The end of Onboarding 1.0 and what you need to know

As you may have seen, SAP has announced the end of support for the SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding 1.0 solution.  

This was the original solution used in SuccessFactors for onboarding, crossboarding and offboarding employees within the organisation, and has been a trusted solution for customers for many years. This was built on different technology than the main SuccessFactors platform.  

SAP have spent considerable time and effort to build a new solution using the main SuccessFactors platform. This was originally labelled as Onboarding 2.0, but relabelled to Onboarding a number of years ago.

SAP have announced the end of Maintenance as of the 2H 2025 release and the deprecation of Onboarding 1.0 is planned for the 1H 2026 release. End of Maintenance means bug fixes, patches and compliance form updates will no longer occur. So start planning now for migration to the new Onboarding solution by the end of 2025.

The look and feel of Onboarding differs from Onboarding 1.0, as does the functionality and capabilities of the solution.  It is built on the MDF framework, so uses the same data model, business rules, role-based permissions and user interface as SAP SuccessFactors Platform/Employee Central.

Onboarding is built on a completely different technology stack than Onboarding 1.0. This means that there is no digitised migration path that can be utilised. The good news is that we have a process to ensure the functionality from the legacy system is enabled in the new solution, as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Using our HXM Right Now solution, built on the SAP SuccessFactors suite, we can implement a pre-configured baseline, then work with you to personalise the process to your needs. Out of the box you will have a fully working Onboarding solution, but perhaps you want additional data captured or you're a customer with international locations and have country-specific compliance needs. The Discovery solution also includes Crossboarding, Offboarding, and Re-Hire processes.

If you don't have SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central in your current landscape, this doesn't limit you from implementing the new Onboarding solution. By leveraging minimal EC features to establish a mini-master of basic foundation data, you can effectively enable the process to work for you.

This detailed blog post in the SAP Community outlines the key functionality, possible add-on features such as using surveys enabled by SAP Employee Lifecycle by Qualtrics and use of SAP SuccessFactors WorkZone for guided experiences. You'll need an S-user to login to the SAP Community.

People Analytics reporting is also supported for the new Onboarding, unlike Onboarding 1.0. Discovery has created a custom dashboard that can be implemented to provide metrics about your Onboarding processes, along with a suite of reporting dashboards for different modules and purposes.

So how can Discovery Consulting help you?

Many customers implemented Onboarding 1.0 many years ago.  In the time elapsed since the original implementation there may have been changes within the organisation, that not have been replicated in the solution. Or, what was once considered a good design and fit for your organisation may no longer reflect your processes. 

This gives you a choice:

• Look to enable the same or similar processes in Onboarding that currently exists, or
• New implementation of Onboarding for full transformation of the processes.

The good news is that Discovery Consulting can work with you for both scenarios.  

For customers looking to enable the new solution, we have created a self assessment tool that will enable us to better work with you to understand your current solution and its complexity.  We can then propose the best way forward for you for timeframes and effort, based on how you are using the current solution, as well as the best approach.  

For more information please contact us today.