HR Scoped Application Migration FAQ's :
by Kiel Sanders
What is the scoped HR application?
The scoped HR application is the latest version of the HR Service Delivery product and was introduced in the Istanbul release. The primary benefit of the scoped application is the ability to restrict access of sensitive HR data to only those with HR roles. The scoped application also allows HR admins to administer content within the HR product, including having control over who can access the HR data.
Why should I migrate to the scoped application?
The scoped HR application provides additional security over HR data and allows HR to manage their own content within the HR product. This allows HR to be more self-sufficient and no longer reliant on IT for content updates, with IT maintaining control of the content outside of the HR scope. The scoped application also introduces the Center of Excellence (COE) model of separate case tables for each COE, which makes it easier to manage and report on cases within each COE.
In addition, all future development of new features and functionality for the HR Service Delivery product will be made to the scoped application.
Why did this change?
We often heard from our customers that there was a need for HR to have more control over their data. HR departments were frustrated that they were dependent on IT for all changes and concerned about confidential employee information being accessible to those outside of HR. IT was concerned with the risk of providing HR with admin access to the entire system and impacting areas outside of HR. The HR product was rewritten as a scoped application to solve these concerns.
What can a scoped admin do?
A user with the HR admin role (sn_hr_core.admin) and Delegated Developer access has the ability to configure areas within the HR application menu, including:
- HR knowledge
- HR cases
- HR tasks
- HR skills
- HR services
- HR templates
- HR catalog
- HR criteria
- HR Profile tables (benefits, compensation, direct deposit, etc.)*
- HR document templates
- HR surveys
- HR reports
- HR email notifications
- HR SLA definitions*
- HR Inbound Email Actions
- Workday integration setup*
- Managed HR lists (positions, benefit types, relationships, etc.)
- Scripts (UI Actions, business rules, client scripts, etc.)*
* Requires Delegated Developer access
Note: When the scoped application is activated, the admin role is automatically given the sn_hr_core.admin role. It is recommended that once the IT admin no longer needs this role, they assign the role to the appropriate HR admin user and remove it from the admin role. Once that change is made, only the users with sn_hr_core.admin will be able to grant others access to administer the HR scoped application.
Who is impacted by this?
HR customers currently using the non-scoped HR application that are looking to continue leveraging new functionality introduced in the HR product.
How do I know whether I'm on the scoped or non-scoped application?
The scoped application is a separate plugin from the non-scoped application so you can identify your version of the product by looking at the plug-in name (System Definition > Plugins).
Non-Scoped:
Scoped:
Do I have to upgrade to the scoped application?
Customers are not required to migrate to the scoped application at this time, but all future product development beyond Helsinki occurs in the scoped application. We encourage customers to migrate to the scoped application so they can continue to adopt new functionality.
While the scoped application was introduced in Istanbul, customers are not required to migrate to the scoped product in order to upgrade to Istanbul or beyond. The non-scoped application will still work for customers upgrading to current and planned releases of the platform.
Will the non-scoped HR application be decommissioned?
There are no plans to decommission or sunset the non-scoped application at this time; however, product development within the non-scoped application ended after the Helsinki release. The non-scoped application will continue to be available to current HR customers in all current and planned releases.
How do I begin using the scoped application?
The scoped application was introduced in the Istanbul release as a new plugin that can be activated by any customer entitled to the HR Service Delivery product (formerly known as HR Service Management).
We also introduced a migration tool in Jakarta to assist current customers with their migration to the non-scoped application. It is recommended that current HR customers wait to Jakarta before moving to the scoped application so they can leverage the migration tool.
How do I begin using the migration tool?
The migration tool is activated as a plugin called Human Resources Scoped App: Data Migration (com.sn_hr_migration). This plugin is only available when the non-scoped HR plugin is activated.
What is included in the migration tool?
The migration tool will assist customers with the migration process but they will still be responsible for migrating a portion of their content. The migration tool will update the table schemas from the standard non-scoped tables to the new scoped tables to ensure all custom columns and table changes will be reflected in the new scoped tables. Custom tables can still be migrated using this tool but they need manually identified.
A video walkthrough of this tool can be found on the HR Migration Tool Walkthrough page.
