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Introduction to Oracle Self-Service Human Resources (SSHR)
SSHR is supplied with predefined data and functionality, although you must configure this data and functionality for your own implementation of SSHR.
Note: If you try to configure functionality before you are familiar with Oracle HRMS and Oracle Workflow, you may make mistakes. Before you complete any step, read the referenced topic information.
Note: It is your responsibility to populate data fields.
The flowcharts provide you with a summary of the logical sequence you might follow in any implementation of SSHR. It is not the only sequence you could follow but one we recommend.
The functional areas of the system you configure to your specific business needs. Steps that are required for all implementations are marked as required.
Some functions have been seeded with default data. The steps where you can use data supplied with the system are marked as seeded.
Decision making is an important part of any configuration process. Before you begin to customize SSHR, you must decide how you want to use it alongside your other Oracle HRMS applications.
Adopting a staged, or incremental, approach to configuration lets you focus on those processes you want to use.
Implementation Flowchart for SSHR, part 1
Implementation Flowchart for SSHR, part 2
Install the latest Oracle Human Resources patch according to the readme file for SSHR at the time of installation.
If you have licensed SSHR, set the following profile option to "Yes" at the site level.
HR: Self Service HR Licensed
If you have not licensed SSHR, please contact Oracle for information on purchasing a licence.
Check that you have the correct Internet browser. You can use Netscape Navigator 4.08 or Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4 or 5 or above.
You should remove transaction information from the temporary tables for processes that support Web transactions. To do this, include the Remove Transaction activity in the workflow process.
See: Running the Workflow Cleanup Process
Members of your Implementation team who will be making changes to workflow process definitions need to have the Workflow Builder installed on their workstations or available from a file server.
The predefined workflow item type is used as the basis for all future upgrades. Provided the access and protection levels are set correctly, you can work with the delivered item type and your configurations will not be overwritten.
See: Overview of Oracle Workflow Access Protection, Oracle Workflow Administrator's Guide
Define work structures, key flexfield, descriptive flexfields, lists of values.
See: Extend Oracle HRMS Overview, Oracle HRMS Configuring, Reporting, and System Administration Guide
Check that you now have the required tools for implementing SSHR. You should have now installed the following tools:
Oracle Workflow
Oracle Applications
SSHR
OA Framework
See: Getting Started with SSHR
See: User Profiles, Oracle HRMS Configuring, Reporting, and System Administration Guide
Before starting your implementation, it is important to identify any groups of users in your enterprise who may have different requirements. Most enterprises will differentiate between managers and other workers. In your enterprise, you may identify further distinct groups such as HR professionals, managers in a particular department, or senior managers.
If you want to take advantage of security based on access roles when routing and approving self-service actions, you must first activate the system profile option HR: Allow Approver updates to Self Service actions. Optionally, create and assign roles that grant or deny privileges to update actions. All users can update by default. Define and manage access roles in the Maintain Roles window.
See: Access Roles for Self Service Actions
User menus group together a number of functions. SSHR includes predefined menus for employees, managers, and system administrators, but we recommend that you create your own user menus using the seeded menus as a basis. To create user menus, use the Menu window.
See: Defining User Access and Menus
SSHR is supplied with predefined responsibilities, however, we recommend that you create your own responsibilities based on the seeded responsibilities. Assign a menu to them in the Responsibilities window.
See: Self-Service Responsibilities and User Access
You can configure SSHR to automatically determine if a person is eligible for a self-service action. To do this, you set up eligibility profiles, reporting groups (actions), and plans (sub actions), using SSHR Compensation and Benefits functionality as a generic processing engine.
See: Eligibility Processing Setup Example
Three tabs are displayed on the Person Search page. You can choose whether to display all these tabs or whether to hide one or more tabs from the user. You remove a tab from display in the Menu Exclusions Region of the Responsibilities window.
See: Person Tree
You set up the security profiles to control access to information.
Use the System Profile Values window to link the responsibilities you have created to your security profile.
If you want your managers to be able to access data for employees in other business groups, also set the HR: Cross Business Group responsibility.
See: User Profiles, Configuring, Reporting, and System Administration in Oracle HRMS
If you want managers to be able to access data for workers outside their security profile whose information has been released to them using the Release Employee Information function, also set the Allow Granted Access profile option to Yes for the responsibility.
See: User Profiles, Oracle HRMS Configuring, Reporting, and System Administration Guide
See: Release Employee Information
Create at least one user account manually to test the responsibilities and menus. For a small enterprise, you may choose to create all your user accounts manually and skip the next step.
See: Defining User Access and Menus
To create and manage the batch creation of user accounts, you must first write API user hooks. User hooks enable you to extend the predefined business rules to reflect your enterprise's business rules. You use the user account hooks for example, to set up your customary user name and password format, responsibilities, and profile options you want to associate with a user.
