H1 2022 : SuccessFactors Employee Central Service Centre

08 Aug 2022

As organisations grow, reliably managing HR enquiries at scale becomes more pressing. That is where SAP’s Employee Central Service Centre solution for SuccessFactors comes into play. It allows HR to provide a single hub through which to provide support to colleagues and through which HR can track queries and activities to ensure they are dealt with in a timely and professional manner.

The solution is component-based, and as well as some general SuccessFactors infrastructure, it relies specifically on Employee Central and the SAP Cloud for Customer (C4C) system’s service functionality. As a result, the solution benefits from quarterly updates for Cloud for Customer and bi-annual SuccessFactors updates. In this post, I will look at how the updates to Cloud for Customer in Q1 and Q2 2022 and the Employee Central Service Centre specific updates to Employee Central come together for the 1H 2022 SuccessFactors update.

Keyboard Maestro: Mac Restriction

29 Jul 2022

I am fortunate enough to have a couple of Mac computers. An old Mac mini functions as an always on Mac carrying out tasks on demand and on a schedule, whereas my slightly newer Macbook Pro is the machine I use directly. But, I have Keyboard Maestro installed on both machines, and I needed to be able to determine which machine a macro was running on in some cases, as in some cases it should not run at all. This was particularly the case with scheduled macros. In this post I am going to share a couple of macros I am using for this.

Obsidian Menu Automation

28 Jul 2022

Better Touch Tool now includes (beta) support for the Elgato Stream Deck, and I’ve been investigating how I can make good use of this functionality. During my experimentation, I came across something rather curious about trying to work with my notes app of choice, Obsidian. Menu automation appeared to be a stumbling block - at least at first.

Drafts: Force Open Link on Mac

03 Jun 2022

Today’s post is a quick one about something I find quite useful when working in Drafts on my Mac. It relates to hyperlinks and the feature of Drafts known as link mode that allows you to make links clickable at the expense of making the content non-editable. I found it frustrating to keep switching back and forth to access a link, but with the help of a small Keyboard Maestro macro, I was able to speed this up.

Automation Documentation: Hooking Apple Shortcuts

01 Jun 2022

Earlier this week I wrote about how I was using Hook and Obsidian to support my documentation of automations. In this post I will aim to explain how I am using this set up to help me access documentation for my Apple Shortcuts automations.

Automation Documentation: Hooking Keyboard Maestro

31 May 2022

In my post yesterday, I described how I was using Obsidian and Hook to help me support my documentation of automations. Today, I am going to share something that helps me work with documenting Keyboard Maestro macros.

Automation Documentation: Hooking Automations with Obsidian

30 May 2022

For anyone who follows me on this blog or anywhere else, you are probably familiar with the fact that I enjoy automating things. Having my devices do things for me. This has numerous benefits including saving me time and effort in the future, reducing the opportunity for human error, teaching me new skills, etc. But the fact is, when you start building up a large toolbox of automations it can be hard to keep track of the details. Some automations lend themselves to inline documentation, but what if you want to do something more?

In this post I am going to describe some of my set up around documenting automations using two tools on the Mac - Hook and Obsidian.

The Badger 2040: Custom Badges

01 May 2022

This is the third and final post in my introductory series for the Pimoroni Badger 2040. So far, I have talked a little about getting things set up so you can easily work with and find out about the Badger 2040, and about the physical additions I have made to turn my Badger 2040 into a functional eInk badge. In this post I am going to cover the programmable side of this eInk badge, and what (simple) revisions I have made in order to turn this into a badge suitable for my own purposes.

The Badger 2040: Building a Physical Badge

30 Apr 2022

I recently wrote about getting set up for working with a Pimoroni Badger 2040, a small piece of hardware that functions as a programmable eInk badge. The basic unit is the electronics, but in order to make it a functional badge for my own purposes, I found there were a few additions required. In this second post in my introductory series of posts for the Badger 2040 I am going to briefly set out what other physical elements have been added.

The Badger 2040: Set Up

29 Apr 2022

As soon as I had attended my first external work event and been issued a cheap paper badge, I began wondering why conference organisers were not using digital badges using eInk technology. I figured it was probably because people would “accidentally” leave the conference with them and they would be more expensive than the cheap paper print out in a plastic wallet on a lanyard. But, within a few years, eInk badges began to appear, and I felt things were catching up. Roll on a few years and I began attending public and private business-related events where people were not issued badges. Again I wondered why people were not issued badges, beyond the occasional sticky label that leaves a not so delightful slightly sticky patch on your business attire?

It was around this time, almost a decade ago, I began dipping in and occasionally looking around for an eInk badge option of my own. I often saw ones available from Chinese marketplaces, but they were typically vaguely specified, only available in bulk and thus expensive for an individual to experiment with.

Then several weeks ago I spied something new that looked ideal. I purchased a Pimoroni Badger 2040.