Welcome to my first blog as the Solution Marketing Lead for SAP SuccessFactors Time Management. While I will not even attempt to be as eloquent and conversational as my predecessor Paul Meredith, nor as detailed and technical as my Product Management colleague Volker Ruof, I would like to be able to provide you with a quick overview of a few of the key innovations and product capabilities being delivered in this release.

The Time Management solution area continues to be an area of focus, innovation, and investment for SAP SuccessFactors. SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking was introduced a year ago (1H 2021) and has rapidly evolved into a feature rich, robust offering while we continually add on to global absence management and localization capabilities to Time off capabilities within SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central.

SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking will include enhancements such as –

The digital punch clock feature now becoming generally available in both the web and mobile versions and including new features such as:

Location capture via GPS while clocking in and out using mobile punch clocks. I In today’s working world with dispersed or remote employees or in specific industries or geographies, it is important to capture the physical location of an employee when recording time to ensure accuracy of calculations dependent on location. This feature comes with employee consent built into the process.

Figure 1: Location capture when clocking on or out

The digital punch clock now also includes usability enhancements like language and locale capability, and operational conveniences like proxy management features for managers and administrators.

Figure 2: Language and Locale capabilities

Managers and administrators can now track deviations from scheduled work time and get real-time information on their employee work patterns for taking appropriate actions:

• Time evaluation has been enhanced to provide the ability to detect late comers who clock in after their scheduled work start.
• Alerts can also be configured to be sent to administrators or managers when certain thresholds are reached.

Figure 3: Threshold alerts

We have also added more flexibility in recording allowances on a time sheet. Allowance payments to the employee is supported end-to-end with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll and SAP ERP HCM Payroll.

• Users may now record allowances of different types in different units of measurement besides duration – such as kilometers or miles for business travel, or say meal vouchers, etc.
• In addition, it is now possible to allocate allowances to alternate cost centers in the time sheet.

Figure 4: Allowance recording in different units

Enhancements to the time off capability in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central include, making the concurrent absences feature generally available in all countries.

• The feature has been validated for local concurrent absence regulations in countries such as UK, Netherlands, and Spain.
• The feature may be configured by customers to address similar requirements.

Figure 5: Concurrent absences

Another feature which is released for Early Adopters is country-specific for Germany to comply with the new electronic eHealth Communication (eAU) requirements to digitize the paper-based sick leave process along with integration to SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll and SAP ERP HCM Payroll.

Figure 6: eAU sick note process automation for Germany

In addition to product delivered localization features, localization configurations delivered through SAP Best Practices for SAP SuccessFactors Time Management for countries such as Croatia, Turkey, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, and UAE are currently in preview and may be adopted via the upgrade center. Please refer to the detailed Best Practices for Time blog by my colleague Neelesh Kamath for detailed information on best practices content being delivered in this release.

For our implementation consultants and the more technically inclined readers, please refer to the very detailed A-Z blog on how to configure and use these and other features for SAP SuccessFactors Time Management released in 1H 2022, in his own inimitable style, by my colleague Volker Ruof.

You can also view a short video starring Daniela Goerke, our Product Area Lead as she takes you through the highlights of the release.

You can get to a listing of all  the new enhancements in the release for SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking and SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Time Off in the What’s New Viewer.

For access to all release resources, visit the product release information page on the SAP SuccessFactors Community (registration required).

Until next TIME…