Functions in Detail

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

Copyright 2000 SAP AG. All rights reserved.

No part of this brochure may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or for any purpose without the express permission of SAP AG. The information contained herein may be changed without prior notice. Some software products marketed by SAP AG and its distributors contain proprietary software components of other software vendors. Microsoft, WINDOWS, NT, EXCEL, Word and SQL Server are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. IBM, DB2, OS/2, DB2/6000, Parallel Sysplex, MVS/ESA, RS/6000, AIX, S/390, AS/400, OS/390, and OS/400 are registered trademarks of IBM Corporation. ORACLE is a registered trademark of ORACLE Corporation, California, USA. INFORMIX-OnLine for SAP and Informix Dynamic ServerTM are registered trademarks of Informix Software Incorporated. UNIX, X/Open, OSF/1, and Motif are registered trademarks of The Open Group. HTML, DHTML, XML, XHTML are trademarks or registered trademarks of W3C, World Wide Web Consortium, Laboratory for Computer Science NE43-358, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139. JAVA is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. , 901 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303 USA. JAVASCRIPT is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc., used under license for technology invented and implemented by Netscape. SAP, SAP Logo, mySAP.com, mySAP.com Marketplace, mySAP.com Workplace, mySAP.com Business Scenarios, mySAP.com Application Hosting, WebFlow, R/2, R/3, RIVA, ABAP, SAP Business Workflow, SAP EarlyWatch, SAP ArchiveLink, BAPI, SAPPHIRE, Management Cockpit, SEM, are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other products mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Design: SAP Communications Media

Contents

Around the Clock, Around the Globe: Multi-Purpose Time Recording with the SAP Cross-Application Time Sheet (CATS) The SAP Time Sheet in Practice Time Recording Made Easy The SAP Time Sheet and mySAP.com The Right Screen for Every Purpose Ease of Use Combined with Broad Functionality Flexibility Every Step of the Way Everything in Check Information at Your Fingertips Maximum Security Rapid Implementation Lighten the Load of Many Departments Use Data in Controlling Update Time Accounts and Calculate Personnel Costs Check Invoices from External Service-Providers Simple and Cost-Effective Confirmation Function Open to Input Record Travel Expenses Directly Flexible Tuning Using SAP Enhancements

1 3 5 5 5 8 8 9 9 10 10 11 11 12 13 13 14 14 14

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

Around the Clock, Around the Globe: Multi-Purpose Time Recording with the SAP Cross-Application Time Sheet (CATS)
Recording working times has never been so convenient and efficient! Although the SAP Time Sheet has only been around for a few years, it has already become one of the most widely-used PC solutions for recording working times. Let the SAP Time Sheet work for you, too. Relieve your individual departments of the tiresome task of transferring information on working times into your data processing system. After all, employees themselves know best which tasks they have performed, how much time they required, and how far they traveled to visit a customer, for example. With the SAP Time Sheet, your employees are empowered to record this information and other details on their activities. Whether at the office or on the move world-wide access via the Internet makes it possible. Use the SAP Time Sheet as the single point of entry for all business processes requiring information on your employees activities. The SAP Time Sheet enables you to streamline your business processes and avoid redundant data storage. Extensive check functions provide exactly the kind of security that you need for the recording of working times. The SAP Time Sheet is seamlessly integrated into your SAP environment. Its simple setup procedure allows you to get the SAP Time Sheet up and running quickly and easily. And if you want to add on your own solutions, open interfaces allow you the flexibility to do so.

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

Do you provide services for your customers? Do you run your own payroll? Or do you plan your orders on a project basis? You can use the SAP Time Sheet for multiple departments that require information on employees activities and working times:

You can use the recorded and processed data for all these tasks and more, including many follow-on processes. Do you perform resource-related billing, for example? The SAP Time Sheet automatically provides the base information, which you can then use to calculate all the corresponding items for the hours worked, miles traveled, or materials used.

Fig.1: Use the SAP Time Sheet to Record Information for Multiple Business Tasks

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

The SAP Time Sheet in Practice

Want to hear more? The following real-life examples illustrate just a few of the many uses of the SAP Time Sheet: Consultant Allisa Glenn often spends several days at a time at customer sites. Every Friday she goes into the office to talk with colleagues, catch up on paperwork, and participate in meetings. Allisa records her activities in the SAP Time Sheet for Service Providers. She enters not only the time she spent working for a customer, but also the number of miles she traveled. She copies the data she needs from existing activities to the current week. She can tell from the on-screen calendar which days she still needs to document and which days she has already documented. The data Allisa records is used to create invoices. Her colleagues in the sales department then only have to check the invoice items generated by the system; they can change individual invoice items if required. The SAP System uses the recorded data in SAP Human Resources to update Allisas current time accounts, such as her overtime or flextime balance. In addition, the recorded times carry important information that is relevant to her pay. Engineer Michael Le Clerc works for a bridge-construction company. Sometimes Michael works in the office, other times he works from home. He works on several orders simultaneously, and therefore wants to enter the hours he worked on a particular activity and the project details as soon as he has finished that activity. To do so, Michael uses the mySAP.com Workplace MiniApp for the SAP Time Sheet. It enables him to document his activities as he goes along, from either work center.
For Project Work For Field Work

