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 Enhancements for SAP E-Recruiting 6.0 SP5 (Support Package 5)

SAP delivers the following enhancements for SAP E-Recruiting within the framework of Support Package 5.

Language Versions of Questions and Questionnaire Templates

You can use language versions within the subareas of Recruitment and Succession Planning to store texts from questionnaire templates and questions and their predefined responses in the languages that you have provided for SAP E-Recruiting. In this way, the legal requirements in multi-lingual countries are fulfilled. Until now, the language identifier of the texts stored in the database was automatically set to the relevant logon language. With the new development, you can now decide the language identifier with which the texts are stored in the database.

You edit the language versions on tab pages within the question or questionnaire maintenance. A tab page exists for each language that is stored in Customizing as an available language.

If you call the question or questionnaire maintenance, the system displays the tab page with the questions and questionnaire templates’ texts in the logon language of the user. If no tab page exists for the logon language, the system uses the first language that you stored in the table T77RCF_SELANGU using the IMG activity Determine Languages Available .

When the system searches for existing questions and questionnaire templates, it searches using the language that you store within the search application as a search criterion. You can perform a search only in one of the languages stored in the table T77RCF_SELANGU at any one time.

You create questions and questionnaire templates in various languages by storing the texts in the relevant languages on the tab pages. You can edit all texts independent of the status of the questionnaire template or the question.

Caution Caution

Ensure that you do not make any content changes as the questionnaire template may have already been used and if changes are made to the text, then the meaning of the response could also change.

End of the caution.

Note Note

The user interface is not a translation program. You must enter the information manually in all relevant languages.

End of the note.
Customizing

The meaning of the Determine Languages Available IMG activity has changed due to the new developments.

In this IMG activity, you enter the languages in which you want to create language versions of questionnaires and questions. For each of the languages you store here, the system provides a tab page in the question and questionnaire maintenance for entering texts. In search applications to search for questions, responses, or questionnaires, you can use the new search criterion Language to restrict the search to objects in a specific language.

After installing SP5, note the following:

Until now, questionnaire templates, questions, and responses were saved to the database with the language attribute corresponding to the relevant logon language. Now, when you save, the system uses the language that is relevant for the currently selected tab page.

This can result in the following problems for objects that were created before the Support Package was installed:

  • Example 1

    1. A user logged on to the system in the logon language English and created and saved a question. The question was saved to the database with the language attribute English.

    2. Another user then logged on to the system with the logon language German, opened the question, and saved it again without changing the text. The question is saved again, but this time with the language attribute German.

      Once you have installed the Support Package, the identical English text is visible on both the German tab page and the English tab page.

  • Example 2

    A user logged on to the system in a logon language that is not one of the permitted languages for SAP E-Recruiting. The user created and saved a questionnaire template. The questionnaire template was saved to the database with the language attribute of the logon language.

    Once you have installed the Support Package, the user can no longer find this questionnaire template on the user interface because the language in which the questionnaire template was created is not stored in the table of available languages.

More Information

For more information about questionnaire management, see SAP Library in the documentation for SAP E-Recruiting:

Activity Category: Confirmation

You can use activities in the new Confirmation activity category within the subareas Recruitment and Succession Planning to collect confirmations for a topic from several persons and manage them together. These persons can be, for example, members of a works council that must decide about hiring a candidate, or candidates from whom you can collect confirmations with confirmation activities. For example, you can use a confirmation activity to ask candidates to confirm their participation in an interview.

Until now, these processes could be depicted only with questionnaires. However, it was difficult for the processor to obtain an overview of all confirmations. With the confirmation activities, it is now possible to have an overview of all confirmations for a topic in one view.

Activities in the Confirmation activity category consist of a total confirmation that contains at least one individual confirmation . The total confirmation groups together a number of individual confirmations .

The system stores the data of the activities in the Confirmation infotype (5143), which is a new development in this Support Package.

Process Flow of a Confirmation Process (Example)

  1. The recruiter creates an activity of the Confirmation category.

  2. The recruiter stores basic data and a link to a reference activity. This describes the context in which the confirmation(s) was/were requested (for example, new hiring, invitation to interview).

  3. The recruiter assigns to the confirmation the persons from whom the recruiter wants to collect a confirmation result. The recruiter creates an individual confirmation in each case. From a technical point of view, the individual confirmations are also activities in the Confirmation category and therefore contain all elements that usually make up an activity.

