Reimagined Home Page: Some Tips and Tricks to customize and fit your needs

[maseitner]

Introduction

SuccessFactors is designed very intuitive and navigation is quick an easy, especially with the new Reimagined Home Page:

Nevertheless, at some point you might want to add custom quick-links and short-cuts to navigate within SF or jump externally or change labels to make daily use of SuccessFactors even more easy for your users.

This blog showcases and gives ideas how to customize your Latest Home Page.

1. Enable the Reimagined Home Page

You need to perform the Upgrade New Experience for the Home Page in Upgrade Center for your SuccessFactors.

Path: Action Search >> Upgrade Center >> All Modules >> search for "experience"

There are additional upgrades you can run, like Learning or Onboarding Data on the Latest Home Page, to enable module specific content on the Latest Home Page.

Once Upgrade is run, you need to grant the following two permissions in Manage Permission Roles:

• to End User: Access the Latest Home Page (General User Permissions >> Access the Latest Home Page)


• to Admins: Manage the Latest Home Page (Manage System Properties >> Manage the Latest Home Page)

The Latest Home Page will be enabled right away and prefilled with content and Quick Actions based on enabled modules in your SuccessFactors and dependent on user permissions.

 

Good to know: The headlines, like “Quick Actions”, “Surveys”, “Organizational Updates”, etc. as well as the banner-text (“Good morning!”) can be customized or even made invisible via Manage Languages Tool (Actions Search >> Manage Languages).

From now on you can customize the Banner Image in Theme Manager. Under Theme Manager >> Fine Tune >> Home Page (Latest) >> Desktop banner image you can now choose to either use the Banner defined under Manage Home Page >> Banner Image or you can upload a Banner specific for the Theme and hereby override the Banner in the Home Page settings. This will give you more flexibility

2. Add custom “Favorites”

The “Favorites” section is prepopulated with useful shortcuts. Further admins can configure custom links and control the visibility using Target Groups.

Use Case: An Admin wants to create SAP Blog as well as Customer Community Link for company Key Users to optain latest information easily.

Path: Action Search >> Manage Home Page >> Favorites >> + or edit pen

 

Target Groups can be selected, edited or created on the fly.

Once created, those custom links will appear to Target Group Users in the “Available” Section and can be selected individually.

 

Good to know:

• Standard available Favorites for the users are dependent on their Permissions and can be controlled likewise


• The selected favorite links are personalized by end users only and cannot be defaulted for all users

3. Add Custom Cards to appear on the Home Page

Provide your users with short cuts to internal menus or external resources directly on the home page using Custom Cards.

Use Case: An Admin wants to provide a direct short cut to new applications from the Home Page for Managers

Path: Action Search >> Manage Home Page >> Organizational Update >> Add Card or edit pen

 

Custom Cards for the New Home Page work same as Custom Tiles for legacy Home Page.

To create e.g. a Custom Card redirecting to a SF internal menu, you would need to select “Target” = URL and insert the corresponding URL of the SF internal menu (e.g. Recruiting Job Req Overview).

Further you can create Custom Cards based on Business Rules.

Here I would like to recommend two very useful Blogs from Ajay Kumar Nudurupati (Rule-Based Custom Tiles) and Mounika Annam (“Google Maps “ Custom tile -Employee location Medical assistance)

Once created, the Custom Card will appear to Target Group Users under “Organizational Updates”

Further you can now create half-size Custom Cards with smaller image or without an image but with an.... Under Step 2 (Card) you can now select the type of your card.

 

 

Good to know:

• Amount of Custom Cards that can be created by admins is 100, BUT the amount to be displayed to users is limited to 16

4. Create custom surveys

Adding Surveys to the Latest Home Page is very useful to improve Employee Experience.

You do not need to have Qualtrics licenced to use Surveys as you can use any survey tool. However using Qualtrics will give offer you a highly intregrated survey experience.

Use Case: An Admin or Employee Experience Responsible want to add a Survey for all Employees asking how they feel about the new Home Page experience and which improvement ideas they might have.

Path: Action Search >> Manage Home Page >> Surveys >> + or edit pen

Release Update 2H 2022: You can now edit target groups for Surveys

5. Supplemental Tasks


There are pre-defined to-do categories for which supplemental tasks can be created, e.g. Interview Feedback, Offer Approval, Performance Review etc.

Use Case: Users should be reminded of Approvals or To-Dos for which no system generated To-Do is currently available.

Path: Action Search >> Manage Home Page >> Supplemental Tasks >> Add Task

The Approval / To-Do will appear on the Latest Home Page based on Target Population settings.

Further with the new Release it is now possible to push a To-Do to tomorrow:

Conclusion:

I hope this blog helps you become familiar with customizations of the new Reimagined Home Page.

I am very much looking forward to your comments and experiences.

