SAP SuccessFactors Reviews

SAP SuccessFactors is used as its HR solution, to implement the SuccessFactors.

I implemented SuccessFactors' LMS and provided support and enhancements to Employee Central, Time Management, Recruitment, Performance Management, Goal Management, Reporting, and Analytics.

SAP SuccessFactors, in my opinion, is the best cloud-based HR solution tool for any size business.

Considering the entire suite, Learning is on the verge of many upgrades, but it still needs to be upgraded to such a scale that it almost feels tightly integrated with SuccessFactors because Learning is on Plateau, and SuccessFactors acquired Plateau, and later SuccessFactors was acquired by SAP. Learning is still based on another Plateau platform. Much more progress is required in the Learning space.

Everything, including the provisioning dependency, should be moved to the instance, and coding should be kept to a minimum. Wherever possible, coding should be minimized, and everything should be a drag-and-drop.

UX and UI are already user-friendly, but there are some aspects that require some HTML or XML knowledge. It's not for everyone.

I have been working with SAP SuccessFactors for three and a half years.

SAP SuccessFactors is a stable solution.

SAP SuccessFactors is a scalable product.

Our entire HR solution is built on SAP SuccessFactors.

We are implementation partners. Not only is it implemented in our company, but it is also implemented for others.

I would rate technical support a four out of five.

NTT Data is a partner for SAP.

Every module in SAP SuccessFactors is complex in its own way. LMS and Time Management, in particular, require extensive configuration knowledge, experience, and hands-on experience. Only certified consultants are encouraged to apply.

If you have a large customer base with thousands of records to deploy, it could take three, four, or four to five months.

Maintenance is determined by the scope of the project. If it is a large company with more than 50,000 employees, 50 plus countries, and multiple locals, then at least four to five consultants are required because configuration changes, support, maintenance, and everything else will be required, and some of the aspects in SuccessFactors require extensive experience, hands-on, and knowledge.

They rely on certified consultants, of which there are two levels of certification: associate and professional. It is best to have a professional certified consultant.

It is not expensive because it is a complete suite with a module-based cost.

I am not sure about the pricing, but I understand it's a popular solution for mid-size, small-size, and large-size businesses. I don't see pricing as a challenge. I would rate their pricing a four out of five.

Always refer to the SAP standard, help guide, and help portals. It is preferred to use certified consultants from the implementation partners because it is very difficult to rework and reimplement once it is implemented and all the integrations are in place. It is better to get it done clearly and sound the first time. It's good. 

I believe that more and more organizations will choose a cloud-based solution.

I would rate SAP SuccessFactors a ten out of ten.

We are using this solution for HR core processes, HR administration, time management, and performance management.

This is deployed on cloud. We are working directly with SAP, so SAP is the cloud provider.

We just started using the system, and we are still observing and learning about this application.

As of now, there are certain things that need to be added, but they are also upgrading and adding new features all the time. It's an excellent application, but there is room for improvement, especially regarding payroll information. The screens regarding payroll information for the employees could be improved because they don't look good at the moment.

SAP should also look into easily integrating with other applications or other tools. Technology has changed now, and it should be easier for any application to integrate with other apps. There needs to be more flexibility.

I have been using this solution for less than a year. We are using the latest version.

The solution is very much stable.

The solution is scalable. We have about 1,300 people using the solution.

The partners took care of the setup, so we haven't done many configurations on it. Only the partners are exclusively involved in the configuration and the development work.

We used an implementation partner for setup.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.

I would advise that if you are planning to implement Success Factors, you really have to get your business together so that you get the requirements right. Most struggle with getting the requirement correct before starting the implementation and development. I would also advise that you get your technical teams involved because if you implement a solution that isn't compatible with your hardware, infrastructure is going to be a big problem.

Some of these things are not always straightforward to understand. There are hidden factors that you need to look into. If you have any plans for integration, you really have to get SAP involved on what you want to integrate otherwise you'll have problems later after the implementation. Unfortunately, you only find out some of these things after the implementation, if you haven't done it enough.

