SAP SuccessFactors Reviews

We use most of the modules for performance goals, recruitment, employed central succession planning, and salary review STI. We'll be using additional features going forward. We are customers of SAP and I'm head of HR tech and operations. 

The best feature is that the solution has an open architecture and provides an open platform so it can coexist with other systems. It allows for a different goal setting system, but still integrates well. SuccessFactors also integrates well at the backend with your core SAP which is also a benefit. My sense is that in the future the solution will evolve into a model similar to Salesforce where you have the core platform from SuccessFactors and plugins for everything else. 

The downside is that SAP resources are expensive and not very common from a tech stack point of view. Anything you want to change or any customization is expensive. Our user experience is not great and we're looking at building a privileged user experience layer on top of what exists.

I've been using this solution for four years. 

In terms of system stability, data integrity is good.

The solution is scalable. 

The technology is changing quickly and the solution requires support but it's not forthcoming. They say, "This is the product, now you figure out what to do with it." Every time we upgrade or implement something, we have to rely on our internal resources, even if we're willing to pay for support. AWS and Microsoft have advisory units that invest in employee-customer success but SF has nothing like that.

It's a good setup but with emerging solutions like Darwinbox, I think there might be challenges ahead because of the user experience and that will dominate things in the next few years. 

ROI depends on your business case. If you're coming from an SAP SCM or IBM implementation, then the return on investment is very low. You won't have a strong business case to move from platform A to platform B because transition costs are three to four times the license fee.

It's important to be clear about how you want to spend your money. No more than 60% should go to the licensing fee because there's a lot of additional work required to get a great user experience and have good infrastructure. You will need interfaces, integration with third-party tools, enhancements, and the like. I would also recommend building some in-house capabilities for platform administration and small modifications. Figure out how you'll interface with local platforms, payroll, time management, etc. They're going to decommission the on-premise version soon so explore their future plans. It may take a couple of years to complete implementation and you need to know where they'll be at that point. 

I would give a higher rating if the user experience was better but for now I rate this product eight out of 10. 

I use SAP SuccessFactors for recruitment and performance management. 

The tool is easy to use for performance management. We haven't experienced any issues with SAP SuccessFactors for performance management, which is great. However, since we're still learning to use it fully, we might not utilize all its available features yet.

One of the features of SAP SuccessFactors that we find most beneficial for managing our workforce is its document recording capability. It's essential because applicants can store all their documents in one place when applying for jobs. This facilitates easy monitoring of application statuses and tracking their progress. It is easy to search and find what you are looking for. 

We encountered challenges with the tool's integration with third-party applications and deployments. 

I have been working with the product since 2018. 

SAP SuccessFactors is stable. 

We don't get SAP support for the product. 

Neutral

The tool's deployment took a couple of weeks to complete. 

The solution's maintenance is handled by our partner. 

We don't utilize even half of the licenses because not everyone uses them. With SAP SuccessFactors, though, we're now conducting all our performance evaluations within the system, so I suppose we're making better use of those licenses. As for SAP for employee services and internal benefits processing, we do have licenses for those but don't utilize them.

From my perspective, SAP SuccessFactors has a lot of potential. Honestly, if fully utilized, it could be quite impactful. So, if we were to use it fully, I would rate it a seven or eight out of ten. I would enjoy using SAP SuccessFactors, especially considering our plans to transition everything from onboarding to offboarding onto the platform. 

We have a separate ATS, which is currently being integrated for managing external candidates. Internally, job posting is already integrated. We also use it for performance management, compensation benefits, feedback, and reporting. It's a one-stop shop including for our various vendors who provide support in terms of learning, our talent marketplace for internal mobility, etc. We are customers of SAP. 

The solution is very intuitive. Many of the things we need to do are easily accessible. There is support in the form of chatbots. Before we implemented SuccessFactor, it was very difficult for us to implement use of the feedback section. That has now become very intuitive, and usage has increased. The solution is stable and robust. 

Many organizations are very relationship-driven and we're lacking information regarding how to build a network; what you need at what stage of your career journey or employee journey.

We've been using this solution for three months. 

The solution is stable. 

The scalability is good. 

Customer support are reasonably responsive. 

We previously used PeopleSoft and the extra we get with SuccessFactor is access to support using chatbots. 

