Configuring Absence Requests

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Configure holiday calendars.
Configure work schedules.
Configure time types.
Configure workflow settings for absence recorded by managers and time administrators.
Configure time profiles.
Set up Time Off for employees.
Configure take rules.
Configure workflows.
Configure alerts and notifications.

Holiday Calendars

Different countries/regions, regions, cities, and so on, often have different holidays. In Time Off, holidays are grouped together in holiday calendars. The applicable holiday calendars are assigned to each employee using the Time Off functionality. Creating a holiday calendar ensures that the country/region-specific public holidays applicable to an employee are taken into account when the employee requests time off.

Holiday calendars can be created in two steps:

Create individual holidays.
Create a holiday calendar and assign the individual holidays. This calendar contains all the holidays for a given set of employees.

Hint

It's a best practice to build a holiday calendar for the current and future year.

Temporary Holiday Calendar

In certain situations, temporary changes may need to be made to an employee's holiday calendar to meet business requirements, for example regulatory requirements might mandate consideration of public holidays in an employee's current work location when on a business trip.

The system allows, employees to make changes to their holiday calendar and replicate this information to an SAP Payroll system.

For example, if you're an employee traveling from your office in Berlin to your office in Bangalore for a 20-day period, you can set up a temporary holiday calendar for this duration. With this adjustment, the local holidays in Bangalore, if applicable, will be recognized during your stay.

These adjustments are managed using the Temporary Time Information object. This includes a field called Category. and allows you to specify either of two values: Work Schedule (default value) or a Holiday Calendar.

Selecting Holiday Calendar in the Category field, allows you to create a temporary holiday calendar for an employee.

As an employee, you must have the following permissions to create a temporary holiday calendar using the employee self-service user interface:

You have the User→Time Management User Permissions→Create Temporary Change of Holiday Calendar in Self-Service permission.
You have the View and Edit→permissions for User→Time Management Object Permissions→Temporary Time Information permission.

Once the temporary changes are entered by the employee, it is sent to the employee’s manager for approval, if a workflow is configured for this process.

Note

The temporary holiday calendar overrides the calendar assigned to the employee in the Job Information section of People Profile for the specified period.

Holiday Planned Working Time Determination

The Holiday Planned Working Time Determination data object can be used to define the impact of a holiday on the planned working time.

Note

To access the Holiday Planned Working Time Determination object, you need the following permissions.

Select User Permission→Time Management Object Permissions→Holiday Planned Working Time Determination.
Select User Permission→Time Management Object Permissions→Holiday Planned Working Time Determination.Holiday Planned Working Time Specifications.

Holiday Planned Working Time Determination allows you to specify Holiday Planned Working Time (that is, the impact a holiday with that holiday category has on the planned working time of an employee) based on the holiday category. Holiday Planned Working Time field is then filled automatically for each holiday category used in any of the holiday calendars, based on the holiday class.

Holiday Planned Working Time consists of the following values and is mapped as follows to Holiday Class:

Holiday Planned Working Time	Description	Holiday Class
No Planned Working Time	The day becomes a non-working day due to the holiday (corresponds to holiday class ‘Full’)	Full
Reduced Planned Working Time	The day becomes a partial day off due to the holiday (corresponds to holiday class ‘Half’)	Half
Scheduled Working Time	No impact on the planned working time; the employee will work as scheduled by the (temporary) work schedule (corresponds to holiday class ‘None’)	None

Note

If you want to use a new holiday category in the holiday calendar, you have to first add this new holiday category to the Holiday Planned Working Time Determination object.

You can also create custom holiday categories. To be able to create custom holiday categories, you must have the SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking subscription.

Holiday Work Pattern

A holiday doesn’t necessarily mean a day off for all employees. A company could have those employees who must work based on their work schedule even on a holiday and those employees who don’t have to work on holidays. There are employees who work regular hours even when it’s a holiday because their job requires them to be available on such days. For example, this scenario holds good for nurses/doctors in a hospital, police officers, or production workers in a 24x7 work environment. The employees that fall in the former category could also avail a day off on a public holiday, as if it was a regular working day.

To distinguish between the two groups of employees, you can use Holiday Work Pattern. Holiday Work Pattern allows you to group employees based on their working pattern on public holidays. Using the Holiday Work Pattern in the Holiday Planned Working Time Determination object helps to determine if an employee must work on holidays or not. Holiday Work Pattern is used in Time Records Filter to configure premium pay for shift workers and regular salaried employees, when they work on public holidays.

This scenario can be configured in two steps:

Create Holiday Work Patterns corresponding to the employee work patterns (for example, one holiday work pattern for those employees who need to work on public holidays and another holiday work pattern for those employees who don’t have to work on public holidays).
Note
To create a Holiday Work Pattern, you need the permission: User Permission→Time Management Object Permissions→Holiday Work Pattern
Associate the Holiday Work Pattern with a Holiday Category in the Holiday Planned Working Time Determination object. This association helps to determine the planned working time on a holiday.
Assign the Holiday Work Pattern in the Employee Job Info.
When no Holiday Work Pattern is assigned to an employee's job information record, the default is to use Holiday Category with a blank Holiday Work Pattern.
Note
To assign the Holiday Work Pattern in the job information, you need the permission: User Permission→Employee Central Effective Dated Entities→Holiday Work Pattern.
Finally, add the holiday assignments to the holiday calendar, which is assigned to the employees.