We use SAP SuccessFactors for our performance management, goal setting, performance evaluation, and employee confirmation, e.g. employee letters. We also use it as an employee self-service tool for personal data updates, life cycle events, and learning management.

It's the performance management feature that I find most valuable in this product. As for the product itself, I like its flexibility and configurability. It can handle different types of performance management from one organization to another, and this is one of its best features.

What needs to be improved in this product is the user experience. In general, for SAP products including SuccessFactors, the user experience is not so great, particularly the whole user interface. A lot of new age products beat them on that.

While SAP products are great from functionality and feature standpoints, the whole user experience element is always lacking. That's one area SAP should focus on.

There are other areas where we have not liked SuccessFactors. For example, as a recruitment solution, it's not great for onboarding and exit. Two years ago, we decided to use a different product for recruitment, onboarding, and exit. We're no longer using SAP SuccessFactors for those activities.

I've been using this solution for 10 years.

This solution is extremely stable.

I found this solution absolutely scalable.

SAP has implementation partners, so the technical support is given by the implementation partner. We have not contacted SAP for support, but as far as SuccessFactors is concerned, any product level support and response is very good. It's very well-structured and well-governed. They have a knowledge-rich library that you could always go to. There's also some forums where you can go and ask questions and get answers to your problems. The ecosystem itself is quite strong, including their responses as far as support is concerned.

The decision on which solution to use happened between 2010 to 2011. When we made the decision, it was not with SAP. SuccessFactors was a different organization.

During that time, the reason for moving to SuccessFactors was because we were looking for a SaaS-based product in performance management and there was nothing better than SAP SuccessFactors then.

If I look at the last three, four, or five years, and why we have stayed with SuccessFactors and continued with it, it was because of global scalability. We are a global organization. When you are an India-based company and headquartered in India, the only options you have are Oracle and SuccessFactors.

Performance and talent are the main focus areas for us and even today, SuccessFactors is much better in performance management and talent modules than Oracle, so we've stayed on. The other reason for staying with this solution is change management. Why change unless something is significantly better?

I wasn't there during the setup, but I don't think the setup was complex because there were a few things we've implemented and implementation of those weren't complex.

We have a yearly license for this solution. Any additional costs we pay to the implementation partner, to the support partner, but not to SAP.

This solution is a SaaS. It is deployed on the cloud.

I might have gone to your site out of curiosity, but we already have SAP SuccessFactors. We are using SAP SuccessFactors.

We have 7,500 users for this solution in our organization. We don't need much staff for its maintenance. We are using SAP SuccessFactors extensively. As for plans for increasing its usage, we definitely want to if the business and our headcount grows: We will use it for more users. As of now, no plans of increasing usage of this solution.

My advice to anybody implementing this product is to first have a SaaS mindset. It's a SaaS product, so you can't have an on-premise mindset of "I'll give whatever requirements and the product should do it." Having a SaaS mindset is my first advice.

My second advice is to keep in mind that these products give recommended practices based on which the product is built. If you could tweak your processes to embrace the recommended practices by SuccessFactors, then your chances of becoming successful, or embracing the product is going to be much higher.

My third advice is to stay with SAP SuccessFactors and use all the modules together. For example, there are modules for recruitment or onboarding where you may have certain functionalities missing, but if you could keep as many HR processes on the same product integrated, then the employee experience is going to be much better, compared to trying to use SuccessFactors for a particular purpose, then another product for performance, another product for learning, etc. It's better if you could be on an integrated solution, so your user experience and your adoption at the end of the day will be much better.

I would give this product an eight out of ten rating.

I mainly use SuccessFactors as an onboarding solution, and we're also implementing it for compensation and benefits administration.

The most valuable feature is the onboarding module, which enables candidates to fill in their details online and smoothly transitions data from the recruitment module into the SAP database.

SuccessFactors could be improved by making it usable on mobile and making its features less rigid. Right now, if we make a customization and then SuccessFactors issues an upgrade, we get stuck because our customization doesn't come over from the previous version.

