COMPETENCIES,

FAMILIES AND ROLES

CONTENTS
COMPETENCIES, FAMILIES AND ROLES ............................................................................................................................ 1
What are Competencies? ............................................................................................................................................. 2
Differences between competencies and goals/objectives ........................................................................................... 2
Top 10 SuccessFactors client competencies ................................................................................................................. 3
Top 6 management competencies to predict success ................................................................................................. 3
Writing Assistant .......................................................................................................................................................... 3
Configuring Writing Assistant/Coaching Advisor Option in SuccessFactory ................................................................ 5
Overview of Levels of Competency Depth ................................................................................................................... 6
Editing competencies in Admin Tools .......................................................................................................................... 7
Downloading Competencies ....................................................................................................................................... 10
Ways in which competencies may populate on a form ............................................................................................. 12
Adding Families and Roles .......................................................................................................................................... 12
Associating Competencies to the Role ....................................................................................................................... 15
Overview of Levels of Families and Roles Depth ........................................................................................................ 16

Competencies, Families and Roles

WHAT ARE COMPETENCIES?

Important job behaviors and the expectations associated with them. Can be defined as:

abilities or skills that an employee must have to be successful

fundamental principles that surround the corporate mission or values
You cant learn it in a day

Each company may select their competencies differently. Here are some examples:
Job Specific competencies:

Company Values:

Corporate Competencies:

Product management

Honesty/Integrity/Ethics

Job Knowledge

Quality control

Respect/Dependability

Judgment

Managing technology

Communications

Teamwork

Sales skills

Interpersonal Skills

Drive for Results

Communications

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COMPETENCIES AND GOALS/OBJECTIVES

Competencies are typically described how an employee performs his/her job and goals are what they actually
accomplish, for example:
Competencies:

Goals:

Behaviors

Tasks

Skills

Targets

Abilities

Trackable

Values

Measurable

Principles

Milestones

Example: Sales Negotiation Example: Sales goal $21k for

Skills
2009

Competencies, Families and Roles

TOP 10 SUCCESSFACTORS CLIENT COMPETENCIES

Communication
Job Knowledge
Customer Focus
Teamwork
Leadership
Quality
Dependability
Initiative
Results Focus
Integrity/Ethics

TOP 6 MANAGEMENT COMPETENCIES TO PREDICT SUCCESS

Research proves that these competencies differentiate high-performing managers:

Initiative
Interpersonal skills
People development
Results focus
Team leadership
Teamwork

WRITING ASSISTANT
The SuccessFactors competency library is delivered in all instances with teasers associated to competencies and
grouped into three levels. The example below shows teasers for the competency called Account Management:
Improve:

Meets:

Exceeds:

Could better identify

customer needs

Develops good customer

relationships

Always sells to customer

needs

Inadequate after-sales
service

Good customer service

Creatively meets customer

needs

Inadequate account tracking

system

Exceptional customer
service

Sold account tracking

SuccessFactors teasers are fully editable in administration by the customer.

Competencies, Families and Roles

With the Rich Text Editor enabled in a competency section, Writing Assistant is accessed via the icon show below:

The following is what Writing Assistant looks like in the instance for the competency called Integrity/Ethics:

To turn on the new Writing Assistant Interface, go to Admin Tools-> Company Settings-> Company System and Logo
Settings and select Enhanced Writing Assistant UI and Display Writing Assistant with Emoticons

Competencies, Families and Roles

CONFIGURING WRITING ASSISTANT/COACHING ADVISOR OPTION IN SUCCESSFACTORY

The Writing Assistant / Coaching Advisor option is turned on by default. In order for Writing Assistant to be disabled
in a form template, you must configure it accordingly. In SuccessFactory, in a Competency section look under
Display Options and uncheck Writing Assistant / Coaching Advisor. This tells the system when creating a form not
to include the Writing Assistant / Coaching Advisor option.

Competencies, Families and Roles

OVERVIEW OF LEVELS OF COMPETENCY DEPTH

SuccessFactors competency offering is extremely robust with many layers. This diagram shows the depth of this
functionality. Most competency set-up and management can be done in Administration.

Admin Tools Managing Competencies

and Skills Competency Libraries

SuccessFactors Library Plus one with the

name of the Instance

50 Competencies in SF Library

Editable Competency Name and

Description

Teasers (Writing Assistant)

Behaviors

Tuning Text (Improve Meets Exceeds)

Coaching Advisor

Competencies, Families and Roles

EDITING COMPETENCIES IN ADMIN TOOLS

When you set-up competencies, you can edit existing competencies or create new ones.
Many customers want to utilize our writing assistant content while having competency names and descriptions
slightly different from what we provide in the SuccessFactors library.
This is easily done in Admin Tools by renaming our competencies to match theirs and/or by changing the descriptions
or teaser content accordingly. We call this process is mapping and it can readily be done by the client in Admin or
with the help of a PS Consultant via an upload in Provisioning.
You can edit and add competencies in Admin, or Provisioning. To get to the screen shown below:
1.

Log in to the instance as an administrator (in the training instance username=admin)

2.

Click on Admin tools ->Company Settings ->Manage Competencies

3.

Select View your competency libraries

4.

Select the SuccessFactors library by clicking on the link. Note that the competencies are editable.

Select any competency by clicking on the competency name hyperlink.