Create Holidays

Steps

Select Manage Time Off Structures→Create New→Holiday.
In the Holiday Code field, enter a meaningful code.
Specify a Country/Region.
In the Name field, enter a meaningful name.
Save the entry.

Create Holiday Calendars

Steps

Select Manage Time Off Structures→Create New→Holiday Calendar.
In the Name field, enter a meaningful name.
Select a Country/Region.
In the External Code field, enter a meaningful code.
In the Holiday Assignments section, select all applicable holidays for your calendar.
For each holiday that you selected, enter the following details:
- Date of Holiday
- Holiday Category: The default values are Full, Half, and None.
- Holiday Class: This field is read only. It is filled automatically based on values defined to the Holiday Category in the Holiday Planned Working Time Determination object.
Save the entries.

Create a Custom Holiday Calendar

Business Example

The ACME Corporation needs to build the 2021/2022 Holiday Calendar for U.S. employees.

Task 1: Create the Holidays

In this task, you create a holiday. Other holidays are already in the system.

Steps

Create the holidays. Use the table, Holiday, to enter the data for a new holiday.
Holiday
Holiday Code Name
THANKSGIVING_FRIDAY_US Day after Thanksgiving
1. Enter Manage Time Off Structures in the Admin Center and navigate to Manage Time Off Structures tool.
2. Select Create New→Holiday.
3. Enter the data as given in the table.
4. Save the new holidays.

Holiday Code	Name
THANKSGIVING_FRIDAY_US	Day after Thanksgiving

Task 2: Create a Holiday Calendar and Add Holidays to the Calendar

Having created the holidays, you will now create a holiday calendar and add holidays to the calendar.

Steps

Create the holiday calendar with the following details:
Field Value
Name 2021/2022 Holiday US
External Code 2021_2022_HOLIDAY_US
1. Navigate to Manage Time Off Structures.
2. Select Create New→Holiday Calendar.
3. Enter the details as given in the above table.

Field	Value
Name	2021/2022 Holiday US
External Code	2021_2022_HOLIDAY_US

Assign the following holidays to your holiday calendar and save the calendar.

Additional Holiday Calendar

Date of Holiday in (MM/DD/YYYY) format	Holiday Category	Holiday
01/01/2021	Full	New Year’s Day
05/31/2021	Full	Memorial Day
07/05/2021	Full	Independence Day
09/06/2021	Full	Labor Day
11/25/2021	Full	Thanksgiving Day
11/26/2021	Full	Day after Thanksgiving
12/25/2021	Full	Christmas Day
01/01/2022	Full	New Year’s Day
05/30/2022	Full	Memorial Day
07/04/2022	Full	Independence Day
09/05/2022	Full	Labor Day
11/24/2022	Full	Thanksgiving Day

In the Holiday Assignments section, add the holidays from the table.
Hint
When you add a holiday to the holiday calendar, choose its Details link to locate the Holiday Category field.
Choose Save.

Work Schedules

A work schedule defines the employee´s working pattern. It is assigned to an employee´s job information showing, for example, how many days per week, and how many hours on each of those days, that an employee is to work.

An infographic displaying the configuration of a Work Schedule.

Work schedules usually apply to groups of employees. However, if, for example, an employee has an extraordinary schedule for which HR doesn't want to create a generally applicable schedule, you can create an individual work schedule, applying only to that employee.

Work Schedule Models

You can choose from three models for setting up your work schedule. You make your choice from the options offered in the Model field of the work schedule object. Your options are the following:

Simple
Period
Schedule

Note

With a work schedule day model, you can define how the number of hours worked on a particular day should look. You can then use the day models in your work schedule if you choose the period or schedule models.

Whichever option you choose, you enter a starting date. This date acts as the reference point for day 1 of the work schedule.

Work Schedule - Simple Model

You can use this model if you are working only with work schedules that always start on the same day of the week, as with, for example, a Monday to Friday work week.

If you select the simple model, you can enter, for example, a schedule consisting of 5 working days of 8 hours, plus 2 non-work days, like in the figure, work schedule - simple model. It is important to include both working days and non-working days. You can enter in as many days as necessary to cover the work pattern.

Enter the planned working time for each day directly in the Work Schedule Days section.

You need to enter the planned working time for each day separately.

Work Schedule - Period Model

A day model contains the number of hours for a day. You can combine the day models you create to make a period model work schedule. You should include one day model with no working hours to cover non-work days.

If you have a lot of work schedules, you can create different work schedule day models and reuse the work schedule day models to create period models.

For each day of a period model, select one of the following categories in the Work Schedule Days section: Day Model / Panned Hours / Non-Working Day.

The Work Schedule - Period Model is displayed.

In the period model, you enter a start date and a list of day models, along with the number of days. A period schedule can be used if workers work different shifts, such as the early shift or late shift, from week to week and the schedule is repeated. Period work schedules must also include non-working days.

