SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

2081998 - Employee Referral - Recruiting Management

Symptom

  • How does Employee Referral works?
  • Can we change the text/message that appears on Refer Friend to a Job? And, can we add a hyperlink to the message in Refer Friend to a Job?
  • Frequently Asked Questions

"Image/data in this KBA is from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental."

Environment

SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Management

Reproducing the Issue

Cause

Resolution

Employees will have the ability to refer friends to the general candidate pool or to a specific job requisition ad hoc. Customers may choose to have referrals owned for a duration of time or on a job requisition by job requisition basis.

Once a referral has been made, the employee can visit the Referral Tracking page to keep track of where their referrals are in the application pipeline as well as track potential payout amounts, according to the configuration. Recruiters and other recruiting users will be able to differentiate the employee referral candidates from other candidates via visual indicators (Person Icon). The referral information is reportable and can be exported via Ad Hoc reporting.

To have this feature on your instance, the pre-requisites are the following:

  • This feature is for V12 customers only.
  • For Job Referral Amounts, Technical Services Team is required to create a field to your Job Requisition Template.
  • Partner Engagement is required for Provisioning settings:
    • Provisioning: Company Settings > Enable Employee Referral Program

Quick Facts and Known Limitations:

  • There is no way to delay the sending of e-mail.
  • Any Referrer e-mail set for the 'Invite to Apply' status will not send.
  • The feature is set for the entire instance so it’s not possible to set which Requisitions will be eligible for referral and which are not. It is possible to configure one Job Requisition Template with the pay feature (Referral Amount) and not the other (in case you are using multiple templates).
  • Currently this feature only goes one way, having the Internal (Employee) referring an external candidate to a Job or adding the External candidate in their Tracking Page. The referral program always starts with the referrer.
  • There is no way to update the referrer's name.

THE BELOW ACTIONS MUST BE PERFORMED BY THE PARTNER OR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES:

To configure this feature in an instance, please follow the below instructions:

  1. Setup Job Requisition Employee Referral Amount Field

    In case the ERP field needs to be configured, Partner engagement is required to have the field created in Job Requisitions.
    Following has to be added to the job requisition templates:
    <field-definition id="erpAmount" type="currency" required="false" custom="false">
    <field-label><![CDATA[ERP Amount]]></field-label>
    <field-description><![CDATA[Employee Referral Bonus Amount]]></field-description>
    </field-definition>

    Note: since erpAmount is a currency field type, please verify, if "currency" field definition is defined correctly in the job requisition template.
    Please also remember to permission the field accordingly.
  1. Set up Employee Referral Program to Admin Users

    Upon enabling Employee Referral (In Provisioning), a new Recruiting Administrative Permission will appear.
    Requisites: Grant permission to Employee Referral Program Setup.

    RBP: Admin Center > Manage Security > Manage Permission Roles > Permissions.
    Requisites: Grant permission to Administrator Permissions > Manage Recruiting > Employee Referral Program Setup.
  1. Set Referral Ownership Rules in Admin Center

    PLEASE NOTE: REFERRAL OWNERSHIP RULES MUST BE SET BEFORE EMPLOYEE REFERRAL WILL WORK.
    Once a user is granted permission to the Employee Referral Setup Page, the Referral Ownership rules and Employee Referral Program Information can be set up on this page.

    To configure: 
    Admin Center > Managing Recruiting > Set up Employee Referral Program.

    Requisites:
  • Ownership Options
    1. Ownership by Requisition for Employee Referral Program:
    • If this ownership setting is selected, the ownership of the employee referral is applicable only to the job which the referee is being referred to and only the jobs they are referred to.
    • This ownership setting allows a single referee to be referred to multiple jobs by more than one employee. This setting also means that referees who are referred to the general candidate pool and are not associated to a job requisition are not owned by any employee.
    1. Ownership by Duration for Employee Referral Program:
    • Employee shall maintain ownership over a referral for [N] days
    • If this ownership setting is selected, the ownership of the employee referrals is for the duration of time, 'N', which is set in the Employee Referral Settings in Admin Center. This means for the specified duration of time, the referee is owned by the employee who has submitted them on any job which the referee applies or is submitted to via various methods (see methods below). This selection also means that the referee can only be owned by one employee at a time during the duration of time. The referral ownership expires after X days (number of days configured in "Employee shall maintain ownership over a referral for X days" in Admin Center > Set up Employee Referral Program) from the day the referred candidate was submitted for the first time by the user for any Job Req, when the setting is "Ownership start date should use: Initial submission date" in Admin Center > Set up Employee Referral Program, and the candidate applies to the Job Req. In order to see the expiration date, an adHoc report can be run by selecting the columns "Expiration Date" and "Referred Candidate ID" from the table "Referrals linked on Candidate".
    1. Ownership by duration is granted by the following ways:
    • When ownership by duration is selected, a referee is owned by the employee who submitted them. A referee can be added to the job using the following methods:
      • Submitting a referee through the general candidate pool.
      • Submitting a referee to a specific job requisition.
      • Submitted to a job through the Employee Referral Program.
      • Forwarded to a job by a recruiting user.
      • Self-apply to a job via the external career site.
    • Ownership start date should use:
      • Initial submission date.
      • Most recent submission date.
  1. Employee Referral Program Setup - Information
    Add up to 300 characters that will populate at the top of the Referral Tracking page.