For those that have Onboarding 2.0 enabled I would like to highly recommened the very interesting blog from Satyabrata Chayani: Onboarding New Hire experience on the Latest Home Page

[aathanur]

Good stuff, Martin. Just a quick reminder that the number of custom cards has been bumped to 16 (from 12). Also good to point out that the Custom Community is by far the best resource for all things regarding the New Home Page, https://community.successfactors.com/t5/Platform-Resources-Blog/Migration-to-Reimagined-Home-Page-Wi....

Thanks.

Andy

[maseitner]

Hi Andy,

 

thanks a lot for your comment and the update on the amount of custom cards. I have directly updated it in my blog.

BR

Martin

[divyanshishah]

Hi Martin,

The blog is very helpful to start checking all new features with the latest home page. Thanks for sharing this.

I was performaning some testing with latest home page and came across below points :

1. In "For You Today", In Review your Performance and Review Employee Performance, the current step is visible only in English locale and not in Swedish (when my system locale is Swedish).
   I have checked the Manage route maps if the steps are maintained in Swedish locale as well and there the steps are maintained in both the locales. Did you experienced this anytime?


2. "For You Today" is presenting Engagement card for all the Performance forms. Suppose some users have to take their performance after 365 days, still it's showing in "For You Today" card however they are not supposed to focus with this particular at this moment of time. However, no settings can be found to restrict the visibility by number of days (like Genreal settings with To-Do Tile with legacy Page)

Kindly suggest if anytime you observed this or if I am missing out anything.

 

Regards,

Divyanshi

[maseitner]

Hi divyshah-2022

thanks for your comment!

I have just tested in my Sales Demo and have to agree. Although the Route Map contains the translations for the Step it still shows in English = default.

I will keep that in mind and monitor it as well.

Regarding your point 2: Did you try if the General Settings for the legacy Home Page pull for the New Home Page as well?

Let me do a testing in the coming days.

[divyanshishah]

Hi martin.seitner ,

 

Yes, with the legacy home page general settings , the setting is Show pending to-do items starting 120 days before they are due. However, For You Today is showing "Review Your performance " Due in 388 Days.

 

Regards,

Divyanshi Shah

[I516014]

Hello Martin,

Just want to OPEN this link but seems it can not be opened. https://community.successfactors.com/t5/Platform-Resources-Blog/Migration-to-Reimagined-Home-Page-Wi....

Can you also help to provide suggestions in full module user transfer to the latest home page.

[maseitner]

Hi iveehsu

the link works for me, can you please try again: https://community.successfactors.com/t5/Platform-Resources-Blog/Migration-to-Reimagined-Home-Page-Wi...

What do you mean with "full module user transfer"

BR

Martin

[I516014]

it works now. My client had a lot of custom cards on old homepage and they are treating SF homepage as Enterprise Portal. so if the limitation will be only 16, those custom tile can not be setup.

[maseitner]

I understand your point.

We have same discussions with our customers. We recommend the following:

• Create custom cards only for most important information / short cuts and try to have not more than a few (5-7) Custom Cards on the Home Pages of your users - also think of mobile few of the home page in the app.


• Use Custom Favorites for other Links / Short Cuts and teach your users to use the (favorites) Quick Actions

If this is still not sufficient you could have a look at the custom navigation: Action Search >> Configure Custom Navigation.
With this you can optimize the Home Menue as well as the Action Search

Hope that helps.

[StineJ]

Hi Martin,

I am currently making myself familiar with the latest Home Page - especially the Organizational Updates Custom Cards.

I can create them with no issue and with Target as URL is works fine.

However, if I want to use Popover and I add Content it displays "No Data", when I select the Custom Card on the Home Page.

Have you heard of this issue? I can´t seem to find any discussions about it?

Thank you in advance 🙂

[maseitner]

Hi slj

Thanks for your comment.

Hm, that sounds strange.

I did a quick test in my Sales Demo.

I have created a Pop-Over Card like this:

This is how it looks on the Home Page and when I click, it works.

 

Did you do it the same way?

What exactly are you trying to do? What is your use case for the Card?

BR

Martin

 

[StineJ]

Hi Martin,

Thank you so much for testing it - great to be able to compare.

And yes, I did exactly that - Just tested it again to be sure, but still with the "No Data" result.

I just want to showcase information, when you click the card - had a colleague trying it out too, he had the same result - so might be time for a Ticket 🙂

[maseitner]

🙂 strange.

Yes, Ticket could be good idea 🙂

If you like, please share how you solved it - would be interested in the solution.

THanks and BR

Martin

[StineJ]

Sharing is caring - so will definitely do that 🙂

Have a good one!

[tkramer_Rizing]

Following - I am seeing this in a few instances as well.

[Jsnick95]

Hello, Martin.