I've been using this solution since 2020.

It's stable.

SuccessFactors is scalable.

Accenture gives good technical support.

My company previously used Taleo.

The initial setup was very straightforward and hardly took any time - we were up within a few weeks.

We used Accenture as our implementation partner. Their performance was good, and they continue to maintain the system post-implementation.

We evaluated Oracle Fusion, PeopleSoft Fluid, and Darwinbox.

SuccessFactors is intuitive and easy to use. When implementing, go for all the modules instead of implementing a half-strategy, as this will be better for the company and the employees. I would rate this solution ten out of ten.

The self-service part is most valuable. Employees and managers can do a lot of things on their own, and they are not dependent on the HR organization. 

The data management part can be improved in terms of how you can manage data from the HR admin's or HR team's perspective. It has some limitations in the reporting part in terms of how you can update the data and fetch the data. SAP HCM comparatively has a lot of capabilities in terms of backup loads, data management, data changes, etc. You can do these things easily, which is not the case with SAP SuccessFactors. Data management should be simplified in SAP SuccessFactors in terms of accessing the data, reporting, and then manipulating the data.

I have been using this solution for almost three years.

I didn't find any issues from the data security perspective.

I didn't have any experience with them because we had an internal IT team that used to support us. They might have raised tickets with SAP. They sometimes used to say that they need to reach out to SAP to get clarity on some of these things, but for us, there was no interaction with the SAP support team.

I would definitely recommend it. SAP HCM support is ending in 2027. The organizations that are not yet on SAP SuccessFactors or are on SAP HCM need to figure out how soon they can move to SuccessFactors or other platforms. The support from SAP will end for SAP HCM, and currently, SuccessFactors seems to be a leading product.

I would rate SAP SuccessFactors an eight out of 10.

We primarily use the solution for the performance management system. Under the performance management system we monitor the target, the objective of the employee, and have the assessment on the employee as well as the final result in order to track employee performance.

The performance management system of SuccessFactors is very valuable. We can set the goals and then the business process flow.

We can have goals reviewed and approved and then we can submit them to the system. We can review things and get self-assessments. Managers can add comments.

We can track and measure our goals from mid-year reviews to progress. We can calculate excess money in relation to goals and can self-calibrate. Overall, it's excellent performance management. 

The deployment process is easy.

The business processes on offer are excellent.

The solution needs to offer more languages. Many in Indonesia, for example, are not so good at English. In this product, English is the default language. We need to translate it to our main languages, which is difficult. 

The pricing of SAP is quite high.

It would be good to have tutorials for employees. If we had something to distribute to them to help with a general understanding of the solution, it would be quite helpful.

I've been using the solution for around two years or so.

The stability of the solution is very good. I don't have any downtime and the solution offers very good availability. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's very reliable. 

The scalability of the solution is quite good. It can provide services to many companies and many business units.

In Indonesia, we have 250 employees that are on SuccessFactors. Globally we have about 4,000 users, however, I can't speak to how or if it is used elsewhere.

Currently, the solution is only for the supervisor, manager, and the head of business. However, we are considering expanding to more staff in the future.  

In Indonesia, we mostly deal with Hong Kong. There's a team member in Hong Kong that works closely with our SAP consultant. I'm not sure of how responsive the consultant is as I don't deal with them directly. However, our project manager is quite good and understands this product well. When there are issues, he usually can handle them.

While I only have experience with this solution, in the last company I worked for, we also use OrangeHRM.

The initial setup is easy, however, we need to explain to the employee about the process of the performance system due to the fact that, for the most part, they don't know how much is processed in their performance management system. We'll give direction and then it's easy for them to handle. We'll also follow up to make sure they understand and everything makes sense. 

It's my understanding that the licensing is paid on a yearly basis, however, I cannot speak to the cost. The project manager handles that aspect of the product.

It's my understanding that SAP as a solution is quite expensive.

