During the HR2013 Conference in Las Vegas this year, I was honored to be the moderator of a panel “SAPexperts LIVE! Panel Discussion: Recent Enhancements to Employee Self-Service/Manager Self-Service”. You can also check out the video posted on Youtube video here.

During the session, there were several key themes resonating, but one of which was the new program from SAP called HR Renewal.

HR Renewal

HR Renewal is a program started a few years back from SAP that was meant to refresh the user experience for HR. It’s now also being extended to include ESS and MSS start screens, with shipments scheduled later in 2013.  The basic idea was to refresh the user experience for the HR functionalities within XSS (think self service for HR Professionals), as well as ESS and MSS. This is a response to some of SAP’s competitors (e.g. Workday) and the overall direction needed from SAP to provide functionality outside of the SAP GUI.

Some other useful blogs on the subject include those from Jarret Pazahanick (SCN | Twitter)  in SCN:

New SAP HCM Functionality – HR Renewal 1.0 – Initial primer (dated June 1, 2012)

SAP New HR Renewal Functionality and Roadmap – Additional information (dated Oct 10, 2012) from Jarret on HR Renewal.

SAP HCM Enhancement Package 6 and HR Renewal – Overview (from Dec 19, 2012)  of a key points of an HR Renewal Podcast

Jarret also did a nice podcast not too long ago with the folks from Insider Learning Network. You can listen to that here.

For those of you who have a license to SAPExperts, you can read here about the HR Renewal program from Jean-Bernard Rolland, Vice President, HR Solutions, SAP.  (SAPExperts Login Required)

The standard SAP Documentation is here for HR renewal 1.0 Support Package (SP) 10, which is also referred to as “HR renewal 1.0 Feature Pack 3”.

For additional information on the HR Renewal, you can check out the SAP Note 1701634 (HR renewal 1.0: Release Information Note). (SAP Marketplace Login Required). You’ll also want to check out SAP Note 1691232 (Installing SAP HR renewal 1.0 on ERP 6.0 EHP6). (SAP Marketplace Login Required).

If you are on Twitter, you can follow the Solution Owner, Robert Moeller. His handle is @Robert_SAP. In fact, he sat down with the SAP HCM Insights Podcast team to record a session which you can listen to here.

Below is the latest Product availability matrix from SAP, where you can clearly see:

• HR Renewal is the successor to the MSS Add-On 1.0
• SAP enhancement package 6 for SAP ERP 6.0 is a prerequisite
• No current successor products/releases for this at this time

HR Desktop

For those companies not on ECC 6.0 Enhancement Package 6, or for those looking for alternatives to SAP’s HR Renewal functionality, Worklogix’s HR Desktop offers another compelling UI for SAP HCM. The HR Desktop offers a full suite HCM visualization, including quick access to employee information and organizational data. HR Desktop forms an important backbone for Worklogix’s eForms (HCM Processes & Forms). For more information about the HR Desktop, click here, or you can contact me directly.

 

Mobile Desktop

In addition to this, the HR Desktop has a mobile framework for customers. The mobile framework – call the Mobile Desktop – offers customers with a cost-attractive solution to manage HR processes end-to-end from a mobile device.

Regardless of technology choice above (or other options), it is clear that SAP customers are gaining more options on how to deploy their applications, and moreover – how to deploy applications using a user interface that will provide a consumer-grade experience to the end user.

Usability predicts user adoption. In today’s world, this is necessity and not a luxury.

Until next time,

Jeremy