... you've probably missed an announcement from SAP and HMRC, and need to talk to your technical team asap. Otherwise RTI won't work and this affects FPS, EPS and EYU. You may also experience issues accessing HMRC via the government gateway in your web browser. So, here are a few important points, if you hit RTI issues around these days.
HMRC Technical Changes for RTI
There are significant technical changes for RTI on HMRC's end on 30th September. If you don't get any response or just an obscure rejection for technical reasons (ssl error, encryption error, communication error sending XML document) from the Government Gateway at this time of the year, the corresponding SAP PI changes have probably not been fully implemented in your system yet.
At this date HMRC switches from SSL encryption to the new, more secure encryption called TLS. As a SAP payroll specialist you don't need to understand the technical detail and there's no point bothering your HR/Payroll consultants with this either (unless you want them to help you with RTI testing). Give this information to your technical / SAP basis administrators or consultants responsible for the XI or PI or PO system (the special SAP system managing 3rd party communication including HMRC). Usually they'd be able to fix this issue very quickly based on the information provided:
- electronic communication with HMRC will switch from SSLv3 to TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1 or TLS 1.2 on 30th September 2015
- make sure your PI (or equivalent system) does support SSL as well as TLS on that day
- this is not a payroll change, but one on the basis level
- follow the SAP notes 510007 (background info) and 2065806 to implement the change
Once the changes are implemented, run a "test in live" submission as early as possible to verify it's really working.
Access Government Gateway via Web Browser
This is not SAP related, but if you have issues accessing your government gateway account in your normal web browser, it's the same root cause: some older browser versions can't deal with the new encryption, so you'll need to install a new version of your browser (check with your PC support for this) or try a different browser (e.g. Firefox instead of Internet Explorer).
Related RTI Issues Observed Even Before 30th September 2015
Some SAP UK Payroll customers reported connection issues / certificate related issues with HMRC for RTI earlier in September. Please observe these notes, if you experience further issues:
- SAP note 2012035: System failure HTTP client code 407 reason ICM_HTTP_SSL_ERROR.
- SAP note 2110020: Enabling TLS or disabling SSLv3 protocol versions on SAP WebDispatcher, or SAP WebAS (AS ABAP 6xx, 7xx or AS Java >= 710)
If you learn about further issues / required changes during the HMRC switch over period, please share your experience in the comment section