Work Schedule - Schedule Model

If you have shift term workers, you can create a period model with the appropriate shift and create schedule models out of this period model with different start dates, for example, employee A starts with early shift and employee B starts the same day, but on the late shift. Employee C starts the same day, but works on the night shift.

You need to define the time recording variant because period models are supported for both duration-based and clock time-based time recording.

The Work Schedule - Schedule Model is displayed.

In the schedule model, you enter a start date and a period model. If the start dates for the period model and schedule model are different, the start date for the schedule model overrides that for the period model.

For all three workers, the same 3 Week Shift (3WeekShifts) can be applied, just with different start dates. Take a look at the example in the preceding figure.

The same 3 Week Period model is applied to all three shift groups. The start date for the period model is January 5, 2015 and it includes the first week as an early shift, the second week as the late shift, and the third week as the night shift. You can apply this same period to three different "schedules", only changing the start dates of each schedule. By having the start date as 12/29 (as seen in ShiftGroup1) this date starts employees that are assigned to this schedule with the late shift for the first week, since the start date of the period is still January 5, 2015. For employees assigned the schedule as the same start date as the period start date (January 5, 2015) as in ShiftGroup2, those employees will start out with the early shift. Finally, the third shift group will start the week of January 5^th with the night shift, due to the schedule starting date being 01/12/2015.

Work Schedule - Clock Times

You need to define the time recording variant because period models are supported for both duration-based and clock time-based time recording.

The work schedule examples mentioned previously have all used the Duration time recording variant.

As we said, you can choose Clock Times as the time recording variant in the period work schedules and in the schedule work schedules. To configure these, you need to create and maintain segments in your work schedule.

Select Clock Times as a recording variant in Period Work Schedule.

Cross-Midnight Work Schedule

Cross-midnight shifts are not supported within simple work schedules.

Only clock time-based time recording supports cross-midnight shifts.

For employees who work night shift, it is now possible to enter a continuous planned working time segment from one day to the next. For example, you can configure a work schedule with a working time segment from 10:00pm the first day to 6:00am the second day, instead of having to add one segment up to midnight and another starting after midnight. To configure cross midnight work schedules, in the work schedule day model and the work schedule there is a field titled "Cross Midnight Allowed" that enables the ability to record time segments across midnight when you select "Yes". Additionally, for night shift workers who's shift might end at midnight, working time can be recorded to end directly at midnight as well.

You can even set a non-working day to "cross midnight allowed" and also assign a nightshift bandwidth. This option is for those cases, where an employee performs overtime on a regular non-working day, and this overtime is during the night and across midnight. In order that the logical day assignment of this records are the same as if he would work his normal nightshift it is necessary to set the cross midnight flag and the nightshift bandwidth.

You can define a cross-midnight day model for a non-working day. When creating a work schedule day model object, you can set the values for both Cross Midnight Allowed and Non-Working Day as Yes with the Time Recording Variant set to Clock Times. This makes it possible to define a cross-midnight day model for a non-working day. For example, an employee takes over a night shift from a colleague on their non-working day. For this employee, it's still a non-working day without planned working time, but the employee works in a night shift.

Work schedules always represent a rotating working pattern. For example, if you maintain seven work schedule days, the same pattern repeats every week, meaning that day 7 is always followed by day 1 again. So, you need to ensure that the end time of the last work schedule day and the start time of the first work schedule day don’t overlap. Otherwise, you will not be able to save the work schedule. For example, you have a weekly working pattern from Monday (day 1) to Sunday (day 7). The end time on day 7 is at 6am (+1 day), that is, the shift starts on Sunday, but ends on Monday. This option means that the shift on day 1 can’t start earlier than 6am.

Create a Work Schedule

Steps

Select Manage Time Off Structures→Create New→Work Schedule.
If required, you can add the optional Search Field and Country.
Enter the Model.
Options are Simple, Period (same as Simple, except Period includes planned starting hours and minutes), and Schedule.
Enter the average hours and days.
Enter the workScheduleDays.
Enter the externalCode.
Enter the externalName.
Enter the startingDate.
Note
Non-work days, such as days 6 and 7, need to appear in the work schedule too, with the number of hours entered as zero (0). Do not leave the number of hours blank in such cases.
The Starting Date field refers to the starting date of the work schedule, not the starting date of the employee to whom the work schedule is assigned, for example, if the starting date is set on Tuesday January 1, 2013, day 1 in the schedule is a Tuesday, day 2 is a Wednesday, and so on.
To define working patterns that repeat every two weeks, just continue adding days and assigning the respective hours until you have covered two weeks.
The following figure shows an example of how to create a work schedule.

Individual Work Schedule

An Individual work schedule is a work schedule designed to apply only to one employee. It is needed if a particular employee needs a schedule that you don't want to apply generally to other employees.

Prerequisites and Limitations

Time Off must be activated in full. Time Off For Leave Of Absence Only is not enough.
Flexible requesting is not available in individual work schedules.
Individual work schedules are not country/region-specific.