Fig.2: Document Activities in Real Time Using the MiniApp Record Working Times

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

In the MiniApp, Michael sees a list of all orders he is currently working on. With a click of the mouse, he selects the orders and the number of hours he has worked. As soon as Michael confirms activities, his project leaders are notified via SAP Workflow. They check the data he has recorded and, if there are no problems with it, approve it. If anything does not meet with their approval, they reject the time data, specifying the reason for the rejection. The SAP System automatically informs Michael that he must correct his data. By confirming his work on a project as he goes along, Michael provides his project leaders with a constant up-to-date overview of the processing status of their projects. This enables them to react in plenty of time to an increased overtime requirement or delays in completion, for example. The personnel costs for Michaels activities are calculated by SAP Human Resources and passed on to SAP Accounting. In SAP Controlling, information from Michaels confirmation is used to credit his master cost center.
In Plant Maintenance for Employees and Service-Providers

Printing company Vivax employs a group of four technicians who carry out maintenance work on its printing presses. If unfamiliar problems occur, Vivax calls in specialists from the printing-press manufacturer. Vivax wants exact figures on the costs and activities involved in the maintenance work. It therefore has its internal employees and external serviceproviders record in the SAP Time Sheet the times they spend on maintenance and repairs. Employees and service-providers alike use the Employee SelfService Solution for the SAP Time Sheet to record all working times spent on maintenance or repair work for a particular order. The head of the plant maintenance department always has an up-to-date overview of the work put into the orders and their degree of completion. Vivax can also check the invoices from the printing-press manufacturers. Thanks to the SAP Time Sheet, Vivax can administrate external contractors with the minimum of effort. And an additional system check ensures that externals can record working times only if they use the correct purchase order. When Vivax receives the invoice from the printing-press manufacturers, it can quickly and easily check that the hours listed on the invoice correspond to the hours recorded by the external service-providers.

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

Time Recording Made Easy

The SAP Time Sheet and mySAP.com
For employees to perform to their full potential, they have to be working in the right environment. The mySAP.com Workplace fulfills this requirement by providing all the information and applications required in an office, all at the click of a mouse. Theres no need to install any additional software. And, because every user is unique, the mySAP.com Workplace is made up of roles to cater to users tasks. The SAP Time Sheet is fully integrated in the mySAP.com Workplace. And the mySAP.com Workplace roles cover all users who work with the SAP Time Sheet:
I I

Tailor-Made to Suit Each User

Employees who record their own working times Project leaders, heads of department, or supervisors who check and approve recorded times

Once employees have logged on to the mySAP.com Workplace, their tailor-made work environment contains only the functions that they require for recording their working times on a day-to-day basis. You can also customize the screens of the mySAP.com Workplace for individual users to make recording and monitoring working times effective and accessible at all times. No matter where your employees are or which tasks they carry out.

The Right Screen for Every Purpose

Consultants, project team members, plant maintenance employees all these people have different requirements when it comes to recording their working times. We want to provide all of them not only with optimized user interfaces, but also flexible access to the SAP System. This is why SAP offers you multiple screens and technologies from which you can pick the solution that best meets the specific requirements of your users. We provide two solutions for the mySAP.com Workplace:
I

Solutions to Suit

The MiniApp for the SAP Time Sheet: The ideal tool for employees who work on multiple projects at the same time, for example. They can log their activities quickly, as and when required.

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

The Employee Self-Service solution for the SAP Time Sheet: The ultimate tool for recording working times. Already, more than a million people are experiencing the benefits of its intuitive screen, which they use to enter their own working times with the minimum of effort. In addition, they can check their working times at the end of the week, for example, and make any additions or corrections necessary.

