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SAP HR - Check your basics-Answers-1
updated Dec 6, 2014 11:00 am | 290,662 views
PREFACEIt gives me immense satisfaction that i could share my SAP HR concepts which i had struggled for days to understand with so many young consultants and hope that it is helping them move a step ahead in their en devour to understand SAP HR. SAP HR is a very vast module compared to many others and its important to note that every HR subject is a part of SAP HR so it needs lots of effort to master many of these modules. Thanks to all the readers and contributors to this wiki for making it so successful and now that it is reaching 200,000 hits , i thought of adding a dash of color to this wiki to celebrate.
SAP HR now SAP HCM (Human Capital Management) has come a long way with SAP NetWeaver , the web services through the portal and mobile applications( remember i told you in this wiki long back that even HR folks should keep an eye on understanding technology e,g how to use a mobile etc).Devices like the computer and mobiles are merging and you see new devices with new applications. Is your application visible clearly on the PC, the notebook, the tablet, the mobile, the ipad or ipod and many more devices and work on the android, windows, symbian etc ( for more information refer http://www.geekyard.com/mobile/different-types-of-operating-systems-in-mobiles/) , Are your applications integrating to professional & social networks like Linkedin, Facebook etc ? Investors whether corporate or bankers look at VALUE for investment in information technology. You have installed ECC6.0 and think of ESS , MSS and LSO with BI/BO for SAP HCM and many have probably even implemented these but HR departments get stuck here with what next? That's whats drives innovation. Innovation is not only about revamping or redesigning systems but it is all about new thoughts, change management and any small idea such as a process change, prioritization, sequencing that adds value. I hope i made my point. Take care. A sincere request to everyone deeply involved in this wiki is not to add any configuration information since :- This wiki is not about configuring the img for sap hr but to understand the concepts of sap hr and its alignment to hr business as practically seen and encountered in the day to day hr business. The wiki has reached a bursting capacity in size and adding configuration to it does not make sense since one who reads english can go to the sap help portal which is extremely user friendly and has a fresh neat look. Link is http://help.sap.com SIGNIFICANCE OF DATABefore I begin i would again like to stress the importance of data for any information system be it a file, a folder, a book, or any electronic data from any electronic device. The entire objective of building any information system and processes is to capture this data so that :- *It has structured information *It does not have duplicate information *It has history of information which makes sense *It provides all means of simple integration for querying. *It provides users decision making capabilities *It meets its objective of user satisfaction * it is simple to port to any other system. It is very unfortunate that most information systems are built and the data analysis and or data migration processes are given very little time, significance and importance which can turn any project Topsy turvy and never meet the project objectives and goals. The best erp systems incorporate best practices in helping you capture this data but do not blame them for your screwed up design and practices. If you are doing terrible, the best way is to align to them and keep your systems simple ( called vanilla implementations) and then build your system architecture on this base over a period of time. This is a sure way of achieving success. Business Sensible Data is the key to defining business stratergy and streamlining operations. Extremely large global organizations with multiple systems and instances have data redundancy and accuracy issues to cleanse their data. The best of these organizations have tools and dashboards to continuously monitor their data and cleanse them periodically. I am adding some links which highlight the significance of data by some of the world's leading organizations and the effort they take to maintain it. The link below takes you to Techtarget.com where you need to register to read the article. INTRODUCTIONI hope that many young SAP HR consultants have tried answering these questions.I would like to discuss these questions and would begin first by discussing what SAP HR is all about. SAP HR or SAP Human Capital Management (HCM) is one of the largest modules in the SAP R/3 system which consists of many submodules like Many of these sub modules are further sub divided into many components for eg Time Management is further divided into Time Administration, Shift Planning, Incentive Wages and Time Sheet. Environment Health & Safety is further divided into Occupational Health & Industrial Hygiene & Safety. With the advent of mySAP, SAP HR was then called mySAP HR. What got added with "mySAP" (mark this word) was the web services like ESS (Employee Self-Service) and the MSS (Manager's Self Service) which gave empowerment to the employees and managers - employees to better manage their own data and managers to better manage their own departments/divisions. This became the turning point for SAP HR to shift from being a data repository to a strategic tool where the HR departments now focused more of strategic tasks than administrative ones which were now offloaded to the employees and managers using these self services. Looking back at the earlier days, when the HR Head required a headcount report from all his divisions, it would mean asking for each division to provide data and than receiving this data at the HR Headquarters. Compiling the same and providing it to the management could possibly take a few days to maybe weeks where the data accuracy could be questioned, data could be redundant etc. This was due to the fact that the HR data would be sitting across in different systems in different locations and the IT practices being followed differently (if not HR) at these different locations.If one could not get an accurate HR report one could wonder trying to get information of HR integrated to other functions like Logistics etc would have made life so difficult for an HR consultant. With the advent of SAP , and the SAP HR module , all the HR information for an organization/company got collated at one place in a very structured manner.To find a specific information for an employee (one who is on the payroll of the organization) or applicant(one who intend to be on the payroll of an organization), all one needed to do is use a transaction like "PA20" which is Display HR master data( note this is so important because this is the basis of an SAP system ie it is a transactional system) and enter the 4 digit infotype number to view an infotype. To see the address of an employee use the transaction "PA20" and go the Display HR master data screen, enter the unique 8 digit employee number (this is the primary key to all employee information ), type infotype 0006for that employee and see the current information or history (using the list view)stored there. Insert non-formatted text here INFOTYPESInfotypes are also called information types and are pre-defined templates to enter sensible related information for an employee or applicant. for eg an address infotype would have fields like street & house no, city, pin code.This infotype is unique and is represented by an infotype number eg address has infotype no 0006. Some of the important infotypes are :- The above infotypes together in the same sequence form a part of the Hiring Action.To make you understand this better just try and recollect the contents of your offer letter which your organization might have given you. It would possibly read We are delighted to offer you the position (IT 0001) of ______. You will belong to ______ department (IT 0001). Your joining date will be ______(IT0000)and you will be paid a salary of ______ (IT 0008). You will be paid monthly allowances ______ (IT 0008 or IT 0014) and we are also offering you a joining bonus of ______ (IT 0015). You will be eligible for annual leave of ______ days (IT 2006) and sick leave of ______ (IT 2006).You will be on a probation for six months from the date of joining (probation date & confirmation date in IT0016). Your working hours will be from ____ hrs to ____ hrs beginning Monday to Friday (IT 0007) and we look forward to your presence on date ______(IT 2006).....
I hope this gives you some idea of what an infotype is.
This must have raised a question in many minds that "Hey ! I got the offer during my recruitment so how come this is being referred to after hiring?" Well
thats simple - this is because all your relevant data that was captured during recruitment was transferred to the the master (called HR master data)during the hiring process.
Well, this was captured using recruitment actions like shortlist candidate, for interview, make offer, offer accepted till you join the organization and sign the joining letter when your data actually gets transferred from the Recruitment module to the Personnel Administration module.Again this data was captured in recruitment infotypes. INFOTYPES CATEGORISED If you closely observe that many of the recruitment infotypes are clones of personnel administration infotypes.I hope this gives you some idea of what an infotype is. Lets look at what we mean by subtypes. A subtype is sub-categorization of an infotype. Not all infotypes are sub-categorized and hence only some required infotypes would have subtypes.
Lets take the case of Address Infotype (IT 0006). Now we would like to use the same screen template to store different types of addresses like permanent,Temporary, Office etc.This is because we would be capturing the same type of information which would require the same fields like Street No, City, Country, Pin Code etc to capture different address types information.SAP handles this by using subtypes for the Address Infotype (IT 0006). So to store any Address Information we would need to specify both the infotype and subtype. Certain other infotypes with subtypes are Dependents (0021), ID Data (0185) etc. DATA AND AUTHORIZATIONSWhen it comes to data these are the things that we can do to it
Create data ( in sap hr we do this by creating new records )
To be able to do one or three of the above , the sap hr user needs to be authorized to do so . This is a part of data security handled by sap using what is known as authorizations. Authorizations in sap hr are handled through roles ( such as payroll administrator, training administrator , time administrator where these roles are given create/maintain/view authorizations for combination of hr objects/hr infotypes& subtypes /hr transactions/hr reports/hr clusters)called role based authorizations or a combination of role based authorizations and the hr structures (like organization structure, training calendar etc) called structural authorizations. These roles and structural authorizations are assigned to the sap hr user based on his job profile.Data security is the key andits important to know that you would see,create and maintain data based purely on the tasks you perform in your organization as a sap user.So do not get upset if your colleague can see more than you and does not divulge information as the authorizations would be based on his/her job profile and remember that company confidentiality & professional ethics are the most important qualification for any sap user.
Coming back to authorizations (this is for the configurators) , I mentioned earlier that authorizations can be purely role based or a combination of role based and structural authorizations . Lot of hr consultants state thatwe do not need structural authorizations as we can use theorganizational key ( a field used for authorizations available only in IT 0001-Organizational Assignment).However, one must clearly note that further authorizations using role based authorizations can be provided by using organizational key field and that the organization key does not replace the hr structures ORGANIZATONAL KEY IN AUTHORIZATIONSThe organizational key is a 14 character code which is restricted to a combination of certain fields of the organizational assignment infotype -0001 like organization unit, personal area, personal sub-area, etc.
