Hi There,
Welcome back to Fieldglass features.
As a Fieldglass Product Adoption Executive in Australia – I manage a portfolio of 10-15 customers at any one point in time. Each customer is different with different program goals, operational, organisational, or regulatory constraints.
Our Solutions and Sales Advisory team have put together a great little FAQ collating some of the most frequently asked questions and answers. I’ve broken the FAQ’s down in to 2 blog posts – this being the 2nd of those. If you haven’t already seen the blog last week – it’s well worth checking out.
Weather your’ new to Fieldglass or an old hand, there’s sure to be some gems of gold in this content that you can take away to improve your current program.
Contents include:
o Worker Management | Contingent Workers & Service Procurement Workers
o Time & Expenses & Invoicing | Contingent Workforce Management & Services Procurement
o Service Requests | Statement of Work Management
o Intelligent Spend and Business Network: Ariba Integration
o Intelligent Spend and Business Network: S/4 Integration
o Total Workforce Management (SuccessFactors Integration)
Worker Management | Contingent Workers & Service Procurement Workers
What's the purpose of assignment history for External Workers?
- This is to help your organization view the historical assignments and roles that your external worker has taken in your organization in the duration of his contractual employment. Additionally, for some countries that may have legislations specific to hiring and maintaining tenure of external workers, the assignment history helps you give an insight whether if you're still under compliance of local legislations pertaining to tenure policies.
Is there a consolidated view where I can see my Workers submitted and approved timesheets?
- Simply go over the Master Worker Record of the Worker and click the "Assignments" Tab.
Can I directly manage onboarding/offboarding activities of my worker from his profile?
- Yes and No. Yes if the onboarding or offboarding items is assigned to you and no if you're not the key actor for the assignment.
How many Activity Items can I assign to my workers?
- You can assign as many activity items as required for your workers with different key stakeholders executing the activity items. However, you may want to try to add the most necessary ones and think about legislative and compliance requirements before adding.
Can I set rules for activity items including restricting activity items specific to business unit, site, location or legal entity?
- Definitely! You can set parameters and specific category of activity items to manage to specific sites, locations, legal entities or even cost centres!
Do I or my stakeholders get notifications with the activity items due dates?
- As you set thresholds or due dates to each of the activity items, corresponding actors receive notifications from their Work Item with the due activity items they need to execute. This includes activity items that are assigned to workers, and they receive notification from their instance when an activity item is nearing deadline or past deadline.
Can I add custom fields to see additional relevant information about my worker?
- Custom Fields can be added as needed in the worker profile information.
How can I easily go back to the Job Requisition where my worker is tied to?
- Hover over the details tab to see the worker's Job Posting ID that the worker is attached to.
Are there options how I can easily manage my workers spend and tenure information?
- Hover over the summary tab where you can see the spend, activity items summary and the duration the worker is hired and other relevant details of the worker in a graphical format.
Time & Expenses & Invoicing | Contingent Workforce Management & Services Procurement
My workers use a supplier portal online. Can they continue to use that instead of Fieldglass?
- One of the advantages to a platform like SAP Fieldglass is that it centralizes all of your worker activity (regardless of supplier) into one consistent experience for both workers and approving managers. We highly recommend leveraging Fieldglass time entry to bring not only advances in entry and approval, but to allow for consolidated invoicing through Fieldglass. With Fieldglass’ APIs, suppliers can easily download time sheet information and upload, or integrate, that into their back office systems. Many of the larger suppliers already have an integration set up with Fieldglass.
We have a timeclock. Can we continue to use that?
- Yes, in this case we would not look initially to disrupt the timeclock process, unless you were looking for an online method of time tracking. In cases where time clocks are leveraged if there is an extract of the time logged it can be uploaded using our standard API for timesheets.
What does auto-invoicing mean?
- Essentially, we create the invoice record on behalf of the supplier and connect it to the originating time or expense sheet for full reconciliation. Invoices can then be consolidated for payment based on supplier or org unit (other options) based on dates you will establish per your billing cycle. Your suppliers have the same visibility to see when invoices are generated, and this acts as their OK to Pay the worker.
Can my supplier still create a paper invoice?