Create an Individual Work Schedule (IWS)

Steps

Individual work schedules are regulated by permissions. You must have the Maintain Individual Work Schedule permission.
You create individual work schedules from an employee's job information. You can't create other types of work schedule from here.
When assigning an individual work schedule with cross-midnight processing active, make sure that there is no overlap between shifts in the new individual work schedule and any schedule already assigned to the employee.

Navigate to the relevant employee's job information.
Choose Take Action to Change job and compensation information.
In Time Information section, select Find a Work Schedule.
In a new pop-up window, select New Individual Work Schedule.
Provide a name for the IWS, planned working hours for each day of week, all fields under Calculation Details, and then select Assign button.
The Individual Work Schedule has been assigned to the employee.
Note
Take a look at the Time Off implementation handbook for full information on creating individual work schedules.

Temporary Work Schedule

If you have implemented PP3, you can change an employee's work schedule for a period temporarily from the schedule assigned to employee. Here is an example: An employee is going to cover for someone who is on absent and will work that person's schedule. Or, employees can adjust their work hours or days for a specified period, for reasons such as health issues.

This is controlled through the category field in the Temporary Time Information object. The default value is 'Work Schedule'.

When the employee makes a change, it is sent to their manager for approval, if a workflow is configured.

Temporary Work Schedule - Prerequisites

To make temporary changes, you must have the Maintain Temporary Change permission. To create individual work schedules, the Maintain Individual Work Schedule permission is also required.

The temporary change must have a start date and end date.

Create a Temporary Work Schedule

There are three ways to set up a temporary work schedule (TWS):

Search for an existing work schedule or an existing day model and assign it to the employee.
Copy an existing work schedule and adapt it as needed.
Create a new individual work schedule.

Steps

Go to employee’s job information then time information and select the Administer time link.
Select New Temporary Change.
Define a start date and an end date, and then select Create Individual Work Schedule or Create Day Model.
Choose one of three ways to make a temporary work schedule.
The temporary work schedule is assigned to the employee.
Note
It is now possible to delete or edit the assignment of a temporary work schedule with a regular work schedule pattern.
Note
The Absence Counting Rules option has been enhanced. The enhanced absence counting rule allows you to overwrite the default planned working hours derived from the employee's work schedule, temporary time information, holiday calendar, and holiday work pattern.
You can use the absence counting rule to set the deduction quantity or deduction factor for specific weekdays, shift classifications, holiday categories, holiday work patterns, or standard weekly hours.
The absence counting rule is day-based, which means it is processed for each absence day that is included in the rule. The deduction quantity for each absence day can be modified using the rule.
We recommend that you use the Absence Counting Configuration to restrict the number of absence days to be included in rule processing. For details, check the help texts for the Holiday Selection, Planned Working Time Selection, and Weekday Selection fields in the Absence Counting Configuration object.

Create a Period Work Schedule

Business Example

The ACME Corporation needs to build a 40-hour-a-week work schedule for U.S. employees. To support other work schedules, they will create Work Schedule Day Model records and include them into a Work Schedule on the period model.

Task 1: Create the Work Schedule Day Model Records

In this task, you create a 2-day model.

Steps

Create a Day Model for an 8-hour working day and a non-working day for the U.S. using the values given in the table: Day Models.

Day Models

Field Name	Values for Record 1	Values for Record 2
External Name	8 Hour Work Day U.S.	Non-Working Day U.S.
Time Recording Variant	Duration	Duration
Planned Hours (decimal)	8	0
Planned Hours and Minutes (hh:mm)	08:00	00:00
External Code	8_HOUR_US	NON_WORK_US

Navigate to Manage Time Off Structures.
Select New→Work Schedule Day Model.
Use the values in the column:Values for Record 1 to create the first record.
Select Save.
Similarly, use the values in column:Values for Record 2 to create the second record.

Task 2: Create the Work Schedule

In this task, you create a two work schedules.

Steps

Create a work schedule with the period model using a 5-day work week for the U.S. by using the values given in the table: Work Schedule table and table: Work Schedule Days.

Work Schedule

Field	Value
Search Field	U.S.
Is Individual Work Schedule	No
Model	Period
Time Recording Variant	Duration
Average Hours Per Day	8
Average Hours Per Week	40
Average Hours Per Month	173
Average Hours Per Year	2080
Average Working Days Per Week	5
External Code	MON_FRI_US
External Name	Monday to Friday U.S.
Starting Date	01/01/2021

Work Schedule Days

Day	Category	Day Model
1	Day Model	8_HOUR_US
2	Day Model	NON_WORK_US
3	Day Model	NON_WORK_US
4	Day Model	8_HOUR_US
5	Day Model	8_HOUR_US
6	Day Model	8_HOUR_US
7	Day Model	8_HOUR_US

Note

Jan 1, 2021 is a Friday. Therefore, day 1 in the model will be a Friday.

Navigate to Manage Time Off Structures.
Create New→Work Schedule.
Complete the Work Schedule details by using the table: Work Schedule.
In the Work Schedule Days for Period Model, enter the data given in table: Work Schedule Days.
Hint
When you add a Work Schedule Day, choose its Details link to locate the Day Model field.
Save the record.
Enter the average hours and days.