Organization unit is a part of IT0001 and it is often used as a part of the organization key. For most organizations, the organization key suffices. However, when complex authorization requirements arise than organizations with sap hr opt for structural authorizations. If you want an employee to have authorizations to certain employee data of 5 sub-ordinate organization units you would probably have to maintain all the five organizational keys in the role assigned to the employee which means more maintenance. This increases authorization role maintenance and authorization errors ( if there is data inconsistency),which is realized by organizations who are implementing or in a process of implementing structural authorizations.
If you want to restrict the sap hr user access on the basis of training calendar or other hr structures then you would need to use structural authorizations and cannot use role based authorizations unless you do some custom development( which is not recommended, when you have standard sap meeting your requirements). I would give full credit to SAP for having understood that many organizations deviate from the normal practices and have their own specific practices for which wherever appropriate,Business Add-Ins also known as BADI's have been provided to handle such scenarios.
For more detailed information and whenever in doubt, always refer to your experienced sap hr colleagues for guidance and help. Refer to appropriate sap documentation provided by sap or its authorized education partners/vendors such as for ex. [1]. Please note that this wiki is purely a discussion and not an education guide or a for formal sap hr training. The assumption here is that all reading this wiki are young sap hr consultants who are looking for advice or a forum to share their skills and knowledge. TRANSITION OF DATA TO INTELLIGENT DATA
Coming back to the discussion on data ( i would be visiting this time and
again) one needs to understand the transition of data with the advent and
advancement of information technology.
LOGICAL DATABASESFor every sap hr consultant it is important to understand HR logical databases in sap hr. A layer above the physical database lies the hr logical databases called PNP, PCH and PAP. Logical databases contain data tables from sub-modules of sap hr.
Note : You should know when to choose between the PNP and the PCH logical databases when building your report or query and the key is whether you want the primary key for selection to be the personnel number or the object type.If the primary key is to be the PERNR (personnel number) then you should select the PNP logical database and if you want it to be any object type like O – org unit, S- position, C- job ,L- Business Event Group, D- Business Event Type E- Business Event….etc, then you should select the PCH logical database. And PAP when the primary key must be the applicant number
This means if you want to query by employee the business events attended, you choose PNP, and if you want to know for certain specific business events who are the attendees, you choose PCH logical database to build your query,program or reports.To conclude,we can say that to build an sap hr query ,user & standard sap programs or reports the preferred option and sap standard too, we use logical databases. I have used the word preferred and not the only option because querying also allows you to directly reference the physical tables without using logical databases but this is never recommended by sap due to problems that it creates in hr authorizations and would overlook error handling provided by sap for the infotypes. All sap hr queries, programs & reports should use the logical databases.Hence if an sap user does not have authorizations for that object or infotype which the program, query or report references, then it would throw an error for the user.Please refer to the exhaustive sap help documentation for more information on sap hr logical databases, infosets , reporting and querying. UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTSDeviating from the question and answers, I would like to highlight a story from the Indian mythology. A teacher teaching his student archers asked them all to shoot an arrow at a clay bird perched on the top of a tree and hit the eye of the bird. All the archers shot at the bird but only one of them managed to hit the eye of the bird. When the teacher asked all the student archers what did they see when they shot the clay bird,some said they saw the bird on a tree,some said they saw the bird perched on the branch. The archer who shot the eye of the bird was quiet. When he was asked by the teacher as to what he saw , prompt came his reply "I saw the eye of the bird".
What I am trying to highlight here is that it is very important for an SAP HR consultant to understand what the exact customer requirements are and be focused only on those requirements. PROJECT SCOPINGAll projects are time defined based upon agreed business requirements. Delivering what has been agreed upon is what the consultants need to focus upon. Do not try to deviate from what is defined unless agreed upon by the customer and the project team. Save the frills, fancies and anything extra for the enhancements.SAP projects cost a lot of money and the estimation is based on work to be done. A project's success depends on meeting the objectives, goals and requirements for what the project endeavor was carried out within the defined time lines. If the project deviates in cost, quality and time , it indicates that what was defined as required by the customer is not being met. Deviations to projects makes the project team loose motivation and interest, disturbs human resource planning for other projects when they are to be released from the existing projects and begin work on the other projects. In short it creates a chaos besides financial losses.Many of us are in consulting and we need to understand the bottom line- time is money. If your projects make profit, your company makes profit and you too profit. This should be your motto. So remember and drill this in your mind that requirements for an sap hr project are to meet the company's goals and objectives in initiating the project and clearly not what the sap hr user or even for that matter the sap configurator fancies or wants.The success of the sap hr project is only when the project sponsor states that it is a success. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERSINFOTYPESI have decided to answer all the questions directly to begin with now that you have some fundamentals explained and then go ahead with more discussions 1.What are info types ? Infotypes, known as information types are units of human resources information formed by grouping related data fields together. These are represented in the sap hr system by a unique 4 digit number eg. Personal Data (0002), Address (0006) etc. All customer infotypes fall in the number range from 9000 to 9999. The fields in the infotype would vary based on the country grouping for eg. if any employee belongs to country grouping 10 then he would have the SSN no field in the Personal Data infotype which would not be seen in same infotype for country grouping 99. PERSONNEL ACTIONS& HIRING ACTION2.What are personnel actions? What is the transaction for executing personnel actions? Personnel Actions are the events of an employee's employment history within the organization beginning from hiring an employee to termination of the employee.Each of these events need specific information to be captured. This is achieved in sap hr by grouping together infotypes called as infogroup which appear one after another in sequence to capture/change information in the infotypes whenever the personnel action is executed. Personnel Actions are executed by transaction pa40.
3.What are the important info types for a hiring action?
Note ->0003- Payroll Status ( this is automatically maintained by the sap system and not required to be maintained in the info group for hiring) IMG & PROJECT IMG
4.5. 6
What is IMG? What is its importance? What are the functions you can execute using IMG? IMG means the implementation guide. The configurators would customize the sap hr system as per the customer requirements in the img. In the img you can create project img's which limit the customizing nodes to the requirement of the projects and for each project img you can create multiple views like MM,SD,HR etc to get more specific. To go to the implementation guide or img from the sap easy access menu ,you have to enter transaction spro in the command line. ENTERPRISE & PERSONNEL STRUCTURE
5.What is an enterprise structure?
The enterprise structure is one of the HR structures. The HR enterprise structure composition depends upon the hr administrative, time and payroll
functions for that company. It comprises the client, company code, personal area, personnel subarea and the organization key. The hiring action assign an employee via infotype 0001- Organizational Assignment to the enterprise structure. The enterprise structure is the enterprise perspective of an employee.
6.What is a personnel structure?
The organizational personnel structure describes how the employee is positioned in the organization. This is an individual perspective of an employee in an organization. It comprises of the employee group, the employee sub group and the organization plan (org unit, position, job) for that employee. The hiring action assigns an employee via infotype 0001- Organizational Assignment to the personnel structure.
7.What is the highest level of the enterprise structure?
The company code is an organization unit(this is different from the hr organization unit. Different modules like SD, MM, etc have their own organization structures with their own organization units) which has its own balance sheet and profit and loss account and is defined in the FI module.
9.What are personnel areas and its functions?
Personnel (( Please note the spelling -> its Personnel (group of people)and not Personal(Individual)) Area is the sub division (understand these two words) of the company code and can represent a functional area or geographical location.These play a very important role in the time and payroll configurations. Each personnel area is unique to a company code (mark these words) and is represented by a 4 character code.
10.What are personnel sub areas and its functions?
The further divisions (understand this word) of a personnel area are defined as personnel subareas. The functions are similar to the personnel area. Each personnel subarea too is unique to a personal area (mark these words) and is represented by a 4 character code.
Hi everyone, i would be continuing with the answers to the rest of the questions as an when i get the time and try to keep this going till completion.
11.How is an employee in the HR Master data linked to a company to which he belongs?
12.Can a personnel area be assigned to many company codes?
No. A Personnel Area can be only assigned to one company code. Many personnel areas can be assigned to the same company code but the vice versa is not true.
13.What are the indicators defined by personnel sub areas?
The indicators are all personnel sub area groupings for hr, time, payroll which are very critical to the sap hr implementation. They are also used tolimit HR authorizations.
14.How do you categorize the employee groups?
Employee groups are categorized based on employee/staff regulations of work and pay such as
15.What are employee subgroups and what are the indicators set up using employee subgroups?
Further division of the employee groups are called the employee subgroups such as under employee group 1-Active you could have employee subgroups such as AA–Hourly wage earner, AH–Salaried Employee …. And so on.The indicators are all employee sub area groupings for hr, time, payroll which are very critical to the sap hr implementation. They are also used to limit HR authorizations.
16.Employee groups are two character and employee subgroup are two character representations in the IMG. Do you support this statement?
False. Employee groups are one character and employee subgroups are two character representations.
17.In the HR Master data where are planned working times for an employee seen?
18.Do I need to give country assignment to personnel sub areas in customizing? If true support the statement and if not what's true?
