In April–May 2025, SAP launched the 1H 2025 SuccessFactors release, by delivering over 250 new enhancements focused on AI-powered capabilities, mobile usability, core HR, talent processes, reporting, and learning. These innovations are intended to boost efficiency, increase flexibility and deliver success for both employees and organisations.
Joule, SAP’s AI copilot, is now integrated into the SuccessFactors mobile app, accessible in 10 new languages including Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Polish, Japanese, Greek, and Vietnamese. Employees can use natural-language prompts like “explain my pay statement”, “compare my payslip”, or request leave - all via Joule on mobile, reducing HR inquiries and increasing employee self-service. Managers benefit too, with quick access to team learning status and other insights via mobile.
SuccessFactors Recruiting now features a guided, modern candidate application interface, a refreshed applications dashboard, and a candidate profile redesign, all built to accelerate and simplify the application journey.
The Onboarding solution now includes an Alumni Experience, allowing former employees to maintain access to documents, support and personal information post-termination. Joule-powered offboarding further streamlines task completion and improves compliance.
The release introduces a new Performance & Goals experience featuring a clean, intuitive layout with contextual panels to reduce cognitive load. New AI features assist evaluators with rating-based comment suggestions, manager-level performance summaries, and sentiment analysis for 360° feedback, highlighting development needs more efficiently.
Employee Central enhancements include an enriched Full People Profile incorporating benefits, payroll, and learning information. Managers can now create job requisitions directly from the org chart. A public sector–specific financing portlet adds tailored visibility to employee budgeting.
Time Management updates include:
Quick-create timesheets covering multiple days in one step
Natural-language time-off requests via Joule
Single-record approval for overtime entries
Configurable approval periods aligned with local payroll cycles
These enhancements reduce admin workload, errors, and improve compliance.
Payroll capabilities are boosted with Joule-enabled payslip explanations, an enhanced Payroll Control Center with end-to-end process visibility, and integration with the Position Budgeting Control Workbench, offering administrators real-time insights into personnel costs and budget utilisation. SAP also expanded native payroll coverage to include Bulgaria, bringing the total supported locales to 53.
In Learning, AI-assisted skills inferencing automatically extracts competencies from course descriptions and maps them to standardised libraries in the Talent Intelligence Hub. This drives personalised, skills-focused learning recommendations.
Managers now gain AI-assisted successor insights when planning for succession: the system analyses nominated successors on criteria such as experience, strengths, and growth potential, and presents a summary in the org chart or talent card view. Team development dashboards further allow visibility into roles, aspirations, top skills, and areas needing improvement - helping managers align team development with business goals.
SAP postponed deprecation of legacy Tiles and Dashboard reporting until after November 2025, giving organisations more time to migrate to the advanced Story reporting framework . Story reports now support unified currency conversion with metadata, compensation structure analytics, and reporting on Foundation and custom MDF workflows, enabling deeper insight and flexibility.
The 1H 2025 SAP SuccessFactors release delivers a robust wave of AI-enabled innovations, mobile-first usability, streamlined HR workflows, and powerful analytics. With enhanced Joule features, smarter recruitment, enriched learning capabilities, and deeper reporting, the platform empowers employees, managers, and HR teams to be more efficient, informed, and engaged.
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