We are a large organization and implementation has been a massive project. All our resources went into it and it's been a very complex process. We're still having some teething issues that the team is working on. Not all the issues are connected to the solution but in the context of an organization operating in a highly regulated area, the financial industry, and in 60 countries, it's a complex organization. Any solution will be difficult to implement. We had external assistance for the implementation. 

I think this is a good product and rate it eight out of 10. 

Our organization uses SuccessFactors for employee management. We can look at the organization's structure to find vacancies that need to be filled and training records for courses that must be completed. The company's reporting structure is also fully available on SuccessFactors. All the reporters under me and their user credentials are available as a workflow in SuccessFactors. We have more than 1,800 employees in our region, so everybody uses SuccessFactors to view the organizational structure and complete mandatory training courses. 

The feature I like the most is the notification bar where we can see upcoming courses that the organization requires from time to time. It's easy to track any pending courses. I also like the search feature in SuccessFactors. We can search for newly available courses that are updated in the system for completion.

I find that the website sometimes has problems loading, but I'm unsure if it's an issue with SuccessFactors. After the login, there are some connection issues. We get some errors telling us that it cannot connect to the host.

I have been using SAP SuccessFactors for a year.

SuccessFactors is a stable product. When a new employee under me joins, I get an email notification from SuccessFactors. The push notifications, etc., work seamlessly. I don't have any complaints about stability. I never experienced any delays with any push notifications or important organizational structures.

I rate SAP support eight out of 10. I had to raise a ticket once because I was unable to complete a course on time. The "complete" button was invisible. The SAP SuccessFactors team had implemented a change. 

The company switched to SuccessFactors worldwide, so all the local branches adopted it.

From a user's perspective, setting up the account was easy. We received the credentials when I joined the organization. We only had to fill in the credentials and get started.

I rate SAP SuccessFactors nine out of 10.  I would recommend it. SuccessFactors does its job. We have a few important things that we need to do. One critical thing is completing the mandatory course. These courses cover essential IT changes and job skills. These courses need to be completed in a timely manner.

From a user perspective, everything is straightforward. After login, we can easily navigate to any of the pages we need. The organization structure, salary details, and training records are all available as drop-downs on the home page.

We first deployed the employee center: It's all the data related to the HR master data. We also embedded inside SuccessFactors all that is related to work permits because we have around seven countries in the Gulf area e.g. Oman, Qatar, and UAE. In terms of module, we care about the residency visa and labor card because it impacts the payment methods.

For our recruitment module, we also deployed this solution and we tried to consolidate the recruitment process across all our branches, because each branch has its own process. They can skip one step, but we defined it. We defined the rules in a unique way that caters to all our branches.

We also deployed the performance operator where we cleaned up all our job titles and assigned the correct competency in coordination with our HR directors. I did all of this inside the SuccessFactors system. Now, we are ready to go live once the top management decides to launch the performance operator. It can be the end of this year. If they're not yet ready for this system, the launch will be next year.

We also deployed the time management module for the leaves. It can be accrued or credited at the beginning of the year depending on each branch. We deployed this module to be able to track the vacation balance, sick leave balance, maternity leave, etc.

The last module we deployed is the talent and development module for setting the performance goal for each employee. We also defined the succession plan and development. We still need to identify our employees. We have 6,000 employees across all the geographies, but the platform is ready and configured.

This is only from the SuccessFactors side. From the payroll side, we deployed in UAE, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. IBM developed for us for Lebanon and Iraq because they are not standard. We also deployed it in India. These are the countries in our project scope.

From the HR side on which features were most valuable in this solution because I was responsible for the HR and payroll modules. During the payroll in Meta4, I used to write an outside API to read the result of the payroll and dump it to another software: the accounting software. There is a GL posting that hits from GL after each payroll.

Now, in SAP, which is connected to SuccessFactors, this interlinking and posting is automatic. I don't have to follow up with each branch on the rules and variables to do it. It's embedded. We defined it once and once the payroll cycle is finished, it hits the final module on the corresponding GL that we defined and mapped. This is the first feature I found valuable.

Another feature I found valuable was in the project module system because we also bought and utilized the project modules in SAP. It read from the HR side all the components that can constitute the cost of an employee. It means we used to calculate the dry cost manually based on some data that existed inside Meta4 and I used to prepare it for Meta4, but when we shifted to SAP, we required that all data should go out of SAP only, so no more Excel and other files.

