I think we have all suffered from SAP work schedulitis? You know the symptoms. You started off with a reasonable number of work schedules in your SAP system but over time they have multiplied so that there are now thousands, possibly even tens of thousands, in your system.
Initially there was probably a logical system to the naming convention but that too has long gone by the wayside meaning that when allocating a work schedule to infotype 0007 a user will struggle to find an existing pattern that matches the requirements. In some cases this leads to a new work schedule being requested that may already exist!
As work schedules are configuration items a new schedule will take time to create and test so will use up valuable resources from your SAP support team.
This had happened to one of our clients and they asked us if we could help.
We developed a series of bespoke tables, input screens and programs that would allow an employee’s line manager to accurately create the working pattern for the employee whilst inbuilt validation would ensure that the new pattern did not differ from the employees contractual hours held on IT0007 Planned Working Time.
This approach allowed the client to reduce the number of work schedules to a minimum and give the responsibility of maintaining accurate work schedules to an employees line manager.
The line manager can also create a rotating schedule of up to 12 weeks if required. The total hours per week can be more or less than the weekly working hours in IT0007 so long as the average DOES equal.
It is also very useful when it comes to part time employees. If two employees both wanted to work 20 hours per week but with different patterns this would require the creation of two separate work schedule rules in SAP. Now the employees can be allocated the standard Full Time Equivalent work schedule rule, change the weekly working hours to 20 and the detail of the 20 hours entered by the line manager.
There is a knock on benefit to this approach as the percentage utilisation value will be transferred to IT0008 and if the employee is allocated to a pay scale with set rates the pro ration will take place automatically.
Below is a screen shot where a manager would create the required shift pattern using start and end times, including any breaks.
Once the pattern has been created, validated and stored in the bespoke tables one of the programs, which is a scheduled job, will process the record and create IT2003 Substitutions records from the start date of the record. The number of IT2003 records created will be based on the end date of the record. The program will also re-evaluate any IT2001 Absences or IT2002 Attendances records that fall within the date range.
Since being developed for the original client we have provided a similar solution to several other clients in the UK and USA.
If you would like to know more details then I am happy to share. http://scn.sap.com/edit-profile!input.jspa?targetUser=913484
- SAP Managed Tags:
7 Comments