I did evaluate other options. Typically, I look at local offerings. However, due to the fact that our company is multi-national, I've only really looked at SuccessFactors for this particular work. We don't really have the capacity to decide locally. 

We are using the latest version of the solution. 

I would recommend the solution to other users.

The main pain point, however, is the price. It may be why not all employees in Indonesia end up using it. However, the business processes are very good.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We're mostly quite satisfied with the solution and its capabilities. 

I use SAP SuccessFactors for workforce management, in order to gain visibility into the employees in my company. 

I'm working with the latest version currently and it is one of several similar products that I have used in the Middle East, including Oracle Cloud Fusion, Oracle EBS on-prem, and the regional software from Naya Tech (which has a good position in the Middle East, and which is fantastic, by the way).

The conceptual structure of Core HR enables us to build whatever we need when it comes to the data that we need to collect from our employees. Overall, SuccessFactors allows us to monitor the progress of our objectives throughout the year, and gives us good visibility into the performance of the company and the different departments.

First of all, I must mention that SuccessFactors has many modules. The main modules are the Core HR and Payroll modules. Payroll is based on the concept that you can create whatever you need in terms of fields, or the characteristics of a field. You can change field types and the names of every field. And with Core HR, the structure of the software allows us the flexibility to build whatever we need in terms of the data we need to collect from our employees.

The second part of this is the integration points between the Core HR module and all the task management areas. This integration is very good and it gives management full visibility regarding performance and performance management. It's built on financial scorecards, so managers can assign the objectives of the company and they can cascade these objectives down from companies to departments, and then to individuals. It lets you monitor the progress of objectives all the way until the end of the year.

I think it's perfect that every requirement has flexibility in how it is handled, and that there are several workarounds for any problem we are looking to solve. Each problem has multiple solutions, so it gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of processes.

Given these features, SuccessFactors is suitable for medium-sized companies as well as larger companies, assuming that the larger companies have simple enough enough processes in terms of workforce management. For very comprehensive processes, SuccessFactors might not be appropriate.

There is now also an overnight shift option. So it can work for blue collar workers, for manufacturing, or for any kind of industry that requires people to stay overnight till the second day. Users of SuccessFactors can manage all of this in terms of attendance or absence.

Beyond that, I think the recruitment features are good. In fact, more than good. And in the latest version there has been great improvements in the time management side of things. There is now a new module called Time Tracking, and this was something we sorely missed from the beginning of SuccessFactors. Now we can integrate SuccessFactors with a time attendance machine or biometric machine and I can assign clock-in and clock-out schedules to the GUI. Meanwhile, the databases that link to the biometric machine for time valuations connect with the data in the Payroll module. This is a great feature that has always been missing and now it's included.

To explain one feature that I would like to see in SuccessFactors, I must describe a similar feature as seen in Oracle. In Oracle, there's a feature called Workforce Prediction, and with this feature, we can predict some of the behaviors of any employee. For example, the software can attempt to predict whether the employee might resign in future, or perhaps if they will start to perform better. This is something that is missing in SuccessFactors.

Another thing that can be improved with SuccessFactors is that, although the reporting tool is not bad, there are often separate reports for different areas of the software. For management and other processes like onboarding, this is not ideal. For example, you may have separate technologies being used in the different modules, so the Payroll module may have a reporting system that is distinct from that used by the more basic modules.

What we are looking for is some way to unify the reporting tools with one technology because otherwise it gives us difficulties when we need to generate a more complete and encompassing report. How it works now is that if we need to get the report from the Payroll module, we must first ask someone with Payroll experience. And if we want to get data from the basic performance or recruitment modules, we must ask another person for that info.

I think that unifying the reporting features is the most important thing for us, which we hope to see in future versions. However, at least for standard processes, it does give us what we are looking for. We can work with cybernetics cloud integration, and that gives us very good insights. So it's not necessarily about making up a gap in the technology, it's more of a matter of being able to better handle who is responsible for what inside the organization.

