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SuccessFactors - The great, good, and not bad
Updated September 15, 2022

SuccessFactors - The great, good, and not bad

Matthew McEachern, CHRL | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Employee Central
  • Time & Attendance Management
  • Recruiting
  • Onboarding
  • Learning
  • Succession & Development
  • Performance & Goals
  • Compensation

Overall Satisfaction with SAP SuccessFactors

SuccessFactors is our core/central hr data feed to a number of downstream systems - including SAP payroll, Concur, and Active Directory to name a few. From an end user perspective, SF enables the user to have access and interact with their own information + for managers to be able to understand and approve data changes seamlessly, without paper, via mobile or desktop has been critical to moving away from obsolete processes. SF additionally is significantly superior to the traditional sap on prem solution - greater flexibility, configurability, better end user + admin experience, and offers a complete employee lifecycle management tool. From a business case perspective, it enables critical workforce analytics, scalable processes to manage 10k+ users across Canada and USA, as well as provides the capability to centralize and decentralize processes and functions based on our company needs.
  • End user experience. Clean, slick, responsive UI
  • High degree of supported UI config - very little or no code solutions.
  • Strong support of open API to support third party integrations.
  • Sometimes products are rolled out too fast - resulting in critical missing config options (ONB 2.0 as a great example). These missing configs can be highly dysfunctional until they are resolved - to avoid this, I recommend not using any product that hasn’t been established and fully supported for at least 2 years.
  • Performance and recruitment are still using a legacy XML supported format - which is fine end user functionality wise, but can be complex to support from an admin perspective - certain areas of these modules require partner support if you want to make upgrades or changes.
  • SF does a tremendous job at bell and whistle functionality - I often find most companies are not able to leverage more than 50-75% of the offerings though. There are however core functions or areas for improvement that are significantly less shiny but are much needed in various modules.
  • Improved end user experience - from the basic employee to the system admin. The automated workflows, paperless processes, and mobile support has been critical to keep momentum going at various times of year.
  • Reporting and data. With a structured and unified HRIS that contains a full end to end lifecycle of employees- it is significantly easier to understand and analyze the data as well as consolidating and comparing from different aspects as they all sit on the same data model
Strong support of open API has enabled the SF platform to integrate quite nicely with both sap and not sap products. The system is capable of supporting a large number of integrations through either standard or custom middleware - providing significant flexibly to customers to tailor their architectural landscape based on preference or requirements.
Certain modules this is critical for - on-boarding as an example - the government and tax forms are very burdensome to try and maintain manually. Within the system, these forms are provided either annually or as legislative requirements occur. This ensures that candidates are always completing the correct paperwork. Within EC this comes into play with field level requirements, picklists, and other areas that require the system to be compliant - something that can be difficult to always watch out for.
SF was chosen for the significant ecosystem of supported products within the greater sap realm. From payroll (whether on prem or cloud) to concur, fieldglass, all the modules within SF itself, to all the bolt on and other options available to maximize the value from the SF installation. SF is updated twice a year which enables the system to receiving critical updates consistently but not in a way that can overwhelm the supporting team. The other advantage is the mobile app - this is often overlooked, but is critical to use for both the deskless workforce and executives.

Do you think SAP SuccessFactors delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with SAP SuccessFactors's feature set?

Yes

Did SAP SuccessFactors live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of SAP SuccessFactors go as expected?

No

Would you buy SAP SuccessFactors again?

Yes

Organizations that have desk based or mobile supported workforces are great for SF - as a lot of the functions and ideas are based on medium to high degree of user interaction and engagement. The wheels come off a bit for highly unionized / deskless populations that do not engage with or use the system. The value of the analytics and a lot of the “higher” level functionality within the SF suite goes underused or not at all for large swaths of the population. This can be overcome in part through upload tools - but that becomes a manual exercise to collect and import data, some of which might not be feasible to administratively support.

SAP SuccessFactors Feature Ratings

8.8
Employee demographic data
10
Employment history
8
Job profiles and administration
8
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.
9
Organizational charting
9
Organization and location management
9
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)
Not Rated
Not Rated
Pay calculation
Not Rated
Support for external payroll vendors
Not Rated
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment
Not Rated
Benefit plan administration
Not Rated
Direct deposit files
Not Rated
Salary revision and increment management
Not Rated
Reimbursement management
Not Rated
7.3
Approval workflow
8
Balance details
7
Annual carry-forward and encashment
7
8.7
View and generate pay and benefit information
Not Rated
Update personal information
9
View job history
9
View company policy documentation
8
Employee recognition
Not Rated
Asset Management ()
Not Rated
8.0
Report builder
8
Pre-built reports
8
Ability to combine HR data with external data
8
Integration with other HR capabilities ()
Not Rated
8.5
Performance plans
9
Performance improvement plans
9
Review status tracking
8
Review reminders
8
Multiple review frequency
Not Rated
8.0
Create succession plans/pools
8
Candidate ranking
8
Candidate search
8
Candidate development
8
6.0
New hire portal
6
Manager tracking tools
6
8.0
Corporate goal setting
8
Individual goal setting
8
Line-of sight-visibility
8
Performance tracking
8
8.0
Job Requisition Management
8
Company Website Posting
8
Publish to Social Media
7
Job Search Site Posting
7
Duplicate Candidate Prevention
9
Applicant Tracking
9
Notifications and Alerts
8

Using SAP SuccessFactors

HR - operations admins all the way system admins
managers - approvals and various interaction
payroll support
IT support - functional, Technical, and operational end user support
Anyone can learn how to manage SF. Given the very little code to no code solutions, it really comes down to being technically savvy and able to learn. SF provides a ton of free training options and all the config and knowledge articles required. There are some areas that are slightly more technical, but the path that SF seems to be, they have been slowly pushed out in replacement for no code type solutions.
  • End user experience
  • Downstream systems that require a robust platform to feed data
  • System scalability and effectiveness
  • Using the PM module to support a variety of other programs - like internal form capture that require end user sign offs
  • More end user self serve - moving away from HR led admin to manager initiated with HR support
We have put a vast amount of time and effort into our installation- and there is more work to be done, but the system has a lot of benefits that we plan to maximize and optimize in order to generate the greatest value for everyone involved.