Fig. 3: The Employee Self-Service Solution for the SAP Time Sheet: All Functions Displayed on One Screen

Recording working times via the Internet nowadays this is nothing new. So we have gone one step further than that. Service employees, in particular, do not always have access to the World-Wide Web. Yet why should they miss out on the opportunity to record their working times as they go along? Your employees dont have to lose out. Not if you let them access the SAP Time Sheet from an electronic organizer or cellular phone the SAP Time Sheets standardized interfaces provide the required technology. Whether online or offline, SAP provides solutions that enable your users to record their activities in real time, without having to note them on pieces of paper first. Take full advantage of SAPs state-of-the-art technologies and stay one step ahead of the competition!

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

It goes without saying that employees who work a lot in the SAP R/3 System can also record their working times using the SAP Time Sheet in the SAP R/3 System. This is also the tool used by department heads and project leaders to display the weekly reports on the times of the employees assigned to them. And if you prefer to have your employees activities recorded centrally, a multiple-person entry screen enables you to enter data quickly and easily for several employees at a time. Service providers often spend several days or more carrying out particular activities at a customer site. They need to record not only the basic data on their activities, but also additional information such as the amount of overtime they worked, the time they spent traveling, and their mileage. They enter their information for the specific days; you may want to view the activities and the additional data as a whole in the billing document. For such situations, you can implement the SAP Time Sheet for Service Providers, which is tailored to meet the requirements of this group of users. The data entry screen is similar to that used for recording travel expenses in SAP Travel Management. This enables your service providers to quickly record all expenses incurred for one consulting or training session.

SAP Time Sheet in the SAP R/3 System

Time Sheet for Service Providers

Fig.4: The Time Sheet for Service Providers: Individually Tailored to this Group of Users

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

Ease of Use Combined with Broad Functionality

Intuitive User Interfaces

If employees are to record their own working times, then optimum user support is an absolute must. The screens of the SAP Time Sheet have been designed with only one goal in mind: to make time recording as quick and as easy as possible for the users. Therefore, all functions can be reached without further navigation. To be able to use the SAP Time Sheet, users require only a short introduction no need for extensive training programs. With the SAP Time Sheet, you can control a vast array of business processes. However, individual users mostly have only one area of activity. You can therefore customize a screen focusing on the task areas and expertise of specific users. This means that your users see only the fields and functions that they actually use. Much of the data required for recording times is already stored in the system. It makes sense, therefore, to make use of the existing data. You can display information on planned or past activities in a worklist. Users can then copy the information or use it as a data entry aid. Do your users record their activities as a number of hours or as clock times? It makes no difference in the SAP Time Sheet, they can continue to record their times in the same way.

Individually Tailored to Your Employees Needs

Flexibility Every Step of the Way

Optional Processing Steps for Added Security

The SAP Time Sheet does not restrict you to one particular process for recording and checking data. We provide optional processing steps, which you can integrate into your time recording processes as required.

Fig. 5: Process for Recording Working Times in the SAP Time Sheet

Many employees prefer to decide themselves when they want to release their daily or weekly reports for further processing. To support this method of working, you can provide your employees with a release procedure.

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

But thats not all. Data on tasks performed is required for the payment of overtime and contains important information for capacity planning, for example. Incorrect entries can therefore have negative consequences. For this reason, you also have the option of implementing an integrated approval procedure, whereby your department heads or project leaders approve all data. Only approved data is transferred to other SAP applications. The approval process is even more convenient if you use SAP Business Workflow. If you want to implement the release and approval procedures for particular departments or production areas, thats no problem: You can integrate different processes for different groups of users.

Everything in Check
Employees may occasionally forget to enter their times straightaway, or they may make unintentional errors such as entering an incorrect number of hours. This is no problem for the SAP Time Sheet: The time leveling function enables you to catch these kinds of errors in plenty of time. The time leveling function automatically checks all time data entered. You can use it to check whether employees have fully documented the required amount of hours, for example. The SAP System then automatically sends an e-mail to any employees who have not recorded enough working hours. The employees in question can then correct the times they entered or add any missing times. The project leader or head of department can also use the time leveling function to check the amount of overtime being worked, for example. This enables them to keep their personnel costs in check and to avoid errors in activity allocation.
Convenient Check Functions

Information at Your Fingertips

What if you want to know which employees have been working on a project and for how long? The SAP Time Sheets standard reporting functions offer a wide range of different views of the dataset. Whereas the standard reports of the individual applications handle queries in isolation, the SAP Time Sheet has access to information from all of the applications. This enables you to relate your employees productive hours to individual orders, for example. For the decision-makers in your enterprise, the data warehousing application SAP Business Information Warehouse provides a convenient and businessoriented solution that delivers all the required information at the click of a mouse. Data from the SAP Time Sheet is used in views of various hierarchies, such as the cost-center or project hierarchy, enhanced according to individual requirements with additional information such as the personnel costs or cost center manager.
Cross-Application View of Data

