Managing the Import of Time Data from an External Time Recording System

External Time Recording System [page 90].

3.8 Managing the Import of Time Data from an External Time Recording System

You can import time data from an external time recording system into the Payroll Time Sheet.

This section gives you an overview of the import process and outlines the tasks that a time administrator performs to ensure external time data is imported correctly into the time sheets of employees who record their attendance time in an external time recording system.

Introduction

As a time administrator, you can trigger the import of 'external' attendance data recorded by employees into Employee Central and generate time sheets for these employees based on this imported data. The Payroll Time Sheet then valuates these time sheet entries in the normal way. All imported time records will contain only working time.

Restriction

Currently, you can only import time data into the time sheets of employees with the following time recording attributes:

● Time Recording Variant: Duration

● Time Recording Method: Positive

Note

When the employment of an employee is terminated, the user for this employee becomes inactive in the Employee Central system. In all cases where this occurs, the external time records pertaining to this user will also be deleted from the time sheet database in the system.

Import Process - Overview

The import of external time data into the Payroll Time Sheet is acheived using a process with three distinct stages:

Caution

If your organization has implemented the OData API ExternalTimeRecord to upload time data directly from an external system into a 'staging area', you will not need fill and upload a template containing this external time data as described in Stages 1 and 2 below.

1: External time data - pre-processing and conversion

Working time recorded outside of the Employee Central System is pre-processed and entered into an official template in the required format - for upload into your SAP SuccessFactors system.

2: External time data is uploaded to a specific staging area

External time data contained in discreet 'external time records' are initially uploaded to a staging area in the SAP SuccessFactors system - using a generic import service available under Admin Center Import and Export Data .

Depending on existing preconfiguration, as a time administrator you may only need to check if the external time data is being correctly imported into the staging area. Or you may be responsible for triggering the imports of external time data manually. This will depend on how your organization has actually set up the overall inport process.

The user Id and date are used as the key business fields to identify the uploaded working time per employee.

Each imported external time record contain the user ID of the employee, date of the external record, and the actual duration (in number of hours, for example, 7.5) of the working time recorded by the employee in the external system. Pre-processed time records for employees are contained in time segments, within each imported time record. One external time record per employee, per day is imported into the staging area. Each record can have multiple time segments within it, depending on how the employee records attendance time in the external system.

Each individual imported time segment has its own unique External Code.

If an import of external time data is successfully executed, it will appear in the staging area. Where an import fails, no data is imported into the staging area for this specific upload.

Upon upload of external time data to the staging area, basic data checks are performed to ensure, for example, that time record includes a valid user ID and date, and that the time segments contain only duration-based time data in the correct format. You can check any error messages generated from these basic data checks in the log file of the import job.

The status of an imported time record in the staging area is New. The status remains as New until the record is successfully imported into the time sheet.

Tip

We recommend that you do not change manually change the status of any uploaded time records in the staging area.

3: External time data is imported and converted in the staging area into time sheet entries for employees

The Time Sheet Import External Times job imports the external data from the staging area into the time sheet and creates time sheet entries - per employee for each given sheet week.

Note

This job is already configured in the time sheet, and runs automatically in the background on a daily basis. As a time administrator, you cannot change the pre-delivered settings that control the running of this background job. This can only be done in Provisioning.

The Time Sheet Import External Times job performs the following time sheet generation tasks, based on a specifically designated 'import' time type in the employee's time profile:

● Creates new time sheet entries based on attendance time data for a particular week that has been uploaded into the staging area

● Updates existing time sheets that have not yet been approved, when new or additional attendance time data for the employee has been uploaded for the time sheet week in question

● Replaces time sheets which have already been approved when new or additional attendance time data for the week in question are uploaded retroactively (aka the 'Make Amendments' scenario).

When time sheets for employees are created by this process, the Payroll Time Sheet valuates these time sheet entries in the normal way.

Data checks are also performed in this third stage that identify, for example, when configuration or employee data is missing or when collisions occur with existing time records.

Within the Time Sheet Import External Times job, each individual external time record has the following statuses:

● New - default status for all newly-created external time records

● Processed - external time record is successfully imported into the target time sheet

● Error - external time record is not imported into the specified employee time sheet due to an error. The error must be first corrected and the background job run again to import the external time record into the target time sheet

Tip

You can check the status of the external time record in the Admin Center, choosing Manage Data External Time Record . Search for the external time record you need to check, and take a look at the Status field for the record.

Note

As a time administrator, you can change existing time sheet entries created by this job.

Depending on the rules in place in your organization, employees may also be able to make changes to time sheet entries created by this job. This is controlled by the Enabled in ESS scenario setting for the specifically designated 'import' time type defined in the employee's time profile.

