You can configure an approval workflow for time sheets. Approvers can approve or decline a complete Weekly or Monthly time sheet submitted by an employee. For a general description of all aspects of setting up approval workflows in Employee Central, see the Employee Central implementation guide.
Calendar-Based Automatic Approval of Pending Time Sheet Workflow Requests
We've added a processing user to the time recording calendar. The processing user lets you automatically approve time sheets with pending workflows.
In some organizations, time sheets need to be approved by a certain date to ensure that employees are paid on time. You can now ensure that pending time sheets are automatically approved by a certain date by assigning a processing user in the time recording calendar. The processing user is a user with permissions to manage workflows. This user performs all workflow actions and saves objects related to the time sheet. If no processing user is provided, auto-approval of time sheets is only possible if the submission date is equal to the approval date. Auto-approval is possible for positive, negative, and overtime recorders.
This functionality helps customers pay their employees on time.
You can also approve time sheets on a monthly rather than on a weekly basis. A monthly calendar view in Time Sheet allows employees as well as managers and administrators in on-behalf mode to get an overview of the employees' attendance and absence recordings in a calendar month.
Note
The length of a time sheet period can vary. In some organizations, time sheets are submitted and approved on a monthly rather than a weekly basis. When you set up such monthly time sheets, the new calendar view of the time sheet is the default view. This view shows all relevant time entries (absences, working times, on-calls, and allowances) in a calendar month. Also, to enable the monthly approval of time sheets, the Time Valuation Period object was adapted and renamed to Time Recording Approval Period. The Time Valuation Period field is changed on the Time Recording Profile object to Time Recording Approval Period. Two persistence objects are added, called Time Recording and Allowance Recording. For monthly time sheets, working and on-call times as well as allowances are stored in these separate objects rather than in the Employee Time Sheet Entry and Allowance sections of the Employee Time Sheet object. Therefore, even though a monthly time sheet contains working times, on-call times, or allowances, the Employee Time Sheet Entry and Allowance sections of the Employee Time Sheet object are not filled. The only section of the Employee Time Sheet object that is filled by a monthly time sheet is the Time Valuation Results section.
With Single Record Approval, individual time recordings within the time sheet can trigger a workflow that needs to be approved before the time sheet as a whole can be submitted. On submission of the time sheet, a workflow for the complete time sheet can be triggered as well as the single record approvals, depending on the configuration.
It is also possible to configure single record approval for time sheets with flexible approval periods.
Additionally, we can now set up time valuations for single record approval that ensure that only approved single records are processed by the time valuation, to ensure that only approved single records are considered for payroll processing, a mechanism is introduced to filter out unapproved single records.
Users can filter out unapproved single records in time valuations, ensuring only approved records are processed.
Time Sheet Approval Center
Time Sheet Approval Center provides a single comprehensive overview for managers to view important contextual information and perform mass approval of their employees' time sheet requests, in an easy and efficient manner. The information on the Time Sheet Approval Center page includes details of the submitted and non-submitted time sheets, time sheet key facts, missing time punches, absences, related approvals, alerts, and amendments.
By using the Time Sheet Approval Center page, a manager or an approver can perform the following actions:
- Approve all the time sheets submitted by their employees with a single operation, by using the Approve All button.
- Select multiple time sheets and send them for approval with a single operation.
- Take a decision to approve or decline a single time sheet.
- View the status of the time sheets.
- Use the in-line approval functions to review pending requests related to time off, time event corrections, or single attendance record approvals.
- When an employee is blocked from submitting the time sheet due to a pending single attendance record approval request, action can be taken directly from this page to approve the request and unblock the employee.
- Navigate to the Time Sheet user interface or Time Workbench of the employee to get further information.
- Review alerts or amendments that are associated with time sheets. Take the necessary action by navigating to either the Time Sheet or the Time Admin Workbench.
- Review the configured Time Sheet Key Facts, which can include details like Time Type Group, Allowance Type, Unpaired Time Event, Time Off in Lieu Account balance, and Working Time Account balance. Use these Time Sheet Key Facts to create a Time Sheet Key Fact Configuration and vice versa.
The Time Sheet Approval Center also includes basic filters for Employee, Status, and Time Period, support for daily time containers, and a role-based action menu.
In the current scenario, managers have to go through each time sheet manually for every direct report and verify multiple details before approving the time sheet. However, all of these details are not available on a single page. Time Sheet Approval Center provides a holistic view of all the time sheets along with key details in a single place allowing the manager or approver to approve the time sheets confidently in an efficient manner.
Workflow Definition
First, define a workflow for the approval of time sheets. To do this step, go to the Admin Center and choose Manage Organization, Pay and Job Structures. In the Create New: field, select Workflow.
Define a new workflow by using the settings as in the preceding figure.
Configuration of Employee Time Sheet Object Definition
To configure the Employee Time Sheet object, go to Configure Object Definitions, call up the Employee Time Sheet object definition and changing it, as illustrated in the preceding figure.
Creation of a Business Rule
Then, you must set up a business rule to enable the time sheet to retrieve the workflow configuration from the corresponding time recording profile. To do so, go to the Configure Business Rules and create a rule as shown in the preceding figure.
Assignment of the Business Rule to the Employee Time Sheet Object
Now, you are ready to assign your newly created business rule to the Employee Time Sheet object definition. To do this step, go to the Configure Object Definitions, choose the Employee Time Sheet object definition, and then select Take Action→Make Correction. Assign the business rule in the saveRules field and save your changes.
Assignment of Approval Workflow to Time Recording Profile
Finally, you assign the time sheet approval workflow to the relevant time recording profile.
The preceding figure is an example of a time recording profile for an employee with the workflow configuration assigned.