Thanks for your article.
Couuld you help me with information about dates of release 2H 2022?
You wrote the next text:
UPDATE: The universal release of Latest Home Page is planned for June 3rd. (Preview) and June 24th (Production) as of 17th March 2022.
Could you send me a link on new dates about release information, please?

[maseitner]

Hey d4dsdf

thanks four your comment.

For latest release information I always use this Page: https://community.successfactors.com/t5/Product-Release-Road-Map/bd-p/Product_Release_Information

I hope you can access it.

The exact release dates for H2 2022 have not yet been communicated but will be very soon on that page.

Regarding the Release of latest Home Page: This has been pushed to June (the dates I have written in my article) as of latest news from SAP. The H1 2022 Release dates however are: April, 15th for Preview and May, 20th for PROD.

BR

Martin

[LilyL]

Hi there. Where do you select the colour for the Custom card URL/Link? Mine shows grey, even though I changed the Latest Home Page card link colour under Theme Manager.

Thanks!

[maseitner]

Hi lilyloi3

thanks for your comment.

I have just tried it in my sales demo and you are right - the Link color doesn't change for me either.

I checked community and launchpad but did not find sth about that.

Have you contacted SAP regarding that issue?

BR

Martin

[LilyL]

I just reached out to SAP support and they confirmed that this is a product limitation.  I'll definitely raise an enhancement request for it.

Thanks Martin!

[LuisaCarvalho]

Hello martin.seitner ,

thank you for your usefull document, it helps a lot!

Do you know if it's possible to customoize the approval request cards? For example, for an employment change approver, add another field rather that Effective On, Submitted On and Submitted by?

THanks a lot!

BR

Luísa Carvalho

[maseitner]

Thanks lilyloi3

Once raised, please link the enhancement request here - I will definitely vote for it.

BR

Martin

[maseitner]

Hi luisacarvalho1991

thanks for your comment!

No, as far as I know and from my experience with the "older" custom tiles these cannot be customized the way you wish to. What you could customize are labels on the cards - you could do that via Manage Languages - but not such system fields.

Maybe you would also like to raise an enhancement request with sap?

BR

Martin

[RGogan]

Hi Martin,

 

hank you for you article, it is very helpful.

Do you know if its possible to set different colors for the Quick Actions cards?

In the default themes the tiles have different colors, but in Theme Manager I can set only one color for all tiles.

Thanks a lot!

 

BR,

Raluca

[maseitner]

Hi raluca1

thanks for your comment.

Yes, indeed. If NO color is set for the quick actions in Theme Manager they will have different colors - this is also the default setting. In Theme Manager you can only set ONE color for ALL Quick Action Cards.

Especially about that behavior I had some discussions with customers - however I personally like it as from my point of view, it would be too much effort and to much to decide defineing separate color for each card.

If you have the need for special highlighting of one quick action, you could think of deactivating the quick-action card and replace it with a custom card under organizational updates with an eye-catching picture.

BR

Martin

[RGogan]

Thank you very much for your answer:)

[SyWi]

Dear raluca1

The new release brings options to apply Themes to the Homepage and to fine tune more on the new home page. Let´s see what the release brings.

[RGogan]

Thank you!:)

[Maya_Nanavati]

Hi Martin

I was quite intrigued by your comment that one can change the banner text ie  "good morning". How does this happen? I checked the manage theme and couldn't suppress the text.

The unfortunate title "Organizational Updates" is also quite cumbersome to rename! Any helpful tips? Thanks for your valued feedback.

 

[maseitner]

Hi maya.nanavati

thanks for your comment.

Yes, you can change these labels in Manage languages.

As Super Admin for your system type "Manage Languages" in Action Search, pick your language pack and add a custom locale if you don't have one already. Add the following keys to your custom locale:

HOME_V4_Salutation_Morning

HOME_V4_Salutation_Evening

HOME_V4_Salutation_Afternoon

HOME_ADMIN_ORGANIZATIONAL_UPDATES

Those keys will change the text on the Banner image and the title for the Organizational Updates.

If you want to change more texts, download the default languages for the language pack and search for the label to change.

You could also switch your language in the system to english debug and identifiy the keys for your lables.

As an example, I have just changed the texts:

I hope that helps,

BR

Martin

[Maya_Nanavati]

Many thanks for your insights. They are very helpful indeed!

[Gugu_Mahlangu]

Hi Martin,

Just following on this conversation with Lily, is the limitation to change the quick card/s color to company theme colors or is it when you select a single color?

As I have tried this in Theme Manager > Home Page (Latest) however to no change on the front end, kindly advise if this is the correct area to make the change?

Look forward to your response.

 

Regards

Gugu M.

[Gugu_Mahlangu]

Hi Raluca,

Could you provide steps or guide on how to make the change on the Quick Actions Cards to One Color.

I have been working at it in Theme Manager however to no success.