- Yes, there is nothing to prevent the supplier from creating that invoice if it is a required component of your process. However, we find most organizations who leverage Fieldglass find that the process is no longer necessary because of our consolidated invoicing on behalf of the supplier. Suppliers also prefer this process as it reduces reconciliation time (which results in faster payment) as well as admin burden on their end.
We have specific shift/OT rules. Can you accommodate this?
- SAP Fieldglass has a rate rules engines which allows you to define when certain rate rules, such as shift, OT, holiday uplifts, per diems, etc. apply. Workers simply enter the hours worked and Fieldglass automatically applies the hours to the appropriate rates, simplifying the process and ensuring compliance.
Can I log timesheets based on specific tasks that my contingent worker has done?
- Yes! You can create task codes if you wish to make your workers log their timesheets based on the task, they have done in a workday (e.g. 4hours for IT Maintenance, 4 hours for Operations)
Can I upload my workers' timesheets on my own / the business users?
- If you don't want your workers to log their timesheets through the workers instance in Fieldglass, you can upload timesheets using the Timesheets connector manually.
Can I maintain public holidays in the system so that the workers would know that they don't need to log their time there?
- Corporate Calendar feature of Fieldglass helps you maintain local public holidays that will ensure that your workers won’t log their timesheets there. Notifications can be set to inform you once your worker worked on a public holiday.
We have a gatekeeping system that we use to log workers' in and out. Does Fieldglass support this functionality?
- Yes, although subject for scoping. Being an open API solution, we can integrate with gatekeeping systems.
I need to maintain specific tax rates in my invoices for timesheets. Is this supported by Fieldglass?
- Yes! You can configure local tax rates to automatically be calculated in your invoice in any approved timesheets (e.g., GST, VAT, SST). This applies to SOW Line Items that are approved as well.
I pay an agency fee/MSP Rate, can this be added in the computation of the timesheet?
- Just like configuring tax computations in your invoices, agency fees or MSP rates can also be added in the invoice computation. This applies to SOW Line Items that are approved as well.
Service Requests | Statement of Work Management
What are common categories that can be managed within Fieldglass?
- Any type of external service can be managed within Fieldglass. Some common categories include IT, Engineering, Marketing, Legal, Field Services, Print Services, Facilities, and Consulting.
Can Fieldglass integrate with my Contract Management system?
- Yes! Again, being part of the SAP family, we’re releasing a productized integration with Ariba contracts to ensure that flow down language, negotiated SLAs, and rates are enforced in each subsequent SOW. With Fieldglass’ open API framework, we can integrate with any system.
What types of payments does Fieldglass support?
- Within a SOW, you can mix and match milestones/deliverables, scheduled payments, T&M, unit or contract-based pricing, and KPI tracking.
Can I bid these projects out amongst my suppliers?
- SAP Fieldglass has a bidding module to bid a project out to your preferred vendors – a great way to generate cost savings!
Can multiple internal team members collaborate on a single SOW before sending to the vendor?
- Absolutely! The workflow for creating the SOW is completely configurable. For example, if you would like a category manager to initiate the SOW, send over to your legal team for edits, then have one final approval from management before sending the SOW over to your supplier, that is totally possible. The process and workflow is completely up to you.
What if I need to make a revision on the SOW?
- SAP Fieldglass provides a revision mechanism that allows you to make changes to the SOW and then flow through an approval workflow. Each revision of the SOW is maintained as a separate version so that all historical versions of the agreement are tracked and viewable.
Intelligent Spend and Business Network: Ariba and Other Procurement Systems Integration
Can I do supplier qualification in Fieldglass?
- Only qualified suppliers and has been registered in Ariba SLP (or in S/4 HAA
Can the contracts I create in Ariba flow in Fieldglass so I can create Child Statement of Work against it?
I have S/4 for my payments system and Ariba for Contracts management. How can this integration work with Fieldglass in SOWs?
Are there integration documentation between Ariba Contracts and Fieldglass?
Can I categorize my buying catalogues accordingly between goods and services?
- Ariba Guided Buying can help properly classify through a guided experience the catalogues of goods and services you wish to procure as a start. It gives you the ability to configure guided questions so that it can properly bring you to the right solution.
Intelligent Spend and Business Network: S/4 HANA Integration and Other ERP Systems Integration
What are the common integration use-cases of Fieldglass with S/4 HANA?
