Author: mtimm

SAP provides very useful and robust functionality to capture employee time in Cross-Application Time Sheets (CATS). CATS is a mechanism to capture employee time and post to cost centers, projects, networks, or other cost objects. Over the last couple of months we have covered the following topics:

Understanding the basics of CATS
Using CATS Data: Updating CO
Using CATS Data: Updating PM
Using CATS Data: Updating PS
Using CATS Data: Updating HR
Transferring CATS Data
CATS Profiles
CATS User Parameters
CATS User Exits

We hope you have found these posts useful. Contact us if you want to get even more details.

We’ve covered several aspects of CATS over the last several blog posts. As we come to an end of the series, we must talk about available user exits to enhance the CATS experience. There are a total of 14 user exits for use with CATS.

Utilizing user exits allows for additional functionality and behind-the-scenes data processing. These user exits allow automatic lookups, formatting, validations, etc. to reduce user input and data entry errors.List here you see 5 of the user exits I have seen used more frequently:
CATS0002 – CATS: Supplement entered data
CATS0003 – CATS: Validation of entered data
CATS0005 – CATS: Customer field enhancements
CATS0006 – CATS: Validation of entire time sheet
CATS0008 – CATS: Determine workflow recipient for approval

Below is an example of user exit CATS0002 being used to take input time data and round it to the nearest tenth.

The company allows employees to enter time to the one-hundredth, but they do not want it passed to subsequent modules at that level. Modules that will be accepting data from CATS now do not have problems processing. This in only one small example of how user exits with enhance the standard delivered system

Please remember, though, that user exits should be carefully considered and not overly restrictive because there is no way to bypass them.

We’ve been covering CATS (cross-application time sheets) functionality over the last several blog posts. SAP has provided a way to make using some of that functionality easier with User Parameters.

Many of you already know about user parameters and how they are useful to default in such things as company code or cost center. Employees entering data through should also use the parameters to make the process more efficient. Parameter PER should be set for each employee with their own personnel number.

A key parameter is CVR which sets the user default data entry profile. If you set the CATS profile attributes to not allow the profile to be chosen, this is necessary. Even if you allow the profile to be selected, the best thing you can do is set the parameter so that every week the employee uses the same profile giving them the same look and feel. If nothing else, set the parameter so that the employee doesn’t have to remember. Definitely a good way of reducing the number of data entry errors and errors during transfer.

You can easily set your own user parameters with tcode SU3 or the SAP menu path System > User profile > Own data > Parameters.

Our next post will cover using User Exits in CATS.

Continuing with our blog series about CATS, we’ll next cover CATS Profiles. At the most basic level, CATS Profiles determine the data entry fields available for entry or display:

• How the timesheet will appear
• Allow individual employee or multiple employee entry
• Fields available for entry and to be displayed
• The number of days available to be entered

Profiles have 8 sections that may be configured to produce the desired data entry process.

1. General settings
2. Time settings
3. Person selection
4. Cost accounting variant
5. Default values
6. Worklist
7. Data entry checks
8. Workflow

Several options exist in the General settings section that may be of interest. You should only select the options that are relevant to the user.

• We can display such things as a total line by employee or the target hours for a given day.
  • Target hours are drawn from Infotype 0007 Time Management work schedule rule.
  • If an employee doesn’t work the target hours, then maybe an absences needs to be entered for the remaining hours.
• You can allow hours to be entered or start and end times.
• Future dated entries may be transferred with current or prior dated entries or held until the future dated entry is in the current period.
• Settings for the approval process are made.
  • If approval required is selected, you may want to also select the no change after approval. Then an employee can’t make changes. You can use a different profile for a manager or time administrator to allow changes after approval.
  • If no change after approval is not selected, data that goes through the approval process may be changed at a later time and then transferred to HR.
• Selecting the Immediate transfer to HR will transfer the data to HR when the data is Saved

In Time settings, we can configure that we want weekly time entry with one period or multiple periods.

