The Employee Delta Export add-in for Microsoft Excel in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central enables employee master data to be extracted from Employee Central into a Microsoft Excel workbook. This workbook can then be provided to a payroll provider or uploaded directly into a payroll system for processing payroll. The Employee Delta Export add-in is primarily designed to provide data for local and small payrolls where there is no business case for return on investment (ROI) for building an integration on a middleware tool, or when the payroll system has no inbound integration capabilities or only has flat-file upload capabilities.

The Employee Delta Export feature uses a Microsoft Excel add-in to extract data from Employee Central using the Compound Employee API (CE API) in SAP SuccessFactors. All data is extracted into a Microsoft Excel workbook.

The following Employee Central entities (called segments in Employee Delta Export) are supported:

• Biographical Information (Person Information)
• Personal Information
• Global Information
• Address Information
• Employment Details
• Job Information
• Compensation Information
• Pay Compensation Recurring
• Pay Compensation Non Recurring
• Direct Deposit/Payment Information
• National ID Card
• Email Information
• Phone Information
• Dependents (Person Relationship Information)
• Job Relationships
• Global Assignment Information
• Recurring Deduction
• One Time Deduction
• Alternative Cost Distribution
• Work Permit Information (Personal Documents Information)

The Employee Delta Export add-in extracts all data that is created, changed, or deleted since the last run of the Employee Delta Export—including all future-dated and retroactive data changes—for any of the segments listed above that are configured to be extracted. Employees can be filtered by those that have been hired, rehired, or changed since the last run. The Employee Delta Export shows the before and after data, and highlights any changes to the data to simplify the process of manually making changes to a payroll system based on the extracted data. It also includes workflow approval information, where appropriate. Figure 1 shows an example of address data changes extracted from Employee Central using the Employee Delta Export add-in.

Figure 1

Address data changes extracted from Employee Central

Aside from the data changes, the Status column (column A in Figure 1) shows one of four values:

• NewSeg: A new record for a segment was created where no record existed before.
• Changed: A change to an existing segment record was made, either as a new record or as a change to an existing record.
• Deleted: A segment record was deleted.
• Transfer: An employee was transferred into the selection criteria during the extract period and was not a new hire or a rehire.

Data can be transformed as part of the extraction process so that the data written into the Microsoft Excel workbook is already processed as required, such as adding calculated columns, changing values to text (or vice versa), or changing User IDs into names. Additionally, post-extract processing can be performed in Microsoft Excel. This means that after extraction, the file can be given to the payroll provider or uploaded into a payroll system without any further action needed or by simply running a few calculations post-extraction.

SAP SuccessFactors provides three Microsoft Excel workbooks to enable use of the Employee Delta Export:

• CompEmpDeltaAddIn.xlsm
• CompEmpDelta_singleSheet.xlsx
• CompEmpDelta_multiSheet.xlsx

The CompEmpDeltaAddIn.xlsm file (workbook) provides the add-in functionality and logic to enable Microsoft Excel to extract the data from SAP SuccessFactors. This file also provides functions in the ribbon of Microsoft Excel to use the Employee Delta Export. The second and third .xlsx workbooks listed above provide the layout for the extracted data, as well as the configuration data to tell the add-in how to extract and process the data from SAP SuccessFactors. This configuration can be modified as required to suit your specific needs and doesn’t require any programming skills or deep knowledge of the CE API, but it does require intermediate or advanced knowledge of Microsoft Excel and, in some cases, Extensible Markup Language (XML) code.

Notice that there are two workbooks: CompEmpDelta_singleSheet.xlsx and CompEmpDelta_multiSheet.xlsx. The CompEmpDelta_singleSheet.xlsx workbook extracts all employee data into three worksheets: one for hires, rehires, and transferred employees; one for data changes; and one for terminated or retired employees. The CompEmpDelta_multiSheet.xlsx workbook extracts employee data into multiple worksheets, one for each Employee Central entity that is supported. Each worksheet shows both new and changed data. Both workbooks contain tabs for errors, warnings, configuration, and selection criteria.

All these files—along with the user guide—can be downloaded in SAP SuccessFactors in the Employee Delta Export UI through the Admin Center. The Employee Delta Export UI needs to be permissioned in Manager Permission Roles for the user who needs access to it. This can be seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2

The Employee Delta Export UI in SAP SuccessFactors

Key Features and Functions of the Employee Export Data Add-In

In addition to the features already mentioned, the following are also included as part of the Employee Delta Export:

• Configuration of which segments, Foundation Objects, and Generic Objects are extracted and processed.
• Configuration of which columns are displayed in the worksheets in the workbook.
• Configuration of how the extracted data is sorted on each worksheet.
• Addition of further selection criteria on the extracted data.
• Addition of calculated columns on the extracted data.
• Support for all selection criteria and segments supported by the CE API.
• Developer tools for the Employee Data Export are provided on the Developer tab in the Excel workbook ribbon, including Consistency Check and, under Tools, these options: Scramble Data, Show Internal Sheets, Hide Internal Sheets, Show Configuration Rows/Columns, Hide Configuration Rows/Columns, and Upgrade Workbook.
• Design options, including Add Columns, Delete Columns, and Refresh Field List Cache.

