IAS for SAP SuccessFactors

If you are interested in implementing SAP SuccessFactors People Analytics Embedded Edition, you have surely come across the topic of IAS (Identity Authentication Service) which is a pre-requisite. There are also other components to be aware of, such as support for global assignment, concurrent employment, all users must have a unique email address and other good-to-knows. Once you are past these challenges - you are in for a big improvement and you will be able to answer important business questions that will make a big difference for your company. For some impressions on the business value of the new capabilities please refer to https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/sap-successfactors-people-analytics-embedded-edition-erik-ebert

Now, if you are all new to this topic and just want to get People Analytics Embedded Edition up and running quick, you have probably stumbled into the pre-requisite of IAS. If you focus on HR analytics, these topics are maybe not of much interest and you just want to get them out of the way as fast as possible. At GP Strategies we have been in the SAP Analytics Cloud program, People Analytics Embedded Edition Beta Program, Early Adopter Program and now in the productive support program. We have experience with IAS upgrade specifically for SAP SuccessFactors and how this can be done in both SSO (Single Sign On) enabled SuccessFactors instances as well as non-SSO enabled instances. A few of the considerations you have to make are:

• What type of single sign on mechanism for SuccessFactors and cloud solutions are you using today. If you are not using SAML2.0 then this will need to be updated.
• What type of welcome emails and forgot password emails are you using and are they translated. Introducing IAS means new place for "forgot password" and translation of these
• Are all users equipped with an email address and is this unique for all users.
• Are all users equipped with lastName as this is technically required (can be configured, but in standard it is system required). Typically not an issue, but I remember waaay back when some companies put the employee full name in firstName, and therefor lastName was empty. Crazy, but true story :)
• Due to certain limitations in IAS, there are special considerations to make if you are using SuccessFactors features Global Assignment, Concurrent Employment, Rehire on New Employment and Country Transfer with new employment (but same email). This can be accommodated but requires special handling in the IAS setup.
• Once IAS is up and running then there are some new maintenance and monitoring tasks for your application management team. This is because some employee data gets transferred into IAS via a small integration tool and the logs in this tool needs to be monitored for errors or warnings.

At GP Strategies we have developed an IAS Configuration Workbook, IAS Onboarding materials as well as training program and prepackaged analytic content for SAP SuccessFactors People Analytics Embedded Edition. If you need help in upgrading to IAS for SuccessFactors or enabling your analytics team to use People Analytics Embedded Edition or just want a chat about how to utilise the new reporting framework in SuccessFactors please reach out to me and we can help.

Thanks,

Erik Ebert, People Analytics Director, GP Strategies HCM Services

Erik Ebert, GP Strategies is an experienced SuccessFactors Solution Architect with 14 years experience in SuccessFactors and 25 years in IT professional services. GP Strategies is a longtime trusted partner of SAP and have more than 750 SuccessFactors engagements behind us and 150 live clients being supported. Contact us for expert guidance on any SAP SuccessFactors topic.

www.gpstrategies-sfpractice.com and www.gpstrategies.com/successfactors-services