Submission & Approval of Time Sheets Containing Imported Time Data

At the end of any given time sheet week, all time sheets created using the imported time data need to be submitted for approval. This can happen in two ways depending on the status of the time sheet when the Submit Time Sheet job runs:

● Where no changes are made to the imported time data in the time sheet - and where no additional

attendances, on-call time or allowances have been recorded for the current time sheet week - the Submit Time Sheet job will automatically submit the time sheet for approval. An approval workflow is triggered by the job and the employee does not need to manually submit the time sheet.

● Where changes are made to the imported time data in the time sheet after import, the employee must trigger an approval workflow by manually submitting the time sheet.

For more information on the Submit Time Sheet job, and on how you can monitor all time sheet background jobs including the Time Sheet Import External Times job using the Time Sheet Job Summary, see Managing Time Sheet Generation for Negative Time Recorders [page 85].

So, you now have an overview of how external time data is imported into Payroll Time Sheet and later submitted.

Next, we describe some of the tasks you may have to perform to ensure that time data from an external time recording system is correctly imported into the time sheet.

Time Administrator Tasks - Initial Upload of External Time Data into Staging Area

Trigger Uploads

As mentioned earlier, and depending on how your organization has actually set up the overall inport process, you may be responsible for triggering the imports of external time data manually, using the generic upload service available under Admin Center Import and Export Data .

Check Uploads

You will need to regularly check that the expected external time data is correctly uploaded into the staging area and that there are no failed imports. Check the error log of the relevant import job if you notice any expected external data have not been imported.

Tip

Alternatively, you can check the correctness of uploaded time data in the staging area, on an employee-by-employee basis, by opening an employee-by-employee's time sheet for the week in question. Even if the Time Sheet Import External Times job has not yet run for the day you want to check, when the time sheet is opened, it displays the external time data held in the staging area for the employee. In this situation, you then have a number of options. You can:

● Correct any errors directly in the time sheet and save the time sheet on behalf of the employee. In this case, the Time Sheet Import External Times job will not import any of the time data in the current time sheet that you have just saved.

● View and check the current time sheet data, but don't save the time sheet. Here, the Time Sheet Import External Times job will run as scheduled and import all external time data held for the employee in the staging area that has not yet been imported for this time sheet week.

The opportunity you have to view and save time sheet data directly in the time sheet (which currently resides in the staging area) can also be useful where there are errors with the two background jobs that import and submit

external time data. For example, if these jobs are not working for whatever reason, you could instruct your employees to go into their time sheets at the end of the week, and check, save, and submit their time sheets. An approval workflow would then be triggered for each of the time sheets.

In this way, you can at least generate time sheets if the background jobs are not functioning as they should be.

Error Handling in Staging Area

You will also have to correct any errors generated by the basic data checks performed on the external data uploaded into the staging area. The import job contains an error log in a .csv file format which you will need to check. As mentioned earlier, examples of errors at this stage of the import process may include invalid user IDs or dates, or time segments containing time data in an invalid format. It also may be the case that time data is uploaded for an employee who does not exist in the Employee Central system. This will obviously require correction.

Where the upload service generates an error for a given employee, you are able to change uploaded time data directly in the staging area.

Example

A error occurs during the creation of a time sheet by the Time Sheet Import External Times job. An employee's time sheet cannot be generated because the external time record does not contain the number of hours worked by the employee. As a time administrator in this situation, do not create an additional External Time Record, but modify the existing one by manually adding the missing hours within the external time record in the staging area. When the import job is run next, the time sheet for the employee will be successfully generated.

Time Administrator Tasks - Time Sheet Generation using the Background Job

The background job Time Sheet Import External Times automatically imports uploaded attendance time data from the staging area and creates time sheets for employees from this data. As a time administrator, you will need to perform the following task to ensure that time sheets for employees who record their attendance time in an external system are correctly generated:

Correction of time management errors in background job

You will need, for example, to correct errors such as collisions, missing employee data, or invalid data formats. The Time Management Job Summary provides you with a view on the Time Sheet Import External Times job, helping you to monitor the job itself and ensure it runs correctly. A log file (.csv file) for the job is available in the summary, including error messages for those time sheets in the job run with an error.

For more information on the Time Management Job Summary, see Managing Time Sheet Generation for Negative Time Recorders [page 85].

Tip

All jobs run using the Q2 2016 and subsequent releases of the Payroll Time Sheet are monitored using the Time Management Job Summary

The Time Management Job Summary replaces the Time Sheet Job Summary. Time sheet job summaries already created in the system are not deleted or removed, but are retained and renamed in a future release.