Understanding Process Steps and Business Roles for Time Recording

With this app, you can perform activity-based time recording to enable billing and invoicing for the projects assigned to you. You can also record time for non-project related tasks such as administration, training, travel time, etc. The non project related task types can be assigned to both internal and external employees.

By default, the system displays Administration Tasks, Miscellaneous, Training, and Travel Times in the My Tasks area. When an employee is staffed to a project, the project will automatically display in the My Tasks area for the employee to record time against. In addition, a project manager or line manager can record time on an employee’s behalf.

If you have been assigned the business role, Employee Self Services (SAP BR EMPLOYEE), you can perform the following tasks:

• View the time entries already recorded in your timesheet
• View all the tasks assigned to you
• In the My Tasks side panel, you canview the list of tasks assigned to you for the selected week, view the list of tasks grouped by accounting objects (like Customer Projects, Non-project related Task Types, and so on), and the total number of hours recorded (for the selected week) for each task. You can also search a task from the My Tasks list. The following accounting objects are also supported:
  • WBS Element
  • Cost Center
    Note

    Only four attributes are displayed for each task, irrespective of the number of attributes assigned to it.
• Change the calendar settings

  You can change the calendar settings, such as showing the work week, setting the start day of the week, and setting the time format using the calendar settings.

• Navigate to the required week

  • You can navigate to the required week using the navigation arrows. You can navigate to previous or future weeks.

  • Each week displays days of the week depending on the calendar settings. You can log up to 24 hours of time per day.
  • You can also navigate to any week by choosing the calendar week link. It opens the
  • calendar in a dialog box and then you can select the desired date from the dialog box. You can also navigate to the previous or next month in the dialog box using the arrow keys.
• Create, edit, and delete time entries for the selected week

  You can update a time entry and if required, also add a note. If the work location is enabled in the configuration app Maintain Data Entry Profiles, then you can also add a work location. You can either save the time entries using Save or send them for approval using Submit.

  Note

  • Work Location can be country, region or county (area/location). This field can be made mandatory by implementing the Business Add In (BAdI) HCM: Timesheet Validations (HCM CATS V1 TS VALIDATION).
  • Currently, both internal employees and contingent workers can submit their timesheets for approval.
  • - For contingent worker timesheets, an automatic posting is made to the service entry sheet for the approved time entries.
  • A note of up to 300 characters can be maintained while creating a time entry.
  • Employees can now view the notifications on the SAP Fiori launchpad for the rejected time entries and navigate to the timesheet by choosing the notification message.
  • By default, the approval process is enabled only for contingent workers. You can enable the approval process for internal employees using the configuration app Maintain Data Entry Profiles.
• View the approved and rejected time entries

  The approved time entries are displayed with a green bar and the rejected entries are displayed with a red bar on the left of the entry. You can select a rejected entry to view the reject reason.

• View last approved time entry

  You can view the last approved time entry's duration and note in the time entry's Details dialog box.

• View deleted time entry (zero hour time entry)

  You can view the deleted or zero hour time entries which have been saved, submitted for approval, or rejected by the manager in the timesheet. The zero hour time entry will disappear when this entry is approved by the manager.

• Manage your tasks
  • You can manage your tasks by using this function. You can select Create Task to create a new task, update a task by selecting the task to be updated, or delete a task in Manage My Tasks.
  • If a purchase order is created with account assignment categoryCost Center (K) only then Activity Type is required to create a task. This is required for inter and intra company sub contractor processes.

1. Choose the time (in hours) to be recorded for the task for a relevant day in the selected week.
2. Select a task from the My Tasks list.
3. The selected time is blocked.
4. Save the time entry.

1. Choose the time entry to be updated.
2. A Details dialog box opens up.
3. You can change the time recorded for the time entry. If required, you can also add a note for the time entry. If the work location is enabled in the configuration app Maintain Data Entry Profiles, you can also add a work location.
4. Save the changes in the Details dialog box. Save the time entry by choosing Save.

Key users can use the Custom Fields and Logic app to extend the business context HCM_CATS_MANAGE.

Key users can use the Custom Fields and Logic app to extend the following business contexts:

An approver can use the My Inbox app to approve or reject time entries. Approval is currently only enabled only for the project related tasks by default. Other accounting objects such as WBS element, cost center, and non-project related tasks are approved automatically by default. If you want to enable the approval for these accounting objects, then you have to implement the custom BAdI using extensibility.