Time Types

Before employees can use Time Off to apply for vacation and other approved absences, you need to set up the time types for which they are allowed to take leave.

Time types can be classified as "Absence" or "Attendance". Only "Absence" time types are available in Time Off and the time unit for them is either hours or days.

For each time unit, you can decide:

Which fractions, such as full days or half days, are allowed.
Whether leave requests of this time type trigger a workflow or not.

Note

Currently, partial day absences can only be combined on a single day if the units of the different time types are identical (days, hours). For example, if absence type Jury Duty’s unit is defined as hours and Civic Duty in days, both absences cannot be requested on the same day (half day of Civic Duty and 4 hours of Jury Duty is not allowed).

Note

Half-Day Absences are allowed for Duration Users and also for Clock-Time Users. Clock-time users can also select the first or second half of a day when creating an absence request without having to enter the start time and end times.

It is possible to hide time types from the selection dropdown when recording an absence, working times, or on-call times by assigning a time type filter rule to the corresponding Available Time Type. This action is necessary, for example, for maternity leave, which must not appear as a selection option for male employees.

A time type filter rule must be assigned to the available time type under the time profile. To assign a time type filter rule to an available time type with classification as an attendance, break, extra, or on-call time type, SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking needs to be enabled. SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking is not required for absence time types time tracking.

Time types must be created for all the various leave types you are using with or without a time account type.

Time Types - Example

The preceding figure is an example of a Vacation time type. When creating a time type, specify the following details:

Which workflow is triggered when an employee submits a request to use Time Off
Whether the time type is measured in hours or days
Whether an employee can request partial or full days off
How an employee earns time off through accrual rules

Create a Time Type

Steps

Select Manage Time Off Structures→Create New→Time Type.
Enter the fields Absence Class, Unit (days or hours), externalCode, and the externalName.
To activate a workflow for the time type, enter the workflow in the Workflow Configuration field.
Note
If you don't make an entry here, time off requests are approved automatically. Details on workflow creation and assignment are addressed later.
To fill out the other optional fields, select the Help icon for instructions on parameters to enter.
If a take rule is to be associated with the time type, enter it along with its external code in the Take Rules section. Automatic validation checks are done when time off is requested.
Note
Typically, you cannot create an absence if you do not have enough balance or if there is already an absence on the same date. When you add take rules, further custom checks can be triggered. For example, you can create and assign a rule that does not allow employees to cancel absences in the past. Details on the creation and assignments of take rules is addressed later.
In the following figure shows an example of how to create Time Types.
For more details on how to configure localization-related requirements, refer to Time Off Implementation Guide http://help.sap.com/hr_ec.

Workflow Settings for Absences Recorded by Managers and Time Administrators

When Managers/Time Administrators record an absence via the Manage Time Off UI or via the Time Administrator workbench, there is an option to assign a different workflow for approval. The workflow can configured to be in a different route of approvers than what is used for absence requests by employees.

Configuration of Manager/Time Administrator Workflow for Time Off

To configure the Manager/Time Administrator workflow for Time Off, follow these steps:

Navigate to Manage Data and enter Time Type.
For the manager and time administrator. select the absence type for which you want to add a workflow.
Select Take Action→Make Correction.
In the Admin Workflow Configuration field, enter the workflow you already created.
Save the changes.

Manager/Time Administrator workflow for Time Off is displayed.

Time Profile

In a time profile, you specify which time types the employee is allowed to take. It is assigned to an employee´s job information.

Once you have created your time types, you can group several time types into a time profile. You then assign the time profile to those employees to whom it applies. If all employees are eligible for the same leave types, it is sufficient to create one profile.

Several fields of the Time Profiles are displayed.

Time Profile Options

There are a couple of options when setting up a time profile. The default time off for an employee is Main Absence Time Type.

Under Available Time Types, you must list all the time types available for employees.

For each time type, you must also determine whether it is available to the employee to submit a request through ESS (Employee Self-Service).

You can also specify which time types are favorites. Only three can be set as favorites and these time types appear prominently on the ESS for Time Off.

Time types that are not favorites are listed under an Other option.

Note

You can make effective-dated changes to the Time Profile object, such as adding or removing time types on a certain date. Effective dating ensures that there is no time gap between records and enables you to track historical data accurately.

Time Profile Definition

The preceding figure is an example of how absences assigned to a Time Profile appear on the time request portal.

The employee's time profile contains time types: Vacation, Sickness, Maternity, PTO, Jury Duty, and so on. Employees select the appropriate time type from the drop-down list for the request and choose the appropriate days. They can submit the request via theSend Request button.

