Tips & Tricks when Migrating to SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding

You need to migrate from Onboarding 1.0 before the announced end-of-maintenance on the H2 2025 release, and you want to do it smoothly, with the least disruption possible to business. This is a re-implementation, and as a low ROI project, you are thinking of how to contain cost while seizing the opportunity to file some sharp edges you may be experiencing with Onboarding 1.0. And you want to make sure you are covering all important pieces of this project puzzle.

Here are some tips and tricks from my experience in these types of projects, which I hope you find useful in planning your move.

Do a quick review of your onboarding program’s performance

Start with a strategic analysis: Is your onboarding program conducive to these commonly considered success metrics?

• Strong company culture induction 

  Effective onboarding programs forge the right values and actions which have a direct impact on employee success. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and onboarding is where new hires are first exposed to your company culture. New hires feel that they belong if they’ve had a strong company culture induction, and that will resonate in their performance.

• Increased retention

  It is well known that a cohesive, structured onboarding experience makes new hires feel fully equipped to add value in their new role and less likely to question if the organization is right for them. As a result, they are more likely to stay with the company for longer periods of time.

• Boosted productivity

  Liaison with the right people within the organization from an early start is key for new employees to be on track faster and become productive members sooner. Exposure to the right information and tools early on is also crucial to delivering results.

Moreover, are you leveraging the native integrations that SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding has with other modules, to make your program even stronger?

• Performance & Goals module for 30/60/90-day goals
• Learning for skills development

Keep the end goal in mind

The previous section title includes the word “quick”. While this is an opportunity to transform your company’s onboarding program and standardize processes according to the best industry practices, I’d recommend selecting a few, key innovations to introduce to your process. Once the migration project is complete, and those limited changes are strong and firm, you’ll be in a better position to design further enhancements. Opening too many windows of innovation during the migration can be counter-productive, impacting the project timeline, budget, and stakeholder satisfaction.

Perform an early fit-gap analysis. Don’t wait till the start of the migration project

Get insights into the differences between SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding 1.0 and the new SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding solution as soon as you can. Request a demo and get started on this analysis.

System architecture differences could impact your processes and the scope of your migration project. Here are some key examples of gains and losses presented when moving to the new Onboarding solution:

Gains

• Task assignment is managed through Role-Based Permissions, allowing for greater flexibility in selecting who should perform what tasks during the onboarding process.
  Think about it before replicating your current task assignment structure.
• Mobile capabilities! New employees can complete the data collection process through their mobile device’s responsive browser.
• Comprehensive, cross-module reports. Via Stories in People Analytics, you will be able to obtain much more detailed information and combine data from Onboarding with that of other modules.
• Permissions can be generated directly from the Role-Based Permissions tool. You will no longer need a specialist in Onboarding 1.0 permissions.
• Greater integration capabilities via a robust set of APIs.

Losses

• If you don’t use SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central as your core HRIS:
  – you will not be able to implement Crossboarding and Offboarding
  – you will need to implement a mini version of Employee Central called the Mini Master as part of the project scope, as the new Onboarding solution utilizes Employee Central data models
• If you trigger Crossboarding and/or Offboarding manually in Onboarding 1.0, you will not have that flexibility in the new Onboarding where those processes can only be triggered by a completed transaction in Employee Central. You will not be able to trigger processes when an internal movement or a termination workflow is started; these processes will only trigger when the workflow is approved.
• The new Document Center has certain drawbacks besides the great benefit of being shared with the rest of the SuccessFactors HCM There is a storage limit for the Document Center as a whole (capacity is shared with the other modules), and document search capabilities are not as robust as those in the Onboarding 1.0 Document Center.

Start getting internal buy-in on transformation and innovation

Having a walkthrough of the new solution months or weeks prior to embarking on the migration project will help you grasp transformation opportunities and allow you to think about and discuss innovation initiatives internally without the rush of the Explore phase end date during a project.

Assemble the right team

Don’t underestimate the size and caliber of the team needed including roles and bandwidth for tests.

You’ll need, among other:

• Business process owners, which, depending on your company structure, could be different for Onboarding, Crossboarding, and Offboarding processes. You’ll especially need those who are familiar with your day-to-day processes.
• HRIS analysts and/or system administrators who’ll be responsible for maintaining the system. These should ideally participate in the project from the very beginning, to leverage workshops and testing as learning opportunities. The new Onboarding solution enables a knowledgeable administrator to perform many more configuration activities, such as designing more complex and personalized onboarding workflows.
• Third-party vendor support for inbound and outbound integrations. Secure this support as soon as you know it is needed; things such as making APIs available can imply significant effort for some software vendors and could impact your timeline.

Review your reporting tool status

Check the road ahead if you need to implement SAP IAS/IPS, activate People Analytics, and learn to use Stories in People Analytics. The new Onboarding solution is only reportable via Stories reports.

Conclusion

Finally, I’d like to close with a recommendation:

• Start planning, and if possible, executing, this year.

A hoard of clients is looking to migrate in 2025. Avoid crawling up against the deadline and seeing your options severely affected!

There is a limited number of resources in the marketplace. Clients will be rushing to complete their migration before the announced end-of-maintenance on the H2 2025 release, which adds to the list of clients implementing the new Onboarding solution.