We set up this solution to automatically calculate the dry cost based on the employee's salary, the cost of the employee's and his family's visas, the medical insurance, life insurance, etc. We calculate the dry cost by discipline and by employee category or job level so that the calculations reflect on the project module. When the employee fills in the timesheet, his hourly rate reflects immediately from this intermediate calculation.

These two features are automatic.

The process for long modules needs to be improved, because compared to how it's done with a competitor (Meta4), the competitor's process was simpler.

I am satisfied with SuccessFactors, at least 85% satisfied. As for additional features that could be included in the next release, I developed a portal for life insurance. I asked for the medical insurance, but they did it for me in the HCM side, from the payroll side. It would be nice to have it in SuccessFactors because some branches, countries, or companies may need this info in case they want to go up to the cost of the employee, and usually any insurance cost is part of your employee cost as well.

Another feature I was asking for which they asked me to develop outside as they can only extract the data for me, is the CV builder: the CV for mass builder, not the CV content because they have the data and I added two screens only. I asked to have a CV like the World Bank format which has a columnar way, but they weren't able to achieve it.

I don't know if it's because we didn't buy the business intelligence module, or because the reporting tool in SuccessFactors is cloud-based, it's always limited and you need to build your own sophisticated report layout outside.

I used it with IBM and we tested it in each branch, with all the HR users and payroll users, but effectively it was used from August 2021.

In the HR module, yes this solution is stable. It has been three months since we ran the payroll from SuccessFactors. We are not facing any software issues. We are facing issues with a change mind of our users in some branches, but not in all the branches.

For payroll in terms of stability, I built the payroll engine for the Gulf area so when you're the developer, you're able to help the end user and you keep on developing the solution the way they want it.

Now we deployed it the standard way and we just added some small configurations for the countries in scope, except for Iran and Lebanon.

We stuck to the standard as much as possible so if any new version comes, or if there's any new enhancement to the software, we won't need to change much during upgrades. To be frank, in Meta4, when I used to develop based on our end user requirements and when the service pack used to come with each upgrade, it took me multiple months to analyze what I've changed and what objects I've touched. Here, we apply around 85% on that, so I think we will not face this issue.

For the configurable countries like Lebanon and Iraq which we built from scratch, the system will not be scalable because any change will need to be done inside the development. I think IBM did it in a modular way, to only add the new changes, not to change everything from scratch.

Generally the IBM team's technical support was very friendly. Even after they left and went on to other projects, they still answered me in a friendly way. They are no longer on contract with us, but whenever I face any issues, they're still helping me. They are friendly. Now, if they want to take it up to SAP, it's very typical that we have to escalate by priority. It can be low, medium, etc., but similarly, we didn't face issues with their technical support.

I used Meta4. It taught me a major lesson. I liked the solution and I know now that the new version may be similar to SAP because they have the performance calibration which didn't exist before. I developed it with two guys and embedded in the solution, but now I understand that the feel and look changed. I think if the company didn't decide to go buy an ERP solution to have multiple modules, I would have suggested to upgrade to Meta4 if we want to keep the HR solution as the standard one. I liked it so much.

The initial setup of this solution is hybrid. I don't know if it's complex because I'm not a technical person to judge, but I can tell it's hybrid. We have a cloud solution which is SuccessFactors, and we have an on-premise payroll.

SAP has an integration module called HCI that IBM helped build between these two separate solutions, one being on cloud and one being on-premises.

We implemented it through IBM. I like the team. They are very professional, and I feel that they're number one, to be frank. I used to work with seven consultants on the HR module and their leader on the HR module, even the project manager, all of them are very lovely. We had to make changes many times, but they accepted it with a lovely attitude. They have a high level of professionalism. I don't know if it is just my luck, or if they are really up to this level.

I evaluated Meta4 and was able to use it for three years.

We also evaluated four software. One of them was Microsoft, but from day one, they didn't arrive and they didn't come to the demo, so it was out from day one during the vendor assessment session. We also compared Oracle, SAP, and Deltek.

