H2R 505 ยท FROM DISCOVERY TO STABILIZATION
How does an H2R implementation unfold?
Join a fictional regional business as one controlled hire-to-pay-and-exit release moves from workforce questions to production evidence.
PROJECT PHASE
Discover
Clarify the people and compliance problem
What the team does
Meet HR, Payroll, Finance, IT, managers, security, privacy, and employee representatives. Capture populations, countries, policy, controls, integrations, and success measures.
H2R project moment
The first release is one country and salaried employees; time clocks, more payroll countries, and advanced talent remain later scope.
Evidence to leave behind
Approved scope, stakeholder map, data inventory, compliance assumptions, and open decisions.
PROJECT PHASE
Fit to standard
Challenge habits before building exceptions
What the team does
Demonstrate a standard lifecycle using realistic roles and policy. Separate legal or workforce-agreement needs from historical workarounds.
H2R project moment
The team accepts standard onboarding tasks but retains formal manager approval for compensation changes.
Evidence to leave behind
Fit decisions, gaps, policy owners, acceptance criteria, and a decision log.
PROJECT PHASE
Design
Connect people data to downstream consequences
What the team does
Define the system of record, organisation model, effective dating, permissions, workflows, payroll boundary, Finance posting, integrations, reporting, retention, and migration rules.
H2R project moment
Core people data has one owner; approved employee and compensation changes reach payroll; Finance receives reconciled payroll postings.
Evidence to leave behind
Signed design, data ownership matrix, role concept, interface contracts, and test conditions.
PROJECT PHASE
Configure
Build in dependency order
What the team does
Configure the smallest complete scenario, record each decision beside its business rule, deploy only project-owned changes, and prepare protected test data.
H2R project moment
A new hire determines organisation, manager, job, position, pay group, workflow, permissions, payroll eligibility, and Finance allocation without manual repair.
Evidence to leave behind
Configuration rationale, deployment sequence, data readiness, unit evidence, and defects.
PROJECT PHASE
Test
Prove the employee story, not isolated screens
What the team does
Run integration, security, payroll, migration, regression, and user-acceptance tests. Reconcile records, dates, approvals, results, interfaces, and accounting totals.
H2R project moment
One fictional worker is hired, paid, transferred, and exited. Pay, access, Finance posting, and retained history match policy.
Evidence to leave behind
Passed evidence, security exceptions, retest results, business acceptance, and residual risk.
PROJECT PHASE
Cut over
Make data and operations ready
What the team does
Sequence deployment, roles, employee and organisational data, payroll controls, interfaces, schedules, reconciliations, communications, and contingency decisions.
H2R project moment
The team validates employee counts and pay totals, enables integrations, confirms access, and runs a controlled new-hire smoke test.
Evidence to leave behind
Approved cutover plan, data totals, owners, timings, contingency triggers, and go/no-go decision.
PROJECT PHASE
Go live & stabilize
Operate, protect, and improve
What the team does
Monitor hire and change queues, interfaces, payroll results, posting reconciliation, security requests, and support demand. Preserve evidence before changing rules or data.
H2R project moment
A future-dated transfer misses payroll. The team traces the effective date and interface status, corrects the approved source, retests, and documents the support pattern.
Evidence to leave behind
Daily controls, root-cause records, accepted backlog, support knowledge, ownership transfer, and stabilization exit.
PRODUCTION-READY PROOF
Test complete worker stories and controlled failures
Regression is not a list of screens. Prove the business event, SuccessFactors record, data and Position, RBP, workflow, integration, and downstream business result together.
Data and worker scenarios
Test a historical worker with incomplete data, a newly mandatory field, future-dated change, rehire, and contractor extension.
Position and RBP scenarios
Test occupied and vacant Positions, manager change, temporary assignment, reporting-line change, permitted view and maintain access, denied access, and restricted populations.
Workflow scenarios
Test normal approval, unavailable approver, delegation, missing manager, rejection, and resubmission.
Integration scenarios
Test SuccessFactors and target success, target-processing failure, mapping error, authentication or certificate failure, endpoint outage, delayed run, and controlled reprocessing.
Cutover and hypercare
Validate legacy data, permissions, workflow and integration monitoring, high-risk lifecycle events, and known failure patterns before handing over to support.
THE CONNECTING THREAD
One people decision must remain accountable
A person-data change is not complete because a screen saved. Its policy basis, owner, effective date, approval, downstream result, and support trail must remain traceable.
- 01Policy needIntent
- 02Fit decisionScope
- 03Data and process designModel
- 04ConfigurationBuild
- 05Test proofEvidence
- 06Production controlOperate
Move from implementation evidence into production diagnosis, ownership, and continuous improvement.