Technical Articles
Time & Attendance software Integration with Employee Central Payroll
Introduction
This article focuses on Time & Attendance software (Kronos/Workforce/Third-party application) integration with SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll or on-premise payroll.
Given the significance in recent times to track employee working time accurately, a lot of companies in Australia & globally are focused on adapting T&A software and integrating it with payroll systems. The majority of the companies are choosing Kronos and Workforce software, given the flexibility in interfacing the data to the SAP Payroll system.
Apparently, let’s analyze some of the recommendations and best practices in connecting the T&A system with SAP Payroll.
Employee Master integration from EC to T&A
The widely accepted format for T&A inbound interface is CSV
A point to note – T&A system which requires identifying policy profiles of employees, can be created as custom fields in job info (potentially hiding for employee’s view). Only Admin is responsible to maintain the profiles based on the award structure.
Payroll Export Integration from T&A system to Employee Central Payroll
The seamless integration from the T&A system to the Payroll system is achieved by enabling the web services.
Almost all T&A software available in the market has pay export files generated in CSV format, however, the web service inbound to payroll system should require the file format in XML to feed the data.
Please find the below architecture describing the connectivity
The employee working hours from T&A through time pay export will be received in standard database tables PTEX2000, PTEX2010, etc. These are the same tables used in the CATS interface from Netweaver Portal to SAP ECC.
In this case, employee working times are hosted in the T&A system, so IT0007 in SAP would contain a dummy work schedule (Similar to the landscape where Planned Working Time Replication is activated – If you are keen to learn PWT replication, please refer to this blog here). The planned/actual working hours are referenced from IT2010.
Middleware recommendation – You can use either Boomi/CPI, both provide greater flexibility for XML file format interface through web service.
Overall architecture
Conclusion
To recapitulate, Time and Attendance systems are flexibly connected via middleware through webservices by leveraging standard tables (PTEX****) in SAP. Also, please make sure the frequency of time pay export is defined once in every pay period to address the best outcomes.
If you’d like to learn more about the connectivity of KR (WFD) to Successfactors, please refer Kronos Integration Overview
Thank you for reading, Looking forward to your feedback and questions in the comments section.
Nice Information
Hi,
Trinath Balla,
This blog is really useful !!
I have a query, so if an organization wishes to opt for ECP, should they separately license a third-party software like workforce to meet the T&A integration with ECP.?
Can the integration happen from any third-party application to ECP or it's just one or two that SAP ECP supports.?
Do we have any guide on this integration?
Kindly advice.
Hi Hari, Thanks for your question. Not necessarily you should procure a third party software for T&A, it really depends on the needs of the customer (if they got rostering and complex requirements). Successfactors EC time off & Timesheet offers a good breadth of functionality which is recommended to use, otherwise if there are complex requirements you can opt for other T&A systems like WFS, Kronos etc..
There is no standard packages offering from SAP to connect T&A systems to ECP, however, you can connect it via HCI using iflows or you can also leverage Boomi middleware.
BR,