Legal entity/Company in the E-Verify set up if required.

Account type – This determines whether your configuration connects to the live E-Verify environment or not. The options in this dropdown are Production or Test. The Test option connects to SAP whereas the Production option connects to the Department of Homeland Security/Social Security Administration. Only select production account type when setting up in the SuccessFactors production environment.

Select E-Verify Enablement – The business rule section in compliance settings is used to define a specific population in the qualified legal entity that should have E-Verify triggered for them. There are currently states in the US who do not require E-Verify so you can opt to only select the state/location that this applies to in your rule. Note, that this does not prevent you from performing an adhoc/manual E-Verify through SuccessFactors for non-rule referenced states/locations in the E-Verify application process. I will be reviewing the process of performing adhoc/manual E-Verify in the course of this blog. The configuration of this rule is especially important If you will want to automatically trigger E-Verify for specific states as soon as section 2 of I-9 is completed by the responsible group member/HR. Note: Leaving the rule enablement section as blank will make E-Verify trigger for all US employees.

Corporate Representative Section – Use this section to define who can be able to perform E-Verify transaction after the I-9 process is completed in onboarding. Note: You can designate the same set of onboarding responsible group members with access to the onboarding dashboard to perform this task unless your customer/company will like this to be owned by a different set of people.

Role Based Permissions Requirement

Onboarding or Offboarding Admin Object Permissions

EverifyConfig
Trigger I-9 Flow

Manage Onboarding or Offboarding

Create E-Verify Case

Compliance Object Permissions

E-Verify Data
E-Verify Data.caseStatusDetails (E-Verify Case Status Details

Also ensure that the E-Verify job in provisioning is up and running.

Testing

SAP has a list of already defined dummy social security numbers and its corresponding E-verify statuses hardcoded for testing (refer to SAP knowledge-based articles 3300756 & 2875512). In the Test environment, you will have to liaise closely with SAP to have some of these statuses tested out since they will have to act as interim Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA) to publish the statuses in your system. For such scenarios, SAP typically performs follow up steps from their end in order to publish the status on the onboarding dashboard. Getting the matching status on the dashboard is what will let you know during testing whether your configuration is working as expected or not. In production, the information provided in the I-9 form is matched against what is available in the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration to ensure that what is in their system matches what has been provided to the employer on the I-9 form. Once this is confirmed, it will show up on the onboarding dashboard. You can build test scripts around these Social Security numbers and their corresponding statuses for business stakeholders to use for their testing.

Start your testing by creating a position and a corresponding requisition with the location or country that qualifies for E-verify. Take the candidate through the talent pipeline in Recruiting and initiate onboarding for the candidate. Navigate to the onboarding dashboard to complete the review steps (with the Social Security numbers provided by SAP in the above KBA) before triggering I-9 section 2. Note: E-Verify will only trigger after completion of section 2 of form I-9 by the responsible group member. The E-Verify process can be initiated for qualifying applicants through either the onboarding dashboard, the To-Do icon to the top right of your screen in the latest homepage or on the responsible group member’s homepage (as per the latest 2023 biannual release).

For candidates who do not fall within the location or legal entity selected in the above rule, there will be no E-Verify task triggered on the onboarding dashboard. With the “create E-Verify Case” permission granted, you can navigate to the search area near your profile picture and search for “Create E-verify Case” to initiate a manual E-Verify in SuccessFactors. This will launch an adhoc E-Verify process which gives you the flexibility to run the process for anyone who has completed their I-9 in SuccessFactors. Note: You cannot perform E-verify for candidates who did not complete their I-9 form in SuccessFactors onboarding.

E-verify Reporting

Reporting on E-verify is only currently available through Story reports so it is imperative to implement people analytics vis-à-vis the I9/E-verify implementation if not already done. Refer to SAP KBA #2960782 for how to download and import the “I9 E-verification Analysis” story report if your company has already implemented People Analytics. You can also reference or search for an employees completed E-verify data through “manage data”. The E-verify data unlike the I-9 form is unfortunately not stored in Document Center “manage documents” at the moment. This will definitely be a good to have future enhancement.

I-9 data correction

Do the following if you are unable to proceed with the E-verify process (after the completion of I-9 section 2 form) due to a wrong entry on the I-9 form. Ensure that the candidate has become active in Employee central. Proceed to “manage data”, select Trigger I-9 Flow, search by the affected employee’s ID and Trigger an I-9 correction based on the section that needs to be corrected. If the Trigger option selected was for section 1, then the employee will receive a tile on their homepage or in the To Do Icon to complete their I-9. If the Trigger option selected was for section 2, then the responsible group members will receive a tile on their homepage or on the To Do Icon to complete section 2 of the I-9 form.

Note: If the field to be corrected is greyed out, updating this field on their employee profile in Employee Central will also update the field automatically on the I9 form.