See: Writing User Hooks to Create Batch User Accounts
SSHR is delivered with a default Oracle logo in the upper left hand corner of the application. You can replace this logo with your own logo at the Site or Organization level.
Place the logo in the $OA_MEDIA/<Language> directory.
The logos are named FNDLWAPP.gif for SSHR version 3.2 and later, and FNDLOGHR for SSHR 2.0 functions.
See: Replacing the Default Oracle Logo
Set up the email addresses for your enterprise. Set up the following addresses using the Attributes Value tab in the Workflow Builder:
HR email address
Training administrator email address
Recruitment supervisor email address
The Review page of most self-service actions displays an Attachments region by default. If you want users to see the What If Analysis region, you must enable the display. Hide Attachments or show What If Analysis via Personalizations.
See:Configuring the Review Page
Save Attachements
When managers and workers perform self-service transactions, they can select the Save Attachments check box to save attachments to the self-service transactions and view them in the Oracle HRMS windows.
The Save Attachments check box on the Review page is hidden by default. Enterprises can decide whether to display the check box on the Review page using the Personalization feature. Personalization can be done only at the Function level, depending on the functionality that supports personalization at the Function level.
The following table provides a list of Review pages of self-service HR functions where users can save the attachments to view them in Oracle HRMS windows:
Self-Service HR Function | Oracle HRMS Window |
---|---|
Absence Management | Absence Details |
Education and Qualification | People |
Other Professional Qualifications | People |
Special Information | People |
Extra Information | People |
Hire | People |
Applicant Hire and Rehire | People |
Release Information | People |
Transfer | People |
Termination | Terminate |
Termination with Compensation | Terminate |
Personal Information | People |
Contingent Worker Placement | People |
Contact Extra Information | People |
Employee Review | People |
Worker Status Change, Change Hours, Change Job, Change Costcenter, Location and Manager, Change Costcenter, Terms and Manager, Change Worker Status and Terms, Change Job and Terms, Change Manager | Assignment |
Change Pay | Assignment |
Competency Profile | People |
The Effective Date page of a self-service action presents users with two choices:
Manually enter an effective date
Specify that the action takes effect on approval
You can use personalizations to hide either option, effectively making the other option the default choice for all actions. If you hide the manual entry field, the Effective Date page does not appear.
To ensure that the correct address style for your country is used in the application, select one of the predefined address styles. The default address style is determined by the legislation of the business group. To select an address style, use the Descriptive Flexfield Segments window.
See" Descriptive Flexfields and Address Styles, Oracle HRMS Configuring, Reporting, and System Administration Guide
SSHR is delivered with a number of business flows incorporating workflow-enabled functions. First identify which business flows you need to implement for your enterprise. Consider the information flows and approval processes within your enterprise.
For each business flow, repeat steps 30 thru 41. Detailed information is available in the relevant chapters as indicated. Details of the configuration options are available for each SSHR module.
Review the underlying workflow process in the Workflow Builder. If you wish to make changes, first copy the process so that you can make changes to the copy.
Review the seeded approvals processes and, if necessary, configure changes in the Workflow Builder.
Self-service actions now use Oracle AME as a processing engine for routing and approvals.
See: Oracle Approvals Management (AME)
Each workflow-enabled function has an error process that runs when a system error occurs. The error process sends a notification and a description of the error to the sysadmin ID. You configure the error processes in the Workflow Builder.
See: Configuring Workflow Error Processes
Use the Form Functions Window and the Parameters field to link the workflow item type to functions. The Parameters field is displayed when you select the Form tab.
If you do not want your workflow administrator to monitor all the workflow transactions in your enterprise, then you can restrict the workflow administrator's access to specific transactions. For example, you can restrict the administrator's access to workflow transactions to a specific organization hierarchy or a business group.
See: Restricting Access to Workflow Transactions
Note: The workflow security functionality works only when the Enable Security Group profile option is not set or set to No at the Application level for Application Object Library.
Add sub menus to user menus that allow users to see the Effective Date, Sub Actions, Return for Correction, Refresh Attributes, and Document Management pages.
Make sure that your configured functions are available in your user menus.
See: Defining User Access and Menus
User profiles control how users access information and how the information is displayed. You define the profiles at either the user or responsibility level in the System Profile Values window.
Test the workflow process to make sure that it is correct.
See: Testing a Workflow Definition (Oracle Workflow Guide)
Use the Personalization Framework. Set up user effective date options. See the earlier step, Configure Effective Date Options.
You can configure the flexfield structures in the Application Developer responsibility, then enable selected segments in the appropriate pages using the Personalization Framework.
You can add predefined messages to your regions or you can create your own messages if required.
See: Adding Instructions to Web Pages
Define the way a person's name appears in your workflow notifications.
