Speed up secure SAP testing in your complex HCM landscape

In a rapidly changing business landscape, organisations are under constant pressure to extract, manage, and secure vast amounts of information across complex systems. If you are navigating the complexity of a hybrid SAP HCM environment, where you have SAP ECC on-premise and SuccessFactors Employee Central (EC), or SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll (ECP), this becomes even more difficult. You are probably experiencing the difficulties of navigating between systems in a hybrid landscape; and while moving to cloud-based systems brings flexibility and innovation, the challenge of maintaining accurate, secure test data is one that can’t be overlooked.

The risks of poorly managed test data are far-reaching, impacting Payroll accuracy, HR operations, and even compliance. As your systems become more interconnected, the stakes grow higher, making it essential to address these challenges before they escalate into costly disruptions.

The testing challenges in hybrid SAP HCM environments

Data silos and large volumes of data

In hybrid environments, data silos exist between on-premise SAP and SAP SuccessFactors. When HR, Payroll, and Time data are distributed across these systems and in large volumes, managing data consistency and synchronisation becomes more complex.

Integration points and their limitations

While integration points between on-premise and SAP SuccessFactors are essential for data to flow smoothly across these systems, these points have limited scope and functionality. Many organisations struggle with real-time synchronisation of critical HR and Payroll data, leading to discrepancies between the systems, which complicates tasks such as Payroll processing, reporting, and testing.

Training and problem simulation issues

Training your HR teams and running effective problem simulations are important to prepare for changes in SAP systems. However, discrepancies in test environments, including incomplete or inaccurate data, can lead to ineffective training sessions. You need realistic, up-to-date test environments to accurately simulate real-world scenarios, but without accurate test data, your training efforts are compromised, and employees may not be fully prepared for the changes ahead.

Manual processes and resources for data transfer

Traditionally, organisations have relied on manual processes to move data between systems. This includes manually uploading and downloading data, or even exporting and importing files out of SAP systems. These manual tasks create bottlenecks in the workflow and extend the time it takes to validate processes or refresh test environments. They also introduce the risk of human error, which can lead to inaccuracies, compliance issues and delays in testing cycles.

Data security and compliance challenges

In a typical testing scenario, organisations need to use Production data to simulate real-world conditions in non-production environments. However, this poses a risk because Production data often contains sensitive, Personally Identifiable Information (PII) that must be securely managed to comply with regulations such as GDPR, PDPA, and other data privacy laws. Additionally, accessing critical HCM and Payroll Production data in non-production environments requires consistent data masking to comply with SAP’s data-processing agreements. Without proper data masking and security protocols in place, the sharing of Production data in non-production environments could lead to serious security breaches and compliance violations.

High disk storage and costs

As your hybrid SAP landscape grows, so do the disk storage requirements. Storing and maintaining large volumes of data across multiple systems can lead to significant disk costs. More data means more storage, and that means higher infrastructure costs, especially when you are dealing with multiple copies of Production data for testing and training purposes.

Slow data refreshes

Data refreshes are a critical part of maintaining test environments, but when they take too long, your entire testing process slows down. If you are dealing with slow data refreshes, it means you are waiting longer to get accurate, up-to-date data into your test systems, which delays your ability to validate processes and deploy updates.

Why you can’t afford to wait

The challenges facing organisations in hybrid SAP landscapes are only going to escalate. The longer you put off addressing them, the greater the risk to your HR processes, Payroll accuracy, and data security. Consider the risks of critical Payroll runs getting delayed because your test data didn’t match the live data. Or worse, a data breach because Production data wasn’t properly masked in a non-production environment. These issues are real and urgent, and they won’t fix themselves.

Closing the gap with Data Sync Manager (DSM)

Now that you understand the scope of the challenges, it is time to tackle them head-on with EPI-USE Labs’ Data Sync Manager (DSM) Suite. SAP-certified and approved for use with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll, DSM offers a controlled and compliant way to select, transfer, and mask SAP HCM data.

Here's how DSM helps bridge the testing gap:

• Real, accurate data for reliable testing
• Convenient, secure masking and copying of SAP SuccessFactors HCM data
• Efficient system refreshes with minimal downtime
• Data masking for security and compliance
• Precise data selection to avoid downtime
• No delays in obtaining testing or training data

Take action before it is too late

Addressing these challenges now will save you time, money, and operational headaches in the future. Read this real case scenario on how we helped PostNL refresh their Employee Central Payroll (ECP)/Employee Central (EC) test environment.

With Data Sync Manager, you can accelerate your testing cycles, improve data security, and ensure compliance, while reducing the risk of errors during critical HR and Payroll processes.

Book a demo of Data Sync Manager today and see for yourself how it can solve these problems and simplify test data management in your complex hybrid SAP landscape.