Outlining Time Management Basics

Evaluating work performed by employees and determining employee availability within an enterprise are essential elements for a human resources system.

Work performed by an employee is also relevant for the following areas:

Controlling:

Working times can be used for activity allocation in controlling. Costs generated by the working times can be assigned according to their source in controlling.

Logistics:

Information from time management is used in logistics to determine employees’ availability for capacity requirements planning.

The SAP Time Management application by Kronos enables you to determine work requirements for the enterprise and plan employee shifts to meet those requirements.

Planned working time is defined as the daily working period from start to end time, excluding breaks. By defining the planned working time for your employees, you determine how long they must work in your enterprise daily.

Information on working time specific to a particular employee is represented in his or her personal work schedule. The personal work schedule contains the deviations from and exceptions to an employee’s working time that have been recorded.

You assign a work schedule to an employee on the Planned Working Time infotype (0007) using work schedule rules. You can view the work schedule of each employee using Transaction PA20 (1.) and clicking on the button Work Schedule (2.) in the application toolbar.

The work schedule is created by the interaction of a holiday calendar and a period work schedule. The figure shows the creation of the period work schedule:

• Work break schedule.

  You define the break rules in the work schedule for any particular working day.

• Daily work schedule:

  The daily work schedule determines the structure of working times in your enterprise at the daily level. You can also define actual normal working conditions and those that differ from externally or internally determined daily working times. In this way, you set up working times defined for specific employees. The planned working time specified in a daily work schedule is the basis for payment calculation of actual working times that are relevant for payroll, as well as the valuation of attendances and absences. The daily work schedule, along with work break schedules, comprise the working times for a particular day.

• Period work schedule (3.):

  The period work schedule consists of a defined sequence of daily work schedules. The period work schedule reflects a work pattern that is repeated after a defined period of time. You can create the period work schedule for any length of time: The period work schedule can provide the working time model for one week, as do flextime models, or for an entire year. Period work schedules can also be created for longer-term working models, such as those that cover the entire year.

The standard SAP ERP system contains public holiday calendars that include regional holidays. You can change existing holidays and define new holidays in the public holiday list. A public holiday calendar is assigned to each personnel subarea. This is important for payroll as public holidays are considered when determining time such as vacation and overtime.

The public holiday calendar is used in numerous SAP applications, and also plays an important role in the human resources component. The public holiday calendar:

• Plays a central role in the scheduling process as well in generating monthly work schedules
• Is important for payroll

In time management, the definition of the planned working time (infotype 0007) for the individual employees is of central importance. The planned working time is mapped in the component time management (PT) over a work schedule, which in itself is based on a period work schedule. The period work schedule, in turn, consists of a fixed sequence of daily work schedule, each of which is assigned to work break schedules.

The holiday calendar, on the other hand, consists of a defined number of holidays.

The overall definition of the work schedule includes all information in the work schedule rule, which brings together both components, the holiday calendar and the period work schedule. By integrating the holiday calendar, you ensure that the system detects whether a day is a holiday or not. This quasi means that along a horizontal time axis, you can roll out the holiday calendar on the period schedule.

The work schedule is used as the basis for time data evaluation. The work schedule indicates how many hours employees are expected to work. Depending on the specifications defined for the individual employee, any additional hours worked are identified as overtime in time evaluation.

You can use two different methods to record employee time data in the SAP system:

Negative time recording:

With this method, only deviations from the work schedule are recorded. Examples include illness, substitutions, and vacation. If you only record deviations from the work schedule, planned working time is used as the basis for time evaluation.

Positive time recording:

With this method, all actual times are recorded. This includes time such as the hours actually worked, absences, and vacation. Actual times can be recorded using separate time recording systems. The data is then uploaded to the SAP system, where it is processed in time evaluation. Alternatively, employee time can be recorded manually using the Attendances infotype (2002).

Time management enables you to flexibly display and record working times. Information on working times is used to calculate gross wages in payroll. You can manage time accounts (such as leave and flex time) manually or automatically.

Examples of time recording options include the following:

1. Time administrator:

   The time administrator has several transactions and displays such as PA60 or PTMW available for time recording. They can record and change time date using infotype screens such as the following screens:

   • Infotype 2001 Absences
   • Infotype 2002 Attendances
   • Infotype 2011 Time Events
   • Infotype 2006 Absence Quotas
   • Infotype 2007 Attendance Quotas
2. Time recording terminals:

   Customers can use external time recording systems and interface time data to the SAP system.

3. Employee self-services

   Employees can enter their own time data using an employee self-service portal or SAP Fiori.

Here are some additional options:

• Customer system: Time administrators can use a customer system with an interface to the SAP system.
• Cross-application time sheets (CATS): Cross-application time sheets are used by both employees and time administrators to enter actual working time.