I have been using SAP SuccessFactors for more than three years.

It is stable. 

It's scalable and very easy to do so.

My experience with the technical support has been good. There's something new with their support called Wizard Guide which is a type of knowledge base where you can search for a specific issue and it will give you some notes about it. If the notes aren't enough, you can then simply open an incident.

There are several tools for opening an incident. You can have a quick chat with a technical person directly, who you can exchange ideas with. This is usually for how-to questions.

Then, there's the ability to schedule meetings with the technical support. In a meeting, you can explain the problem you are facing, and they will either support you on the spot or you will have to open an additional incident ticket. For the new incident process, you need to classify which area of which module you're having a problem with and then wait for a response.

Within a maximum of three days, they will have an answer for you. If you need faster support, there's high priority support which is able to respond in one to two hours, but this isn't something we have used yet. High priority support is more for situations where a system cannot be reached at all, or where something has been greatly affected in the production system and you don't have any workarounds at hand.

They offer their support 24/7, answer very quickly, and they even call you to make sure that you are doing well. Sometimes, when you are enabling new features or facing issues, and you haven't even opened a ticket or anything, they will detect the issue and send an email to you directly to make sure you that you are coming along. For example, they'll tell you, "Please go to steps 1 to 3 to fix your issue." So they are very good and cooperative when it comes to technical support.

I have worked with Oracle before, but in Oracle OTL, Oracle Fusion, and Oracle Cloud, there's a lot missing in terms of time management. In SuccessFactors, it is much better, and even though there is still a way to go, they have already made some significant improvements in this area.

The initial setup can be easy or hard, depending on how you go about it. If you go with the best practices, then you hardly need any setup. You simply adopt the existing processes and this is very easy and straightforward.

If you go without the best practices, such as when the company asks for new processes that are not included, or if you have to do a complex setup right from the beginning, then it will take some effort. But overall, the setup is still very easy.

It all starts with the data model, and obviously this requires someone experienced in Excel, etc., but once it is up and running, you will have screens that can be managed through the SuccessFactors' system without using any XML process. This makes things much more flexible in terms of setup compared to before. For any new processes you'd like to add, you can go directly to the upgrade center and select whichever optional upgrades you want. Thus, enhancing the software is very easy and doesn't take much time.

If you go by best practices and do it right from the outset, the setup won't be a costly endeavor. In terms of setup, there is a lot of flexibility compared to three years ago.

For any new process or for something already added to the SuccessFactors or SAP library, you can just go directly to the upgrade center, see the optional upgrade, and select it. Once you upgrade it, you have your setup, and you can work right away.

They say nothing is perfect, but honestly, the SuccessFactors product is essentially perfect in my eyes. It fits all the requirements we have and solves every problem we encounter. Whenever there is a problem we need to overcome, we can easily find a similar solution and adapt it to our situation. It's rare finding software that gives you lots of solutions for any particular problem you are thinking about.

The only reason I would not rate SuccessFactors a perfect ten is because if you do find yourself missing some feature that is relevant for your organization, you will have to go develop it yourself.

I would rate SAP SuccessFactors a nine out of ten. 

It is a personnel administration tool. As a normal associate, I use it for performance dialogues and training management. I also use it for reporting on the LMS module. We are using the SaaS version of this solution.

It has a global database, and it is globally accessible. By using this solution, we have moved away from paper, which is a big step for us.

Its overall integration and user experience can be improved. SuccessFactors is a system that is built out of three different systems. The elements part was bought from Plateau, and the original performance dialogue was built by SuccessFactors itself. After that, SAP bought it, and it hasn't improved in the last few years. 

SuccessFactors is a perfect tool if you use it the way it is meant to be, but if you start building custom sessions and try to use it differently, then it is a total mess. It is not agile. It is like an old Mastodon truck or whatever. 

We don't have the Employee Central and Competence Management modules. Our company made the choice to not implement the Employee Central module. We also didn't implement the Competence Management module. We use the learning module to do some competence management, but I am not that fond of it. It would have been best to have the whole suite. SAP should never sell this without selling the whole suite because it just doesn't work. 