Create a Time Profile

Steps

Select Manage Time Off Structures→Create New→Time Profile.
Enter the Country/Region if the time profile is country/region-specific.
Enter the most used absence type in the Main Absence Time Type field.
Enter the externalName and externalCode fields.
Enter a duration in the Duration area in the Time Recording Variant field.
Enter the time types available to the employee by using the time profile in the Available Time Type section. For every relevant time type, add an entry to Available Time Type to specify:
- Time Type: Time Type is an object, which is available for the employee.
- Enabled in employee self-service scenario
  - Yes: The time type is available in Employee Self-Service scenario (Time Off UI) and in the mobile app.
  - No: Only the HR Admin can enter time off for this time type. They do that in the Time Admin Workbench.
- Favorite Time Type: Up to three of the time types defined in a profile can be selected as favorites. The names of the favorites cannot exceed 20 characters in length.
  - Yes: Time type appears on the Balance section of Time Off UI.
  - No: The time type can be accessed using the Time Type field dropdown list.
- External Code: Enter an external code for this time type.

Set Up a Time Type and Time Profile

Business Example

You need to configure the Time Profile for some U.S. employees. Initially, you will create and assign the time profile to a single user for testing. You will also use the previously created Holiday Calendar and Work Schedule.

The time profile will be configured with four time types: vacation, sick leave, leave of absence, and jury duty. Each has the following characteristics:

Account for vacation rolls over every year
- 12 days annual
- Max of 60 days
- Taken in hours
- Self-service
Sick does not roll over
- Six days annual
- No rollover
- Taken in ½ days
- Self-service
Leave of Absence no account
- No Self-service
Jury Duty no account
- Taken in Full Days

Note

This exercise requires you to have successfully completed the exercise, Create a Custom Holiday Calendar and Create a Period Work Schedule.

Note

Time accounts will be created later in the course, where you configure the time account balances for vacation and sick leave.

Steps

Create a Time Type for Jury Duty. Use the data provided in the table.

Example

Jury Duty Time Type Data

Field	Value
Workflow Configuration	Absence Request
Classification	Absence
Absence Class	Unspecified
Duration Display According to	Work Schedule
Permitted Fractions for Unit Day	Only full day bookings Allowed
Unit	Day(s)
*External Code	JURYDUTY
External Name	Jury Duty U.S.

Navigate to Manage Time Off Structures.
Click Create New→Time Type.
To create a Jury Duty Time Type, use the data provided in the table: Jury Duty Time Type Data.

Create additional time types for vacation, sick leave, and leave of absence. Use the table: Additional time type data to create three time type records.

Additional Time Type Data

Field	Values for vacation	Values for sick leave	Values for leave of absence
Workflow Configuration	Absence Request	Absence Request	Leave of Absence
Classification	Absence	Absence	Absence
Absence Class	Unspecified	Unspecified	Unspecified
Duration Display According to	Work Schedule	Work Schedule	Calendar Days
Permitted Fractions for Unit Day		Half day bookings allowed	Only full day bookings allowed
Permitted Fractions for Unit Hours	Full hour bookings allowed
Leave of Absence Event Reason (Plan)			Leave of Absence
Leave of Absence Event Reason (Return To Work)			Return from Leave
Unit	Hour(s)	Day(s)	Day(s)
*External Code	VACA_US	SICK_US	LOA_US
External Name	Vacation U.S.	Sick Leave U.S.	Leave of Absence U.S.

Go to Manage Time Off Structures.
Click Create New→Time Type.
Create the time types using the data in the table: Additional Time Type Data.

Create a time type profile for the U.S.: Standard Time Profile U.S. (STANDARD_PROFILE_US) using the values given in the table: Time Profile. Use the values in the table: Available Time Types, to add the Time Types.
Time Profile
Field Value
Time Recording Variant Duration
External Code STANDARD_PROFILE_US
External Name Standard Time Profile U.S.
Main Absence Time Type Vacation U.S.
Available Time Types
Time Type Enabled in ESS Scenario Favorite Time Type External Code
Vacation U.S. Yes Yes 1
Sick Leave U.S. Yes No 2
Leave of Absence U.S. No No 3
Jury Duty U.S. Yes No 4
1. Go to Manage Time Off Structures.
2. Click New→Time Profile.
3. Use the values in the table: Time Profile and table: Available Time Types.
Hint
When you add the available time types to the time type profile, choose its Details link to locate the External Code field.

Field	Value
Time Recording Variant	Duration
External Code	STANDARD_PROFILE_US
External Name	Standard Time Profile U.S.
Main Absence Time Type	Vacation U.S.

Time Type	Enabled in ESS Scenario	Favorite Time Type	External Code
Vacation U.S.	Yes	Yes	1
Sick Leave U.S.	Yes	No	2
Leave of Absence U.S.	No	No	3
Jury Duty U.S.	Yes	No	4

Employee Time Off Setup

Shortly before you go-live with Time Off, you need to set up the maintain time off fields for employees in the employee job information (Holiday Calendar, Work Schedule, Time Profile). With the assignment of the Time Profile, the respective time accounts are created automatically for the employees.

A process flow on how to set up Time Off for Employees is displayed.

Maintain the initial balance of one or more employee time accounts either manually by using Manual Adjustment within Manage Time Off or by using file upload. To use file upload, consult the Time Off handbook.

Create leave requests for the employees. For example, if you go-live on the first of April, you might want to have the past leave request from the first three months in the system, and also the future ones, which were already requested. You can do this manually by using Request Time Off on behalf of the employee within Manage Time Off, or by using file upload, as detailed in the Time Off handbook.