ID

GUID (Globally Unique Identifier)

Refers to the common competency ID of the

competency and this is used to hardcode the
competency to a PM Form. Each unique competency

This is the identifier assigned by the customer or the

source library to identify the competency. It supports
alpha numeric strings so you can give an identifier

Competencies, Families and Roles

in the library has a common competency ID. Unique

refers to a particular competency across languages.
Depending on how you setup your library, the
common competency ID can be the same or different
for the same competency across multiple languages.
This is a system generated numeric value based on the
GUID, library and source you are importing from.
Older configurations typically had a unique ID for each
competency in each language. This was because PM
and 360 forms could not be localized so you needed a
unique ID for each language you were configuring. For
example, Integrity (English) would be ID = 4 and
Intgrit (French) would be ID = 5.

that makes sense to you. It also serves the purpose of

tying the same competency together across multiple
locales.
For example, Integrity (English) would be GUIID = 400
and Intgrit (French) would be GUID=400. By giving
the same GUID you indicate that these are in fact the
same competency, but just different languages.
Setting up the GUID like this will automatically create
the right common competency ID based on system
logic to associate these competencies.

Now with PM and 360 forms leveraging the token

functionality, you can map one common competency
ID to a form and it will be localized. In this case the
competency library can be setup to have the same ID
for a given competency across multiple languages. For
example, Integrity (English) and Intgrit (French)
would both be ID = 4.

Competencies, Families and Roles

Rename the competency by placing your curser in the name box and typing the new name.

6.

Edit description by typing in the Description text area.

7.

Click on Teasers to edit.

Competencies, Families and Roles

8.

To edit the text, simply type over the existing text. Make sure you modify the text for the different person
st
(1 , Second, and Third).

DOWNLOADING COMPETENCIES
Competencies, teasers and tuning text can be downloaded from Provisioning and Admin Tools (** If enabled for the
instance).

2.

1.

Log in to the instance as an administrator (in the training instance username=admin)

2.

Click on Admin tools ->Company Settings ->Manage Competencies

3.

Select View your competency libraries

4.

Select the SuccessFactors library by clicking on the link. Note that the competencies are editable.

Check the boxes for all the competencies you want to download and at the bottom, select the Download
option in the Actions menu. If you wish to download all the competencies, select the Download All
option.

Competencies, Families and Roles

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3.

The downloaded file will contain the competency with all the teaser and tuning text. In the example below,
the tuning text starts with [-FIRST-] to indicate first person. Keep in mind that if you select the CSV format
for the file and open it up in Excel, there is a character limit to how much can be displayed in a cell so the
data might appear truncated.

**Note: Competencies can also be downloaded from Provisioning with the help of a PS Consultant. Log into
Provisioning, click on Managing Competencies and Skills -> Competency Libraries. The steps to download the
competencies are identical in both Provisioning as well as Admin Tools.
Note: The fully translated competency libraries that include the WA/CA content are available in the following 3
languages only:

Spanish (International)
German (European)
French (European)

Competencies, Families and Roles

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WAYS IN WHICH COMPETENCIES MAY POPULATE ON A FORM

1.

Hard coded onto a form for everyone who receives that form

2.

Association with role or job code which auto-populates the applicable competencies for any person in the
same role

3.

Pulled manually onto a form on an ad-hoc basis

ADDING FAMILIES AND ROLES

1.

Under Admin Tools, click on Company Settings Manage Job Roles

2.

There may be from zero to many families in an instance. Families are used to organize roles. A small
company with little complexity may have one family called XYZ Widget Company, while a large company
with many roles to organize may have roles for various divisions, Administration, Marketing, Sales, for

Competencies, Families and Roles

12

example. It is always advisable to have as few as possible without compromising the clients business
needs. In the screenshot below, there is one Family called SuccessFactors.

To add a family, type the family name beside New Family and click Create.

Competencies, Families and Roles

13

3.

Roles are added within the Family. First click on the family name and then type click the Create New Role
button and enter the relative information.

4.

To add a job code to the Role, click the Add Job Code button.

5.

In this case make the job code for Manager, MGR. Most of the time, job codes will be Default.

Competencies, Families and Roles

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6.

You many have multiple job codes for use with Succession Planning. For the purposes of this training we
will just add one.

7.

You now have a role called Manager with a job code called MGR.

ASSOCIATING COMPETENCIES TO THE ROLE

Competencies are associated to roles to enable their auto-population onto forms at the time of form creation.
1.

To associate competencies to a role, in Admin tools go to Company and Settings Manage Job Roles.

2.

Click on the Family name or create a new one.

3.

Click on the Role name or create a new one.

4.

Click the Map New Competencies button to associate competencies to the Job Role.

5. Search for the competency using the search tool on the right side of the screen. Select the competency
and click the Add Selected button.

Competencies, Families and Roles

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6.

Expected Rating % and Weight % associated with the competencies in a role may be added here. We will
not be covering that at this time.

OVERVIEW OF LEVELS OF FAMILIES AND ROLES DEPTH

Competencies, Families and Roles

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Admin Tools Managing Competencies

and Skills Families & Roles

Family(ies)

Role(s)

Editable Role Name, Job Code and

Description

Map Competencies (Behaviors) to Role

Expected Rating %

Weight %

Competencies, Families and Roles

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