2086708 - Manage Document Visibility - Hiding Documents in Enroute & from Completed Folders in Performance Management

Symptom

This KB article reviews hiding and removing copies of forms from inbox. It also explains:

How to delete a copy of a form from someone
Hiding a document from just one person
Removing a copy of a form, sent using the Send Copy feature
Removing a form from the old manager/wrong manager
Deleting forms from a completed folder

Environment

SAP SuccessFactors Performance Management

Resolution

Document Visibility

This feature is different from the Delete Document feature in that this removes visibility only to a specific person copy (others retain their copy), whereas the Delete Document option will delete the document from everyone in the system (no-one retains a copy).
You now have the option to hide forms from individual employees without deleting the form from the system. You might want to do this if employee relationships changed during a review event and by the end of the review cycle, some employees no longer needed access to the form.
You cannot remove visibility of a document from a user if the document is currently in that user's inbox. This feature only works with documents that are En Route or Completed for a user. If the document form has never reached the user's inbox, the user will not receive a copy of the completed form by default.
To hide the form from those employees only, first make sure you have administrative permission to do so. To grant permission, go to Admin Tools > Manage Security > Administrative Privileges and select the Manage Document Visibility checkbox. In RBP, go to Admin Center > Manage Permission Roles > Select Role > Permission > Manage Documents > Manage Document Visibility. Then to hide a form, go to Admin Center > Manage Document Visibility and select the form you want to remove visibility to either by searching for it by users, by the Document ID or by CSV Upload.
This feature works with performance review forms, 360 Multi-rater forms and Compensation forms.

Removing/Hiding Large Numbers of Forms from Users

Use the remove visibility function for all forms you need to hide and remove from users. Even should you have many forms (up to 500 forms) it is still fastest for you to have an administrator perform this task. Refer to KBA 2324202 for mass removal of document visibility.
If you have a critical issue and needed to hide all the forms from large numbers of users you could consider hiding the Performance Tab from the users via Admin Tools Performance Management Access. You can quickly disable performance access to large groups quickly until you resolve the underlying issue.

The following information provides deeper insight into the specifications the feature is built to support. This functionality as described can change, so please refer to release notes for enhancements and changes.

General

The system shall support this enhancement in both v10 and ULTRA versions of the application.
The system shall introduce this enhancement as an opt-in feature (i.e. customers have to take action to enable this feature for reasons of backwards compatibility).
The system shall support a new permission called "Manage Document Visibility" as admin permission found under:

Admin Center > Manage Forms by User > Manage Document Visibility

The system shall default the new permission to be unselected for backwards compatibility.
The system shall support this feature with documents of PM, 360, and BPA form template types (e.g sf-pmreview, sf-360, sf-process).
The system shall only support this feature only for active (i.e. not deleted) documents.
The system shall support all warning/confirmation/results messages, field labels and instructions in multiple languages based on the logged in user's locale selection.

Remove Visibility

The system will support two options for removing document visibility:

Remove by User (default)
Remove by Document ID
Remove by CSV Upload - Refer to KBA 2324202

For Remove by User the system will provide two fields:

User with Visibility
Subject of Document

Both fields will support auto text and an advanced find feature.
When the admin enters both fields the system will list all documents the user in the first field has visibility to where the subject of the document is the user in the second field.
The admin will be able to select one/some/all of the documents and remove visibility.
For remove by document ID the system shall require a valid document ID to be entered into the document ID field.
The system shall define a valid document ID as a non-deleted document.
The system shall only support numeric values in the document ID field.
The system shall provide the following warning messages when the user clicks "Remove Visibility":

Invalid document ID is entered - "Document with Id "<document_id>" is not found".
No value in Document ID field - "Please enter a value in the Document Id field."
No value in User field - "Please enter a value in the User field."

The user shall be able to use the "Find User" feature to search and select a user to enter into the User field.
The system shall provide the auto population drop-down in the User field when the user types in that field.
The system shall support username values in the User field.
The system shall remove any entry in the User field that is not a valid username.
The system shall provide the following confirmation message when the user clicks "Remove Visibility": "Are you sure you want to remove document visibility for <Full Name of User field> from document: <Document Name + Subject Full Name>?"
The user shall be able to confirm or cancel the request from the confirmation dialog.
The system shall provide the following result messages after the user confirms the request:

Normal - Document visibility to <Document Name + Subject Full Name> has been removed from <Full Name of User field>.
Exception - <Full Name of User field> did not have visibility to document: <Document Name + Subject Full Name>.
Exception - Document: <Document Name + Subject Full Name> is currently with <Full Name of User field>. Visibility cannot be removed.
Exception - Document with Id "<document_id>" is not a supported document type for visibility management.

The system shall treat the document as deleted if there is only one user with visibility to the document and that user's visibility is removed (i.e. what happens when no one has visibility to a document? That's the same as deleting a document).
The user shall be able to remove visibility from any user to a document (i.e. doesn't matter if the user is the EM, the subject of the form, etc.).
The user shall no longer have access to the document once their visibility is removed.
The system shall support this feature only with documents that are En Route or Completed for a user (i.e. you can't remove visibility of a document from a user if the document is currently in that user's inbox).
The system shall have the following behavior when remove visibility is used on a 360 document:

If the User field contains a user that is not a participant (e.g. only in the modification stage, or got the 360 through send copy), then they should no longer see that 360, the summary view, or the Detailed 360 Report.
If the User field contains a user that is a participant in the 360, their visibility to the 360 should be removed (i.e. no access to the 360, Summary View, Detailed 360 Report) but their feedback should continue to be part of the 360.