Time Off Information in Job Information

When you assign a time profile to job information for an employee, the time accounts are generated automatically.

The Time Off Information fields are displayed.

Maintain the following three fields for each employee who will be using Time Off:

Holiday Calendar
Work Schedule
Time Type Profile

New hires: While hiring a new employee, ensure that this employee is being set up for time off. Maintain the three fields in the Time Off Information portlet.

Existing Employees: If time off information hasn't been maintained for an existing employee, go into their job information and maintain it as you would for a new employee. To do this action for many employees, use the Mass Change feature to maintain the fields.

Time Off Initial Balance

You can maintain a time off initial balance for employees.

Maintenance of Time Off Initial Balance

The Time Off Initial Balance Maintenance flowchart is displayed.

To maintain a balance for an employee, complete the following tasks:

Assign the three components of theTime Off: Holiday Calendar, Work Schedule, and Time Type Profile.
Use Edit/Correct or set up Mass Changes to add this information to existing employees.

Upon assignment, the system assigns a balance of 0.

Adjustment of Time Off Initial Balance

When you have administration rights and access to Manage Time Off,, you can access the employee Time Off accounts on the employee files and then perform the following tasks:

Enter a starting balance.
Make an adjustment.

Tips on Initial Balance

The Manual Adjustment dialog box is displayed on the Time Information page.

For new hires, if they're hired within an accrual period, pro-rate the accrual manually and enter it by using the Make Adjustment option. For example, for an employee with yearly accruals or entitlements and a hiring date of July 1, assign only half of the accrual amount.

Leave Requests for Employees

Create leave requests for the employees.

For example, if you go-live on the first of April, you might want to have the past leave request from the first three months in the system and also the future one already requested. Either manually use Request Time Off for the employee within Manage Time Off or use file upload.

Employees can purchase additional time off or leave with Purchased Leave. An employee can request to purchase additional leave by having deductions made to their pay. Purchase leave provides the flexibility for employees to fund an additional period of leave through payroll deductions. For purchase leave, a deduction pay component is created for each request. The deduction can be a one-time deduction or a recurring deduction over a defined time period. When a Purchased Leave request gets approved, an ad-hoc time account for the particular user with the purchased amount of leave is created automatically.

Update Time Off Information in Employee Information

Steps

Select Employment Information.
Choose the History link.
Select Take Action→Make Correction.
In the following figure, you can see an example of how the time information is updated in an employee job information.

Take Rules

When you create, cancel, or edit a leave request, the system performs certain checks. An example is limiting the number of days a certain leave type can be taken. Sometimes, you want to add further validation checks, which can be done by using Take Rules.

Take rules are time-type-specific. You can assign one or more rules to each time type or none. Any take rule can generate a warning message, an error message, or an information message. Take rules aren't only triggered when you save absences, but also when the employee enters the data.

For validations, we strongly recommend that you use take rules instead of assigning the rule as a save rule to the employee time object definition. Don't raise error messages in save rules assigned to the employee time object definition.

Note

For more information on the creation of take rules, refer to the Take Rules chapter in the Time Off Implementation guide).

Create Take Rules

In this example, we'll create a take rule to limit the number of days taken for unpaid absence type to two days.

Steps

To create an error message, select Manage Data→Create New→Message Definition.
Make entries as in the following figure.
To configure the take rule, select Configure Business Rules→Create New Rule.
The following UI is displayed. Make entries as shown:
Create the rule as shown in the following figure.
Assign the rule to the Time Type as shown in the following figure.
The following figure shows the result of trying to take more than two days of unpaid absence from 8/8/2016 – 8/12/2016. The error message "You are only allowed to create absences of two days as maximum for this time type" is displayed.

Workflows

If approval is required when the employee submits a time off request, a workflow can be created and assigned to the absence type.

The Workflow Configuration for Time Off Requests is displayed.

There are several preliminary steps necessary to configure workflows for Time Off when enabling workflows in a test or production instance. These steps include creating a rule type, creating a rule, and updating the Employee Time generic object.

Note

This process is covered in the Workflow Configuration section of the Time Off handbook and has already been completed in your instance.

The actual workflows are maintained in Manage Org, Pay and Job Structures. Once the workflows are configured, they can then be associated with the appropriate time types. In the preceding figure, we have created a standard Absence Request workflow that goes to the employee manager. This workflow is connected to the Vacation time type. So, when an employee submits vacation time off, the system calls up the Absence Request workflow. This one workflow could be associated with several different time types.

