The Employee Interaction Center (EIC) is a fairly new add-on application as part of the shared services offering of SAP ERP HCM. SAP delivered several new functions as part of the enhancement package concept. Some of these enhancements include service-level agreements, customer satisfaction surveys, enhanced authorization checks, and flexible data views.

With the release of SAP enhancement package 4, EIC underwent major functionality upgrades, including the following:

• A new SAP ECC authorization object that allows a user to secure sensitive employee interaction data within EIC
• A new portal business package for EIC agents, which contains the portal role that allows clients to integrate the EIC application with SAP NetWeaver Portal

The New EIC Security Concept

The new authorization object to enforce EIC activity authorization is called P_EICAU (Figure 1).

Figure 1

EIC activity authorization object P_EICAU

The authorization object includes the following key attributes:

• AUTHC is the authorization level or operation to be performed on the EIC activity. The values for the authorization level are: Create (C), Modify (M), Read (R), Delete (D), and All (*).
• EIC_STAT2 is the employment status of the affected employee on the EIC activity. The value is derived from infotype 0000 (Actions) and field STAT2 (Employment status). The system uses the current data for this authorization check.
• EIC_ACST is the EIC activity status from case management. The values are from the configuration view V_HREIC_SEMSTAT.
• EIC_CATEG is the EIC activity category. The values for the EIC category come from the configuration task category values (not the texts) that are configured for EIC under the IMG. Follow menu path EIC > Interaction Center Web-Client > Application Functions > Basic Settings > Define Categories and Subcategories. It is possible to use ranges of values or wildcard patterns when specifying the values for the categories and subcategories. Categories and subcategories are the values that organizations configure to classify the EIC activities for reporting purposes.
• EIC_SCAT1 is EIC activity subcategory 1. The values for subcategory 1 are also configured in the same table as the EIC category above.
• EIC_SCAT2 is EIC activity subcategory 2. The values for subcategory 2 are also configured in the same table as the EIC category above.
• EIC_SCAT3 is EIC activity subcategory 3. The values for subcategory 3 are also configured in the same table as the EIC category above.
• EIC_SCAT4 is EIC activity subcategory 4. The values for subcategory 4 are also configured in the same table as the EIC category above.

Under SAP’s new security concept, P_EICAU enforces two distinct authorizations within the EIC application. Under the authorizations, only approved EIC agents have access to handle the following:

• Activities for a permitted group of employees. This is enforced using the standard SAP structural or role-based authorizations.
• Activities for only a certain EIC aspect (e.g., Payroll or Benefits). This is enforced using P_EICAU.

Users can, for example, arrange their HR shared services organizations to handle employee inquiries based on geographical locations or by organizational hierarchies. Users can also organize these shared service centers by teams that handle different kinds of employee inquiries or tiers of support.

Key Features of New Authorization

When users implement the new EIC authorization, they see the new functionality throughout the EIC application. For example, when an EIC agent performs an employee search to create a new activity or add a new contact to an existing EIC activity, the system ensures that the agent has access to the employee before allowing the agent to perform any EIC-related functions for that employee.

If the agent has access to the employee, the EIC application restricts the agent to only be able to view or maintain authorized activities based on the EIC activity attributes. Also, when maintaining EIC activity data, the application restricts the drop-down menus for category and subcategories based on the authorization values. The agent can only create or change activities for authorized categories and subcategories (Figure 2).

Figure 2

EIC Category selection restricted based on authorizations

Further, the application restricts the drop-down menu for possible activity owners and processors within the EIC application based on authorization.

Portal Business Package for EIC

SAP has a standard default role for EIC agents with SAP enhancement package 4. This role is called SAP_EP_HR_PAOC_EIC. The role contains the authorizations required by the EIC application. You can use it as a building block to enhance and create various function-based roles for EIC call centers. This role contains authorization for access to:

• EIC via the SAP NetWeaver Portal
• Case management and records management objects that the EIC application uses
• Appraisal data (for EIC survey requests)
• Broadcast messaging function
• Interactive scripting         
• HR transactions such as HREIC (EIC application), PA20 (Display HR Master Data), and PA30 (Maintain HR Master Data)

The Business Package for Employee Interaction Center (SAP ERP) 1.4 also contains an EIC portal role that customers can use as a model to create function-based portal roles. The standard EIC portal role gives users the following key functions:

• Access to EIC via SAP NetWeaver Portal
• Launch of  the broadcast messaging function
• Access to the compilation administration tool (for creating Knowledge Management indexes)
• Access to SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse queries and reports

Jarret Pazahanick

Jarret Pazahanick is an SAP Mentor, Human Capital Management (HCM) Certified Consultant, and Managing Partner of EIC Experts who has specialized in SAP HCM since 1998. He is a subject matter expert in US Payroll, Employee Interaction Center (EIC), and Enterprise Compensation Management (ECM). Over the past 14 years, Jarret has completed 20 high profile, full life cycle SAP HCM implementations for global Fortune 1000 companies. He is SAP HCM certified and ASAP certified; author for HR Expert, CloudAve, and ASUG News; and a moderator, blogger, and gold-level contributor on the SAP Community Network.

If you have comments about this article or publication, or would like to submit an article idea, please contact the editor.

Chandan Gopalani

Chandan Gopalani is a senior SAP HCM technical consultant with over 18 years of experience working on SAP projects across various industries and clients since 1995. He is co-founder of EIC Experts and specializes in Organization Management, Employee Interaction Center (EIC), US Payroll, Enterprise Compensation Management, ESS/MSS, Personnel Administration, Benefits, CATS, Finance, and Sales & Distribution. He is ABAP certified and ASAP certified, as well the author of several HR Expert article. He is currently working as an ECM consultant for a Fortune 50 client.

You may contact the author at cgopalani@eicexperts.com.

If you have comments about this article or publication, or would like to submit an article idea, please contact the editor.