Restore Visibility

The system shall require a valid document ID to be entered into the document ID field.
The system shall define a valid document ID as a non-deleted document.
The system shall only support numeric values in the document ID field.
The system shall provide the following warning messages when the user clicks "List Removed Users":

Invalid document ID is entered - "Document with Id "<document_id>" is not found".
No value in Document ID field - "Please enter a value in the Document Id field."

The system shall display the following items when the user clicks on "List Removed Users":

A table of checkboxes, usernames, and full names for users that had visibility removed from a document.
A submit button called "Restore Visibility"

The system shall maintain the entry in the Document ID field (e.g. so the user knows which document they are seeing the list of users for).
The system shall default the checkboxes to be unselected.
The user shall be able to select one or many checkboxes and click "Restore Visibility" to restore document visibility to those selected users.
The system shall provide the following warning message when no checkboxes are selected and the user clicks "Restore Visibility": "No users were selected."
The system shall provide the following confirmation message when the user clicks "Restore Visibility": "Are you sure you want to restore visibility of document: <Document Name + Subject Full Name> to <Full Name of selected users separated by commas>?"
The user shall be able to confirm or cancel the request from the confirmation dialog.
The system shall provide the following result messages after the user confirms the request:

Normal - Document visibility to <Document Name + Subject Full Name> has been restored to < Full Name of selected users separated by commas>.
Exception - An error has occurred: <List error condition description>.

Note: currently it is not possible to mass restore the document visibility by CSV file as in Remove Document Visibility.

Audit Entry

The system shall insert an entry into the document audit trail for visibility management actions (e.g. restore/remove).
The system shall enter the full name of the admin user performing the visibility management action in the "Employee" column of the audit trail.
The system shall log "Hide" or "Restore" in the Action column of the Audit Trail for managing document visibility.
The system shall support the value in the Action column as a link that opens up the version of the document at the time of the action.
The system shall log the following comments for the different document visibility changes in the Comments column of the Audit Trail:

Remove - "Document visibility removed from <Full Name of user>."
Restore - "Document visibility restored to <Full Name of user>."

The system shall log the status of the action in the Status column of the Audit Trail (are there statuses other than "Completed" that can go in there?).
The system shall log the date the action was taken in the "Act By" column of the Audit Trail.

Assumptions & Dependencies

When visibility to a document is removed from all users, that's the same a deleting the document. The document will need to be restored.
Restoring a deleted document will only restore visibility of that document to the set of users that had visibility to the document when it was deleted.

Constraints & Limitations

The feature requires the document ID to be entered. There is not document search on this page.

Performance & Security

The system shall perform the required actions to manage document visibility in sub-second times based on a T-1 connection speed.
The system shall perform the actions in "real-time" (i.e. no scheduling of action, no email later to the admin telling them the action was completed).

Use Cases

Remove/Restore Document Visibility

An admin has the task of removing visibility of a document from a user. This user used to be a manager but has since been demoted in their position. Documents they used to have access to they should no longer see. The admin logs into the system and finds a list of the documents this user should not have access to. The admin enters these document IDs and the username of the employee into the "remove visibility" section of the Manage Document Visibility page and removes access for these documents from the user. The employee now no longer has access to see these documents.

The counter scenario could be that visibility to a document was incorrectly removed from a user. To restore visibility the admin logs into the system and enters the document id and gets a list of all users that have lost visibility to this document. The admin selects the employee that should have access to the document and restores their visibility. The employee now can once again see the document.

Remove Document Visibility from the Last User

An admin logs into the system and removes document visibility from users for a specific document. At some point, there is only one user left who has visibility to this document. The admin removes visibility of this document from this last employee. In essence, the document has been deleted from the system because no one has access to this document. The system treats this document as deleted for the sake of status and reporting.

Manage Document Visibility & Delete/Restore Document

A document has 5 users who have visibility to it. An admin removes visibility to the document from 2 of those users. Then the admin deletes the document. Later, the document is restored. When the document is restored, only 3 users have visibility to the document. The 2 users that had visibility removed still cannot see this document. The admin has to restore document visibility to these 2 users in order for them to see the document. Restoring a deleted document will not restore visibility of that document to all users.

A User in an Iterative Step or Collaborative Step

A document is in an iterative step (I step) in a route map. The users involved in this I step are the E and the EM. The document has been with the EM and is currently with the E. An admin logs into the system and removes document visibility from the EM. The document no longer appears in the EM's En-Route folder. The E then routes the document to the EM in the I step. The document once again appears for the EM in their Inbox and will continue to show up for the EM in the En-Route folder.

Keywords

sf, success factors, PMGM, PM, manage document visibility, hide forms, bulk, remove document visibility, PMT-1452, PLT-10379, CMP-5348 , KBA , LOD-SF-PM-ADM , Admin Center, RBP, Permissions and Settings , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals all versions