Create a Workflow

Steps

First, this step is a preliminary step and only needs to be done once. You need to maintain the employeeTime object. Select Configure Object Definitions→Employee Time.
- Employee Time is the default label, but you can enter another if it suits your requirements better.
- Configure the ToDo Category in the object header by selecting Time Off Requests.
- Change the labels for employee times to meaningful texts. The text is used in, for example, notification e-mails. Ensure that you change
Caution
g the Pending Data option to Yes is not supported and will cause inconsistencies in your data. Inflight changes are, therefore, not supported.
Now, you're ready to create the rule you need, ensuring that the workflow settings for the individual time types are used. To do this step, go to the Configure Business Rules→Metadata Framework→Rules for MDF Based Objects.
- If you are not using the cancellation workflow or the admin workflow, you can set up the rule as you want to meet your requirements.
- If you want to use the cancellation workflow or the admin workflow, create the rule exactly as shown in the following figure.
With this step done, you can assign the rule to the employee time object. To do this step, go to Configure Object Definitions.
Choose the EmployeeTime object definition, and then select Take Action→Make Correction.
Go to the Rules section, enter your newly created rule under Save Rules, and then save it.
Now, you can create individual workflows per time type. For example, for time type Vacation, use Employee Manager as the approver role (in Manage Organization, Pay, and Job Structures).
Finally, you need to add the workflow configuration to the time type. To do this step, select Manage Time Off Structures.
In the resulting screen, call up the time type for which you want to enable the workflow. Choose Take Actions→Make Correction.
Enter the workflow configuration relevant to the user and the administrator.
- Use Workflow Configuration for the user-triggered workflow.
- Use Admin Workflow Configuration for the administrator triggered workflow.

Create a Workflow

Business Example

When an employee requests the absence type Paid Time Off, an approver workflow must be sent to the manager for approval. If an administrator enters the absence, an e-mail notification workflow that doesn't require approval must be sent to the manager.

Steps

Create a rule to determine which workflow is triggered (user or administrator) by using the following information:
- Rule Scenario: Rules for MDF Based Objects (under Metadata Framework section)
- Rule Name: Leave Workflow Trigger
- Rule ID: Leave_Workflow_Trigger
- Base Object: Employee Time
- Purpose: Workflow
1. Select Configure Business Rules→Create New Rule. Enter the rule information given in the following figure.
Create the rule details as given in the following code block:
Code Snippet
```
1234

If:  is equal to 
  Then: Set  to be equal to 
  Else: Set  to be equal to 
```
The rule checks if the requester is the user and triggers the workflow stored in the Workflow Configuration field of the time type, else, if the requester is an administrator, it triggers the workflow stored in the Admin Workflow Configuration field.
1. Enter the details of the rule by using the information given in the following figure:
Assign the rule to the Employee Time object as a Save rule.
1. Navigate to Configure Object Definitions→Object Definition: Employee Time.
2. Choose Take Action→Make Correction.
3. Locate the Save Rules section.
4. Remove any existing Save Rules.
5. Enter the rule under saveRules, so that the workflow can be triggered when the entry is saved.
Create a user-triggered workflow Paid Time Off Approver (APPROVPTO) that requires a manager approval.
1. Navigate to Manage Organization, Pay and Job structures→Create New→Workflow Configuration.
2. Enter APPROVPTO as the Workflow ID and Paid Time Off Approval as the Name.
3. Make selections as shown under Step 1 in the following figure – denote the Approver Type as a Role and the Approver Role as the Manager.
Create an administrator-triggered workflow that sends an e-mail notification to the employee’s manager when the request is made.
1. Select Manage Organization, Pay and Job structures→Create New→Workflow Configuration.
2. Enter in PTOADMIN as the Workflow ID and Paid Time Off Notification as the Name.
3. Make selections as shown under CC Role in the following figure – denote the CC Role Type as Role and the CC Role as the Manager.
Assign the workflows to the time type PTO Leave (PTO).
1. Select Manage Time Off Structures→Time Type→PTO Leave (PTO).
2. Select Take Action→Make Correction.
3. Enter the user-triggered workflow APPROVPTO in the field Workflow Configuration.
4. Enter the administrator-triggered workflow PTOADMIN in field Admin Workflow Configuration.
  The following figure shows the entries to the time type.

Post Save Rules

Employee Central offers the possibility to create e-mail notifications for certain activities in Time Off, so that those employees who need to know about those activities receive an appropriate e-mail.

Here are some of the use cases supported:

Reminder that an employee will return from leave in a given number of days. This reminder is relevant for long periods of leave, such as two years parental leave, to ensure that the manager has done everything necessary in the system. By doing so, the manager ensures that the system is ready for the employee's return.
Reminder that a certain absence will be longer than a given number of days, so that additional action can be taken. For example, if an employee is on sick leave for more than 15 days, HR might need to act.
Reminder if the number of days taken for a certain time type is above a defined maximum. For example, if an employee takes more than 20 days of sick leave, a notification needs to be generated.

These alerts and notifications are based on post save rules.

The Post Save Rules – E-mail Notification Templates is displayed.

Time Off uses the standard templates to send notifications. To check the templates, go to the E-Mail Notification Templates Settings.

Select the checkboxes to activate the e-mail notification templates:

Time Off Work Schedule Change Notification
Time Off Time Account Payout: Create Notification with Payout Rate Details
Time Off Time Account Payout: Edit Notification with Payout Rate Details
Time Off Time Account Payout: Delete Notification with Payout Rate Details
Time Off Time Account Payout: Create Notification
Time Off Time Account Payout: Edit Notification
Time Off Time Account Payout: Delete Notification

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