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

Maximum Security
Do you have reservations about letting your employees record their own working times? Do you want to be able to trace the data at all times? If you use the SAP Time Sheet, you have no cause for concern:
Online Checks and Default Values

The SAP System performs online plausibility checks on all data entered in the SAP Time Sheet. You can store data that seldom changes, such as the employees cost center or an activity type, in each employees master data. The system then displays this data as default values when the employee enters data. When external employees record data, the system runs an additional check on the vendor to avoid incorrect entries. These methods considerably reduce the risk of errors. Since confidential personal data is recorded in the SAP Time Sheet, this data must be protected from unauthorized access. The authorization concept for the SAP Time Sheet is based on that of SAP Human Resources (HR). If anyone knows how to protect employee-related data, a human resources expert does. As soon as the data recorded in the SAP Time Sheet has been transferred to the target applications and released or approved, it is assigned a unique document number. By using the original document and the order number transferred to the applications, the data can be audited at any time. It goes without saying that you can archive any data that you no longer require to be on the SAP Time Sheet database, since the SAP Time Sheet is integrated with the wide-ranging functions of SAP Archiving.

Safeguarded Against Unauthorized Access

Open to Audit

Data Available for Years to Come

Rapid Implementation
Straightforward Configuration

When developing the SAP Time Sheet, SAP placed special emphasis on keeping the implementation time to a minimum. This is why the customizing for the SAP Time Sheet has been kept as simple and as streamlined as possible. Users access the SAP Time Sheet using special profiles. When you configure the system, you can customize the profiles to cater to the individual task areas and expertise of your users. Authorization checks guarantee that each user can use only the profile that has been assigned to him or her.

10

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

Lighten the Load of Many Departments

The SAP Time Sheet can be used to supply data to a range of SAP applications. You too can make use of information on your employees activities in several different departments throughout your company.

Use Data in Controlling

SAP Controlling uses data from the SAP Time Sheet for internal activity allocation. You can use the SAP Time Sheet to supply the data directly, or indirectly using confirmations from SAP Logistics. SAP Controlling valuates the recorded times, allocates the costs according to cause, and assigns them to a cost receiver. The cost receiver, which you enter in the SAP Time Sheet, can be a cost center, an order, or a project, for instance. You can also enter an account assignment to a statistical order, for example, for information only. The recorded times are usually valuated using a rate stored in SAP Controlling. If you want a higher rate to apply when employees work at the weekend or on a public holiday, the users can enter a different rate. Alternatively, the SAP System can automatically calculate the rate according to your requirements. It does so via an interface (SAP enhancement). You can use the time-sheet data valuated in SAP Controlling for resource-related billing, thereby enabling you to bill make-to-order productions and consulting or plant-maintenance activities quickly and easily. You can use statistical key figures for various processes in SAP Controlling:
I I I I

Allocate Internal Activities

Enter Statistical Key Figures

For forming key figures in Reporting As a tracing factor for period-based allocations For resource-related billing For monitoring the progress of a project

In the SAP Time Sheet, you do not have to assign this data separately your users simply enter the required information along with the data on their activities, for example:
I I I

Number of course participants Mileage Number of pieces of equipment installed

11

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

Update Time Accounts and Calculate Personnel Costs

Employee-Centered Time Recording

Do you use SAP HR Time Management? If so, you can work with the SAP Time Sheet in addition, or as an alternative, to front-end time recording subsystems or centralized time data entry. All times recorded in the SAP Time Sheet can be transferred to SAP HR Time Management as attendances or absences. They can then be used to calculate overtime and bonuses and to manage time accounts. But the time sheet is much more than a preliminary method for recording time data. Take advantage of the practical aids we provide for your users: For example, you can display your employees planned working times while they enter data, and use them for checks. And it doesnt matter whether these times come from the work schedule or from actual times recorded via time recording terminals and imported to the SAP System. Working times entered in the SAP Time Sheet are run through online plausibility checks:
I I

Does the user have enough leave entitlement? Does the recorded data conflict with times already documented in the system?