See: User Profiles, Oracle HRMS Configuring, Reporting, and System Administration Guide
In the Hierarchy page, when managers place the mouse over the Details icon, they can view the photo of the worker, and details such as employment and contact in a pop-up window. Using personalization, you can display the Job, Organization, and Mobile fields that are hidden by default.
In addition to implementing the basic SSHR tools and processes, there are also implementation steps for the following SSHR functional areas:
Compensation Workbench, Oracle HRMS Compensation and Benefits Management Guide
Enterprises can determine whether Effective Date, Review, and Confirmation pages must be displayed for self-service transactions. For example, when top management executives perform self-service transactions, the Review page may not be required as they would like to enter the transaction details and submit the transaction without routing for approvals. To meet such business requirements, Oracle SSHR enables system administrators to control the display of Effective Date, Review, and Confirmation pages for self-service transactions.
Note: Oracle SSHR displays the Effective Date page in a new region at the top of the initial page that appears when you launch a function.
Set the following parameters for relevant functions to control the display of Effective Date, Review, and Confirmation pages in the transaction flow:
&pQkFn: Set this parameter value to Y to turn off the Effective Date.
&pBpRv: Set this parameter value to Y to turn off the Review page.
Setting either of the above parameters will bypass Confirmation page in the transaction flow. Note that if either the &pQkFn or &pBpRv parameter is set to Y, then the Confirmation page is automatically hidden.
Note: These function parameters are not set for any Personal or Manager Action functions by default. You must set these values, if required, for specific functions to control the display of Effective Date, Review and Confirmation pages.
For the Personal Information function, if the &pQkFn parameter is set to Y and managers or workers click Update in the Basic Details, Main Address, Secondary Address or Tertiary Address regions in the Personal Information page, then the options to correct current details or enter new information appear at the top of the related page and not in a separate Basic Details: Choose Option page.
Completing the Required Workflow Changes
If the &pBpRv parameter to hide the Review page is set to Y, then for the last page in the relevant process, the 'Last Page in Flow' attribute must be set to Yes using Oracle Workflow Builder. This indicates that the specific page is the last page in the transaction and the Review page is not available. Another Node attribute “Approval Required Flag” must be set for the same last page node to decide whether "Approvals" are required for that functionality or not. For self-service transaction processes, by default the "LAST_PAGE_IN_FLOW" attribute is set to value "No" and the "HR_APPROVAL_REQ_FLAG" attribute would have value same as it exists on the Review node.
The following functions provide the LAST_PAGE_IN_FLOW attribute:
Academic Rank
Change Contact Extra Information
Change Cost Centre, Location, Manager
Change Cost Centre, Location, Worker Terms, Manager
Change Extra Information
Change Hours
Change Hours 5.2
Change Job and Terms
Change Location
Change Manager
Change Pay
Change Pay 5.2
Change Special Information
Change Worker Status and Terms
Change Worker Status and Terms 5.2
Education and Qualification
Employee Review
Individual Compensation Distribution
Organization Manager
Other Professional Qualifications
Personal Information (All 5 processes)
Change Hours
Termination Release Information
Reverse Termination
Tenure Status
Termination
Termination with Compensation
Transfer
Transfer 5.2
Vehicle Mileage Expense
Work Schedule
Worker Status Change
Worker Status Change 5.2
Commutation Information
Documents of Record
Private Vehicle Allocation
Example: Adding the Parameters and Making Workflow Changes
In this example, the following business changes are required for the Change Job function:
Hide the Effective Date, Review, and Confirmation pages.
Turn off the approval feature for job changes.
This example uses the following predefined components:
HR Workflow (hrssa.wft)
Change Job process (HR_ASSIGNMENT_JSP_PRC)
Change Job function (HR_CHANGE_JOB_SS)
Complete the following steps to update the Change Job process (HR_ASSIGNMENT_JSP_PRC)
Open Oracle Workflow Builder.
Open the hrssa.wft file.
Open the Processes node.
Navigate to the HR_ASSIGNMENT_JSP_PRC process.
Open the process in the designer mode. HR_ASSIGNMENT_JSP_FCT is the node which is before the HR_REVIEW_CHANGES_JSP_FCT (Review Page Node).
Open the node HR_ASSIGNMENT_JSP_FCT and select the Node Attributes tab. View the following attributes:
Last Page In Flow
HR_APPROVAL_REQ_FLAG
Select Yes as the node attribute value for the Last Page In Flow to indicate that this the last page in the transaction business flow.
Select No as the node attribute for the HR_APPROVAL_REQ_FLAG to indicate that approvals are not required for the Change Job process.
Save your work.
Set the function parameters to hide the Effective Date, Review, and Confirmation pages:
Log in to the Functional Administrator responsibility.
Navigate to the Functions page.
Search for the HR_CHANGE_JOB_SS function.
