SAP SF Employee Central cheat sheet

Foundation Objects are MDF-based records flagged as foundation objects; they support date-effective records and a parent field, enabling hierarchies such as Department under Department.

Core foundation objects include FOCompany (legal entity), FOBusinessUnit, FODivision, FODepartment, FOLocation, FOJobCode, FOJobFamily, FOJobFunction, FOPayGrade, FOPayGroup, FOEventReason, FOWorkSchedule, and FOHolidayCalendar.

An employee's legal entity comes from the Company field in Job Information; the Company's country drives country-specific data model and payroll system selection.

Foundation object records cannot be deleted while referenced by employee data or other objects; the standard retirement pattern is to set an end date so the value stays valid for historical records.

Configure Object Definitions defines an MDF or foundation object, its fields, associations, and workflow; Manage Data is used to maintain the resulting records.

externalCode is the user-facing business key used in imports and integrations; internal ID is the technical key and is not stable across instances.

Association fields (Job Code to Job Family, Location to Company) enforce referential integrity and populate the valid-value picker on employee records.

Picklist Center maintains picklist values; country-specific picklist restriction means the same field can offer different valid values per country.

Generic Objects are the legacy framework; new custom objects should be built as MDF objects because they support field-level security, workflow, and associations.

EC data layers: Person (personal data) to Employment (start date, seniority, probation) to Job Information (organizational assignment) to Compensation Information (pay components).

Job Information fields include Company, Business Unit, Division, Department, Location, Job Code, Position, Pay Grade, Pay Group, Manager, Employee Class, Employment Type, FTE, Standard Weekly Hours, and Work Schedule.

Job Information and Compensation Information are effective-dated: each edit creates a new record starting on the effective date, and the prior record remains in history.

Event Reason is mandatory on job changes; its event type (Hire, Transfer, Termination, Data Change, Leave of Absence, Return to Work) drives workflow, notifications, and payroll or benefit triggers.

Original Start Date preserves the first hire date across rehires; Seniority Date can be set independently and drives accrual and service-based rules.

Compa-ratio = salary / range midpoint; range penetration = (salary minus range minimum) / (range maximum minus range minimum).

Compensation Information stores recurring and non-recurring pay components, each with amount, currency, frequency, pay date, and pay group.

When Position Management is enabled, Job Information requires a position; a filled position blocks a second incumbent unless over-hiring is permitted.

Termination sets an end date and an OK-to-rehire flag; concurrent employments require Multiple Employment and create separate Employment records under one person.

Time Off configuration chain: Time Account Type (accrual, booking, validity) to Time Account (one per employee) to Time Profile (groups account types for a country or population).

Accrual frequency options include annual, monthly, per pay period, and per hours worked; the accrual base can be FTE, seniority, or a custom calculation.

Work Schedules define working days and daily hours; Holiday Calendars define non-working dates; both are assigned through Job Information and determine how an absence consumes balance.

Each leave request is an Employee Time record; approval runs through workflow and approved hours are booked against the employee's Time Account.

Time Account balance = accrued + manual adjustments + carry-forward minus taken minus payout.

Negative balances are permitted only when the Time Account Type allows them; otherwise a booking that exceeds the balance is blocked at submission.

Period-end processing applies carry-forward, expiry, and payout rules at defined cut-off dates; the Recalculate Time Accounts job refreshes balances.

Time Valuation in Time Tracking converts recorded time into payable hours that feed the Time Sheet for payroll.

Business rule types include On Save, On Change, On View, Scheduled, Report, and Workflow; every rule is bound to a base object.

Rule actions: Set (assign field values), Raise Message (an error blocks the save, a warning lets the user continue), Trigger Workflow, and lookups into associated objects.

On Save rules run on every save of the object; On Change rules run only when the specified field changes; Scheduled rules run through a scheduled job.

Rules are created in Configure Business Rules and attached through an object's Rule field, business configuration, or a workflow trigger.

Workflow configuration is defined per object and sets steps, approvers, reminders, and escalation; job changes are triggered by the Event Reason selected.

RBP hierarchy: Permission Role (what) plus Permission Group (who) plus Target Population (which employees); a user's effective access is the union of all assigned roles.

MDF object permissions include Read, Create, Edit, Delete, Correct, and View History; Correct allows editing historical records, and without it only future-dated changes are saved.

Field-level security is configured in the role's MDF field overrides, optionally with field criteria evaluated against the record's own values.

Dynamic roles and dynamic groups derive membership from rules or job data and are commonly used to route workflow approvals.

Pay components carry frequency, currency, and pay group; each is mapped to a wage type in Employee Central Payroll or SAP ERP HCM.

Employee Central Payroll is a separate SAP system: employee and payroll data are replicated from Employee Central on a schedule and monitored in Payroll Control Center.

Integration Center builds inbound and outbound integrations with field mapping, filters, and scheduling; supported formats include CSV, OData, SOAP, and SFAPI.

Compound Employee API (SOAP) returns a full data-model snapshot per employee; OData APIs expose individual MDF objects for external read and write.

Import Employee Data uses CSV files and runs as a background job, producing a success file and an error file; full purge and delta modes are available.

Report Center report types include Ad Hoc, Canvas, Table, Story, and List View; Ad Hoc reports can query MDF objects but have limited join depth.

Advanced Reporting (Online Report Designer) queries the Operational Data Store, which is refreshed periodically rather than in real time.

Instance Synchronization moves configuration objects between instances; it does not move employee data.