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Business Partner objects in SAP HCM Talent

Management
March 30, 2012 | 1,243 Views |

Luke Marson
more by this author

HCM Talent Management

HCM (Human Capital Management) | SAP ERP | business partners | ehp4 | ehp5 | ehp6 | enterprise resource
planning | erecruiting | erp

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9/18/2018 Business Partner objects in SAP HCM Talent Management | SAP Blogs

There is a myth in SAP HCM Talent Management, which goes by the name of
“Business Partners”. Aren’t they just for e-Recruiting, like TREX? No! Since I
am seeing a number of people getting into issues with external systems such
as TREX and STVN SuccessionPlanning, I thought I’d try and highlight the
requirement of the SAP Business Partner in SAP HCM Talent Management.

What are they and what are they for?

In SAP HCM Talent Management the Business Partner, represented by object

BP in the SAP ERP HCM system, is used for objects to “communicate”
between instances of themselves in different external systems. Most
commonly these are used for communication between SAP ERP HCM and e-
Recruiting, TREX and STVN SuccessionPlanning. And before you ask if they
are required, yes they are. Without Business Partners you face issues such as
no data in STVN SuccessionPlanning or TREX search results coming back
with rows of blank data.

So how do I set up Business Partners?

There are a number of steps required to setup Business Partners for SAP
HCM Talent Management:

Enable integration switches

Setup number ranges
Setup groupings
Apply SAP note 845002 (HRALX: HRALXSYNC performance)
Synchronize Business Partner objects for Central Persons objects
Generate Business Partner objects for Central Persons objects

First of all the Business Partner integration switches needs to be enabled, if

they are not already. This is performed in IMG > Personnel Management >
Organizational Management > Integration > Integration with SAP
Business Partner > Activate Integration by setting the following switches:

HRAC: X
PBPHR: ON

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Once the switches are set then a Business Partner number range must be
setup in tcode BUCF, if it hasn’t already been setup. Run tcode BUCF and
select the Change Intervals button. In the next screen add a new interval with
the following values:

No.: 01
From number: 0000000001
To number: 0999999999
Current number: 0
Ext:

Once the other two previous requirements are in place, groupings must be
setup in IMG > Cross–Application Components > SAP Business Partner >
Business Partner > Basic Settings > Number Ranges and Groupings >
Define Groupings and Assign Number Ranges. A new entry to the
customizing table should be added with the following values:

Grouping: 0001
Short Name: Int.No.Assgnmnt
Description: Internal Number Assignment
Number range: 01
External:
Int.Std.Grping: X

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Ext.Std.Grping:
Hide:

Before synchronizing Business Partners SAP note 845002 (HRALX:

HRALXSYNC performance) should be applied. Once done, run report
Z_HRALXSYNC_CHANGEDATE. This report corrects the “changes since”
date in the SAP&DEFAULT variant of HRALXSYNC (more on that later) from
01/01/1900 for improved processing.

The next step is to synchronize and, if required, generate missing Business

Partners. This is done using report HRALXSYNC and both synchronization
and generation can be done at the same time using the following instructions:

1. In the select screen select the checkbox for Branch from Organization
Structure
2. In the selection box for this option select the OrgUnit at the top of the
organization structure
3. Select Execute

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Once the report has run all the Business Partner objects are now
synchronized. There may be one or more objects that are not in the correct
status and need to be repaired. For the purpose of SAP HCM Talent
Management we just need to repair the generate Business Partner objects for
the Central Persons that don’t have one. To do this:

1. Use the Object Selection window to find the Central Person objects that
have no Business Partner object (All Objects > Central Persons >
Without Partner)
2. In the right window select all of these objects and select the Repair
button

And au voila, now you have Business Partners setup, synchronized and
generated.

Note: There are may be issues with Central Person objects that represent
employees who are now inactive in SAP. All errors must be corrected for the
batch job to run (see below), not just those within the organization structure.

Can I setup HRALXSYNC to run regularly?

I’m glad you asked, since SAP supply a variant of the HRALXSYNC report for
exactly this reason. To setup to run on a periodic basis SAP supplies the
variant SAP&DEFAULT to use, so simply schedule the job using this variant in
SM36. However, please note that this job will not run correctly if any errors
occur when the standard report is run. The Change Since date will not update
to the latest date if any errors occur when the report variant is run.

What possible issues might I face with generating Business Partners in

HRALXSYNC?

