New Features in 1511 Release
Next EC release will soon be shipped to customers and I want to give a sneak preview on the new features in the EC Time and Attendance application.
One of the most significant time enhancement in 1511 is the introduction of start / end times in the EC Time and Attendance application. As you know, up to now it was only possible in EC to do time management duration based, like 6 hours absence time, 8 hours working time and so on. With the introduction of start / end times employees can perform a much more accurate recording of working time and absence times, planned times can be defined much more sophisticated and of course a pay type generation based on the recorded clocktimes is now possible. This allows much more customers to use the EC Time and Attendance application, cause for many customers time recording with start / end times is mandatory.
Hence employees record their absences, attendances or on call times with start and end times and the system calculates the duration. Sounds easy, but those who are familiar with time management know that this new dimension of time management opens up a bottle of quite complex issues that needs to be covered. This is why the introduction of start / end times is the major feature in EC Time in the 1511 release.
So, all in all start / end times where introduced in:
- work schedules
- absence recording in time off
- attendance recording in time sheet
- time valuation
- collision checks
So, what are the concrete new features?
1. Work Schedules with start / end time definition
When time recording is supposed to be done with clock times, than the work schedule needs of course to be defined with clock times, too. Cause the work schedule is the basis for the time account deduction in case of absence recording, overtime calculation and for negative time recorders the basis of time recording at all.
Work schedules can be pattern based (with period models and day models) or individual based, created only for 1 employee in the hire process when there is no pattern available that fits the contractually agreed working times. This is very helpful for part time employees, for example. In 1511 release it is now possible to define daily models (or the individual schedules that do not necessarily need a day model) with start / end times. Additionally you can define breaks in the day model with start end times. The system automatically calculates the net planned time by deducting the break intervall from the planned times interval. Sounds more complicated than it is. Example:
Day Model "Early Shift"
Scheduled Time: 08:00 - 17:00, Duration: 09:00 hours
Break: 10:00 - 10:15, Duration: 00:15
Break: 12:30 - 13:15, Duraton: 00:45
So, the employee needs to work 8 hours with this day model cause the break time is deducted from the time span of the scheduled time.
How does this definition look like in the day model?:
The start / end times in workschedules are available of course everywhere where work schedules are displayed and used. Work schedule finder, work schedule details in the job information and even in the Temporary change of work schedule feature where for a given time a different planned working time shall be applicable to an employee without changing the employees master data in the job informarion (a bit similar like the IT2003 substitutions in SAP ERP)
What else does the break definition do?
It of course does an break deduction for recorded attendance / absence times.
When an employee records attendance times or absence times that overlaps with defined breaks, than the break times get cut into the recorded time.
A positive time recorder records for example working time from 05:00 - 14:30 and has got the Early Shift day model as daily planned time as described above. The system cuts the break time from 10:00 - 11:00 into the recorded working time, reducing thus the overall duration of this record. This break time does not count as productive time and no pay types are generated for it, neither the break time is used in the overtime calculation. It is non-working time.
Here you see a screenshot of a time sheet record and the automated break deduction. Employee has recorded working time from 08:00 - 18:00 and two breaks get deducted cause they are defined in the underlying work schedule.
2. Time Off with start / end times.
When an employee needs to do his time recording with clock times he needs to record partial day absences with start / end times, too.
And here it is the same like for the time sheet data: when an absence overlaps with break times, the breaks get cut into the absence time and reduces its duration:
3. Time Sheet with start / end time recording
Up to the release 1511 EC Time Sheet was only capable of doing duration based time recording. Now employees can record their start / end clock times to better specify their actual working time. Additionally the work schedule information displayes the start / end times as well, so the employee can quite easily see at what time he is planned to work in the next week for example.
As already mentioned, upon time recording there is an immediate break deduction possible. So, no need to wait till next day till the time valuation has done all the break deductions in a nightly job like old RPTIME over night, in EC Time Sheet this happens immediately in real time.
The customer can choose to allow employees to change and adapt the automated deducted breaks and even to record manual break times.
4. Time Valuation considers start / end times
All the time recording with start / end times is nearly in vain, when the time valuation does not consider the start / end times in its calculations. But this is also included in 1511 release. Flexible rules can be specified that allow a specific pay type generation for working time on Sunday 14:00 - 22:00 for example. Or weekdays from 18:00 - 22:00.
Here you can see that the employee has recorded working time on saturday from 17:00 - 20:00. A rule generates a kind of night work premium starting in the range of 18:00 - 24:00. Hence 2 hours of this pay type are generated:
5. Collision checks based on start / end times
With collision checks it is meant how a system shall react when two overlapping records exist. For duration based only it is quite simple: Apart from full day records that overlap with another full day record or partial day record there is only little need for collision checks. There could be multiple partial day records on one day that don´t overlap - cause you cannot detect the overlap. But with start / end times enabled this is different. Now each record needs to be checked if it overlaps with it clock times with already existing time records. See this example for overlapping time records:
These are the new 1511 EC Time and Attendance features in a nutshell. Hope you like it.
Volker
New features in 1508 release
Hi,
the EC Time Sheet provides in 1508 new features. Amongst others it is:
Pay type generation for work on specific weekdays like for example Sunday, public holidays, off days and shift premiums
Up to 1505 it was only possible to generate overtime premiums based on a daily or weekly basis. Now it is possible to generate specific pay types for work on a specific weekday like for example Sunday. The rules are so flexible that you even can set up that for Overtime on Sunday the Sunday premium gets generated instead of the Overtime premium, cause the Sunday Premium is higher (for example 60%) than the Overtime Premium (50%).
Moreover you can assign a "shift classification" to the daily time models and period models (elements of the workschedule). With this shift classification you can generate shift premiums for early / late shifts. For each hour an employee records on a day with that shift classification the shift premium gets calculated.
All paytypes that the time sheet generates can be sent to EC Cloud Payroll or SAP onprem Payroll. The Paytypes get mapped to IT2010 wage types and Payroll can process the IT2010.
On Call time recording
In the time sheet employees can record their on call time. On call times are not regarded as productive working time, so they don´t count for overtime calculation for example. During on call times an employee declares himself available to come to work within a short time frame for some emergencies. Of course the time sheet can generate specific pay types for the on call times.
Manual recording of allowances
You can set up in the time type profil if an employee is allowed to record allowances in the time sheet. Allowances are not regarded as productive working time - similar as on call times - , so they are not regarded for the overtime calculation. Manual allowance can be each premium pay that the system cannot generate, for example dirty work allowance when an employee has worked 3 hours under specific dirty conditions or any other allowance that cannot be derived from the recorded working time. You can of course set up which allowances an employee can record and if at all - or if only a time admin can do these on behalf of the employee
Negative time recording
Time Sheet supports besides pure Overtime recording and Positive time recording now also Negative time recording. Negative time recording is when employees are payed based on their planned time and they need only record the deviations from the planned time like overtime, absences or a training within the normal working time. The Time Sheet generates working time based on the work schedule when the employee has not recorded any deviations. If he has done so, the system mixes the recorded times with the generated times. Shift premiums or Premiums based on weekdays like Sunday work gets automatically generated when the planned time is transferred into worked time which is done daily.
The Negative time recording scenario is in November release only as a show case available as the autosubmit and autoapprove function for negative time recorders is not yet available, but this comes in the next release. Time Sheet needs then not to be touched by an employee when no deviations need to be recorded and the time sheet calculates base pay, shift premiums or sunday premiums based on the planned working time automatically and sends it to payroll.
More thrilling features will come for sure in the november release.
Volker Ruof
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