Hi,
update on november 2021 on this:
Before you read this - there is a better way than described below. Use the integration center, cause the usage of save rules described down have some disadvantages.
Better use the approach mentioned here:
https://blogs.sap.com/2021/10/22/timely-time-sheet-alerts-for-no-records-on-previous-working-day/
Best regards
Volker
Hello,
once more a quick guide on how to tackle practical business use cases that you will find often as a customer requirement.
I describe only the scenario a bit here and let me refer for the configuration details to a blog from
soumyajit.roy from SAPs Max Attention Team who has digged deep into the EC Alerts and notifications and rules and explored how the notifications can be sent in case of unsubmitted time sheets. You can find the link here:
Notifications for unsubmitted time sheets
What is the business scenario?
Employees record their times in the time sheet. They need to submit the time sheet when they are positive or overtime only recorder (this is defined in the employees job information, field: time recording method). A save of the time sheet is not sufficient- and this is by design. Cause employees normally record their hours each day in the time sheet, save it, and only when the week is complete and correct they submit it. Hence a dedicated action to send the times to the approver and payroll is needed.
But what when an employee simply forgets to submit his time sheet? Or he gets ill starting from Wednesday onwards? Days, weeks passing by and payroll is running and the employee has still not yet submitted his time sheet. For an hourly employee this would result in less payment. For salary employees they at least get their salary, but probably no overtime payment, shift differentials or other payments that time valuation has calculated for the time sheet he has not submitted.
Employees probably complain then and won´t be satisfied.
Hence, this is a situtation no one wants. And there is up to now not a good way for the employee himself to find out about not yet submitted time sheets. They need to navigate through the time sheet weeks and check the status of each week. And in case of illness they won´t be able at all to submit a partially filled time sheet, hence a HR admin would need to do so no behalve. But how does the HR Admin know on the unsubmitted time sheet?
An automated notification to employees and / or HR admins would help here to a great extent.
There is a solution for this now. In Q1 2018 release the MDF / Workflow team introduced a new feature that we can consume to cover this business case. You can send mails and / or notifications to employees who have a time sheet in the past that is not yet submitted.
There is an elegant way and a not so elegant way:
Not so elegant way: Send notifications on a fix day to all employees regardless if there are time sheets to be submitted or not. Not really nice. Cause those who have submitted their time sheet right in time could feel offended by such an unnecessary reminder. Just one more unnecessary mail / notification to delete. Or why sending a notification to those employees that are on a 3 weeks vacation? They would need to delete 3 unnecessary mails / notification upon their return.
Elegant way: Send notifications only to those who have unsubmitted time sheets in the past.
The solution proposed by
soumyajit.roy in his blog works pretty well. Cause due to the fact that the time sheets end date is checked in a rule against the actual day the notifications are sent
only to those employees who have an unsubmitted time sheet in the past. Remember, the time sheet period is the full week, so with a post save rule on the time sheet object the time sheet end date of the actual week has not yet been reached, hence no notification is triggered. But when unsubmitted time sheets of last week exist a notification is triggered.
And same is true for a time sheet week that is fully covered by an absence: the time sheet gets created automatically (cause there might be a payment for the absence and it would not make sense having an employee submitting his time sheet full of already recorded absences) and a notification is not necessary and not triggered. When employees have got a 3-weeks vacation starting from Wednesday but worked on Monday / Tuesday and not submitted the time sheet a notification is then send for this week - cause in any case: as soon as positive time employees record attendances, allowances or on call times in the time sheet a submit is necessary.
Update 2020: Please note: this solution works only when the time sheet is saved or gets automatically saved due to the fact that the week is full with absences.
When an employee does not open the time sheet at all the save rule is not triggered, hence no notification mail possible.
We are planning to provide a proper alert without save rules for this scenario out of the time evaluation.
So, the already existing logic of the time sheet combined with this new alert feature covers all in all this business process in a nice and smart way - with the only drawback that no notification can be send when the time sheet is not saved at all.
And when you don´t want to have notifications for some users (HR Admins for example) but only a way on quickly find out if unsubmitted times exist:
You can use our standard employee times report and use the time sheet status as well to find out times that have not yet been submitted.
Hope this helps.
Special thanks to Soumyajit who spent time and effort exploring this solution. The link again here:
Notifications for unsubmitted time sheets
Volker