Do you want your employees to be able to check their current leave entitlement or flextime balance at any time? Not a problem for the SAP Time Sheet you can have data transferred immediately to SAP HR Time Management. And you dont need to schedule the transfer periodically; the system performs it automatically. This means that current data is always available for the daily time evaluation run.
Enter Bonuses, Quantities, and Amounts

If you implement SAP HR Payroll, your users can also enter payroll information such as:
I I

Bonuses for hazardous or unpleasant work, for example Quantities such as the number of miles/kilometers traveled or the number of pieces produced Amounts to compensate additional activities in the assembly process, for example

SAP HR Payroll automatically takes account of this information you dont have to perform any additional steps.
Assign Personnel Costs Automatically

Some situations may arise where employees work on a project for a different cost center. If so, you do not want the employees master cost center to be debited with the personnel costs associated with the project. The SAP Time Sheet sends this key information to the relevant applications automatically. It forwards

12

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

the information to SAP Human Resources; the system determines the correct recipient from the group of users. Whether it be the cost center performing the activity or the project itself SAP Payroll automatically knows where to post the personnel costs.

Check Invoices from External Service-Providers

You can streamline the processes involved in recording external services significantly, simply by having your external service-providers record their working times in the SAP Time Sheet. The SAP Time Sheet reduces the internal process for service entry to recording the purchase order and transferring the service entry sheet, thereby making the checking of invoices significantly more transparent. To guarantee that data is consistent, you can perform extra checks for external service-providers. For example, you can specify that externals can enter times only for purchase orders bearing the correct vendor in the master data. Default values for the purchase order and purchase order item are an additional aid to guarantee correct data.
Check on Work Performed by Externals

Simple and Cost-Effective Confirmation Function

Take advantage of the SAP Time Sheets convenient data entry options for handling projects, plant maintenance orders, and services, and feel the benefit of the high-level integration with the Purchasing, Human Resources, and Controlling applications. Confirmations in the SAP Time Sheet are used to document the progress of projects, plant maintenance tasks, and services, and provide the basis for the completion and accounting of a project or order. By using the SAP Time Sheet, your employees assist their project leaders and heads of department in the difficult job of managing an order to comply with deadlines, budget, and capacity. Data from the SAP Time Sheet enables your project leaders and heads of department to keep constantly up to date on the degree of completion of a project or order. The SAP Time Sheet has a range of practical features to simplify the process for confirming projects and orders. The integrated worklist contains an overview of all the projects and orders to which the employee has been assigned. To enter confirmation information, all he or she has to do is to copy the existing information on the project or order.
Document Project Progress, Maintenance Tasks, and Services

13

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

Confirm Work Performed by Externals

Thanks to the SAP Time Sheets high level of integration, you can use information on work performed by external employees in a range of applications. For example, if you use the Purchasing component of SAP Materials Management (MM-SRV) together with SAP Plant Maintenance (PM) or SAP Customer Service (CS), you can use data on external employees work to document the degree of completion of an order and to check the vendors invoices.

Open to Input
Record Travel Expenses Directly
Companies whose employees are frequently offsite for service or consulting assignments will appreciate another special feature of the SAP Time Sheet: While recording their activities, employees can also enter their travel expenses. To do so, they simply branch directly from the SAP Time Sheet to the travel expenses function, where they enter all data connected to their trip. The trip number is stored in the SAP System, so you can establish the link between employees activities and their travel expenses.

Flexible Tuning Using SAP Enhancements

What if you want to add your own customer-specific fields to the SAP database so that you can store additional information in the SAP Time Sheet? Or customize the functions displayed on the SAP Time Sheet screen to suit your users? The SAP Time Sheet provides a range of interfaces (SAP enhancements) that you can use to enhance the SAP Time Sheet functions.

14

SAP Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS)

Index
A
Activity allocation, internal 11 Approval procedure 9 Archiving 10 Audit 10 Authorizations 10

S
SAP Business Workflow 9 SAP Controlling 11 SAP Customer Service 13, 14 SAP enhancements 11 SAP HR Payroll 12 SAP Materials Management 13, 14 SAP Plant Maintenance 13, 14 SAP Project System 13 SAP Purchasing 13 SAP Travel Management 14 Service entry 13 Services, external 13 System setup 10

C
Checks 10 Customizing 10

D
Data entry profiles 8, 10 Document number 10

E
Employee Self-Service 6

T
Time leveling 9 Time Sheet for Service Providers 3, 7 Travel expenses 14

I
Internal activity allocation 11

M
MiniApp 3, 5 mySAP.com Workplace 3, 5

W
Worklist 8, 13

P
Purchase order 10, 13

R
Release procedure 8

15

SAP AG Neurottstrasse 16 69190 Walldorf, Germany Mailing address 69189 Walldorf, Germany SAP information service Tel. +49 (180) 5 34 34 24 Fax +49 (180) 5 34 34 20

www.sap.com

You can find this and other current literature on our home page in the media centers for each subject.

50 024 395 (0009/12) Printed on environmentally friendly paper.