No. You do not need to give country assignment to personnel sub areas directly, however when personnel subareas are assigned to personnel areas, the contry grouping gets inherited automatically through the associated Company code. You also have an option to give country assignments to the employee subgroups on assigning to employee groups in the enterprise structure. HR MASTER DATA & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
19.What are the various objects in an organizational plan?.
1. Tasks
How does any company use an organizational plan?
The company organization structure and reporting structure is represented through the organization plan. The active plan version is the current plan
version and the other plan versions are considered as various planning stages.Used for manpower planning. Normally plan version"01" is always made the active plan version. 12.How do you integrate OM and PA? If integration is active what happens when a position is entered in IT 0000.? What else does the system default? Can these values be changed? What is this called?
Integration of OM and PA is possible through the integration switch setting
in table T770S which is PLOGI ORGA 1. If the integration is active and the position is entered in IT0000 during a hiring action , than in IT0001 the following are automatically defaulted
13.Are cost center assignments hierarchical? Where do you assign these in OM?
Cost center assignments are hierarchical. You assign these in the account assignment for OM objects. If your org unit in the lower hierarchy does not
have a cost center assignment , than it will be assigned the cost center of the upper hierarchical org unit till one is found. For a position, if the cost center is not assigned, it will be assigned the cost center of the org unit to which the position belongs and if not found here, than it will be assigned the cost centre of the upper hierarchical org unit till one is found. These assignments can be overridden by the cost distribution (IT 0027).
14.What are attributes of objects? Is vacancy a common attribute for all objects?
Attributes of an object are the properties of the object by which it is described. The OM objects have some common attributes like Description, Relationship, Account Assignment , Work Schedule etc and some unique attributes like Vacancy assignment which is only for the OM object position.
15.What are the other additional organizational assignments?
The other additional organizational assignments are assigning the employee to administrators in org assignment infotype 0001.
16..Name the three administrators? How do you default these in IT0001?.
The three administrators are Besides these the employee can also be assigned to 4.Group Administrator
These are defaulted through the feature PINCH. 17.What is organizational key? How many characters does it constitute? How can it be defined? What is it mainly used for?
An Organization key is a 14 character code that could be formed by the combination of parts/whole of certain field values in the org assignment
infotype (0001) eg employee group, subgroup, personnel area, sub area, org unit
etc. It is used for authorizations.
18.What are employee attributes and how are they classified? The employee attributes are all the information pertaining to that employee. They are typically classified according to the HR structures to which the employee belongs such as organization structure, pay structure, and are stored in form of well defined and related information called infotypes. FEATURES
19.What are features? What is the transaction for features?
Features are objects those that default values by quering different enterprise, personnel or data structure fields. The transaction code for features are pe03.
20.What are the features to default and in which info type ?
21. Number Range Intervals NUMKR( which infotype??You try and answer this one) 22. What is ABKRS? The two ways of maintaining features are use using the table method or the tree method.The experienced sap hr consultants prefer the table method of configuring a feature whereas those who worked on 4.6 and later prefer the tree method.
24.What is the infotype to store personal data for an employee?
Infotype 0002 – Personal Data is used to store personal information of an employee. In some countries you could use infotype 0077- Additional Personal Data.
25.Where are the default values for working hours per period taken from in IT 0008?
Taken from Infotype 0007- Planned Working Time. (Try and answer from which field???)
26.Maintaining a feature or its structure
In the Development(DEV) Client, use transaction PE03 to change a feature's decision table. You can use either a tree structure view or a table view. For a beginner the first one is easier to understand.
A feature provides a return value based on the decision tree using the values at the time of execution. It is similar to a PCR (or a payroll calc rule) or a decision table which many people would be familiar with.
A feature uses a data structure which is populated by the program before calling the feature. A feature may use all or some of the fields in its structure. You can see which fields can be used when you go to change/maintain a feature and then navigate to the structure. The feature / structure screen shows the usable fields highlighted. If you need to use a field not used currently, then highlight or select it. Then save it and regenerate. Then the feature's decision table can be changed to use the new field/s.
The same applies if you want to use a different structure. The program that uses or calls the feature will fill the new structure, provided the data is available in the program / module / function / routine.
After changing the decision table and saving it in a transport, generate the feature. Generating the feature is required when you change it manually. Then move the transport to Quality Assurance(QA) or User Acceptance(UAT), Production and other clients. Moving transports to another system/client will automatically result in generating the feature in the target client. In older SAP versions like R/3 3.0 it was required to generate after transport.
In Test or Prod system, sometimes the feature may not have been generated; this will result in incorrect processing. This can be corrected by re-generating the feature in the relevant client.
Some features use another feature. This is indicated in the function part having 'FLDID=xxxx'; here xxx would be the secondary feature being called by the primary feature. With such features, it is possible that the subfeature is copied from client 000 when the main feature is generated. If you wish to force the feature to use the one from the config client, a trick is to change the one in the config client with an insignificant change, save it and then regenerate the main feature.
Feature is a client dependent object though it generates a program and client dependent customizing transports (not workbench transports) are used. For example, if you have a Development System with separate Dev clients for different companies, then it needs to be maintained in the development client for that company.
One development system is used for Company A client 100 and Company B client 110. Then the features need to be separately maintained in the relevant system and transported to the corresponding QA & Prod clients. In many customer installations, there are multiple clients for a Development system - e.g., 010 for Dev (ABAP objects), 100 for config, 200 for Dev Test. If you have separate client for employee/org data, then in the Test client you need to copy the transport from the conifig client with SCC1 transaction, then generate the feature. Generating a feature will result in generating a subroutine pool member. This subroutine is called by the calling program in real time. For example, LGMST feature will result in /1PAPA/FEATnnnLGMST, where nnn is the system client number. PAYROLL
26.Why is employee subgroup grouping for pcr significant for payroll?
The Personnel Calculation rule allows one wage type to be processed in different ways in payroll and these different ways are through the ESG for PCR and ESG for CAP. The ESG for PCR classifies which employees are to be paid on an hourly or monthly basis. The ESG for CAP further classifies these employees based on their Collective Agreement Provision as industrial workers or salaried workers (based on their worker/union agreements.)Try and understand the esg grouping for pcr and esg grouping for cap and how basic pay infotype behaves for these hourly, periodic and monthly agreements.
These are used to assign the collective agreement types and areas to an employee via infotype 0008- Basic Pay. For example, payscale type "01" -> Metal Industry and payscale area "01" -> North Region
You assign payscale types and areas to personnel subareas under the node in the IMG, Check Assignment of Pay Scale Structure to Enterprise Structure
31.What are wage types? How wage types are broadly classified?
Wage types are payroll objects used to store payroll components which include the amount, number and rate. SAP has standard model wage types for different country versions and depending upon your payroll implementation you should copy model wage types from the correct country versions only. The wage types are broadly classified into primary/dialog and secondary/technical or slash wage types. Dialog wage types are those in which you can store values in the wage types through the permissible payroll infotypes. The technical or slash wage types are those wage types that are create during the payroll run only eg /101 – Total gross amount, /550 – Statutory Net, /559 – Bank Details.
Wage types are permitted to be stored in payroll infotypes only if these are added to the wage type groups. Eg Basic Pay IT0008 has wage type group 0008.
Please note that not always do Infotype no = wage type group.
Transaction pu95 is used to edit wage type groups. You need to assign the
wage types to the respective employee sub group groupings and personnel subarea groupings wherever configuration permits for the wage types to be associated with the enterprise and personnel structure. All wage types are not permissible for all infotypes( refer wage type groups concept).
The wage type characteristics are attributes of the wage type as to what is permissible and not permissible, what are the maximum and minimum value limits , what are the units permissible, whether they are to be valuated directly ( values entered) or indirectly ( values as a reference to other wage type values). You valuate wage types directly or using indirect valuation. You configure these in the wage type characteristics and the corresponding indirect valuation tables where the corresponding wage types from where the indirect values are figured out(these need to exist). Module names are names given to different types of modules that valuate wage types according to certain criteria eg TARIF, PRZNT etc. Variations in the module valuation process are further provided by the specific module variants. For eg for TARIF module the variants could be A, B, C and D. TARIF provides valuation according to payscale group or/and level, SUMME & PRZNT are valuation using the basic pay(IT0008)wage types . The 'SUMME' module corresponds to the 'PRZNT' module except that the value of the wage type to be valuated indirectly is always the entire basic pay. KEEPING FIT-MUST FOR SAP CONSULTANTS
The answer to my non sap question is ...
Carnegie Mellon professor Scott E. Fahlman was the inventor of the smiley
43.Briefly explain the two different ways to perform pay increase? In dynamic pay increase what are variants A, G, D, E, T , C and R?
Only one variant can be defined for a wage type. You need to maintain table V_T510D in the customizing and run the program RPITRF00 to carry out the standard pay scale increase.
