SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central (EC) serves as the core HR system and the primary source of truth for employee data in the SuccessFactors ecosystem. To unlock the full potential of SuccessFactors as a comprehensive Human Capital Management (HCM) suite, integrating EC with other modules is crucial. This integration ensures seamless data flow, consistent HR processes, and an enhanced user experience across the organization.
This article explores the significance, methods, and best practices for integrating Employee Central with other SuccessFactors modules and external systems.
Employee Central acts as the system of record for master employee data such as personal information, job details, organizational structure, and employment history. However, to manage the full employee lifecycle—from recruitment, onboarding, performance, learning, compensation, to payroll—data must flow consistently and accurately between EC and other modules.
Integration ensures:
Recruiting Management captures candidate data during hiring processes. Once a candidate is hired, integration with EC ensures the candidate’s information is automatically transferred to Employee Central, creating the employee record without manual re-entry.
Onboarding module utilizes employee data from EC to customize onboarding tasks and documentation. The integration helps synchronize new hire data, ensuring a smooth transition from candidate to employee.
Performance & Goals module depends on accurate job and organizational data from EC to set relevant objectives, conduct appraisals, and track employee performance aligned with organizational structure.
The Learning module leverages employee roles, departments, and locations from EC to assign training programs tailored to individual development needs.
Integration ensures compensation planning uses up-to-date job, salary, and employee data from EC, facilitating accurate bonus, salary, and incentive calculations.
Succession planning relies on talent profiles and organizational data from EC to identify potential leaders and plan career development paths.
Payroll requires precise employee employment and time data. Integrating EC with payroll systems (either SuccessFactors Payroll or third-party payroll solutions) ensures salary calculations, tax deductions, and statutory reporting are accurate and compliant.
SAP provides pre-built integration packages known as SuccessFactors Integration Center or API connectors for common scenarios like EC to Payroll, Recruiting to EC, etc. These packages simplify implementation with pre-configured mappings and templates.
The Integration Center is a no-code/low-code tool within SuccessFactors that allows HR teams to create custom integration flows for data exchange between EC and other modules or external systems.
For customers using SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll, deep integration is available, ensuring real-time synchronization of payroll-relevant data such as pay components, benefits, and tax information.
For complex or large-scale integrations, SAP CPI provides middleware capabilities to connect SuccessFactors with other SAP or third-party applications securely and efficiently.
SuccessFactors exposes standard APIs (OData and SOAP-based SFAPI) that enable custom integrations, data extraction, and updates between EC and other systems.
Integrating Employee Central with other SuccessFactors modules is essential for building a unified, efficient, and compliant HCM system. Proper integration ensures that employee data flows seamlessly throughout the entire HR lifecycle—from recruitment and onboarding to performance, compensation, and payroll—enabling better decision-making and an improved employee experience.
Organizations leveraging SAP SuccessFactors should prioritize integration planning and leverage SAP’s integration tools and best practices to maximize their investment in the SuccessFactors suite.