The biggest gain for me would be having the possibility of doing strategic personnel planning and managing internal mobility. If it could be used for social purposes, such as creating communities and connecting with media channels, that would be perfect. It should also have the possibilities for local admin and agile product development.

I have been using this solution for four years.

It is stable enough. It has around 98% stability. There are accessibility issues, but they could be because of any reason, such as our network.

If you count associates, we are a 450,000 associate company. About one-third of them are not active users. We have roughly 300,000 users in all kinds of roles, such as managers, FMs, and associates.

Our company doesn't want to spend any more money on SuccessFactors. We are not really extending the solution. It would be wise if we could use it better. We don't do any strategic personnel planning.

I can't really evaluate SAP's technical support because there is so much bureaucracy in our support model. Support is not necessarily done in our country, and there is a really bureaucratic ticketing system behind it. We have national application specialists in every country. They are the guys who think about the right and proper text for the support tickets and how can a group in India or Stuttgart solve the problem. 

From another perspective, because I am also in a group of global specialists, I know that SuccessFactors or SAP does not necessarily react quickly to the issues of their customers, which is logical because they need to scale as well.

We did use some local systems, but they are not comparable to this product. The biggest pro of SuccessFactors has to be the global database, and it is globally accessible with the integration with the management. I would always prefer a global solution instead of a local solution, but a local solution is like a Pappa and Mamma store on the corner. It is always more flexible, and it is logical.

We didn't have a good data set, so the personal master data was a mess. It was a lot of work, especially on the data side. After one or two years, we kind of fixed it. 

It took about nine months to roll it out. We rolled it out in parts because we are a company that is active in 38 countries, with 450,000 associates. On our site, we had around 5,000 associates at that time. Currently, we have 4,000 associates because we are shrinking. 

In terms of the implementation strategy, we are tech equipped company. It was designed without any negotiation or input from the end-user. It was a technology push if you want to see it like that.

We have our own SAP Competence center for its implementation. Its maintenance is handled by SAP. 

Our release notes are every three months, but from a central department, we only implement them once a year. So, everything is collected somewhere in June or July. There is a big update instead of different small updates. The global application specialists are responsible for updates.

I won't recommend this solution. I would say, "Don't do it." Cornerstone or Workday is way better.

I would rate SAP SuccessFactors a five out of ten. 

We use it in our company as an HRIS database for everything related to our employees. It's only for HR purposes, and no one else can access it. So, our colleagues aren't in touch with the data or anything.

It's a bit complicated to make a change in the tool. So, basically, you have to change the position first and then go to the person's profile to ensure the change was recorded there. And if it wasn't, you have to make the change there as well. So it is double work for us. It is time-consuming. Also, if you want to make a change, for example, if you have mistakenly inserted something in the past or inserted it incorrectly, then you need to go back to the exact date when you made the change and make the same change to everything else that has been modified after that specific update. If there is just one issue, then it won't show the correct change.

As of now, I have used SAP SuccessFactors for four months only. I am probably using the solution's latest version. I am a customer of the solution.

It is a stable solution.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I haven't contacted the technical support team. We have a team of experts, so we go to them if we face any issues. So if there's anything that they don't know, they will contact SAP's customer support team. I usually approach our internal expert team.

It is suitable for larger enterprises. I don't think we use it at full capacity. So, we only use a portion of it in HR. The solution can be time-consuming whenever I want to make a change. I would definitely recommend the solution to those planning to use it and be patient when using it. Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

My primary use case is the HR package. 

There is room for improvement in the pricing model. 

I have been using SAP SuccessFactors for one year. I am using the latest version. 

It is a stable solution. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. 

It is a scalable solution. I would rate it a ten out of ten. 

The initial setup was easy. It is a user-friendly solution. 

It is not cheap, but it is reasonable. I would rate it a five out of ten. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. I would definitely recommend using the product.