• If you allow future data entry, you may want the current and a future period to appear.
  • This way a week of vacation may be entered ahead of time
• You can also define what day is the beginning of the work week.
  • Some of you employees may be Sunday and some Monday.
  • You would create to profiles identically, but with a different start day

Finally, in the third section, you may set the employee groupings to automatically default the employees that should have time entered. This is very useful if you have time administrators who enter the time for the same group of employees period after period

After creating the profile, the fields displayed in the Time Sheet when maintaining or displaying are defined. Selecting the fields and setting attributes makes user entry easier and reduces error.

• Attributes set for a field influence the target module.
  • Should a field appear or not.
  • Should a field be required.
  • Depending on the module receiving CATS data, fields may or may not be required. If you send data to Project Systems you need to have the network field.
• Displaying fields is done by configuring modifiable fields and influencing fields.
• Modifiable fields are set as the base for all data entry profiles.
• Influencing fields are profile-specific field attributes. Keep number of fields displayed on the screen to the absolute minimum.

Overall, keep in mind the more fields on a screen, the more chance for user input error.
Keep the fields to the minimal number possible.

Below we have the fields that may be configured to appear, not appear, and be required.

You’ll always start off with the Modifiable tab because the configuration set here goes across all profiles. If you set a modifiable field attribute to Hide, no profile will be able to see that field, regardless of what you set under influencing.

Under the influencing tab, you set the fields that you want to see in your specific profile
The screen print shows the influencing field attributes.

The next subject we’ll cover is CATS User Parameters. Very useful to make the process more efficient.

We have previously covered Understanding the basics of CATS (cross-application time sheets) showing how SAP provides a very robust method to capture time data and have that data passed to other SAP modules. Then we continued to discuss how CO, PM, PS, and HR may use that capture time data.
Using CATS Data: Updating CO (controlling)
Using CATS Data: Updating PM (plant maintenance)
Using CATS Data: Updating PS (project systems)
Using CATS Data: Updating HR (human resources)

The next step is to transfer the capture time data in CATS to the other modules. As discussed in an earlier post, you have the option of transferring data to all other modules at the same time or on an individual module bases. This allows a great deal of flexibility. HR has one added option the other modules do not if you do not require a time approval process. HR data may be transferred immediately on save from CATS and this is configured in the CATS profile. All other modules require a program be run to transfer the data.

Below is a demonstration of the manual method of transferring data to HR and CO at the same time. As previously noted, the data could have been passed to HR immediately upon save and then we would only need to transfer the data to CO in this step. Whether you want to transfer all components at the same time or individually requires a study of your exact requirements of each module.

It is typical for HR data to be passed immediately if time administrators are entering the time. However, if employees are entering their own time, a batch session is scheduled to transfer approved data periodically.

After we enter the transaction, the parameter screen allows flexibility in exactly what data needs to be transfer. In our example, we run the transfer on a daily basis and our target components are HR and CO. Under the selection section, we could

• have identified a subgroup of employees. An example would be if you have weekly and bi-weekly paid employees. You may need the transfer done weekly for the weekly paid employees and could use their payroll area for selection criteria
• have specified a network that needs to be update twice daily and the remaining networks only once a day

This screen where you want to limit the period for transfers to PM and PS as we discussed in Using CATS Data: Updating PM (plant maintenance) and Using CATS Data: Updating PS (project systems). The more focused the selection, the quicker the transfer process will finish.

CATS is great tool for hourly and salaried employees when tasks are performed in multiple projects or cost centers. If activity rates have been configured, a different rate may be charged to a cost center based on the work performed. SAP default is to post hours and dollars to the employee home cost center, but CATS provides a mechanism for the spreading of the hours and dollars to cost centers where the employee actually worked.

Make sure to discuss with accounting how the posting process works on the HR side. Accounting may expect something totally different than the employee home cost center receiving the entire posting. Also, if the HR group is leading the CATS implementation, sometimes accounting doesn’t realize how the data will post to CO.

