SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

2512703 - Employee Central - Biographical Info HRIS Sync

Symptom

This article explains how HRIS Sync works for personInfo (Biographical Information) in EC.

Environment

SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central

Resolution

Hard-Coded Sync

The synchronization of personInfo data to EP works as such. Currently there is only 1 field in the the personInfo hris-element which has a hard-coded sync mapping -:

HRIS Element EC Fields
personInfo

date-of-birth

Custom Sync Mappings for personInfo

There are mappings you might wish to consider adding, to ensure certain data is synchronized to EP. The ones that are commonly added are -:

 EC personInfo Source Field ID EP (standard-element) Destination Field ID Example XML of what you can do Comments
person-id-external empId

<hris-mapping>
    <hris-field-ref refid="person-id-external"/>
    <standard-element-ref refid="empId"/>
</hris-mapping>

If you are overriding a hard-coded sync mapping, it is wise to ensure that you are still synchronizing the original source to another field. As per the example on the left -:

  • EC "company" field is sync'ed to EP "department"
  • EC "department" field is sync'ed to EP "custom10"

Please Note: This mapping should not be used if you use sm-mapping in candidate template for the same. More information can be found on KBA: 3033802

Which fields should I not map?

Really the only mappings you should not make here are as follows -:

EP (standard-element) Destination Field Example XML of what not to do Comments
userId

<hris-mapping >
    <hris-field-ref refid="person-id-external"/>
    <standard-element-ref refid="userId"/>
</hris-mapping>

You do not need to map person-id-external and userId - the system takes care of this automatically when creating New Hires, Rehires (into new employment), Concurrent Employments, Contingent Workers and Global Assignments. If you add this mapping to your configuration, all of the processes which involve creating users will be impacted and likely stop working

username

<hris-mapping >
   <hris-field-ref refid="person-id-external"/>
   <standard-element-ref refid="username"/>
</hris-mapping>

You do not need to map person-id-external and username - the system takes care of this automatically when creating New Hires, Rehires (into new employment), Concurrent Employments, Contingent Workers and Global Assignments. If you want to set a different Username Vs Person ID during hiring, please consider enabling the "userAccountInfo" element instead (which caters for this scenario)

username

<hris-mapping >
   <hris-field-ref refid="custom-stringX"/>
   <standard-element-ref refid="username"/>
</hris-mapping>

It is possible to add a custom sync-mapping to the Succession Data Model configuration, to synchronize a STRING value to the "username" field in Employee Profile, allowing an employees username to be changed via EC UI. This configuration works, but is not recommended nor supported by SAP.

Employee Central does not currently handle the scenario where the specified username already exists (which will end in an Application Error with a generic message). This is due "username" in EP being a unique value in the system. If a non-unique value is entered on the Employee Central side, it will not synchronize to EP (as the value is not unique) and the value in the field (on EC side) will revert to the original with an appication error.

Please find more information on this caveat in article 2328243 - HRIS Sync: Configuring a sync-mapping from an EC field to username (EP)

Best Practice Recommendations

Please plan any mappings from Biographical Information carefully. We recommend not to configure a mapping to "username" field as mentioned in the above table, as there is no support in the application to check for the values uniqueness. Therefore implementing such a mapping can lead to a lot of manual maintenance of the data.

More information can be found in the Employee Central Master implementation guide

See Also

  • 2172427 - HRIS Sync - Data Synchronization From EC to EP - Hard Coded Sync Mappings
  • 2505747 - HRIS Sync - HRIS Sync Job - Order in which Elements are Synchronized
  • 2507190 - HRIS Sync: Downstream Impacts

Keywords

personInfo, hris sync, ec sync, sync, synchronization, hris-mapping, hris-sync-mappings, hris sync, succession data model, xml, sdm, employee central, ec, sync, biographical information, FAQ , KBA , LOD-SF-EC-HRS , HRIS Sync , LOD-SF-EC-PER-BIO , Biographical Info - Config, Rules, RBP, UI , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central all versions ; SAP SuccessFactors HCM suite all versions