Make sure that you test your configuration and the execution of the report RPITRF00 only in the test system, run payroll test cases and take user acceptance before transporting these changes to the Production. It is highly recommended that you always do this in the supervision of a senior consultant with good sap payroll experience. =INFOTYPE ATTRIBUTESHello once again.Moving to the next question on infotype attributes. 44.What are the info type attributes? The attributes of the infotype are
These are all defined as per requirements in the standard infotypes provided by SAP but when you are defining custom infotypes in the 9000-9999 series range you need to make sure you correctly define the attributes required for the custom infotype. Before we end for now just checking on whether have we all made our New Year Resolutions??? Any resolution for SAP???? I was watching an advertisement of a sitcom and there an very emotional and an upset mom was asking her teenage son and I quote "Do you really care for me?,do you love me son? The son replied with all innocence on his face and truth in his eyes and I quote again " Of course mom, is that a question to ask, I do love you ,I do love your credit card" So would your SAP resolution be something like I love to work on sap and would continue doing so because ……… ( don't expect me to fill in the rest, its your resolution folks). Welcome back. My sap resolution is to finish answering the questions at the earliest and this is forced since the coffee bills are beating the food bills at home.Lets now understand something about the sap front end and what dynpro's is all about. 47.What is DYNPRO ?
In the SAP HR module,
In case of the transaction pa30, the data entered in the fields would first be checked by system controls like data type, length, user access etc and than on save would the data be transferred from the screen to the database through the data structure connected to the screen. The technical information would read
Looking at the above we can now conclude that the sap screen, the interface programs and controls of data flow from the screen to the database through the appropriate data structure and vice versa could be called a dynpro. In case of creation of custom infotypes , you will notice that the dynpro is a component of an ABAP program that is created using the screen painter of the ABAP Workbench. DESIGN
I was reading some material on design and its very interesting to note that there are recommended standards on web design. However, what my opinion is that whatever standards are applied to software, you know your design is a success in all aspects if you have many users viewing/creating maximum data in the shortest span of time.This indicates that the users like to use the system time and again because the design features are liked by them and meet there requirements,the system is easy to understand and use without complications and the output created/viewed by them (data in this case) meets there requirements.
Coming back to the answer on DYNPRO, you can now realize that the major advantage of this design is that it separates the application from the database. There are error checks built in the application level which do not permit syntactically incorrect data entries and try and keep the data in the database as clean as possible. That is why whenever we load data to the sap system through BDC programs in these BDC programs the ABAP consultant first records the screens for data capture and makes sure that the data is loaded through the screen/module pool programs and never tries and writes directly to the database. Then why do we always find sap hr data as incorrect and not meeting the requirements? In my analysis the hr data is always changing for every employee in the organization and this data has to correctly reflect in the sap hr systems which is not happening or is getting delayed. One of the primary causes is because the employee is not being given the ownership of his or her own data to maintain and the process of gathering this data from the employee has not fully evolved in many organizations. SAP realized this early and has come up with the Employee Self Service interface. But this is not enough. For strategic HR data we need to integrate the sap hr system with the other sap modules/systems and give more value to the hr data. CHANGING HR DATA AND IMPACT
Some questions you ask yourself? How good is the HR administration in your organization? Do you consider HR as a service industry? How come it felt by many that HR folks come across as arrogant and rude? Is this due to lack of proper processes, information and systems, lack of manpower or lack of initiative?
My answer to the question is that it is a combination of all factors and companies are paying attention to all but the last factor and that is initiative.Do not companies pay the sales personnel huge bonus/incentives for achieving their targets?Are not the employees in finance paid incentives for closing the year balance sheets on time? Than why is there no bonus/incentive for the HR folks for doing a good job such as meeting recruitment targets, managing retention and an evergrowing requirements of employees doubling their count every year and much more?This needs deep thinking ? After all HR folks are human too. But than again as HR folks lets try and keep our cool and not let our stress and frustrations rub on the employees. Lets try and give our best and hope for the best.
My warning to the companies is if you do not give the HR folks what they truly deserve, you would loose students choosing the stream of HR and looking at the requirements of HR which are ever increasing with times these predict dangerous times ahead.
BACK AGAIN TO INFOTYPESWelcome back and now we are in the fast track mode.
61.What naming conventions are the info types subject to?
Infotypes are defined by 4 digit numbers and follow the following naming convention
So whenever you are searching for a customer defined infotype make sure your search is restricted between 9000 -9999.The infotypes relevant to retroactive accounting for payroll and time infotypes are defined in the
Under this node you define for each infotype the following:-
2.Maintenance of this infotype is permissible, permissible with warning, or not permissible after the employee has left the organization (employee in inactive status).
3.Entries in payroll past are permissible, not permissible or check for entries in the payroll past are infotype specific.
4.Infotype is not relevant for retroactive accounting, change in the infotype
triggers retroactive accounting or retroactive accounting is field-dependent
according to table T588G where the fields whose change in values should trigger retroactive accounting are defined. Hence you can see the significance of field triggers in retroactive accounting where retroactive accounting for a given infotype can be restricted to changes in the past to certain fields of the infotype.
64.What do you need to do in the IMG to specify certain info types for certain countries only?
SPRO-->Personnel Administration-->Customizing Procedures--> Assign infotypes to countries PHOTO IN HR MASTER DATA65.Where can you store a passport photo of an employee? Where do you do the settings in the IMG?
66.What is TCLAS = A and TCLAS = B?
This transaction class has confused a lot of functional consultants and you just need to understand that whenever you write a dynamic action, if you are
writing one for Master data then use TCLAS=A and if for Recruitment use TCLAS= B before you begin writing the code for the dynamic action. Let us compare the Personnel Administration(PA) infotypes and Recruitment Infotypes. If you can see above both the personnel administration and the recruitment modules use a lot of the similar infotypes to store data . You can verify this by going to the PA infotype through pa20 , choosing IT0001 and choosing any field and that press key <F1> to view technical details and you dothe same when you go to display applicant master data under transaction data through pb20 where you choose any applicant , select and view infotype Organizational Assignment (IT0001) and than press key<F1> to view technical details.
In both the cases you will see the same tech specs for IT0001 of Personnel Administration and IT0001 for Recruitment. So how should your dynamic action, BADI or any program know which infotype 0001 to choose , whether Personnel Administration or Recruitment. That is where TCLAS comes in use.
When you choose TCLAS= A you are referring to all infotype tables
PA0001, PA0002 ,… PA* Now my friends I am sure you folks will never forget what TCLAS is all about. Sometimes when lost in deep thought, it helps scratching you head)might activate your grey cells) UNDERSTAND SAP AND DONT CRAM TABLES
There is another story I would like to tell you and most of my Indian readers would be familiar with this.Whenever a mother complained about her school going child (typically boys since girls are kind of more sincere at that age) that the child is not studying and only playing. The father(who may not have done to well in his studies) will ask the childfor his exam marks and what he has got in Maths. The son replies 70 on a 100 and the dad asks his son a question on Maths tables such as "Whats 11 * 12 equal to and the son is taken aback for a while and fumbles while replying.The father concludes with a thundering voice "You are not studying at all since you do not know your Maths Tables".
We surely have a fixation of learning things by heart and a greater fixation for tables and this carries with us for life, but trust me whats more important is understanding what you learn. This even goes for sap as I have given interviews for some big companies and more than wanting to know what I understood about the business, there was more interest in knowing how many sap tables I could rattle off. To give you an example,if I ask you about how an absence quota is configured, a typical reply would be go to spro node so and so … and there you can do absence quota configuration. What I feel is more important is what attributes I could configure like I would first define a quota type for a quota, than define its quota values … and assign it to a deduction rule which is a part of the counting rule which would be assigned to an absence and so on.
Even if you spent 15 mins in the spro under HR you would be able to locate the node under Time Management.Therefore, its not so important in making it a point to forcefully remember sap hr tables or img nodes. With projectsand experience, they would be remembered by you without any force.Whats most important is what can you deliver in sap hr and even if you do not have immediate answers you need to sit an explore like a research scientist and this never ends. Every time you look at the sap system , you may just discover or learn something new. UGR,INFOTYPE MENUS & INFOGROUPSWelcome back and lets continue. I think i covered question 67 before and i am
skipping to 68. Q 68.What are infotype menus or info menus? Are they user group dependable?. Infotype menus are menus that you see when you
Infotype menus are user group dependable and you can have different infotype menus for different user groups.To make sure that a user is able to see the appropriate infotype menu you need to make sure that in the user parameters of the sap hr user (use transaction su3), you maintain the user parameter UGR=<usergroup value>. Typically in most of the implementations you may see that the UGR = <usergroup value>=<country grouping value>, however there is no hard and fast rule for that states that this applies everywhere. To make it more simpler, the sap user 1 may see different infotypes in display /maintain master data than sap user 2, or to simplify it further lets consider we are having a global implementation and for countries like Germany( country grouping/user group value 01) and USA (country grouping/user group value 10). We could have same/different infotype menus with ame/different infotypes required to be accessed and maintained by a sap hr user in Germany than a sap hr user from USA. In this we will assign UGR=01 to the sap hr user from Germany and UGR=10 to the sap hr user from USA. As functional hr consultants, whenever sap hr roles and authorizations are assigned to sap hr super users, coordinate with the basis team to ensure these parameters are assigned before you ask the super users to start testing or go live in production. You could make a mention of this in the sap hr user manual and train the sap hr users on setting the user group parameters. RETRENCHMENT OF EMPLOYEES
Hi, friends, maybe i spoke to early about some companies not retrenching but that was a scenario that existed before. Jobs with good organizations meant stability and security for the employee and his family. Life was peaceful and people were smiling more often. Business ran and no one ever got fired for any reason unless it was an ethical issue. Todays world is different. You walk in the office and you just hope you do not see a pink folder on your desk. Profits rule the world and then any individual. My advice to young sap consultants is that save for the rainy day. Take good insurance coverages to cover for your health and your families. Keep fit and learn to say "NO" when asked to work for indecent no of working hours because it is these same organizations who can throw you at the drop of a hat for being physically incapable to work. Finally keep updating your skills to meet the market requirements.