- In our experience, customers look at the possibility of integrating their contract management from S/4 to Fieldglass (more information below). Additionally, they are looking to streamline their process of payments with S/4 being the finance and payments solution after a per-forma invoice has been generated and referenced from Fieldglass. Purchase Requests and Purchase Order referencing, and management is also one of the use-cases we usually see from customers.
Can I reference the Purchase Request (PR) and Purchase Order (PO) in my Job Requisitions?
- Once an SOW or a Job Requisition has been raised in Fieldglass, with integration, this can be pulled by S/4 to raise a PR against the SOW or Job Requisition so that these are properly referenced to the requests raised in Fieldglass. In some instances, Milestones and Deliverables for SOW includes details on PO from S/4 in specific instances as well.
How about timesheets, does this integrate with S/4 once a timesheet has been approved?
- Currently no. We only support Fees in SOW when Service Workers are part of the picture. We can however setup fees against roles with defined rates (e.g., hourly, weekly or monthly fees).
I usually create my contracts from S/4 HANA, can it flow to Fieldglass so I can create Child Statement of Work against it?
- Once a Service Contract has been raised from S/4 HANA, if integrated, Fieldglass will pick this up so that you can start creating CSOWs against the contract. An OLA field will be referenced in Fieldglass from the contract pulled from S/4 HANA.
How can my contracts from S/4 HANA be referenced in Fieldglass?
- Through the OLA or Outline Agreement Field in the Master Statement of Work / Master Contract
Whenever making payment to a supplier, can I raise Purchase Order Number in S/4 and have it referenced in my invoices in Fieldglass?
- This helps customer avoid manual reconciliation in invoicing and payments as per-forma invoices generated in Fieldglass for approved line items has the PO# field pulled from S/4 HANA.
What Master Data Elements can Fieldglass pull from S/4?
Does Fieldglass integrate with other ERP solutions?
- Yes subject to scoping and requirements understanding from the customer.
Is there an integration document that I can refer to with the complete integration scenario of Fieldglass and S/4
Total Workforce Management (SuccessFactors Integration)
What are the Master Data Elements that Fieldglass supports with its integration with SuccessFactors?
- This includes data such as users information, legal entity, business unit, cost centre, location and job code.
How does SAP SuccessFactors' Position Management Integration work with Fieldglass?
- In simple terms, an External Workforce Role/position is showing up under the organization chart of a department or a line manager. Like in any org chart, an External Worker Position is showing up in the organization chart indicating that it is an outsourced role from SuccessFactors. The integration with Fieldglass happens when a line manager would like to source for an external worker and all the manager must do is to raise a requisition directly from SF's org chart where the External Worker role is showing up and it will redirect the sourcing manager to Fieldglass.
Does Employee Central report the External Worker that is managed in Fieldglass?
- Yes, the external worker record is replicated in Employee Central with the help of the Standard Worker Connector from Fieldglass which brings the Contingent Worker record from Fieldglass to Employee Central as Employee Master Data.
Are there any legislative requirements that I should be careful of with the integration?
- Certain countries don’t allow the reporting of External Workers to an organization's organization chart as some of these countries treat External Workforce distinct from the Internal Employees of an organization. An example of which is like in the Philippines in Southeast Asia where External Workers are not supposed to be treated in direct roll-up with an internal Line Manager.
Can I standardize my Job Posting Templates still from Fieldglass with the integration with SuccessFactors?
- Yes! Job Posting Templates can be integrated and replicated from SuccessFactors and Fieldglass (vis-à-vis) to ensure a standardized and streamlined requisitioning process to worker record creation upon completion of Contingent Worker Sourcing Event from Fieldglass to Employee Central.
Employee Learning Management System for workers, how does it work with Fieldglass and SuccessFactors' LMS?
- Once a contingent worker record has been replicated from Fieldglass to SuccessFactors' Employee Central, Contingent Workers can be assigned by Learning Modules from LMS which they can complete as activity. However, as of 2023, take note of the licensing costs in this approach as this might require a separate licensing fee.
Can I manage the onboarding and offboarding items of my external workers in SF with Fieldglass integration?
- As of February 2023, this functionality is not yet supported. Users are asked to manage specific activity items to corresponding solutions where internal or external employees are maintained.