Points to Consider When Using the Employee Delta Export Add-In

When using the Employee Delta Export add-in, you need to consider the following points to ensure that the process and extract results are successful:

• No more than 1,000 employees should be processed using the default configuration; should the default configuration need to be extended, then fewer than 1,000 employees should be processed at one time.
• The Employee Delta Export add-in is only designed to extract a delta of employee data—a full extract of all employees’ history is not possible.
• The CE API that is used to extract data from SAP SuccessFactors does not respect Role-Based Permissions, so the processor needs be someone in your organization who has the authority to view all the data that is being extracted from the system.
• An end date must be defined if you do not wish to extract all future-dated changes; this is required if you wish to extract changes only within the next payroll period.
• An employee is not considered as changed unless data has changed in one or more of the segments (listed above).
• Consider a strategy for how multiple extracts by different processors is performed, particularly for the scenario in which employees transfer between different business units, countries, regions, or companies.
• Sorting of data must be done once data has been extracted.
• The following segments are not provided as part of the standard query and need to be added to the Requested Segments Table of the workbook: Deduction Recurring, One-Time Deduction, Alternative Cost Distribution, and Personal Documents Information.
• For the following segments, the start date of an extract must be on or after October 10, 2015: Deduction Recurring, One-Time Deduction, and Alternative Cost Distribution. (This is a static date; it is used because this functionality did not exist before this date, so if you enter an earlier date, you get an error message.)
• The Employee Delta Export cannot be scheduled to run; it must always be started manually.
• There are no localization capabilities for labels, picklists, object names and descriptions, or employee names and addresses stored in alternative languages; additionally, the add-in and workbooks are only provided in English.

Delta Calculations

The Employee Delta Export add-in uses the start date and—if configured—the end date to calculate the changes. Data stored in non-effective dated entities (i.e., those entities that only have a single continuous record and do not store history) are always included if changed within the extract period. Data from effective-dated entities (i.e., those entities that store historical- dated and future-dated records) are always extracted when the effective date of the change is within the extract period.

The following types of changes in Employee Central are shown as changes in the extracted data:

• Hiring or rehiring an employee
• Changing a non-effective dated record
• Inserting a new effective dated record
• Changing data (including changing a start date) of an existing effective-dated record
• Deleting a record (both non-effective-dated and effective-dated records)

These changes are extracted whether retroactive or future-dated, so long as the effective date of the change is within the extract period.

Limitations with the CE API

Additionally, there are certain limitations of the CE API that are, therefore, limitations for the Employee Delta Export, including:

• For employee data that uses a picklist, each picklist value must have an externalCode assigned.
• Events and Event Reasons on Compensation Information records are not supported.
• Only CE API filters can be applied, which may extract a larger volume of data than is desired
• Employees with data inconsistencies or inconsistent historical time slices error out and are displayed on the Errors worksheet.

High-Level Configuration Steps

The first activity that needs to be performed is providing the appropriate permissions to the user account that is used to extract the data. These are listed in section 3.4 (Role-Based Permissions) of the Using the Employee Delta Export Add-In for Microsoft Excel guide, found at https://help.sap.com/hr_ec.

Once the user has permissions, the add-in must be installed in Microsoft Excel. To install the add-in, open the CompEmpDeltaAddIn.xlsm file in Microsoft Excel. If the security bar displays with the message SECURITY WARNING Macros have been disabled, along with the Enable Content button, click the Enable Content button (Figure 3).

Figure 3

The warning in the security bar

If you don’t have restrictions on running macros in Microsoft Excel, the Install this workbook as an add-in? pop-up window opens (Figure 4). Click the Yes button to install the add-in.

Figure 4

Click the Yes button to install the add-in

Once the add-in is installed, you see a pop-up window confirming that the installation was successful (Figure 5).

Figure 5

The installation confirmation pop-up window opens

Click the OK button and close Microsoft Excel.

Should you receive an error during installation, check that you meet all the prerequisites mentioned in the Overview of Employee Delta Export section. If you meet all the prerequisites, but still have problems, try installing Microsoft XML Core Services 6 Service Package 1 (MSXML 6.0 SP1) or later.

Once the add-in is installed, you can configure the workbooks that you wish to use. Two sets of configuration are required:

1. System details
2. Query configuration

To configure the system details open the workbook and navigate to the Systems worksheet (Figure 6).