  4. The recruiter requests the individual confirmations.

    Note Note

    The recruiter can also personally edit the individual confirmations without requesting them from the persons making the confirmation. To do this, the recruiter completes the confirmation results for the persons making the confirmations, for example, in a telephone interview with the person making the confirmation.

    End of the note.

  5. The system sends the individual confirmations via workflow to the persons making the confirmation.

  6. The persons making the confirmation find the individual confirmations that they are to edit in their dashboard.

    Note Note

    The dashboard is also a new development within the framework of this Support Package. For more information, see the “Dashboard” section of this document.

    End of the note.

  7. The person making the confirmation opens his or her individual confirmation and enters the confirmation result and a reason for decision, which explains the confirmation result in more detail.

  8. The recruiter can view the confirmation results of all individual confirmations in the total confirmation and thus derive and enter a confirmation result for the total confirmation. To supplement the data, the recruiter then enters a reason for decision that explains the total decision in more detail.

Note: The confirmation process (steps 5 to 8) is not part of SAP E-Recruiting 600 SP5. The process will be delivered in a future Support Package.

Customizing

With the new development, the content of the following IMG activities has also been enhanced:

  • Define Activity Types

    You can assign the new Confirmation activity category to the activity types.

  • Modify Fields in Interfaces

    You can use the Reference Activity Search to find reference activities that you assign to the activity. You can use the IMG activity to modify the fields that are provided in the search help.

    In the standard system, the search help contains a popup menu in which the user can restrict the search for activities to just one process. The default is the current process through which the confirmation activity was created. You can hide this popup menu globally and thus suppress this selection option. The user can then select activities of the current process only. To do this, store the setting for the page SAP/HRRCF_SEARCHHLP/F4REFACTIVITY.BSP specifying that the field SEARCHCRITERIAGROUPHEADER is to be hidden.

The following IMG activities are new in SAP E-Recruiting SP5 :

  • Define Reasons for Decision

    You use this IMG activity to create reasons for decision for the results of the confirmation activities.

  • Assign Reasons for Decision to Confirmation Activities

    You use this IMG activity to assign possible reasons for decision to the confirmation results of the confirmation activities.

After installing SP5, note the following:

The new development does not have any effect on the previous Customizing settings. If you want to use confirmation activities, you must perform the Customizing activities as described above.

More Information

For more information about the Confirmation activity category, see SAP Library in the documentation for SAP E-Recruiting :

Subarea of Recruitment:

Subarea of Succession Planning:

Authorization Concept for Activities

You can use the new authorization object P_RCF_ACT ( Activities in E-Recruiting ) to specify the authorizations for creating, changing, or deleting activities in the subareas Recruitment and Succession Planning . In this way, you can determine which users are allowed to edit what activities. On the user interface, users are provided with the activities only in the work modes for which they have the relevant authorizations.

  • In user interface elements for creating activities, users are provided only with the activities for which they have the authorization to create.

  • In overview lists of the activities, the system displays all activities that are assigned to a candidate. A user who does not have the authorization to edit cannot switch from the list to the detail view in which the activity is edited.

  • In overview lists, users cannot delete an activity if they do not have the authorization to delete.

    Note Note

    The authorization to display data overviews for activities is not controlled via the authorization object P_RCF_ACT, but rather via the authorization object P_RCF_VIEW.

    The data overviews for activities are a new development in Support Package 5. For more information about this, see the “Data Overviews for Activities” section in this document.

    End of the note.

With the authorization concept for activities you can achieve a better structuring of the workflows in Recruitment and Succession Planning . In this way, for example, you can make it such that persons are also included in processes who are allowed to execute only activity types that are uncritical for your processes.

The authorization object P_RCF_ACT contains the following authorization fields:

  • ACTVT ( Activity )

    Standard authorization field; Indicates how the user can access the activities (Create, Change, Delete)

  • RCF_A_PROC ( Process )

    Authorization field that specifies the process in SAP E-Recruiting for which the authorization check is performed

  • RCF_A_TYP ( Activity Type )

    Authorization object that specifies the activity type in SAP E-Recruiting for which the authorization check is performed

    You also use this authorization object to control what activities are available to a user in the new popup menu for creating activities. This is a new development in Support Package 5. For more information about this, see the “Simplified Creation of Activities” section in this document.

Customizing

The new development has an effect on the Create User Profiles IMG activity.

You use this IMG activity to manage the authorization profiles of the user roles for SAP E-Recruiting. If necessary, you enter the settings for the authorization object P_RCF_ACT for your customer-specific roles in SAP E-Recruiting.