To companies and the Bosses who rule, do not forget you guys are human and dealing with humans. My personal opinion is that retrenchment is not the answer . In bigger organizations with so many locations and departments, relocation in job function, department and location is very much possible and should be given as an option to the employee before deciding to show him/her the door.
One more advice to young consultants working with companies through third party vendors on contracts is to check on the working conditions and environment at the client site before accepting projects. You will be shocked to see that you could be huddled together as mice with no privacy to even be sure that the passwords you type to log in is safe anymore, besides the stress of working within a noisy environment or probably working from a basement with rats squeaking during the evenings. I am for Agile but only restricted to a comprehensive testing environment and not to ergonomically unsuited environments at work.
Organizations are getting a bit too far with cost cutting measures. TIME MANAGEMENTHi folks welcome back. I decided i would like to keep trying posting to this wiki irrespective of time constraints (the non working hours busy with the IPL cricket matches for now), however these posts would not be at regular intervals. Time Management in SAP HR/HCM is all about recording all of the employees times, working and non working relevant to the organization , specific union agreements which decide the working hours of the employees, their breaks, their off days , their holidays , their overtimes , their compensatory offs, their leave entitlements and leaves etc. In a typical factory environment which has thousands of employees, you can picture employees coming in shifts, swiping their smart cards or punching buttons into sophisticated electronic clock systems or the older clock systems with punch cards to record their every movement when they enter the plant or leave it. You got a time office which monitors these times and analyzes these times to make sure that the employees follow the time rules and regulations as per their union agreements or contracts. In many countries time records are stored as archives for a decade or more to settle labour disputes when these records need to be produced in the labour department or the law office so make sure that you have a correct archive strategy for all old time records and dont dispose them away.
Before i end for today , i would like to comment that SAP Time Management is an ocean in itself and i do not think that there could possibly exist any time management package that could deliver so much that this does with its seamless integration to almost all areas of sap. It is absolutely flexible and meets the requirements of all possible scenarios that exist with organizations which is why i am fascinated with this sub module of sap hcm/hr. When we meet the next time i will talk about what SAP Time Management contains and than go about answering the questions.
Before i get into more details of sap time management i wanted to describe the todays scenario of time management.Picture a Maintenance Engineer working in a service organization and performing maintenance tasks for different customers carrying a PDA or a mobile phone. Once he or she completes the task immediately charges the working times through these modern devices with he click of a few buttons. These times are integrated with the invoices/orders charged to the customers for payment in sap . br/>
If the work in done for another department in the same organization to which the maintenance engineer belongs, then through internal orders etc.
He/she is has a dentists appointment which they have managed to get with great difficulty for 2 hours. The leave is applied again through this device, reaches the bosses PDA or computer for approval, which once done get recorded into the sap hr system as an absence.
Yes times are changing fast, so is the technology so you better change too.
Today devices like mobiles etc with newer versions and technology are coming into the market at the speed of at least one per year per manufacturer. Like i said before and i repeat HR/HCM consultants cannot claim not to be techno savvy anymore. HR/HCM needs to be tightly integrated to other verticals. In fact they should actually push for more and more integration once the base HR/HCM systems are up, settled and running and take note that the technologies for integration are becoming more sophisticated, better and faster.
Make sure you spend time keeping abreast of which new technology is becoming a part of sap, at least what can be applicable to the HR/HCM module. You however, do not need to worry about the technical specifications of these devices unless you get into a project using these.
INFOTYPES IN TIME MANAGEMENTTime Management in SAP HR is mainly categorized into :-
Time Management have a number of applications for recording times and the important ones are :- 2. XSS(ESS & MSS) .The Employee Self Service and Manager Self Service also have a lot of time management handling where employees can see there time accounts and manage their leaves and attendances( e.g. training/on site work) and manager's approve or reject these and subject to approval records in appropriate time infotypes are created in SAP. 3. Time Manager's Workplace : On of the very good applications provided by SAP but not effectively used is the Time Manager's Workplace. This application is ideally meant for time administrators to manage employee time accounts and error handling. 4. Shift Planning : This application is a typical of a factory environment used by the floor or factory manager /supervisor. It is used to optimize employee times on various shifts. Different input criterion like employees being on leave, substitution, etc help build a shift planner. The main purpose of these interfaces is for capturing times for :-
Before I come back to to this discussion I would like to explain the basic info types used in Time Management which are - Planned Employee Times
Actual Employee Times
Positive Time Infotypes
Deviations to Employee Times
Time Related Payments
Just try and read about these info types and the next time I will explain that's so special about info type 0007 (Planned Working Time). Hi Welcome back. I hope you folks out there are enjoying the Euro Cup and managing to stay awake at work( just kidding !). What do we mean by planning or planned? Sounds very simple but try deciphering it and you realize its not that simple to explain. The nearest that I felt I could get was "Building a framework (plan) of what is to be done in the future using resources over a period of measure (such as time)". A plan could be a sequence of instructions, a drawing, a map etc. People, Infrastructure, Machines & Capital could broadly qualify as resources. Planning is done by individuals, teams, departments, organizations, nations and even groups of nations. What is done now could be an execution of a plan of the past. What is done in the past is history. What could be possibly done in the future is a forecast. What is the manner in which the execution of the plan is heading considering, the past, present and the future is a trend and this is very significant for any organization for strategic planning whether it's the sales, production, employee retention or costs. To be able to define a trend its very important to have accurate data for the past and present and for this again we need good information technology systems of which HR Information systems such as SAP HR play a very important role. PLANNED WORKING TIME(INFOTYPE 0007)So what do we mean by planned working time? Split the words as "planned" and "working time" I am sure you will be now be able to come up with this answer. Planned Working Times are working times which are planned for an employee in advance such as the shifts the employee is to work, the breaks the employee gets during these shifts, the off days (such as weekly off days) and the holidays applicable to the employee. These planned times are stored as work schedules which are generated through what is known as the work schedule rule which includes all the recipe or rules for generating these planned times. The work schedule rule is assigned to the employee in infotype IT0007(Planned Working Time) or defaulted using the feature SCHKZ. The recipe includes :-
The selection rule XX helps you to build a rule such as you want all days from Monday to Friday be of day type 0 and all Saturdays and Sundays declared as of day type 1 when you are generating the work schedule for a work schedule rule that includes this selection rule XX. Once all the above are defined and assigned to the work schedule rule( the recipe), generation of the work schedule (the final dish ) is carried out . This could be for a period of months or years . Normally work schedules are generated for a few years in advance. To know more about shifts refer to the wikipedia which gives some good information about what shifts are, their history etc. For more details on the configuration of work schedules refer to sap help http://help.sap.com/saphelp_46c/helpdata/en/22/72369adc56d11195100060b03c6b76/frameset.htm Before we end the discussion on planned working times and work schedules, another question to ask ourselves is Do we generate the work schedules for individual employees? The answer is typically No. The work schedules are generated for the employee sub group grouping and personnel sub area grouping for work schedules. These groupings and the assignment are a part of the img. However, there could be an exceptional case of only one employee belonging to one employee subgroup and one personnel sub area (naturally) which could be again grouped into only into one employee subgroup grouping and one personnel sub area grouping. <./p> Another few questions for which I will not provide the answers but for you to derive?
Hi i thought of saying something urgent since i mentioned technological advance. If you are the pilot driving your project through SOLMAN (Solution Manager) a sincere request is please do not sleep over 30,000 ft of documents in the cockpit. Do not sleep over a technological advance but whats more important for heavens sake is don"t sleep with it. Sleeping in the cockpit became headlines and who is to blame is the question? But the answer is do we have to blame someone? There could be a lot of questions like why did the cockpit not be programmed to sound a buzzer 30 mins before destination is reached? Was this a failure of design? Did fatigue have to be carried to the cockpit? I think there are answers to it all which can ensure that these problems do not occur in future rather than playing the blame game. In the above case the object would have continued to Timbuktu till fuel ended since autopilot is a very proven technological advance.Lets be honest we are humans and we make mistakes so it time to say ok it was a mistake, lets plug it and move on. Welcome back and coming right back to the question and answers, we saw that actual times are recorded either in infotype 2011( Time Events )or in the Attendances infotype (2002). When do we decide which infotype should we choose to capture the actual times? The answer is it depends upon whether you want to capture the actual clock in and clock out times for the employees and use them for processing in time or payroll ,then you can use infotype 2011. If you are integrating your time recording terminals to the sap system, then you need to have CC1 certified time recording systems which can talk to sap .Data such as personnel time events and employee expenditures are passed from sap to these terminals and vice versa through the CC1 interface (Communication Channel One interface). CC1 interface is an sap certified interface and all vendor time recording systems claiming to integrate with the sap system need to be CC1 certified. These systems transfer data to the sap systems and vice versa through the ansynchronous ALE transfer in form of IDOC's or real-time using BAPI's.
