Preparing for SuccessFactors Learning in 2020

The following post was originally posted to LinkedIn on 24 March 2020.

The first SuccessFactors release of 2020 is just around the corner, and with it will come the release of the new SuccessFactors Learning administrator user interface.

In case you have not yet thought about your preparations for the transition to the new interface, I would like to draw your attention to the SAP transition guide and FAQ, and provide the following suggestions which I hope that you will find useful in planning your activities.

General Recommendations

  • Have your key administrators prepare some organisation specific transition materials for other administrators as early as possible. This can be started on right now based on the details available in the transition document.
  • Do keep up to date on the discussion on the innovation alert for the administrator interface update (SAP ID required).
  • Do ensure that all your administrators get at least an hour or two, depending upon how much functionality they use, to familiarise themselves with the new user interface in the test system once the update is released.
  • Do have all Learning administrators read the transition guide as well as the transition FAQ, and the additional section information below will hopefully help administrators pick out the most relevant and useful information.
  • The administrator interface change was driven in large part by the deprecation of Adobe Flash. The updates to SuccessFactors Learning will not affect any existing Flash-based content you might provide. If you still have Flash-based content, you should investigate options to retire or replace such content well in advance of the end of life of Flash, at the end of this year.

Transition Guide Related Recommendations

1. Terminology Changes

Administrators should familiarise themselves with the terminology changes as soon as possible. There are quite a few changes that will impact the navigation too - ref. Section 4 of the transition guide.

Several of the terminology changes will be visible to end-users and not just administrators.

Most end-user changes are simply logical changes and more descriptive, but some are more fundamental terminology changes. For example, “Scheduled Offering” is becoming a “Class” (and “Classes” for administrators then become “Cohorts”) and “Catalog/Catalogue” is becoming “Library”. As a result, it is worth considering some sort of communication of the changes in terminology for end-users to your learner community.

2. Access, Navigation and General Guidelines

2A. Accessing SAP SuccessFactors Learning Administration

Your SuccessFactors administrator will need to ensure that all Learning administrators are assigned a new role-based permission to have access to the new HTML5-based admin user interface via a tile on the SuccessFactors home page. If you wish to delay access, you can mark the new tile as not used, but users with access to Admin Centre will be able to access the user interface from there.

There will also be a link on the Flash-based user interface home page, but this can be removed by editing the corresponding label.

The current Flash-based admin user interface will remain accessible initially via Admin Centre and favourites. Since there are a few features that will not be available in the H1 release, notably record configuration is expected to be in the H2 release (see section 10 of the transition guide), knowing how to access this version of the administrator user interface will be necessary for accessing those features.

2B. How to Customize the Administrator Learning Home Page Content

It will be worth considering in advance what, if any introductory message for administrators you wish to display.

3. New Administrator Navigation

All administrators should familiarise themselves with the new navigational layout and structure as described and shown in this section. Read it through before the preview system is updated and have it to hand when testing out the system in preview.

4. Menu Navigation Structure

The spreadsheet showing the menu navigation changes will be invaluable in helping existing administrators find their way around the new administrator user interface. We would recommend that each administrator goes through, highlights the areas they use most commonly, and keeps this to hand in the first few weeks of working with the new user interface.

5. The Workspace Area

The new layout for many, but not all, areas of functionality is quite different but shares a design consistency with other SuccessFactors modules.

5B. Entity Manager

While administrators should familiarise themselves with everything about the workspace area, in particular, awareness of the entity tabs overflow and drop down should be highlighted. It could appear to some administrators that functionality is missing for them, where it may only have moved into the overflow on the user’s screen.

6. Common Components Across All Entities

6E. Validation Error Indication and Error Messages

While all the details in this section are important for administrators to understand, access to details of any errors that occur via the error indicator pop-up is something all administrators should be aware of.

7. Noteworthy Layout Changes

This section contains a large quantity of information and screenshots, but this will probably prove most useful when reviewed alongside the new HTML5-based administrator user interface when released to the preview instance.

If you do happen to be using the PQE Exam Object, simply note that the old user interface will be required to specify the time and review options. These are not included in the new interface due to the deprecation of PQE later this year.

8. Preparation Checklist

This section is vital for preparations to be made by senior administrators in ensuring that the system is ready for the administrator user interface update. If there are a lot of updates that are highlighted as a result of this, do consider delegating the work out across the available Learning administrators, or setting up key colleagues temporarily as limited access administrators to help prepare the system.

9. Removed Functionality

Once again, administrators should familiarise themselves with this section and take action to mitigate or roll alternatives into existing processes, for any functionality upon which the organisation depends that is to be deprecated. Some deprecations have alternative ways of being accessed or applied within the system. Some, however, do not.

An important note in this section too, for administrators who utilise screen readers, is that the new user interface is screen reader-friendly, unlike the flash-based administrator user interface for which an accessible alternative mode had to be enabled.


I hope you find these recommendations useful in streamlining your preparations and good luck with the transition.

Author: Stephen Millard
Tags: | successfactors | linkedin | zalaris |

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