We did a comparison matrix on the various requirements that we asked for from the three vendors and we evaluated those three and we compared the scores. Other modules were also compared in their scope like the project module, CRM, and finance. The highest marks went to SAP. We did the comparison mathematically.

I was in the blueprint phase since 2019, then during 2020, we did the implementation with IBM systems integrator. I was the lead on the HR modules but as functional lead, not as technical, because I played double roles. The role from my company's side is to give all the business requirements and do the testing with the IBM team. Being in the subleader role, I need to give them the requirements in their terminology because I didn't work before on SuccessFactors. I wasn't a user. I was learning while providing all the requirements, and testing.

During 2020 up to mid 2021, in August, we went live. Allow me to highlight that we went live for eight countries in scope for the Payroll HCM, and also went live for more than 12 countries in terms of SuccessFactors employee data. I am now supporting our company's HR users.

It's on cloud and I don't have access to the cloud to know which version. I need to go back to shared document. I don't have it in front of me. I think it was the most recent version because to be frank, even during the UAT (user acceptance testing), they stopped us for a couple of days to upgrade. I think they installed the latest version on cloud.

We have defined four or five roles as the users of this solution. The HR manager who has access to everything and all the modules. The recruiter who only has access to the recruitment module. In terms of the employee data, we defined four roles. We defined the time administrator role who's responsible for checking the leaves and following up with the leaves. The line manager is the one who approves the leave for his employee, not HR, because he is the one who knows his team more and we have people onsite for the engineering company.

We also created the HR officer role who can help in filling information related to the new hires, or the visas, or the CVs, but he doesn't have access to the salary data. Then, we created the HR admin, who can access the salary data on top of the previous role that I listed. The last role is the payroll manager who has access to a specific screen in SuccessFactors called One Time Payment, which usually hits the payroll in the other side. For this we planned it only for the top layer, or top role, which is the HR payroll manager. This is how we manage it.

Deployment and maintenance of this solution is handled by me and two colleagues. They help me with the data migration for all the countries and we distributed the countries for payroll testing. Our contract was eight countries in scope. I took four countries and they took four countries. For the recruitment module, performance appraisal, and succession plan, I was handling it in parallel to the follow-up on data migration and on the payroll configuration.

As for plans to increase usage of this solution in the future, it has only been three months from the time we went live. We are still focusing mainly on what is related to payroll, especially because we are approaching the end of this year and some branches have annual taxation e.g. India, Lebanon, and Egypt. We first need them to practice the payroll side very well, plus, they've still been committing some errors not because of the system, but because of their old ways. They're used to recalculating and deleting the result in the payroll archive. Now it's forbidden, so we are facing the issue mainly in Saudi Arabia and Iraq to change the end users' ways.

Some other branches, they are understanding. They are on track and they now ask for reports e.g. headcount reports. They are on track from month two. The next stage, maybe next year, my plan is to increase the level, particularly the HR user level to start to be responsible for their tasks, plus, to start to prepare for the performance appraisal, which mainly is not handled by the regular HR user. It will be handled just by HR managers and directors.

We need to prepare the KPIs with these HR directors. This will be the plan for next year because the top management asked for it.

Everything related to contract terms or money, it's our IT director who deals with it. My section is under IT corporate services. I'm aware from the communication that we have professional licenses for some, while for some, we have the regular licenses. I know this because they keep on asking me to reduce my HR users who have professional licenses, while other users will have a different license. In terms of licensing costs, I don't have that info.

I will tell anyone who needs to implement SuccessFactors that they first need to be familiar with the terminology used in SuccessFactors. Our company helped us by sending us to a training that served as our introduction to SuccessFactors before we started the implementation, so when we started the implementation, I was already familiar with the terminology used by IBM. People looking into implementing this solution should at least receive preliminary training.

Another advice I'd like to give is for them to really be ready for the blueprinting when preparing the solution document and the design document, because what happened to us was we went for five months during this phase parallel to the training so everything came in a rush e.g. information overload. I was the only one who attended the training for three months and in the end, I had to ask for help. That's why I asked for two people to help me because I cannot handle it all the time and I cannot attend two classes at the same time. This is my recommendation: to really have their team ready and to be familiar with all of the HR modules.