In our next blog post, we’ll cover CATS Profiles.

In our previous posts, we discussed Understanding the basics of CATS (cross-application time sheets) and the robustness that it provides to capture employee time data. We then covered three modules that care about costing: Using CATS Data: Updating CO (controlling), Using CATS Data: Updating PM (plant maintenance), and Using CATS Data: Updating PS (project systems).

When we enter time in CATS there are several interactions with the HR module. CATS captures actual hours attended or absent, validates absences with absence quotas during entry, and allows several overrides. Time evaluation and Payroll will then use this data to calculate regular time, overtime, double time, paid or unpaid absences, differences in rates of pay, work tax overrides, and a variety of other items.

While time entry is occurring, absence and attendance quotas are being validated. An example is vacation.

• If an employee has enough, no problem, the data passes.
• If the employee does not have enough a warning or error may be generated

CATS may update the following HR Infotypes:

Absences (Infotypes 2001)

• Actual hours absent
• Validates absences with absence quotas

Attendances (Infotypes 2002)

• Actual hours or start and end times attended
• Validates attendances with attendance quotas
• Below is an example where CATS attendances have been passed to HR

Substitutions (Infotype 2003)

• Position option may be used to assign payment for the work according to the specifications of a different position
• Used dhen an employee assumes a different position for a short period of time
• For example, a line worker takes on the role of foreman for a shift, infotype 2003 would be populated so additional pay will be processed during payroll

Employee Remuneration Infotype 2010)

• One-time earnings/deductions

Work Tax Area (Infotype 0208)

• Work tax area may be entered that is different than the default area in Infotype 0208
• For example, Nebraska was entered in CATS to override the employee regular work tax area of Iowa

Now that the data has been captured with all the options we need for CO, PM, PS, and HR, we’ll discuss the method to transfer the data from CATS Data to those modules.

In our previous posts, we discussed Understanding the basics of CATS (cross-application time sheets) showing how SAP provides a very robust method to capture time data and have that data passed to other SAP modules. We then covered Using CATS Data: Updating CO (controlling) and Using CATS Data: Updating PM (plant maintenance).

Next up is CATS updating the Project Systems module. Something to keep in mind is time entered in CATS as hours transfers to PS as minutes. This may initially throw you off and knowing it ahead of time is helpful. CATS generates confirmations for networks and performs activity allocation in CO at the same time. The PS confirmations contain state of processing, work center where the activity was carried out, and the individual person who carried out the activity.

Just like PM orders, processing time can be a major issue if there is a large volume of open PS orders. Consider using nightly batch runs with narrow periods to reduce the processing time. However, narrowing the period to much may cause prior period corrections to be missed so performance vs. time period narrowing must be weighed carefully.

An effective schedule we have put in practice is a nightly run pulling data for the last two weeks and a weekend run that pulls in data for a year. The weekend run will capture corrections that were made outside of our two week window we captured during nightly runs.

Next we’ll discuss Using CATS Data: Updating HR (human resources).

In our previous posts, we discussed Understanding the basics of CATS (cross-application time sheets) showing how SAP provides a very robust method to capture time data and have that data passed to other SAP modules. We then covered Using CATS Data: Updating CO (controlling) to see how controlling may use the CATS data. The next module we will discuss CATS updating is Plant Maintenance.

CATS will generate confirmations for maintenance and service orders and will do this with Receiver orders, Operation number, and Sub-operations. The confirmations tell us the state of processing, work center where the activity was carried out, and the individual who carried out the activity. The generation of confirmations is simultaneous to activity allocation in CO.

Keep in mind, that processing time can be a major issue if there is a large volume of open PM orders. Consider using nightly batch runs with narrow periods to reduce the processing time. However, narrowing the period to much may cause prior period corrections to be missed so performance vs. time period narrowing must be weighed carefully.

An effective schedule we have put in practice is a nightly run pulling data for the last two weeks and a weekend run that pulls in data for a year. The weekend run will capture corrections that were made outside of our two week window we captured during nightly runs.