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Well, there are 3 or 4 common errors that I’ve seen that might cause an issue
with generating Business Partners. There are many common errors that do
not cause issue with generating Business Partners for SAP HCM Talent
Management and as a result they are not covered here. In some organizations
it is worth consulting the wider SAP HCM community to see what impact any
of these changes might have. Some of the most common errors are:

Postal code must have length xx

Geocoder SAPO: Country not specified completely (Customizing)
Address type XXDEFAULT does not exist: Address usage
XXDEFAULT cannot be created
Key 01 is not defined as name format for country xx

The first error – “Postal code must have length xx” – can be corrected by
finding the CP, checking the address in PA30 for the Person object and then
setting the correct check rule for the postal code in IMG > SAP NetWeaver >
General Settings > Set Countries > Set Country-Specific Checks. The
second error – “Geocoder SAPO: Country not specified completely
(Customizing)” – is corrected by running the report
GEOCODING_SET_GEOFLAG, ticking the checkbox for Disable Geoservices
and hitting Execute.

For the error “Address type XXDEFAULT does not exist: Address usage
XXDEFAULT cannot be created” a new entry must be created in table TB009
with the following values:

Address Type: XXDEFAULT

Several uses:
Short name: Stand. Address
Name: Standard Address

For the error “Key 01 is not defined as name format for country xx” the
relevant country grouping must be created in table T500L.

Thanks for the goodies, but what about the BAdIs?

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There are a number of BAdIs used to retrieve data for HRALXSYNC. This is
really for reference, since SAP HCM Talent Management (with exception of e-
Recruiting) only requires the existence of the Business Partner objects. These
BAdIs include:

BADI_ESH_IF_OBJECT_DATA
BADI_HRTMC_DR_FIELDS
HRTMC_ASSESSMENT_AVERAGE
HRALX_HRALXSYNC_BADI

Summary

So, here you’ve read a bit of background about why Business Partners are
used and needed in SAP HCM Talent Management, how you can set them up
and what issues to look out for. Hopefully this has cleared up some of the
issues and myths surrounded Business Partners and SAP HCM Talent
Management!

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11 Comments
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Harinath Sadhu

April 3, 2012 at 10:24 am

Good One. Gives good picture of BP in SAP.

Also, just to add a point to users, BP is used in integration ECC with

SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)

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SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

SAP E-Recruiting
SAP Collaboration Projects (cProjects)
SAP Strategic Enterprise Management (SAP SEM)
SAP Internet Communication Manager (ICM)

Luke Marson Post author

April 3, 2012 at 2:49 pm

Thanks for your comment and your input. That’s a great list and I just
learned some integration points that I didn’t know about

Ramprabhu Sukumaran

May 30, 2012 at 6:35 pm

Hi Harinath,

That’s a great info. But how is BP used in ICM?It just handles HTTP
request right? Just curious.

Thanks,

Ram

Former Member

May 31, 2012 at 1:02 pm

SAP ICM here is most probably for “Incentive and Commission

Management” which uses OM and the Business Partner
object.

Former Member

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September 5, 2012 at 6:54 pm

Hi, Luke. I have a couple of questions related to your post. What’s the primary
difference between “ON” and “CREATE” on the integration switches — specifically,
PBPHR. Our setting is on create but you indicate to set it to on. I didn’t do the initial set
up so I’m trying to understand the settings.

Also, is there an easy way to view errors when HRALXSYNC is run in background mode
with SAP&DEFAULT variant? When I view the spool file, I can see the postal code
length error but am unable to view what CP the failure was on.

Thanks,

Nancy

Former Member

August 7, 2013 at 12:39 pm

Dear Luke, May be I am taking look at this post of yours after a year, but its very very
useful post for creation and issue related to BP. I remember I also faced few of these
issue while I was implementing E-Rec.

THANKS>>>>

Rohit

Luke Marson Post author

August 7, 2013 at 12:45 pm

Thanks Rohit. It’s not a piece that will age soon so I’m glad it helped you.

Best regards,

Luke

Former Member

August 7, 2013 at 6:27 pm

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Yes Luke, I agree …. currently I am working on SF Recruiting

and this looks far better what SAP delivered…….

Regards,

Rohit

Kedhar Nath

August 7, 2013 at 6:46 pm

Dear Luke,

First I am happy to see doc on BP & recently I had a

requirement from one of my EHS consultant for creating BP
which is used in their module as a external person,

may I know that can we use the BP in EHS also

Regards,

Kedhar.

Luke Marson Post author

August 7, 2013 at 9:29 pm

Hi Kehdar,

I don’t know much about EHS, but if it will be an

external system then most likely the BP object will
be used for integration. I recommend that you
check on the SAP Online Help website. You can
try this, where it mentions that Business Partner
roles are needed for integration:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_ehsext40/helpdata/e
n/90/b28945cf29474695afd5ceaa569fd5/frameset
.htm

Best regards,

Luke

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Former Member

August 8, 2013 at 6:50 am

You may also take a look to this

http://help.sap.com/erp2005_ehp_06/helpdata/en/
87/fe0e422dfcde2ce10000000a1550b0/frameset.
htm

Regards,

Rohit

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