After installing SP5, note the following:

Once Support Package 5 is installed, the new authorization object P_RCF_ACT is automatically part of the authorization profiles for all roles for SAP E-Recruiting . The authorizations for creating, changing, and deleting all activity types in all processes are automatically stored.

This has the following effects:

  • If you use the standard E-Recruiting roles, the authorizations do not change. If you want to change the authorizations, you can do this using the IMG activity Create User Profiles . For more information about changing the authorization profiles of the user roles, see the documentation for the IMG activity.

  • If you have defined your own roles, you must adjust their authorization profiles in each case, as they do not have the necessary authorizations. If you have not given the users the relevant authorizations, the system blocks access to the activities and interrupts processes – this results in the system outputting error messages.

    Note Note

    Activities can also be executed via external access (for example, access for external candidates to a questionnaire via an e-mail, or questionnaires in the application wizard) or via the workflow batch user. Even in these cases, the necessary authorizations must be stored.

    End of the note.
Special Features for Authorizations for Activities in the Ranking Category

When assigning authorizations for activities in the Ranking category, note the following:

If you want to rank the assignment of candidates to a requisition, application group, or succession plan, the user requires the corresponding authorization to be able to create the activity. To re-enter a ranking, the user requires authorization to both create and delete the activity, as the existing activity is deleted and a new one is created with the new ranking.

Caution Caution

If you change ranking activities from the Overview of Activities view, you need the authorization to change the activity. This behavior is different compared to the other methods of ranking. Therefore, for the ranking activities, we recommend you assign authorizations to create, change, and delete so that all eventualities are covered.

End of the caution.
More Information

For more information about authorizations, see SAP Library in the documentation for SAP E-Recruiting :

Simplified Creation of Activities

Once the Support Package is installed, then in addition to the previous procedure you can create activities for applicants or candidates more easily straight from applicant lists and candidate lists. You can use this new method in the subarea Recruitment and the subarea Succession Planning .

Until now, a sequence of individual steps was necessary to create activities.

You can also create activities via a popup menu. You can use this popup menu in candidate lists, in Talent Relationship Management, and in applicant lists. You can use the popup menu to select and create the activity that you want to create directly from the menu.

The activities that are available in the popup menu correspond to the activities for the relevant process templates. The system also takes into account the user’s authorizations to edit activities (see the “Authorization Concept for Activities” section in this document).

Note Note

If no process template is assigned, the menu contains all activities for which the user has authorization.

End of the note.

You can use the popup menu to create activities both for individual candidates and for multiple candidates simultaneously (mass processing).

Note Note

It is not possible to perform mass processing of applications as the applications can be assigned to various requisitions that can contain different process templates with different possible activities.

End of the note.
Customizing

The new development does not have any effect on the existing Customizing settings.

After installing SP5, note the following:

Once the Support Package is installed, you can create activities using the popup menu in addition to the methods used previously. To do this, you use the Create Activities pushbutton.

Until now, you could create and edit activities using the Activities pushbutton. This function is still available. However, the pushbutton was renamed in the Support Package from Activities to Create Activities .

Time Stamp of Activities

This new development is relevant for the subarea Recruitment and the subarea Succession Planning .

Once Support Package 5 is installed, the system saves a time stamp based on the UTC Reference Time(Universal Time Coordinated) for the relevant activity when creating and changing activities. The time stamp indicates when the last person who made changes edited the activity. The system saves the time stamp together with the other data for the activity in the relevant infotypes of the activity:

  • Manual Activities (Infotype 5135)

  • Correspondence (Infotype 5136)

  • Qualifying Event (Infotype 5137)

  • Invitation (Infotype 5138)

  • Status Change (Infotype 5139)

  • Data Transfer for New Employees (Infotype 5140) (only relevant for subarea of Recruitment)

  • Questionnaire (Infotype 5141)

  • Ranking (Infotype 5142)

  • Confirmation (Infotype 5143)

On the user interface, the time stamp is visible as follows:

  • On the Details tab page for an activity under the entry Changed On . The system also displays the last person who made changes ( Changed By ).

  • In the list of activities for an assignment, in the Changed On column

    Note Note

    In SAP E-Recruiting 6.0 SP5 , the system displays only the date information of the time stamp. Nevertheless, the system uses the full time stamp for internal calculations, such as sorting the activities.

    End of the note.

    By default, the activities are sorted as follows:

    • First, according to the order of the processes (activities that are assigned to the highest-ordered process are at the top of the list),

    • then according to the due date of the activities,

    • and finally according to the time stamp of the activities

You can use the time stamp as a sorting criterion and thus sort the activities in ascending or descending order according to the dates of change.