Click Edit to add the function parameters.
Add the parameters as follows to the existing parameter list:
&pQkFn=Y&pBpRv=Y
Click Apply.
Bounce the listener to clear cache.
Now, when a user performs the Change Job function, the Effective Date, Review, and Confirmation pages do not appear. Approval is also not required for the change job transaction.
Managers can use two processes to quickly perform change hours and termination transactions. If required, enterprises can implement the following processes:
HR_QK_TERMINATION_JSP_PRC: Using this process, managers can enter termination details of their workers and submit the transaction for approval, without having to navigate to the 'Change Manager' page to reallocate workers who report to the terminated worker, if the terminated worker is a manager.
For information on how to implement this new process, see: Configuring the Termination Module
HR_QK_CHANGE_HOURS_JSP_PRC: Using this process, managers can quickly change the work schedule and assignment category of a worker and submit the transaction, without requiring to change pay.
For information on how to implement this new process, see: Configuring the Change Pay Function
Managers can view their organization hierarchy using the Organization Chart. Details of workers in the manager's hierarchy are displayed in the form of panel cards. The application supports different hierarchy viewer layouts.
Using the Organization Chart, managers can:
View the Contact, Employment, and Salary information of workers in their hierarchy.
Identify key high potential workers with succession plans, key high potential workers without succession plans, workers whose salary is above the specified grade range and below the specified grade range.
Launch self-service actions for workers in their hierarchy.
Workers can use the Organization Chart to view their contact and employment information. They can also search for other workers and view their contact and employment information.
For more information, see: Using the Organization Chart
The Organization Chart is built on Applications Development Framework (ADF) and the component used is hierarchyViewer, which is one of the ADF Data Visualization components. To implement this feature, see: Implementing the Organization Chart
The Talent Profile feature of Oracle SSHR helps enterprises to obtain a complete picture of the talent profile of their workforce to manage and execute their talent processes. Talent Profile captures and displays complete worker talent details on a single-interface.
See: Enabling Talent Profile in Oracle SSHR
The Succession Planning functionality enables managers to plan for future vacant positions by identifying possible successors for employees, jobs, and positions.
See: Setting up Information for Succession Planning
If you want to make formatted documents available to users that contain merged data from self-service actions, create them from PDF or RFT templates and link them to appropriate menu functions by creating groups in Document Management.
See: Document Management
You must load data from your database into the repository. At this time you can override any of the supplied mappings with your own data.
See: Populating the Repository
You can choose to deploy the Employee Directory from any of the following environments:
Self Service Personal Home Page
Add the Proxy Page function (HR_EMPDIR_PROXY_SS) to a menu or responsibility using the standard AOL setup. Give the function a prompt.
See: Self-Service Menus and User Access
The Personal Home Page uses the standard Self Service Global Menu to provide global buttons. See: Configuring the Global Button Bar to configure this menu.
Anonymous login
Anonymous login uses the standard Self Service Global Menu to provide global buttons, but does not render the Return to Portal or the Log Off buttons.
For setup details, and how to add additional global buttons, see: Anonymous Access to the Employee Directory
Portal
For information on how to deploy the Employee Directory from a portal environment, see the following notes on My Oracle Support:
132035.1
380484.1
The Employee Directory is read only. To enable users to edit their personal information, provide them with single sign on access to Self-Service.
See: Enabling Single Sign On to Self Service
Set this profile option to the time zone corresponding to your server time zone. This option affects the date and time displayed on the Personal Details page.
You can configure access between Oracle SSHR and Enwisen, a third-party information provider to enable end users to access company information or any other related information hosted on the Enwisen web site. The Info Online content container displays hypertext links to information providers.
See: Info Online Links to Enwisen from Oracle Self-Service Human Resources (SSHR) Pages, Oracle HRMS Configuring, Reporting, and System Administration Guide
See: Configuring Links between HRMS Products and Enwisen, Oracle HRMS Configuring, Reporting, and System Administration Guide
Managers and workers can export absence details such as absence dates to the calendar application that they use. To help users download absence schedules to their calendar application, you can enable the Export feature on the Absence Summary page of the Absence Management function. You can enable this feature for Manager Self-Service and Employee Self-Service responsibilities using Personalization.
For information on how to configure the Export feature, refer to this note on My Oracle Support Configuring the iCalendar Export Feature in Oracle HRMS Applications, Note ID: 761563.1
For information on how to secure Oracle SSHR for use outside the firewall, see:
DMZ Configuration with Oracle E-Business Suite 12 (Note: 380490.1) on My Oracle Support
Enabling SSL in Oracle Applications Release 12 (Note: 376700.1) on My Oracle Support
Configuring Self-Service Modules
Workforce Sourcing and Deployment
Organization Chart in Oracle SSHR
Vehicle and Mileage Processing