What happens when you have time recording systems but not CC1 certified and you want to integrate to sap ? Well provided that these are not punch card systems, and are electronic time recording systems that record the time events into a computer database/file such as access database or excel, then these can be periodically uploaded through batch jobs into the sap time events infotype 2011 using an abap conversion program to convert the data to suit the sap system. I will stop the discussion on the communication channels here and not complicate matters. However, I felt the need to discuss this since when you visualize a solution you should be able to see end to end. If you are not really worried about processing the clock in clock out times and are more interested in gathering the number of hours that the employee has spent at work , his overtime hours and other attendances then infotype 2002 (Attendances) is used. So what happens in an employee is absent or on training ? We will take this up the next time. Sriinivas DEVIATIONS IN TIME MANAGEMENTWhat do you mean by deviations? Where are these stored for an employee? A deviation in simple English means "doing different from whats planned" . You promise your spouse a movie and our boss whose married for ages and probably does not watch movies and only thinks work makes you sit late. You "deviate" your plans and you change your plans to dinner in a fancy restaurant (if its not the end of the month) or maybe the roadside food stalls with a walk on the beach. Similarly, when you are deviating from your planned working times( defined in IT0007) such as going for training or simply being absent ( you called in sick) or you got up in the morning and just did not have the energy to go to work or your in laws are to be picked up from the airport ( you took a casual leave/half-day leave and your boss is shaken but not stirred ( Bond I apologise) .You store all of these in time infotypes ( training – attendance infotype (2002) , casual and sick leave – absence infotype(2001), Substitutions-- infotype (2003)) These deviation times get superimposed on the planned times of the employee and become his/her personal work schedules. Substitutions are typically shift substitutions or position substitutions where the differential payment could be made to that employee working on that shift or position. With this background I will talk about negative time and positive time. I am honest to admit that this is the most ridiculous words coined for time management and I prefer to avoid using this and use time evaluation or no time evaluation instead. We will talk about this the next time. Till than, have a great weekend and don't deviate . (Bosses have a heart folks) NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE TIME IN TIME MANAGEMENTHi, Welcome back. Before I move to negative and positive time let me ask you a couple of questions?
Think hard and I will give you the answers next time. Coming back to positive and negative time, let me ask you another question. This is for those who would be implementing time management in sap.Are you going to use time recording systems to record employee clock times and upload to sap(IT 2011 Time Events) ? I hear an equal number of ayes and nays
So what's positive or negative about the time management ?? The ayes and nays….. The answer that look at the time management status = 0 for negative time recording is not exactly accurate. What do we than say about time management status = 7 or 9?? where time management status TMSTA is maintained in infotype 0007 (Planned Working Time) . These employees who have time management status 7 or 9 still assume that their planned times in IT0007 are their working times (besides the deviations) and do not have their clock in clock out times recorded in IT 2011 but however, they use time evaluation to generate absence quotas or shift differential wage types, overtime wage types etc. In other words you still have negative time recording but you use time evaluation. That's why I prefer to stick to differentiate employees as those that have time evaluation and the others that don't to make life simple. TIME EVALUATION
Coming back to those two questions the answers are
1. Overtime is a deviation since it is not a part of your regular working hours. IT 2005 is used to record approved overtimes.
2. The answer is does it really matter since both times are the same so you would compare(mark this word very carefully) these recorded times with your planned working hours for that employee on that day and say "Hey, there is no difference. Lets leave things as they are" This comparison is the principle of time evaluation.
If the times go different on comparison ( recorded times being more or less than planned times) you want to know the following
for e.g . If the Overtime hours are worked on a weekday - than pay 1.5 times the regular hourly pay rate
You build these rules in the customizing tables as well as payroll and time schema's which call functions which in turn call pcrs or personnel calculation rules. The personal calculation rules build the processing logic using operations and operators.
The schema's are called by driver programs ( payroll driver programs for payroll which are country specific and RPTIME00 for time evaluation). Time evaluation programs are run before running payroll so that the time credits and time wage types created which these get valuated in the payroll run.
When the TMSTA status = 0 in IT0007, this means no time evaluation is permitted.
When the TMSTA status = 1 in IT0007, this means time evaluation is to be carried out.
When the TMSTA status = 7 in IT0007 , than time evaluation is used just for absence quota generation. This status is similar to TMSTA = 0 , the only difference being that time evalution is permitted for absence quota generation.
The typical time evaluation schema's are
Time evaluation is a subject on its own and this forum is for beginners so we do not want to add more complications here.
This is for your information STRUCTURED CUSTOMIZING OF THE IMG DATAThere is a structured way in which you can customise the img data and this is especially useful for beginners . I have written this as a blog in SAP SCN and the link is Structured customizing of img data OBJECT ORIENTED PROGRAMMING CONCEPTWhat is Object Oriented Programming? To truly understand what Object Oriented Programming is we first need to understand the three words "Object" , "orient" and "Programming" What is an Object? Looking at the meaning in various dictionaries and trying combining them, I came up with this definition of an object. An object is a material thing/thing that exists, has a physical state and can be sensed by any one or more of the sensory organs like see, smell or touch but is not a living being. Objects are typical solids. Expanding this definition further :- "Objects exist in a particular state and they may achieve change of state (e.g. position, shape, color, motion, size) only when acted upon . This change in state is represented by the relative values of the same set of independent attributes (position does not depend upon shape or color or vice versa but the new position is measured relative to the first position) with different measurable dimensions ( not infinity , abstract or non existant )." E.g. An object like a car can be at a state of rest ( where speed is zero) , motion (speed is 60 Km/hr) , speeding (120 km/hr) and so on. To achieve this increase is speed , you need to start the ignition, change your gears , increase the pressure on your accelarator etc. I can change its color from Yellow to Blue and then red but the shape and size of my car remains the same. Objects can also become building blocks (subset or superset) of other objects.( a brick is a subset of a wall and also a building so a building becomes a superset of a wall which in turn becomes a superset of a brick).To build any object , we need a plan, also known as the blueprint which would give us the required type and or composition of materials with the layout or structural design and the step by step process to build. Why did I begin this wiki by writing about an object ? Because its very important to understand objects and thier different states. In other words you have an object and you achieve different known objectives (states) for that object by varying the measurable dimensions through its attributes ( called values). Orient simply means "to align to " or "lie" So on combination and putting sense to these three words in combination "Object Oriented Programming is programming using objects with code lying in these objects" . The objects referred to here are the model representation of real objects also sometimes called as software objects. One software object can be used to define a new software object with additional attributes belonging only to the new object. Classes The templates or the business blueprinting of these software objects are called class. So to create a software object you first write the design in a template called the class. Functions and Methods You also write functions( also called methods) to manage the different object states through its attributes and once you have created your software object you can these use the methods in your new objects by passing values ( also known as arguments) . Your functions may perform some number crunching or string capturing from the computer screen ( called console) as a few examples and return values( called parameters) . These change the state of your object from its initial state. Conclusion There are many object oriented programming languages and some of the most popular are java and C hash. Its important to note that with SAP Netweaver SAP Object Oriented ABAP and Eclipse the idea of an IDE ( Integrated Development Environment where any of these popular languages in combination can be used to program) , Object Oriented Programming is the next generation coding for SAP. The most important reason i believe Enterprise Application Developers would want to move to Object Oriented Programming is not easy program writing but being able to simulate business models and scenarios with objects like employee, vendor, company , enterprise and much more. PROJECT MANAGEMENT & ASAP METHODOLOGYI am going to keep on writing on project and project management because had i learnt this subject earlier, I am honest to admit, that my career decisions would probably have been more mature and different. This is because this learning has enhanced my understanding and view point of what a project is and the high stakes involved for everyone involved in the project . Before we understand whats all this hype about asap methodology , we need to understand these terms which are the customer or client, the vendor , the project sponsor the project manager, the project team and the stakeholders in relation to a project. When we talk about a customer, those who have had a part of their career in sales would have always heard these famous words from your sales manager which is "The customer is the king". A vendor/contractor/sub contractor is one who is providing a product (or products) or service(or services) at a price. The one who is buying this product or service by paying a price is the customer. Whats a project? A project is a definite endeavor which has a definite beginning and end and whose end result is a product or service of the highest quality to satisfy and meet the customers requirements and objectives for what this endeavor was taken. Every project has a logical conclusion of either a success or a failure the reasons of which are usually debatable. A project could be the result of a commercial, social ,environmental , educational or business requirement, a new concept, idea, vision, mission or design, a new system or new technology to replace the old or even a political campaign for the presidential election candidates. Who is a project manager? CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORSI will come back to the previous discussion but before i do so i would like to come back to the statement i earlier made which is "Every project has a logical conclusion of either a success or a failure, the reasons of which are usually debatable." Is this a problem with the asap methodology or project management? NO (WITH CAPITAL LETTERS). Then why is there a heated argument during most project closures to agree on the success or failure of a project with all concerned parties? The reason is because on your project document somewhere you have mentioned whats called the critical success factors and nobody took this seriously but these could actually determine the success or failure of your project besides your contractual documents. Its very important that along with the objectives , the critical success factors and their measure for a project be well defined by the customer. This should than be reviewed by the project team as well as the other stakeholders in the project ( such as functional managers who would be affected by the project since the output of the project would be a part of operations under their responsibilities) to come to a common agreement before the start of the project. You can have situations where the project sponsor on the beginning of the project stating with "i want this project to meet these objectives" and than the sponser changed mid way during the project and the new sponser now categorically states "But thats the way things are done here". Your objectives and critical success factors duly signed and agreed by all stakeholders would come in extremely handy is such situations. To know more about critical success factors there is some good information i found on this site http://www.rapidbi.com/created/criticalsuccessfactors.html ERP CONSULTING SKILLSThere are so many articles on what differentiates a successful erp consultant from an unsuccessful one and what are the key parameters to successful erp consulting. But my personal favorite is Selecting Software Consultants This article was recently published in Techtarget.com written by Mr. Steve Phillips and is an excerpt from his book "Control Your ERP Destiny" ( i have not read the book and i intend to get my hands on one )
ENDI would once again advise young consultants reading this wiki that this is not a formal education on sap hr/hcm. To obtain formal education in sap hr/hcm and recognition for the same , you could do your course and certification from SAP and their education partners who are the only authorised professional bodies to provide formal education based on your understanding of the HR business process, your budget and the market requirements (which should play a very important factor in your decisions). Another advice for consultants is that in the sap hr business, as an sap hr consultant your consulting head or your client head of sap projects would not be knowledgeable on sap hr (perfectly understandable since most of them are from other modules) and most sap end to end projects have sap hr as an add on to logistics, so the priority for sap hr could be low so that is a very challenging environment because you have to convince them both and seek approvals at each step you take .However the sap hr business would have huge demands and that's the motivating or exciting part which could drive you to work on sap hr projects. But beware that sap hr as a career path could be limited for growth . I am yet to find an sap hr consultant who has made it as head sap business. Many consultants have moved back to core HR business but that is possible for HR Management /Management grads or for those who had moved into sap hr with HR experience. For the others , if you are young make sure that along the way you plan to add other skills for the future. Thank you for bearing me folks. I end my contribution to this wiki and enjoyed writing it. I know i could have written a book instead , but i wanted to share my thoughts and learning in a very unconventional way, besides money was never the criterion here. It was triggered by a message sent to me asking for more clarity in the sap hcm/hr fundamentals and i remembered my early days when i struggled too. A special thanks to ittoolbox, who have given IT consultants an opportunity to share their knowledge experiences, thoughts and views. I wrote this wiki in parts as and when thoughts emerged and i could pen them by just logging into ittoolbox and keying away. The next time i plan to write on my culnary skills( my wife has burst out laughing). Just let me end by saying what the famous Indian cricketer Vijay Merchant said End your contributions when the goings are good I also distinctly remember his famous words which he spoke week after week at the end of every program called -Cricket with Vijay Merchant and i quote :- I never say goodbye but au revoir i.e. till we meet again. Thank You Srinivas Krishna Mandgi
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Spirit Airlines Inc has the Profitability Rank of 5.
GuruFocus Profitability Rank ranks how profitable a company is and how likely the companys business will stay that way. It is based on these factors:
1. Operating MarginSpirit Airlines Inc's operating margin for the quarter that ended in Sep. 2014 was 19.28%. As of today, Spirit Airlines Inc's Piotroski F-Score is 6.
GuruFocus Profitability Rank ranks how profitable a company is and how likely the companys business will stay that way.
The maximum rank is 10. A rank of 7 or higher means a higher profitability and may stay that way. A rank of 3 or lower indicates that the company has had trouble to make a profit.
Spirit Airlines Inc has the Profitability Rank of 5.
Profitability Rank is not directly related to the Financial Strength Rank. But if a company is consistently profitable, its financial strength will be stronger.
Profitability Rank is based on these factors:
1. Operating Margin
Operating Margin - also known as operating income margin, operating profit margin and return on sales (ROS) - is the ratio of Operating Income divided by net sales or Revenue, usually presented in percent.
Spirit Airlines Inc's Operating Margin for the quarter that ended in Sep. 2014 is calculated as:
Operating Margin | = | Operating Income (Q: Sep. 2014 ) | / | Revenue (Q: Sep. 2014 ) |
= | 100.191 | / | 519.769 | |
= | 19.28 % |
* All numbers are in millions except for per share data and ratio. All numbers are in their own currency.
The zones of discrimination were as such:
Good or high score = 8 or 9
Bad or low score = 0 or 1
Spirit Airlines Inc has an F-score of 6 indicating the company's financial situation is typical for a stable company.
3. Trend of the Operating Margin (5-year average). The company with an uptrend profit margin has a higher rank.
4. Consistency of the profitability
5. Predictability Rank
Financial Strength Rank, Operating Margin, Piotroski F-Score
Disclaimers: GuruFocus.com is not operated by a broker, a dealer, or a registered investment adviser. Under no circumstances does any information posted on GuruFocus.com represent a recommendation to buy or sell a security. The information on this site, and in its related newsletters, is not intended to be, nor does it constitute, investment advice or recommendations. The gurus may buy and sell securities before and after any particular article and report and information herein is published, with respect to the securities discussed in any article and report posted herein. In no event shall GuruFocus.com be liable to any member, guest or third party for any damages of any kind arising out of the use of any content or other material published or available on GuruFocus.com, or relating to the use of, or inability to use, GuruFocus.com or any content, including, without limitation, any investment losses, lost profits, lost opportunity, special, incidental, indirect, consequential or punitive damages. Past performance is a poor indicator of future performance. The information on this site, and in its related newsletters, is not intended to be, nor does it constitute, investment advice or recommendations. The information on this site is in no way guaranteed for completeness, accuracy or in any other way. The gurus listed in this website are not affiliated with GuruFocus.com, LLC. Stock quotes provided by InterActive Data. Fundamental company data provided by Morningstar, updated daily.

subset: commoncrawl


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Looking for movie tickets? Enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing Beware of Mr. Baker near you.
This documentary explores the life and career of drummer Ginger Baker, a well-respected musician who famously discovered Fela Kuti's Afrobeat during a trip to Nigeria. After a period of addiction and self-destruction, Baker moved to South Africa, where he remarried and cares for a number of polo ponies. Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, and Carlos Santana are interviewed. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi


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5 Fantastic!ScouseLee | 23/07/2012 | See all ScouseLee's reviews (2)SanDisk has never failed me. I've held MicroSD cards by SanDisk in all sizes in the past and they've all been brilliant. But the speed difference in this 'SanDisk Mobile Ultra' card is noticeable. It works like a dream in my HTC. I'd recommend this to anyone who needs that extra space and performance to store and playback music or videos. I'm glad that I found it.The best MicroSD card I've ever had. Buy it.
5 Great for Android!MarkMcG | 20/06/2013 | See all MarkMcG's reviews (3)Bought this little chap to extend the memory on my Samsung S4. Does so perfectly so I dont have to worry about filling my phone's memory with Movies, Photos and Music. Fast delivery and well packaged!
5 Just excellentvagrantmat | 06/09/2012 | See all vagrantmat's reviews (1)Got one of these for my HTC. Amazingly fast, a breeze to use, way better than the one my handset came with. Fantastic value for the price.
5 Super!Andy117117 | 29/08/2012 | See all Andy117117's reviews (4)Sandisk once again comes through with another fantastic product! Super fast write/read speeds. Would recommend for the price.


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Sorento Shell Wreath
Item #80221
Sale Price: $44.99
Original Price: $95.00
Availability: Out of stock. This item is no longer available for purchase.
This item cannot be shipped outside the continental U.S.
- Description
- Reviews
The Circle of Life. As if an ancient, shell-encrusted crown had washed ashore along the Italian coast, this exceptionally realistic indoor/outdoor Sorento Shell Wreath is artisan crafted at an American manufactory, established in 1911 by an immigrant from Lucca, Italy. Ready to hang on a wall, it also makes an unexpectedly enchanting centerpiece. Fiberstone with fiberglass backing. Handcrafted in the U.S.A. 16"l. x 15"w. x 7"d.
Museum Provenance
The exciting and entertaining gifts, accessories and décor offered celebrate the beauty of aquatic life. Inspired by the majesty of the oceans so breathtakingly displayed in the Sant Ocean Hall of our National Museum of Natural History and by the spectacular pearls and gems displayed in the museum's Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals.
Every Smithsonian purchase will arrive with a museum provenance card explaining how it is adapted from or inspired by an object or objects in our collection.
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WILBOR eBooks & Audiobooks
Check out free eBooks & audiobooks from your library at your home
or office! As part of the WILBOR consortium, Sioux Center Public
Library is able to offer an excellent selection of downloadable books
for you to use with eReaders and MP3 players. [Compatible devices]
WILBOR's collection has fiction and nonfiction titles, as well as books for children and teens. Bestsellers and classics, history and humor, business and self help -- you'll find them all in WILBOR.