The system also uses time stamps in the list of assignments of candidates to a requisition, application group, or succession plan to display the last activity edited for each candidate. What activity is displayed in each case is determined according to the sorting order described above.

Customizing

The new development does not have any effect on the existing Customizing settings.

After installing SP5, note the following:

Before the Support Package was installed, the system did not save time stamps for activities. Therefore, no time stamps are displayed for entries that were created beforehand.

Data Overviews for Activities

This new development is relevant for the subarea Recruitment and the subarea Succession Planning .

Once the Support Package is installed, you can also display data overviews for activities from activity lists in the same way as data overviews for candidates, requisitions, and succession plans.

You can also display data overviews for reference activities that are assigned to activities in the Confirmation category.

The system uses the new Smart Form template HRRCF_DATA_SUMMARY_ACTIVITY to display the data overviews. The data overviews displayed contain the same information that the user can enter when creating the relevant activities.

Note Note

The information differs depending on the activity category to which the activity belongs.

End of the note.

The system uses the authorization object P_RCF_VIEW to control the user’s authorization to display data overviews. You can also use this authorization object to assign the authorization to display activity overviews.

The authorization to display activity overviews is stored automatically in the following roles by default:

  • Administrator

  • Recruiter, Restricted Recruiter

  • Succession Planner, Restricted Succession Planner

  • Decision Maker

  • Requester

Customizing

Within the new development, the IMG activity Assign Parameters to Parameter Types has been enhanced as follows:

You can use the new parameter SF_VIEW_ACT to store a customer-specific Smart Form template instead of the template HRRCF_DATA_SUMMARY_ACTIVITY delivered by SAP in the standard system.

After installing the Support Package, note the following:

If you use self-defined roles in addition to the E-Recruiting standard roles, you must set up the necessary authorizations in the relevant authorization profiles.

Dashboards

This new development is relevant for the subarea Recruitment only.

Once the Support Package is installed, the recruiter is provided with a dashboard that enables him or her to obtain an overview of the current Recruitment processes for which he or she is responsible. The dashboard also provides the recruiter with a central location where all urgent work items that are relevant for the recruiter are grouped together into worklists; the recruiter does not have to search for the work items in the user interfaces of SAP E-Recruiting. At the same time, the recruiter can execute the appropriate functions for the work items in the worklists.

SAP delivers a predefined dashboard with Support Package 5. You can customize it to suit your requirements.

The dashboard delivered contains the following predefined worklists:

  • My Applications

  • New Applications

  • New External Candidates

  • Expiring Publications

You can define your own dashboards and provide them to other user groups, such as managers, works councils. You use contexts to define the dashboards.

Structure of a Dashboard

Dashboards consist of a navigation tree and an area in which worklists are displayed.

The navigation tree is divided into application areas to which the worklists are assigned according to topic. The system displays in the tree how many work items are contained in each worklist.

The worklists consist of a list with the current work items and a number of pushbuttons that contain functions that are relevant for the work items of that particular worklist.

You configure the dashboard in Customizing for SAP E-Recruiting . For more information, see the ‘Customizing’ section. The user cannot influence the structure of the dashboard.

Worklists

There are two types of worklists:

  • Selection-based worklists

    These contain work items with values that the system reads using selection criteria from application tables.

  • Index-based worklists

    These contain work items with values that are based on indices. SAP E-Recruiting uses the Status Change workflow (ERCStatusChg) to set the indices for applications and new candidates. These are used to create the New Applications and New Candidates worklists. For more information about the Status Change workflow, see SAP Library in the documentation for SAP E-Recruiting : Workflow After Status Changes to E-Recruiting Objects .

    The user can process work items in index-based worklists. After processing, these work items are no longer visible in the worklist.

Customizing

Within the new development, the following new IMG activities for defining and setting up the dashboard are delivered:

  • Define Index Groups for Worklists

    You define the index groups for the application areas. You use index groups to group together indices in index tables.

  • Define Selection Profiles for Worklists

    You store the name of the selection profiles. You use the selection profiles to extract the data for your worklists from database tables and index tables.

  • Assign Values to Selection Profiles for Worklists

    You determine the data that is extracted using your selection profiles.

  • Define Output Profiles for Worklists

    You store the output profiles for your worklists. In doing so, you specify which data is displayed in the worklists.

