If you've ever struggled to find your timesheet, time-off request, or team absence calendar in SAP SuccessFactors, you're not alone. Time Management is one of the most-used areas of the SuccessFactors suite, yet it has never had a dedicated entry point in the main navigation menu.

A UX audit surfaced a consistent set of pain points:

• Time Management is not listed in the main menu or action dropdown — users must know where to look.
• Employees rely on Quick Actions which may not be intuitive for new users.
• Breadcrumbs are missing, making it difficult to understand where you are or how to navigate back.
• Time applications such as Time Off are buried inside the People Profile, making them hard to discover.

Time Side Navigation brings a long-overdue improvement: a dedicated Time Management entry in the SAP SuccessFactors main menu, paired with an intuitive side navigation panel. This puts all time-related tasks for employees (ESS) exactly where users expect them: at the top level of the application.

Time Management will now sit alongside other first-class modules such as Recruiting, Learning, Opportunity Marketplace, and Performance & Goals, with its own second-level navigation to key tasks.

For Employees (ESS)

• Quick Time Recording: Launch the Time Sheet directly from the menu — no more navigating through the People Profile.
• Quick Absence Creation: Request time off from the main navigation in just a few clicks.
• My Calendar: Access a personal view of your schedule and absences directly from the menu.
• Payout Leave, Purchase Leave, Time Forms & Time Statements: All time-related self-service options accessible from one place.
• Attendance Quota: Request attendance quota for overtime in just few clicks.

The design went through a rigorous discovery and prototyping process, with multiple UX variants evaluated before arriving at the current approach. Key design decisions include:

• Side navigation for personal data: Side navigation is most effective when employees view their own time data — the primary use case this design optimizes for.
• Consistent horizontal tab bar: When navigating from side navigation to the next screen, a horizontal tab bar ensures a consistent experience.
• Feature toggle controlled: The feature is delivered behind a feature toggle, allowing customers and partners to adopt at their own pace as early adopters

Approach

1. For best experience, please enable this switch from company and logo settings. Also, you would need to have new to have new people profile (PPX) enabled                                                                          2. You would now see under the shell bar also a dedicated Time Management Menu (along with sub menu items). Now log in as an employee, you should see the new shell bar also called as hamburger menu  

   The visibility of sub menu items depends on RBPs. Employees need access to relevant screens such as requesting time off and timesheet access.

   

   3. Once you navigate from the side menu, you end up in a screen where the horizontal tab bar is shown. You can then navigate to different Time Management Transactions from the same screen

   

   This effectively improves productivity and efficiency. With just one click, you can navigate and perform time management tasks in one place.

Leading HCM solutions already provide both menu-based and quick-action access to Time Management, making navigation seamless for employees. The Time Side Navigation brings SAP SuccessFactors Time Management to the same level of accessibility and intuitiveness that modern enterprise HR users expect.

The Time Side Navigation delivers tangible value across three dimensions:

• Faster task completion: Employees spend less time searching for the right screen and more time on their actual work.
• Reduced training overhead: An intuitive, discoverable navigation reduces the learning curve for new users and cuts down on support requests.
• Partner readiness: Partners implementing or extending SAP SuccessFactors Time Management can align configurations to a first-class navigation entry point, simplifying integration and onboarding.

• Rollout: Feature toggle controlled in 2605 — opt-in at go-live, with General Availability planned in a subsequent release
• Future Outlook:  Planned GA in 2611 via Company and Logo Settings. Customers can then enable this feature without depending on SAP for feature toggle activation.

This feature is not available for customers that use only Leave of Absence. This requires full time off at a minimum.

This is an early adopter feature behind a feature toggle. You can request this by reaching out to us. You can reach out to us via your customer success manager, account team or directly to me via SAP community. You can drop me a message in community and we can get connected for this

This feature is a meaningful step forward in making SAP SuccessFactors Time Management more accessible, intuitive, and efficient for the employees who rely on it every day. By giving Time Management a dedicated place in the navigation alongside Recruiting, Learning, and other core modules, we are removing friction and putting time-related tasks right where they belong.

We look forward to your feedback as this feature comes to life.