• View the timesheets sent for approval
  • - You can view the list of employees who have sent their timesheets for approval. You can search for an employee or by the fields related to the accounting objects from the table list. The timesheet with the time entries sent for approval is displayed in My Inbox. You can view the planned hours for the project, approved and rejected hours for the purchase order in each time entry for the customer projects.
  • Approval is enabled by default only for the customer projects in the app, which means that all the fields related to customer projects are shown by default.
• If you implement the custom BAdI for determining the approver for accounting objects, then the corresponding approver must select the related fields for approval. The approver can create a new variant and set it as a default variant for the first time so that from the next time, the app loads with the saved variant.
• The following fields are always displayed
  • Note: If the employee entered any note while recording time, then under this column, a note icon is displayed. When you choose the icon employee name the note is displayed in a popover.
  • Previous Time Entry: If the employee changes an approved time entry using timesheet, the approved entry is displayed under this column with an icon. When you choose this icon, the previous recorded time along with the note is shown.
• The work location field can be now enabled to show in the approval list via Settings.
• Extensibility Fields

  All the custom fields by default are shown as hidden fields. You have to add them to the table to see the custom field data.

  Note

  The custom field needs to be enabled for the both C MYINBOXTIMESHTAPPRVL CDS view and HCM CATS MYINBOXAPPROVAL 0001 data sources to display in this app.

• First Time Entry work date and Submitted by the person name are displayed in the object header.
• Priority

  The priority of the task is shown based on the first time entry in the time entries that came for approval. If the first-time entry work date difference is greater than 7 when it is compared with the current date, the priority is set to high. Otherwise, it is set to medium.

• Approve or reject time entries

  • You can select the time entries and approve or reject their time entries using the checkbox. You can approve or reject the submitted time entries of employees or contingent workers.
    Note

    You can now change an entry even after approval. You can also view the previous and new time entry or note changes under the Previous Time Entry column.
  • You can select one rejection reason for the multiple entries selected for rejection. A dialog box displays all the available rejection reasons when you choose Reject.
• Sort, group, or filter time entries
  • You can sort the time entries based on any of the fields available in the table.
  • You can filter the time entries based on any of the fields available in the table.
  • You can group the time entries based on any of the fields available in the table.
    Note

    The sort, filter, and group settings are reset to default every time when you navigate to the object pages in a new window.
• View employee, customer project, and purchase order details

  You can also view the employee, customer project, and purchase order details by choosing the employee, customer project, or purchase order names in the time entry. You are then automatically navigated to the relevant apps where the details are displayed.

• Manage Substitutes

  Using this feature, you can create a substitute and assign the workflow task to someone else in your absence.

  Note

  By default, the submitted time entries will go only to the Project Manager for approval. If the Project Manager would like to enable the approval for the Project Controller or any other approver, he or she must use the substitute feature.
  Note

  Employees can use the Manage My Timesheet app to record time and send for approval.

You can use this BAdI to determine the approver for each timesheet entry and it also enables you to auto approve the timesheet entry.

HCM: Timesheet Approver Determination (HCM CATS V1 APPROVER DETRMN)

With this feature, the project manager can send a reminder (e mail) to project members who have not recorded the timesheet as per the planned effort for the project. The user can check the planned effort, approved hours, and recorded hours of each staffed employee, and also the details about the project, work package, work item, and activity type of each staffed employee.

• You can check project members time recording status and notify them. This app uses CDS views for improved performance and smart templates for usability.
• You can navigate to employee factsheet from employee contact card.
• You can view or edit the project member timesheets by choosing Edit Timesheet.
  Note

  Project managers can record time on behalf of inactive internal employees (that is, employees whose employment has ended).

  • Within 60 days from the end of employment of an inactive employee, project managers can record time on their behalf using the Notify Missing Time app and through the timesheet external API
  • After 60 days from the end of employment of an inactive employee, working time for an inactive employee can be record only through the timesheet external API
  • This feature is not supported yet for external / contingent workers.
• The app uses email template HCM CATS PMTSREMINDER by default. You can create one custom email template to provide a different email text to employees. The custom email template name should be YY1 HCM CATS PMTSREMINDER.

By default, the tenant specific domain is used for sending emails (for example, sending email with sender address abc@my300002.mail.s4hana.ondemand.com). However, a customer may like to send out emails from a domain that is registered for their business (for example, akron.com) and not from a domain that is defined by the technical infrastructure of the SAP OnDemand landscape.

The process that creates an email can set a sender address for this email. If the process does not define a sender address, the system generates a default sender address according to the pattern do.no.reply@tenantEmailDomain. If the customer is not satisfied by this behavior, they can specify an email address and a visual name to be used instead of this default address (for example, do.not.reply@akron.com).