 

Regards

Gugu M.

[RGogan]

Hi Gugu,

 

I managed to change the Quick Actions Cards color from Theme Manager-> Fine Tune->Home Page(Latest)-> Quick action background colour. I added the cod color and save it

[Gugu_Mahlangu]

Hi Raluca,

Thank you for responding, I made the amendment on the color code still no change.

I will raise a ticket and see how we are able to resolve it on SAP Support.

 

At least I know I was not asking a pointless question.

 

Regards

Gugu M.

[former_member60972]

Hello

can you please help me how to hide good morning message on banner. As in custom language I am not able to find below mention field. 

HOME_V4_Salutation_Morning

HOME_V4_Salutation_Evening

HOME_V4_Salutation_Afternoon

HOME_ADMIN_ORGANIZATIONAL_UPDATES

Regard

Chetak Patel

[maseitner]

Hi chetakp

thanks for your comment.

I tested it again in a random customers Preview System. If I go to Action Search >> Manage Languages >> pick the desired language >> download DEFAULT labels, there I can find the keys as listed.

Can you please try that and search for the keys first in the default languages. They should be there.

Then you can include the keys into custom language pack for the desired language and upload it.

That should work.

BR

Martin

[maseitner]

Hi gugum

thanks for your comment.

Please see my screenshots attached from a customers Preview System with the 1H 2022 release in place (it worked before though)

In Theme Manager you can set ONE color for quick action background and ONE color for text on quick action. If you do NOT set a color in Theme Manager the cards will be automatically in different color.

For my system it works.

Could you maybe try again and if it still does not work, you could raise a ticket with SAP.

[Gugu_Mahlangu]

Hi Martin,

This has since been resolved and working on our instance.

Thank you for the updated feedback.

 

Regards

Gugu M.

[StineJ]

Hi Martin,

The issue turned out to be a language setting - the System was set to US/EN, where as my profile was set to UK/EN.

For some reason that messed things up - very strange indeed 🤠

Was not my first thought to look there to be honest - That aforementioned ticket helped👍

BR Stine

[maseitner]

Hi slj

thanks for your update 🙂

Hm. still that behavior what you describe sounds a bit strange because it should be quite normal, that system has default language, most times en_US, and users have their own language set, in my case e.g. de_DE for German language.

However 🙂 Great that it now seems to be solved for you.

BR

Martin

[Martin_Frohberg]

Hi Martin,

I have been reading your blog and thanks a lot for all this useful information. One thing I can´t find any information about it, how to change the (background) colour of the cards? Not the quick actions cards but the cards in the "For you Today" and "Organisational Updates" section:

Any idea? Thanks a lot for your support!

Best regards,

Martin

[maseitner]

Hi Martin,

thanks for your comment.

To my knowledge, there is currently no possiblity to change the background color of cards. There are currenlty just some design options regarding text and icon color

Let me keep an eye on that.

BR

Martin

[PhilippH]

Hi martin.seitner,

made changes to those labels and re-uploaded it successfully, but they are not reflected on the new home page. I have a ticket open for that, but besides that, how would I make those invisible, like e.g. the "Organizational Updates" headline?

Just upload the token with an empty text via manage languages to make them completely disappear?

Thanks and best regards,
Philipp

P.S.: seems like tokens (e.g. name) in the salutation are not supported unfortunately.

[maseitner]

Hi philipp_

thanks for your comment.

I have just tried it again in my Demo System and it work. E.g. for HOME_V4_Salutation_Morning changes reflect immediately. Strange why it does not work for your system.

I also tried using some tokens but as you say - that does not work, unfortunately.

Uploading the greeting text with empty label to make them disappear works - I also tried that. If you have a nice banner image you can hide the text completely and make it look nice an clean.

making it disappear work also for the other labels, like Organizational Updates etc., however the sections then seem to move closer together and you loose the structure. (marked in yellow where the label used to be.)

 

To my opinion it is better having the sections with a nice label.

Thanks and BR

Martin

[PhilippH]

Thanks a lot, really appreciate it!

Best regards,
Philipp

[rrhead1]

I'm in theme manager looking for the other items to click on to change quick action card colors. Should I create a new theme and add in latest homepage? Please advise

[rrhead1]

I see Home Page (Latest)  disregard comment

[Ajith1]

Hi There,

 

I tried to update card (in dev environment) in one of the organisational updates, however couldn't save as 'save button greyed out'.

 

Thanks

Aj

[maseitner]

Hi Aj,

 

could you please give some more details. So you tried to edit an existing card in the org updates under Manage Home Page. Once you finished editing and tried to save your changes it failed because you could not click the "save" button, correct?

Did you check for mandatory fields not filled or missing values? This may cause the save button to be greyed out.

What was it that you wanted to change? Text, Rule, Assignment to user, Image?

BR

Martin