The landscape document from SAP that explains how to export from HCM to VDS to Identity Center has sections that are less than clear so I thought I would list common issues that have caused problems in the past. First the architecture. The way the export works is as follows:
- A report is run in SAP HCM which extracts the necessary data formated as LDAP data.
- SAP connects to the VDS and pushes the data.
- VDS connects to the Identity Center information store and uploads the data.
A couple common problems I have seen.
- The field names inside SAP are misnamed or the export names to LDAP are.
- The LDAP libraries in SAP Basis are not installed.
- VDS Template: The one you want to use is this one “HR Export to IdM Identity Center.xml” this one will not work “HCM LDAP EXTRACT for IDM.xml”
- Bad credentials or passwords (of course)
- VDS Tree for HCM is broken in some way. If in doubt recreate your setting from the template.
Troubleshooting Tips.
- First determine where you are broken.
- Turn on verbose logging at VDS and see if HCM is even connecting.
- If you are connecting to VDS but no data is reaching the Identity Store then check the LDAP extract for misspellings. One error in your path and the whole thing breaks.
- If VDS shows database errors then check the error logs in the identity center for problems with the task configuration
Finally, because HCM does not support event triggers — which can be tricky — I usually filter at HCM LDAP report for the data I want. In most cases a nightly run is sufficient. SAP recommends a full upload every time but this is not practical for large numbers of employees.