Constructing a Rate

The structure of a basic Rate rate type, for example, is relatively simple because it does not provide visibility into its use. A Bill Rate Based or Pay Rate Based, in contrast, reveals to buyer organizations the manner in which the costs of its external workforce are derived.

Thus, the more visibility an organization wants into the costs of procuring external workers or services, the more complex the structure of the rates become.

The different rate types available in SAP Fieldglass are built to allow for variances in the way companies calculate pay for external workers, but they aren’t themselves rates that can be associated to Job Postings.

Regardless of the rate type that is needed, a rate itself must be structured to suit an organization’s individual needs and workflows, as well as to accommodate the various suppliers that it may partner with.

Thus, for most rates to be useful, they must contain at least four elements before they can be associated to Job Posting Templates: a Rate Category, Rate, Rate Group, and Rate Grid.

However, for most organizations, there’s a common fifth element: Rate Components. And because rate components cannot be associated to rates directly, a necessary sixth element is the Rate Component Group. So realistically, a typical rate structure will contain at least these six elements.

Because they are the basis for a rate, these measurement objects need to be determined and created before the rate can be built. ST, OT, and DT are standard rate categories that are built into SAP Fieldglass by default.

But since WorkingNet’s customer support position requires 24/7 coverage, there will be several non-standard shifts that must be recognized. The rates for those shifts will be above the ST rate but below the OT rate. So you’ll need to add additional rate categories—one for a night shift and one for a morning shift—to capture the rate differences between those shifts.

The UK has an Apprenticeship Levy that it collects from employers, so you will need to create rate components to capture that fee for UK workers. In addition, WorkingNet provides a 1.10% MSP Fee credit back to suppliers that is based on the total rate after the levy is removed. In this case, you will also need to create a level 2 rate component for the MSP Fee Adjustment credit.

You’ll have to add the Apprenticeship Levy and MSP Fee Adjustment to a rate component group so it can be associated to the rates you’re going to create for the customer service position.

For the customer support position, you’ll create a rate based on the standard rate category with a minimum of 45 per hour and a maximum of 55 per hour, which is the rate WorkingNet negotiated with a London-based supplier called United Tech Services, UK.

You will create a rate group for the customer service position and associate all of the rates for customer service workers in the London office.

You’ll create a rate grid for the customer service positions, and any job postings that use that grid will automatically pull the appropriate rates from the grid for suppliers who can supply customer service workers to all of WorkingNet’s UK sites.

The completed rate will combine all of those elements and be associated to a job posting.

We’re going to spend the rest of this unit using these rate admin objects to build this rate structure. When the rate structure is complete, we’ll take a look at some other admin objects that are used to support or extend this structure.