In addition to the updated table schemas, the following non-scoped table data will also be migrated:
- hr_position
- hr_profile
- hr_document_template
- hr_document_acknowledgement
- hr_emergency_contact
- hr_link
- hr_m2m_link_template_lookup
- hr_bank_account*
- hr_benefit_type*
- hr_benefit_provider*
- hr_beneficiary*
- hr_direct_deposit*
- hr_op_report_frequency*
- hr_op_report_type*
- hr_op_report*
- hr_op_system*
- hr_op_system_to_report_type*
- hr_performance_issue_type*
- hr_performance_warning_type*
- hr_dental_benefit*
- hr_disability_benefit*
- hr_insurance_benefit*
- hr_pharmacy_benefit*
- hr_retirement_benefit*
- hr_vision_benefit*
- hr_medical_benefit*
* Only migrated if the HR Service Portal plugin is activated
What do I need to consider when migrating?
Cases — Cases will not be migrated as part of the migration tool. Our recommendation is to close out cases in the non-scoped application and recreate them in the scoped application. Running the role migration in the migration tool will add the necessary scoped roles to users based on the role mapping. The legacy roles can then be modified or removed from user accounts to prevent users from accessing the legacy HR cases in the non-scoped application. The cases will still exist on the non-scoped tables for reporting purposes.
Customers have also created new module links to the Task table filtered by "Task Type is HR Case" to provide end-users a view into all HR cases (non-scoped and scoped) together in one view.
HR Catalog Items (HR Templates & Record Producers) — HR Catalogs have changed foundationally to be more scalable in the future so they could not be simply migrated over. As of Jakarta, 40+ HR Services are included out of the box. Many customers find that they do not need to recreate or migrate their existing services, templates, and record producers because they are already available as out of the box content. The recommendation is to review all of the out of the box services and modify them to meet your needs if applicable. If any custom services were created in the non-scoped app, it is recommended to evaluate those individually and take the opportunity to reimplement them with best practices.
Workflows — Workflows will not be migrated to the HR scope but customers will not lose access to existing workflows they've created. It is recommended to review the workflows used in the non-scoped application and rebuild them in the HR scope, modify them to work with the HR scope, or use the Service Activities.
Integrations — HR integrations will likely need to be changed so that they process off of the scoped tables.
Reporting — Standard HR reports are delivered with the scoped application. All custom HR reports will need to be updated to report off of the proper scoped tables.
Scripting (Business Rules, Client Scripts, UI Actions, UI Policies, etc) — Scripts will need to be updated to reflect the new scoped tables.
Custom apps — Custom development within HR only needs to be recreated in the scoped application if it requires the security that scoping provides.
What level of effort should I expect when migrating to the scoped application?
Every customer's deployment of HR Service Delivery is unique so it is difficult to provide a general estimate of the effort required. As a general guideline, the more customizations that were made to the out of the box product, the greater the effort will be for that customer to migrate their custom changes to the scoped application.
ServiceNow's Professional Services team can assist with assessing effort and costs of migration.
How do I use the migration tool?
Instructions on using the migration tool can be found in the product documentation under the HR Migration section and in the HR Migration Tool Walkthrough video.
What happened to Category and Subcategory?
Category and Subcategory were replaced with the HR Service categorization in the scoped HR application. This provides a more structured hierarchy to assist with security, reporting, and case assignment. More information on the new HR categorization structure can be found in the HR Services for Case and Knowledge Management section of the Product Documentation.
What are HR Services? How do they impact HR Catalog Items?
HR Services are used to define standardization and process within HR requests. The HR Service is essentially the request type (ex: tuition reimbursement, benefits inquiry, etc.) and is used to determine what the fulfiller's experience working that case will look like. Examples of items defined within a HR Service are fulfillment instructions, service specific fields, associated tasks, pre-populated fields (using HR Templates), and approvers. More information can be found in the HR Services for Case and Knowledge Management section of the Product Documentation.
The HR Catalog remains the same but the script field on the HR record producers has changed to call upon the appropriate HR Service. This is automatically added to all new HR Catalog Items but you may need to update legacy record producers to leverage the new HR Service functionality. It is recommended to use the out of the box HR Services and HR Catalog Items or recreate your legacy HR Catalog during migration; however you can use the code below in the record producer script field if you chose to modify your legacy HR Catalog.
new sn_hr_core.hr_ServicesUtil(current, gs).createCaseFromProducer(producer, cat_item.sys_id);