  clipboard_1377716786715.png

  1. Enable Employee Referral Email for Referrals

    The email templates which are sent to referrals need to be enabled in Admin Center. The customer has the ability to update the verbiage of the email but it is important that the URL tokens remain in the email templates. To do that, please do the following: Go to Admin Center > Recruiting E-Mail Triggers:

    Requisites:
    • Enable Employee Referral Program Candidate added to General pool notification.
    • Enable Employee Referral Program Candidate referred to a job requisition.
  1. Configure Referrer (employee) settings for Applicant Status Trail

    Referrer (employee) settings can be applied to all applicant statuses. The Referrer options are:
  • Visible to Referrer (employee) - whether the status is visible to the Referrer (employee).
  • Referrer (employee) Label - the label the Referrer (employee) will see when their Referral is in the corresponding status.
  • Referrer (employee) Next Step Text - the text the Referrer (employee) will see when their Referral is in the corresponding status.
  • Referrer (employee) Email - select an email template which will be automatically sent to the Referrer (employee) when their Referral is moved to the corresponding status.

** Please note: there is currently no way to delay the sending of emails.**

  • Configuration:
    Go to Admin Center > Managing Recruiting > Edit Applicant Status Configuration.
  • Requisites:
    • Find the applicant status set being used for Job Requisitions.
    • For all statuses, customer can update the Employee Referral Program Settings.
      • Visible to Referrer.
      • Referrer Label.
      • Referrer Next Step Text.
      • Referrer e-mail.

Please note: there is a known limitation where any Referrer e-mail which is set for the "Invite to Apply" status will not send.

When the instance is configured it will display:

  • Employee view on Careers tab: Jobs posted internally and externally have an employee referral icon next to the job title.
    These visual indicators allow employees to see which jobs are available via Employee Referral.

  career page referral icon.jpg

About the program:

  • Referral Tracking: Once referrals have been made, employees can track where their referrals are in the application process.

 referrer view.jpg

NOTE: Currently the Earning potential will display the total potential earnings per the candidate. If the user refers the same candidate to multiple job requisition the earning potential will only show the highest amount for the candidate being referred to the requisition.

Example: Candidate A is referred to Job Requistion 123 with the ERP amount $1000. Candidate A is then referred to Job Requisition 456 with the ERP amount $2000. The Earning Potential will display $2000.

   • Recruiter view: Visual Indicators and Employee Referral portlets allow Recruiting Users to easily identify the Employee Referral candidates.

 referral candidate list view.jpg

   • Reports: Report can be created on Employee Referrals and ERP Amounts (when Employee Referral Amount Field has been created).

List of FAQs:

Q: Does the system do a duplicate check to see if the candidate is already in the system and applied previously?

A: Yes, in case a user try to refer a person which already applied to a job, the following warning message will be displayed:  “The person you are trying to refer already exists on this job. Please refer this person to another job.”
In case this person has an account created but have not applied to the job which is being referred to, then the user will be able to refer without further problems.

Q: Can two people refer the same person to either the same or a different job?

A: This will depend on how the Ownership Options for Employee Referral program are setup.