Figure 6

Enter the system details in the Systems worksheet

Once in the Systems worksheet, enter the following details:

1. Name of the system
2. API URL for the data center (you can find this at https://help.sap.com/saphelpiis_cloud4hr/EN/SF_HCMS_OData_API_User_en/frameset.htm?03e1fc3791684367a6a76a614a2916de.html)
3. Company ID
4. Username of the user to extract the data
5. Password

Once the system details are maintained, any configuration settings can be made in the Config worksheet. The main settings available are:

• Show Unchanged Values: Select Yes to show all the extracted values or No to show just changed values.
• Hire/Rehire Conditions: This setting is used to determine if the employee is a Rehire, in which case all data is shown. XPath is used to build the filter condition.
• Consider Transfers: This setting determines if Transfers should be considered in the extracted data.
• File Name Pattern: This setting determines the format of the filename when the Save Copy button in the SuccessFactors tab is used to save a copy of the workbook.
• Parameter Validation: This setting is used to define a formula that checks if the selection parameters on the Selection worksheet are valid (i.e., they must pass this check).
• Update New Report Start Date: This setting defines whether the New Report Start Date/Time fields on the Selection worksheet are updated automatically after an extraction run. The default is Yes.
• Records per request: The number of records that are extracted with each CE API call. The recommendation is up to 200 records.
• QueryMore Iterations: The number of additional queries that are called after the number of records in the query exceeds the Records per request value.
• Use PaymentInformationV3: Select Yes if you use the Payment Information portlet or No if you are still using the legacy Direct Deposit portlet.
• Build Dynamic Request: Select Yes to have the Add-in use the Requested Segments table to build the CE API the extract query.
• Table Format: This determines the format of the tables in the sheets that contain the extracted data; these should only be changed by using the standard Microsoft Excel formatting options.
• Format for Changed Fields: Formatting used to highlight changed fields in the sheets that contain the extracted data.
• Additional Filters (ANDed): The XPath logic to apply additional AND filters to the extracted data.
• Additional Filters (ORed): The XPath logic to apply additional OR filters to the extracted data.
• Keep Intermediate Results: This setting determines if the initial extract results are kept in the workbook once extraction and processing are completed.
• Test Mode: This setting is used for troubleshooting and debugging.
• Change Sheets: This setting defines the worksheets containing extracted data changes.
• Hire Sheet: This setting defines the name of the hire worksheet in the CompEmpDelta_singleSheet.xlsx workbook.
• Requested Segments: This setting defines the segments used to extract data from SAP SuccessFactors. The following segments are only extracted if they are defined in this section: Deduction Recurring, One-Time Deduction, Alternative Cost Distribution, and Personal Documents Information.

These settings are shown in the screen in Figure 7.

Figure 7

The settings for the Config worksheet

It is also possible to extend the Employee Delta Export. These steps are listed in section 5 (Extending Employee Delta Export) of the Using the Employee Delta Export Add-In for Microsoft Excel guide, found at https://help.sap.com/hr_ec.

How to Use the Employee Delta Export Add-In

The following steps are used to run the Employee Delta Export add-in:

1. Open the configured workbook.
2. Navigate to the Selection worksheet.
3. From the Choose System drop-down options, select the system name that you configured in the Systems worksheet.
4. Enter the date and time in the New Report Start Date (UTC) and New Report Start Time (UTC) fields for the start of the extraction period.
5. For Delta Period-based extraction, enter the period start date and period end date in the Period Start Date and Period End Date fields, respectively.
6. If this is the first run in the period defined in the Period Start Date and Period End Date fields, select Yes from the drop-down options. (Enter any additional selection criteria parameters in the remaining fields.)
7. Do not fill in the Last Report Start Date/Time [UTC] and Last Report End Date/Time [UTC] fields as they are filled automatically after each run.
8. In the ribbon, select the Get Data button in the SuccessFactors tab.
9. The logon credentials pop-up window opens—enter the username and password of the user account that are used to extract the data.

10.  After completion, the Summary worksheet is shown, which provides details on the extract just performed.

Figure 8 shows the Selection tab with the values filled in, prior to selecting the Get Data button (step 9, above).

Figure 8

Enter the values in the Selection worksheet

Each worksheet is filled with data from the extract based on the date and other selection parameters. Any changes are highlighted, as described in the Overview of Employee Data Export section. Figure 1 shows an example of what the extracted data looked like, with changes highlighted.

Luke Marson

Luke Marson is co-founder, CEO Americas, and Principal Architect for Employee Central at iXerv, a global SAP SuccessFactors consulting partner. In addition to his duties as CEO, he is an active architect and subject-matter expert on SAP SuccessFactors. Luke is a Certified Professional in SuccessFactors Employee Central who has worked with over 15 customers, and is the co-author of the following books: SuccessFactors with SAP ERP HCM and SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central. He is also an author, blogger, speaker, strategist, and widely recognized expert in SAP SuccessFactors and SAP ERP HCM. Luke can be found on Twitter at @lukemarson.

You may contact the author at .

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