I am familiar with Meta4 and what I've been asked, so I am familiar with the business processes, but I only need the technical terminology and the screen names in the new software like SuccessFactors. I know what my company needs and I want to replicate it in SuccessFactors in case it was not clear, so let them be ready in terms of processes and be very detailed during the preparation of the solution documents.

You'll discover during the implementation, during the explore phase or the document preparation, that usually an implementer can only go by the book. He doesn't accept change, even when you are not sure about the explanation.

We worked with SAP India. SAP prepared the document for the solution while the implementer was IBM. Because the IBM team was very friendly, we were analyzing again that maybe we committed a mistake because there was a misunderstanding with SAP India and we want this requirement. They were open to revalidating the requirement. This is a very critical stage.

The last point which I faced in my country is that it's important to have mature HR users. What made this project hectic for me was that the HR users themselves weren't matured enough to do the testing themselves in their branches. You need to be present in each session. My recommendation for any other country or any other company is to have mature HR end users in case of multiple branches.

I'm rating this solution an eight. It's used worldwide and meets all our requirements.

The tool's most valuable feature is document generation. 

SAP SuccessFactors needs to improve the LMS and performance management. 

I have been using the product for ten years. 

I rate SAP SuccessFactors' stability an eight out of ten. 

I rate the tool's scalability a ten out of ten. My company has 250 users. 

Customer support does not provide answers to my questions at times. 

Neutral

I decided to use SAP SuccessFactors due to its UI, usability and smart features. 

I rate the product's installation a ten out of ten. It took six months to complete. We did the deployment according to the SAP activation process. We relied on 10 people to handle the deployment. 

I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten. 

You'll need to conduct a deep assessment before you implement it. I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We use the solution in our company since it provides SuccessFactors Employee Central. We also use SuccessFactors PMGM.

The most valuable features of the solution are GUI and OData API. Also, the solution's ability to display the organizational charts along with the photographs of the employees while also being able to display employee data and ID are some of its valuable features.

Language settings in the solution need to be improved.

I have been using SAP SuccessFactors for three years. Also, I am using the solution's latest version meant for enterprises and companies. My company is a customer of the solution.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

Previously, I was using Oracle. We use the solution in our company which is in Indonesia. However, the solution was decided at our head office, which is located in Hong Kong.

On a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the solution's initial setup an eight.

Presently, the solution is deployed on the cloud. The deployment process took over a span of three years. However, the initial setup process took only a few hours.

If the number of employees required for the deployment of the entire group is considered, then around 3000 employees were required to implement the solution. However, since I managed the implementation process in one country, only 170 employees were required to implement the solution.

I would say that it is more of a luxury product. The solution is on the expensive side but is definitely worth the money.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for talent management. We also use it for onboarding and for learning and development. 

We've seen great success with the learning management aspect of the solution. 

The learning management has been great.

We've found the application tracking useful.

Thanks to this solution, we don't have to have individual solutions from many vendors. It's a uniform user interface. We don't have to train them across individual applications. We just have to train them on SAP. 

The business processes are very strong and extremely customizable. The adoption of business process management ensures we don't need a vendor to help us with customization. 

We'd like to have an opportunity marketplace. They have something. However, it is too basic. They need to evolve it. We're not sure, based on the roadmap, if it will improve fast enough. 

We'd like more AI and machine learning to be added faster. 

The solution is quite expensive. 

We've been using the solution for five or six years at this point. 

The performance is good. It is mostly stable. However, due to the fact that it is a cloud, we might have connectivity issues that could affect the stability. Sometimes it takes time. That said, overall, it is good. 

The solution is highly scalable. For a large corporation like us, we are able to extend it easily. 

I'm not sure what was used beforehand. Likely it might have been a different SAP solution. 

The initial setup is not the easiest. I'd rate the ease of implementation a six or seven out of ten. It depends on the deployment. It might be easier if it is an SME that is deploying it. The more complex a company gets the more complex the setup. 

We had an internal team, an external team, ad a SuccessFactors team working on the setup. SAP does have a good team that can help. 

While I cannot speak to the exact cost, my understanding is that the solution is expensive. The contract is very transparent. 

We're customers and end-user. 

We are using the latest version of the solution. 

I'd recommend the solution. If a company's landscape is SAP-based, this is a great solution. If the landscape isn't heavily SAP, there are other solutions that may be more suitable. 

I would rate the solution eight out of ten.