Your library card will be the key to downloading WILBOR books, from any computer that is connected to the Internet, at any hour of the day. From a website, you can browse or search for a title you'd like to listen to, log in with your 14-digit library card number, and check out selected titles. You may have three eBooks and/or audiobooks checked out at one time.
iPhone & Android users
iPhone and Android users can download the Overdrive Media Console app to manage downloads to their devices.
Download eBooks:
eBooks from WILBOR & Overdrive are available in Adobe ePUB and Adobe PDF formats. These are compatible with many popular eReader devices, and are also offered in a format for the Amazon Kindle.
To begin, download Adobe Digital Editions which will manage your eBook downloads.
If you select a Kindle eBook, the WILBOR checkout process will open an Amazon window where you can login and follow the steps to transfer the book to your Kindle.
eBooks will check out for 14 days, and the file automatically returns to the WILBOR library after the lending period has elapsed. eBooks can be returned early by using Adobe Digital Editions to select the eBook and choose "Return Borrowed Item" from the item's options.
Project Gutenberg eBooks - free books that never expire
Project Gutenberg is a collection of free eBooks in the public domain. These are often classics for which copyright has expired, and they are free to access by anyone. WILBOR offers access to over 15,000 of these free titles. When checked out through WILBOR, these eBooks do not count toward your limit of 3, and they do not expire from your device.
The full Project Gutenberg collection contains over 33,000 free eBooks. You can download directly from their site without using WILBOR or your Sioux Center Public Library account. One advantage of accessing the Project Gutenberg website directly is that they offer free titles compatible with the Amazon Kindle.
Download Audiobooks
Download the OverDrive Media Console (PC or Mac version) to manage your audiobook files. Once you've checked out an item, the Media Console offers the options to Transfer, Burn, or Download the entire audiobook or individual chapters at a time. You can then listen to the book on your computer or transfer it to an mp3 player to listen.
Overdrive offers both Windows Media Audio (.wma) files and mp3 files that are compatible with iPods. The Mac OverDrive Console is compatible only with the mp3 audiobooks. Check here for a list of compatible playback devices.
Audiobooks will check out for 1 week, and the file will "expire" on your computer after 1 week, but when the books are transferred to an mp3 player you can take your time listening to them. Some titles can even be burned to CDs for your own personal use. Currently, several audiobooks are also available in Spanish.
Audiobooks cannot be returned early.
Further Information
Sioux Center Public Library is one of 84 libraries in western, central, and southern Iowa that participate in WILBOR. For more information, visit the WILBOR website. If you don't have a card from the Sioux Center Public Library, stop in to sign up for one!
For software help and other troubleshooting, email us or visit the WILBOR Help page.


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Drug Notes
UPMC Patient Education Materials
Calculators and Assessment Tools
Anatomy Navigator
Conditions Navigator
An electroencephalogram (EEG) is a test to measure the electrical activity of the brain.
Electroencephalogram; Brain wave test
Brain cells communicate with each other by producing tiny electrical signals, called impulses.
An EEG measures this activity. The test is done by an EEG technologist in your doctor's office or at a hospital or laboratory.
The test is done in the following way:
If your doctor needs to monitor your brain activity for a longer period, an ambulatory EEG will be ordered. In addition to the electrodes, you will wear or carry a special recorder for up to three days. You will be able to go about your normal routine as the EEG is being recorded.
Wash your hair the night before the test. Do not use conditioner, oils, sprays, or gel on your hair. If you have a hair weave, ask your doctor or nurse for special instructions.
Your health care provider may want you to stop taking certain medicines before the test. Do not change or stop taking any medicines without first talking to your health care provider. Bring a list of your medicines with you.
Avoid all food and drinks containing caffeine for 8 hours before the test.
You may need to sleep during the test. If so, you may be asked to reduce your sleep time the night before. If you are asked to sleep as little as possible before the test, do not eat or drink any caffeine, energy drinks, or other products that help you stay awake.
Follow any other specific instructions you are given.
The electrodes may feel sticky and strange on your scalp, but should not cause any other discomfort. You should not feel any discomfort during the test.
EEG is used to look at your brain activity. It can be used to diagnose or monitor the following health conditions:
EEG is also used to:
An EEG may be done to show that the brain has no activity, in the case of someone who is in a deep coma. It can be helpful when trying to decide if a person is brain dead.
EEG cannot be used to measure intelligence.
Brain electrical activity has a certain number of waves per second (frequencies) that are normal for different levels of alertness. For example, brain waves are faster when you are awake, and slower in certain stages of sleep.
There are also normal patterns to these waves.
Note: A normal EEG does not mean that a seizure did not occur.
Abnormal results on an EEG test may be due to:
An EEG test is very safe. The flashing lights or fast breathing (hyperventilation ) required during the test may trigger seizures in those with seizure disorders. The health care provider performing the EEG is trained to take care of you if this happens.
Emerson RG, Pedley TA. Clinical neurophysiology: electroencephalography and evoked potentials. In: Daroff RB, Fenichel GM, Jankovic J, Mazziotta JC, eds. Bradley's Neurology in Clinical Practice. 6th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier Saunders; 2012:chap 32A.
Joseph V. Campellone, M.D., Division of Neurology, Cooper University Hospital, Camden, NJ. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Isla Ogilvie, PhD, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.
For help in finding a doctor or health service that suits your needs, call the UPMC Referral Service at 412-647-UPMC (8762) or 1-800-533-UPMC (8762). Select option 1.
UPMC is an equal opportunity employer. UPMC policy prohibits discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, age, sex, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, familial status, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected group status. Further, UPMC will continue to support and promote equal employment opportunity, human dignity, and racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity. This policy applies to admissions, employment, and access to and treatment in UPMC programs and activities. This commitment is made by UPMC in accordance with federal, state, and/or local laws and regulations.
Medical information made available on UPMC.com is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should not rely entirely on this information for your health care needs. Ask your own doctor or health care provider any specific medical questions that you have. Further, UPMC.com is not a tool to be used in the case of an emergency. If an emergency arises, you should seek appropriate emergency medical services.
For UPMC Mercy Patients: As a Catholic hospital, UPMC Mercy abides by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, as determined by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. As such, UPMC Mercy neither endorses nor provides medical practices and/or procedures that contradict the moral teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
© UPMC Pittsburgh, PA, USA UPMC.com


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Drug Notes
UPMC Patient Education Materials
Calculators and Assessment Tools
Anatomy Navigator
Conditions Navigator
Carotid duplex is an ultrasound test that shows how well blood is flowing through the carotid arteries. The carotid arteries are located in the neck. They supply blood directly to the brain.
Scan - carotid duplex; Carotid ultrasound; Carotid artery ultrasound; Ultrasound - carotid; Vascular ultrasound - carotid; Ultrasound - vascular - carotid
Ultrasound is a painless method that uses sound waves to create images of the inside of the body. The test is done in a vascular lab or radiology department.
The test is done in the following way:
No preparation is necessary.
You may feel some pressure as the transducer is moved around your neck. The pressure should not cause any pain. You may also hear a "whooshing" sound. This is normal.
This test checks blood flow in the carotid arteries. It can detect:
Your doctor may order this test if:
The results will tell your doctor how open or narrowed your carotid arteries are. For example, the arteries may be 10% narrowed, 50% narrowed, or 75% narrowed.
A normal result means there is no problem with the blood flow in the carotid arteries. The artery is free of any significant blockage, narrowing, or other problem.
An abnormal result means the artery may be narrowed, or something is changing the blood flow in the carotid arteries. This is a sign of atherosclerosis or other blood vessel conditions.
In general, the more narrowed the artery is, the higher your risk of stroke.
Depending on the results, your doctor may want you to:
There are no risks with having this procedure.
Daly C, Rodriguez HE. Carotid artery occlusive disease. Surg Clin N Am. 2013;93:813-832.
U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Screening for carotid artery stenosis: U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation statement. Ann Intern Med. 2007;147(12):854-859.
Norman S. Kato, MD, Surgeon with the Cardiac Care Medical Group, Encino, CA. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Isla Ogilvie, PhD, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.
For help in finding a doctor or health service that suits your needs, call the UPMC Referral Service at 412-647-UPMC (8762) or 1-800-533-UPMC (8762). Select option 1.
UPMC is an equal opportunity employer. UPMC policy prohibits discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, age, sex, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, familial status, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected group status. Further, UPMC will continue to support and promote equal employment opportunity, human dignity, and racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity. This policy applies to admissions, employment, and access to and treatment in UPMC programs and activities. This commitment is made by UPMC in accordance with federal, state, and/or local laws and regulations.
Medical information made available on UPMC.com is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should not rely entirely on this information for your health care needs. Ask your own doctor or health care provider any specific medical questions that you have. Further, UPMC.com is not a tool to be used in the case of an emergency. If an emergency arises, you should seek appropriate emergency medical services.
For UPMC Mercy Patients: As a Catholic hospital, UPMC Mercy abides by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, as determined by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. As such, UPMC Mercy neither endorses nor provides medical practices and/or procedures that contradict the moral teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
© UPMC Pittsburgh, PA, USA UPMC.com