The Employee Interaction Center (EIC) Web request allows employees to directly send questions and requests from standard Web applications to the EIC call center agents. It is part of the standard EIC offering.

The SAP system offers out-of-the box integration between the EIC and existing portal roles through self-services. When an employee requires support for a particular self-service application, the employee can contact the EIC service desk directly from the employee self-service (ESS) or manager self-service (MSS) application using a Web request link. The Web request link opens an interactive Adobe PDF form. The employee can fill out the relevant request information in the form and submit it. An automatic workflow is then generated and routed into the EIC agent inbox, and the agent can process the Web request and convert the request into an EIC activity.

Configuration Steps

The configuration for the ESS Web request integration with EIC involves four steps, as shown in Figure 1. The IMG menu path for this configuration is Personnel Management > Employee Interaction Center (EIC) > EIC Request from Self-Services.

Figure 1

Configuration steps for enabling ESS Web requests for the EIC

These four configuration steps are as follows.

Step 1. Define Details for the EIC Request for Self-Service

In this configuration step, you define the contact details that enable the employee to contact the EIC call center from an ESS transaction. This configuration uses the employee grouping that is previously configured for EIC to allow you to define the following details:

• You can specify the phone number that the employee calls to reach the EIC call center

• You can define the categories the employee can select in the ESS Web request form

Step 2. Assign the EIC Request Form to Self-Service Scenarios

In this configuration step, you identify the ESS/MSS services that should have the EIC Request Form link enabled to appear on the respective ESS/MSS pages for that service. For each such ESS/MSS service, you define the Help Service (Figure 2). Employees use this help service hyperlink to start the EIC Web request service. The Help Service EIC_SERVICE_REQUEST is an SAP-delivered service for the EIC self-service request.

Figure 2

Maintain the ESS Web request service

Step 3. Define the Processor for the EIC Request from Self-Service

This configuration step enables the Business Add-In (BAdI) in which you can specify the EIC processors or agents that are responsible for ESS Web requests. The name of the BAdI is HREIC_AGENTS. You must implement the method GET_AGENTS within this BAdI.

Enter into the method the employee number (the person who submits the ESS Web request), the date of the request, and the category for the request. The method returns a list of EIC agents who are responsible for handling that particular ESS request.

This configuration enables users to define the EIC agent groupings that handle the ESS requests based on the category or employee attributes. For example, all compensation-related ESS Web requests can be routed to the responsible EIC agents for compensation, and all leave-related ESS Web requests can be routed to the EIC agents responsible for leave processing.

Step 4. Enable the Workflow for the EIC Requests from Self-Service

This configuration step makes the required workflow settings for submitting an ESS Web request form from a self-service scenario to an EIC agent. This is a standard-delivered workflow that is triggered automatically when the employee submits the Web request. The workflow consists of the following steps:

1. Determine the processors
2. Forward the request to the EIC agent inbox
3. Send an auto-response email to the employee noting that the EIC has received the Web request (optional)

The standard delivered workflow for the ESS Web request is 17900089 (Figure 3). No changes are required for this standard workflow. You only activate the workflow to enable the ESS Web request functionality.

Figure 3

ESS Web request workflow

Customizing the Adobe Form for an ESS Web Request

SAP delivers a standard form for the ESS Web request for EIC. The standard form name is ISR_FORM_SEIC. Users can adapt the form to their specific requirements (e.g., add a company logo, add additional fields, and re-arrange the form elements). This is done by copying the standard-delivered form into a custom form and then making the changes to the custom form. The form modification is done using the PDF form editor (transaction code SFP). Figure 4 shows an example of the standard-delivered SAP form.

Figure 4

SAP-delivered PDF form for the ESS Web request

ESS Web Request Scenario

In our example, an employee is working in an ESS transaction and wishes to contact the EIC call center. The employee clicks the EIC Web request link from the ESS transaction (Figure 5).

Figure 5

Employee contacts the EIC from the ESS transaction

After clicking the link, the EIC Web request form displays. The employee fills in the required information in the form and submits it (Figure 6).

Figure 6

Employee fills out and submits the Web request form

The system informs the employee that the request has been submitted successfully, and it also displays a notification number for the Web request (Figure 7).

Figure 7

Web request submission confirmation

Once the request is submitted, the ESS Web request workflow is initiated. This workflow determines which EIC agents process the Web request, and routes the Web request into the EIC inbox for these agents. In addition, an email is automatically sent to the employee to inform him or her that the EIC call center is processing the Web request (Figure 8).

Figure 8

EIC agent inbox with the Web request to be processed

The EIC agent then reviews the Web request from the EIC agent inbox. The agent selects the Web request, processes it, and creates a new EIC activity (Figure 9).

Figure 9

EIC activity created from the ESS Web request

Chandan Gopalani

Chandan Gopalani is a senior SAP HCM technical consultant with over 18 years of experience working on SAP projects across various industries and clients since 1995. He is co-founder of EIC Experts and specializes in Organization Management, Employee Interaction Center (EIC), US Payroll, Enterprise Compensation Management, ESS/MSS, Personnel Administration, Benefits, CATS, Finance, and Sales & Distribution. He is ABAP certified and ASAP certified, as well the author of several HR Expert article. He is currently working as an ECM consultant for a Fortune 50 client.

You may contact the author at cgopalani@eicexperts.com.

If you have comments about this article or publication, or would like to submit an article idea, please contact the editor.

Jarret Pazahanick

Jarret Pazahanick is an SAP Mentor, Human Capital Management (HCM) Certified Consultant, and Managing Partner of EIC Experts who has specialized in SAP HCM since 1998. He is a subject matter expert in US Payroll, Employee Interaction Center (EIC), and Enterprise Compensation Management (ECM). Over the past 14 years, Jarret has completed 20 high profile, full life cycle SAP HCM implementations for global Fortune 1000 companies. He is SAP HCM certified and ASAP certified; author for HR Expert, CloudAve, and ASUG News; and a moderator, blogger, and gold-level contributor on the SAP Community Network.

If you have comments about this article or publication, or would like to submit an article idea, please contact the editor.