SAP User ID naming conventions

[Former Member]

Hi All,

We are planning to come up with a new user id naming convention to SAP and non SAP systems. I was just wondering what are the best practices out there and I was also curious to know if anyone has used the SAP HR PERNR as the Login ID ? are there any risks with using the PERNR as the user id ?

any help would be greatly appriciated

[former_member213733]

Hi ,

Naming convention of a user ID depends from implementation to implementation .

As per my understanding the experience , PERNR is genrally used as the user id , so that it is easy to rather track the user instead of every time going to SU01D or SU01 to find who the user is .

It all would depend on the type of track that you are looking at ,. like i have also seen ID's having module specification attached to the convention like FI001 or CO001 or PM001 , some even use names of individuals like for eg. dewang .

If i were to recommend something i would say , go for PERNR no harm .....

Cheers ,

Dewang

[Former Member]

Hi Hector,

Most of the times it is with Network ID's as it helps SSO scenarios better... Going forward Identity Management has become a key area and user id's (Including SAP, Network, Non SAP, Intranet etc) are being synced up and it would be better to use your network user id's in SAP as well.

~Sri

[Former Member]

I agree with Sri, Network ID makes things easier from an Identity Management perspective (not talking about the SAP product but IdM in general). SAP access is but one component of someone's identity, unless you really have to (like the network ID is very long) then don't make more work by creating another naming schema.

[Former Member]

An advantage of using PERNR is that the HR event of an applicant or employment contract is known to them first and if they keep the uniqueness of the ID then other systems with own users stores can follow suite or be provisioned.

You typically would not create an AD account for all applicants...

(also SAP HR can track faked CV's if you tune it a bit, AD cannot do that...:-)

Cheers,

Julius

[Former Member]

If your HR system truly covers all users of SAP, then there is no real risk of using PERNR, however if you have contract staff or users that would not be found in HR you will still need a suitable convention for those ids.

Often a prefix to a numeric id would work, SPERNR for staff ids, Csequential number for contractors.

In my organisation we have an over complex format based on numeric, but that is primarily to cater for 55,000 SAP users globally some completely external, so not appearing on any HR systems (of which we currently have many our Global HR isn't really global!)

You'll also need a convention for converting permanent employees to contractors and vice versa if you go through staffing changes. Also ensure that the personnel number is generated well ahead of the specific user starting with the organisation, as you do not want to have to wait a few days to get the payroll / employee number set up before you can enrole the user on any systems.

So basically ensure your format works fast enough to get people on to your systems in a timely manner and can react / track back to people leaving.

Our SAP ids do match our network ids, such consistency helps with IdM which we are currently deploying for our 18,000+ US based users, before we roll out globally, and ensures we can keep track of joiners / leavers, as well as simplifying SSO.

Edited by: Chris Haigh on Jun 6, 2011 10:55 PM

Apologies should have replied to the OP, not Julius

[jörg_weichert]

Hello Hector,

from my point of view it is essential to use unique user ids accross all your systems. Keep in mind that the HR PERNR is only unique if you have only on HR System with one client!

Do you plan to user live long user ids or could a user id change for example if contractor becomes an regular employee?

Cheers

Joerg

[Former Member]

Thank you all for responding back with suggestions.

Our AD user IDs are too long (Firstname.Lastname) So we can not use them for SAP(12 character restriction). We are discussing with the AD team to use the new SAP use id naming convention for the new AD users and later migrate the existing users(around 1600) to the new user ID naming convention. We plan to implement IDM sometime in late 2012 or 2013 and would like to lay the foundation now since we are getting ready to set-up all our users in SAP system for ESS access.

Using PERNR sounded as a viable option for us since it is unique for each employee and also since the HR personnel would be knowing it first hand, they will be able to populate it in infotype 0105 which will then kick off our HR new hire trigger for our GRC CUP system.

The options we have discussed so far are:

1. SAP HR personnel number (PERNR) employee name change will not affect the user ID(i.e Married)

2.<1st letter from First Name><3 letters from Last name><4 numbers from PERNR>

3. <1st letter from First Name><1st letter from Last Name ><6 numbers from PERNR

4. <Employee type - One letter representation ><8 numbers from PERNR> Example E=Employee C= Contractor/Temp Employee; however, a contrator or temp employee moving to the fulltime employee position will require a user ID change If all contract employees are not entered into the HR system then we may have to find an alternative naming convention for such employees.

5. Current user ID: <1st letter from First Name>< Last Name>< Optional Number> this is our current naming convention in SAP. Since HR will be responsible for assigning the user ID to the PERNR, this naming convention maybe confusing for HR.

[Former Member]

Married

This is a change you will have to live with and can cause no end of problems

For the 1600 legacy users you can consider that SAP IdM can match the unique IdM identity (AD name) to a system specific UID name - so you will not have to rename them!

Cheers,

Julius

[Former Member]

Married....how about Expats??? Every place I've worked, they've been the headache!

I've done a conversion before. We went from first initial-last name (AD) and first initial-last name-numeric (SAP) to syncing both AD and SAP to PERNR. It was a long, sometimes painful process but well worth it. The only issues we ran into were the expats who got a new PERNR when changing countries.

[Former Member]

Having a central and global HR system is like communal marraige for the end user experience...

Many large customers have already made this investment years ago.

Cheers,

Julius