In 2018, SAP’s acquisition of Calliduscloud.com marked a pivotal moment in the evolution of their flagship Incentive Compensation Management product. Renamed as SAP Commissions, the product is undergoing a comprehensive architecture rewrite, transitioning to core SAP technologies and rebranded as SuccessFactors Incentive Management. This transformative change is a response to the ever-evolving landscape of technology and a strategic move to align with SAP’s broader ecosystem.
The crux of this transformation lies in the departure from the existing architecture, which is based on Oracle. This change is not merely a technological shift but a strategic necessity. The current Oracle-based architecture is set to lose support beyond 2026, prompting a critical decision for existing customers. They now find themselves at a crossroads, faced with the choice of either upgrading to the SAP HANA platform hosted on Google Hyperscalers or exploring alternatives within the Incentive Compensation Management (ICM) and Sales Performance Management (SPM) landscape.
One of the things that is not immediately obvious is what happens to Advanced Workflows after migration to SuccessFactors Incentive Management.
In the end, one might think that since Advanced Workflows operate in their own environment (the Workbench), migration from the old architecture to the new one should be a piece of cake. Well, things are a bit more complex than that.
a common practice in the past was to call SQL or even PL/SQL from within Advanced Workflow to execute tasks on an EXT instance that require database access. These snippets of code will need to be rewritten simply because EXT will no longer be on Oracle, it will be on HANA instead.
There are tools that can rewrite Oracle SQL and PL/SQL to HANA SQL, and they usually work reasonably well, but as always, the devil is in the details. Without a proper testing strategy, it’s not prudent to just use an automated code converter and push the code out to production, and hope for the best.
Some organizations rely very heavily on Advanced Workflows (beyond regular dispute resolution) so a properly planned Testing phase is a must in these cases.
Sands Partners will be happy to help you with the rewriting of Oracle SQL and PL/SQL to HANA SQL, definition of a testing strategy and execution of a test phase.