  • Ownership Options:
    • Ownership by Requisition for Employee Referral Program:
      • If this ownership setting is selected, the ownership of the employee referrals are applicable only to the job which the referee is being referred to and only the jobs they are referred to.
      • This ownership setting allows a single referee to be referred to multiple jobs by more than one employee. This setting also means that referees who are referred to the general candidate pool and are not associated to a job requisition are not owned by any employee.
    • Ownership by Duration for Employee Referral Program:
      • Employee shall maintain ownership over a referral for N days (this is a sub configuration of selection #2)
      • If this ownership setting is selected, the ownership of the employee referrals is for the duration of time, 'N', which is set in the Employee Referral Settings in Admin Center. This means for the specified duration of time, the referee is owned by the employee who has submitted them on any jobs which the referee applies to or is submitted to via various methods(see methods below). This selections also means that the referee can only be owned by one employee at a time during the duration of time.

Ownership by duration is granted by the following ways:

  • Submitting a referee through the general candidate pool
  • Submitting a referee to a specific job requisition

When ownership by duration is selected, a referee is owned by the employee who has submitted them if they are added to a job during the duration of the ownership period if the referee is added to the job using the following methods:

  • Submitted to a job through the Employee Referral Program
  • Forwarded to a job by a recruiting user
  • Self-apply to a job via the external career site

Q: Can the title “Referral Tracking” from Careers be changed?

A: No. At this point, it’s not possible to have the title of the Referral Tracking modified.

Q: In Referral Tracking page, what does the button “Add a Referral now!” do?

A: Adding a referral using this part of the feature would send an e-mail for the referral to create a profile and search for jobs, being added to a Candidate Database and, depending on the ownership set, remain “owned” by the employee. This part of the feature cannot be disabled at this point.

Q: Can we change the text/message that appears on Refer Friend to a Job? And, can we add a hyperlink to the message in Refer Friend to a Job?

A: Yes, we can change the text/message that appears on Refer Friend to a Job, right above when you're adding the referee's information. We can do that by using the feature Manage Languages. To do such change, please follow the instructions described in this KBA: 2576546 - Working with Manage Language Feature - Platform. About adding a hyperlink on this specific case, it won't work, the HTML tag won't render and we cannot foresee how the system will behave since this is currently not supported. If you think this would be a good feature for SAP SuccessFactors Platform, please, submit your idea in our Influence page, where you can suggest new ideas and improvements to the SuccessFactors products. For requesting an enhancement, please, access the following link: Influence Page.

Q: Is it possible to create a rule to withdraw partial values from the employee earnings?

A: No. The Earning Potential for the employee that referred the candidate will be fixed as the total value set for that specific requisition, there is no way to work around that.

Q: Can the feature be restricted by role?

A: There is no way to restrict the tab for a specific group of users. It is however possible to restrict the ability to submit a referral for a specific group/pool of users with some additional configuration. See KBA 2535899 - How to restrict the Referral Tracking feature - Recruiting Management

Q: Is it possible to remove specific sections that appear under the Employee Referral tab eg Earning Potential?

A: This ability is currently not possible.

Q: Is it possible to add more custom fields in the referral account creation page?

A: This is currently not possible.

Q: Is it possible to hide the "Employee Referral Information" section from the Candidate Profile page (Recruiting user view)?

A: This is currently not possible. The section "Employee Referral Information" is shown as long as the Employee Referral Program is enabled.

Q: Is it possible to hide the resume field or make it non-mandatory when adding a referral?

A: It is possible to hide the resume field for employee referrals. Please refer to the KBA 2220504 - Make Resume mandatory/hidden in Employee Referral.

Note: As of 1H 2023 release, the Employee Referral Tracking page will only render a maximum of 500 entries in the UI.

Q: Employee Referral Send button is not working?

A: Be sure that basic fields in candidate profile like firstName, lastName, contactEmail, country and cellPhone are configured.

Q: When the Candidate profile is anonymized, it will reflect at the Employee Referral Information portlet?

A: You can expect the information to be displayed as: "Anonymized" or "*****" once the referral owner is anonymized.

See Also

2576546 - Working with Manage Language Feature - Platform

2090228 - How to submit enhancement requests for SAP SuccessFactors products

2535899 - How to restrict the Referral Tracking feature - Recruiting Management

2220504 - Make Resume mandatory/hidden in Employee Referral

Keywords

expiration, expire, date, amount, showing, refer, friend, job, employee, referral, information, candidate, profile, resume, program, employee referral tracking , KBA , LOD-SF-RCM-ADM , Admin Center, RBP, Permissions and Settings , LOD-SF-RCM-JOB , Job Postings & Requisitions , LOD-SF-RCM-APP , Applicants and Job Applications , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting all versions