Next we’ll discuss Using CATS Data: Updating PS (project systems).

In our previous post, we discussed Understanding the basics of CATS (cross-application time sheets). SAP provides a very robust method to capture time data and have that data passed to other SAP modules.

The first module we will discuss CATS updating is Controlling. CATS updates CO with hours actually worked by cost center for an employee. Even in the most basic implementation of CATS, controlling typically receives data.

The payroll expense posting for an employee is sent to the employee home cost center in the payroll process Posting to Accounting. Further down is an example where the payroll expense posting for an employee is sent to the employee’s home cost center. Regardless of the cost center overrides in CATS, the cost center found in Infotype 0001 (Organizational Data) is the primary default.

CATS functionality allows for activity allocation between the cost centers. Using CATS, you can create an activity allocation to credit the home cost center for hours not worked by the employee and debit the cost centers where the employee actually worked.

The hours entered in CATS flow to Controlling based on the cost center where work was performed. CATS allows the employee home cost center to be posted, or during time entry an override cost center may be entered. This moves time data between the worked cost centers and the employee home cost center.

Actual costs may be determined from the standard activity price associated to an activity type or from the payroll process.

Example:

Master data

• Employee John works 80 hours over a two-week pay period
• John is an hourly employee who makes $15/hour and is assigned to cost center 123-A as his home cost center
• John’s company uses CATS as a time entry/capture tool

Work data

• Over the two-week period, John worked 40 hours in cost center 345-B, 30 hours in cost center 678-A, and 10 hours in his home cost center, cost center 123-A
• His gross pay for the period is 80 hours x $15/hour = $1,200

Payroll Posting to Accounting

• John’s home cost center, 123-A, is debited $1,200 (the entire 80 hours that he worked)

From home cost center 123-A

• The CATS interface will credit John’s home cost center (123-A) 70 hours (multiplied by a predefined activity rate, $15/hour), for a total of $1,050 – via an internal activity allocation. This will leave a net debit of $150 (10 hours x $15/hour) on John’s home center

To cost centers 345-B and 678-A

• The other side of the CATS interface activity allocation will debit cost center (345-B) 40 hours, for a total of $600, and cost center (678-A) 30 hours, for a total of $450

Next we’ll discuss Using CATS Data: Updating PM (plant maintenance).

SAP provides very useful and robust functionality to capture employee time in Cross-Application Time Sheets (CATS). CATS is a mechanism to capture employee time and post to cost centers, projects, networks, or other cost objects. Some important points when considering CATS:

• Uses the SAP Human Resources authorization concept
• May be updated through the SAP GUI via transaction code CAT2, company web portal, or Fiori
• Data entry in CATS may be done by an individual employee, interface uploads, or by an administrator for multiple employees
• CATS may be used as the time transfer tool to update Human Resources with hours worked by employee
• Many overrides may be entered in CATS such as tax work area, special payments, substitutions, pay rate differences
• Data entered in CATS may be set to require a approval before further processing may occur

Below is a screenshot of the SAP GUI transaction code CAT2. The data entry profile entered defines how the time sheet looks. You have the ability to default in the data entry profile by setting the user parameter CVR. This specific profile allows the user to enter time for one employee at a time so we enter the personnel number we want to record. We also enter the Key date to determine the time period we will be entering the time data.

In the time entry screen, we enter the cost objects, absence or attendance type, and hours for the given day. This screen is highly customizable to meet your needs in what data is displayed and allows for entry. Beyond the entry screen, CATS user exits may be employed to perform validations and defaulting of fields.

Once the time data is captured, subsequent programs may be run to update other modules such as Human Resources, Controlling, Plant Maintenance, Project Systems. CATS can updated multiple modules or individual modules allowing flexibility.

• HR may want the data passed on a nightly basis or even immediately
• CO may want the data passed weekly

In our next blog post, we’ll discuss Using CATS Data: Updating CO (controlling).