  • Activate Links of Fields in Output Profiles to Objects

    You specify for fields in worklist columns whether the links as specified by SAP to objects are to be displayed in the form of links.

  • Define Function Profiles for Worklists

    You specify the functions that are provided in each case for a worklist.

  • Define Worklists

    You create the worklists and assign each worklist an application area, a selection profile, an output profile, and a function profile.

  • Specify Names of Application Areas in a Context

    You enter any different names for the application areas that group together dashboard worklists that share a common theme.

    You use the existing IMG activity Define Context to create the contexts.

  • Assign Worklists to Contexts

    You assign the worklists to be contained in the dashboard to the contexts.

You perform the IMG activity Identify Attachment Type as Resume to create the attachment type that is to contain the resume that a candidate can upload to his or her profile as an attachment. The recruiter can then call a candidate’s resume via a link in the New External Candidates worklist.

The documentation for the IMG activity Determine E-Recruiting Services was enhanced as follows:

The service HRRCF_DASHBOARD is linked by default with the recruiter’s start page via the dashboard application.

Authorization Object P_RCF_WL

You use the new authorization object P_RCF_WL ( Access to Worklists ) to control which worklists the recruiter can view in the dashboard. This authorization object is assigned to the authorization profile of the Recruiter role. Therefore, in the standard system, recruiters have access to all delivered worklists.

After installing the Support Package, note the following:

You must modify the authorizations for access to the worklists in the dashboard only for customer-defined roles that were not delivered in the standard system.

The new development does not have any effect on the existing Customizing settings.

More Information

For more information about dashboards, see SAP Library in the documentation for SAP E-Recruiting : Dashboard .

Search Applications

The following new developments are included in Support Package 5 and are relevant for the subarea Recruitment and the subarea Succession Planning .

  • List of assigned candidates for a requisition (application group) or a succession plan

    • The selection criteria that you can use to restrict the display in the list of assigned candidates for a requisition or succession plan or to display the candidate rankings are no longer stored on two different tab pages (Selection Criteria, Ranking Criteria); instead, they are grouped together in the Selection Criteria view. You use the Ranking Method selection list to specify the ranking criteria.

    • In the Questionnaire ranking method, you can now search for candidate-based questionnaires, in addition to requisition-based or succession plan-based questionnaires. To do this, you set the Add Candidate-Based Questionnaire indicator in the search application. The system displays requisition-based questionnaires and candidate-based questionnaires in the results list.

    • You can identify public search queries as reference search queries . These only apply in the context of a requisition (application group) or a succession plan. The members of the relevant support team can use these search queries to have the system rank the assigned candidates uniformly according to the search query criteria. You can use the selection list for ranking methods to select the reference search queries for ranking.

    • When searching for candidates, you can transfer the criteria that you stored in the requisition or succession plan to the search template automatically without having to enter the information again.

    • For the candidate ranking, you can use the requisition criteria or the succession plan criteria to rank the candidates automatically. The system determines the match between the criteria that are stored in the requisition, application group, or succession plan and the information stored by the candidates in the corresponding fields of their profiles. The system then sorts the candidates accordingly.

  • You can display the search criteria that led to a search result above the results list of the search.

  • The following development is relevant for the subarea Recruitment only.

  • You can personalize the display of the list of candidates that are assigned to a requisition or application group.

    You can change the order of the columns or hide columns that are not relevant for you.

Customizing

The following new IMG activities are delivered in the new development:

Enter Comparison Fields

In this IMG activity, you can modify the assignments of the comparison (match) fields stored in the standard system to enable requisition criteria or succession plan criteria to be compared automatically with those of the candidate profile for searches and automatic rankings in the context of a requisition, application group, or succession plan.

BAdI: Weighting of Search Results Hits

You use this BAdI HRRCF_SEARCH_RANKING to specify how the system groups together the hits from different searchs and assigns a weighting to them.

The BAdI provides the following methods for an implementation:

Methods of the BAdI HRRCF_SEARCH_RANKING

Method

Name

COMPUTE_RANKING

Group Together Hits from Two Searches

COMPUTE_RANKING_NON_TREX_HITS

Calculate Weighting of Hits from Non-TREX Search

SAP delivers the standard implementation HRRCF00_SEARCH_RANKING as active. For more information, see the documentation for the IMG activity.

After installing the Support Package, note the following:

The new development does not have any effect on the previous Customizing settings.

More Information

For more information, see SAP Library in the documentation for SAP E-Recruiting :

Subarea of Recruitment:

Subarea of Succession Planning: