
The most popular classes for on premise SAP HCM are the Time Management and Payroll ones which go into configuring these modules. Even though Employee Central is making a lot of strides in Time Management and with the partnership we have with Workforce Software that does allow for complex rules and calculations, I still know and hear about many companies in 2016 implementing and expanding their on premise SAP Time Management systems. I have gotten requests from people asking me to write on this particular topic since it is something that isn't talked about nearly as much although it is still frequently used. There are so many customers who use SAP Time Management especially with many of the complex union rules and business processes that are out there that it will be around for a while. For Payroll there is obviously still a ton of interest in the configuration of it since SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll still requires most of the same setup as on-premise SAP Payroll.
In both Time Management and Payroll classes I always get requests to compare Time vs Payroll since they share the same framework in their setup (Schema's, Rules, Functions, Operations) and it seems like there is always of a friendly competition between Time people and Payroll people as they try to compare the two. In most cases people know either one or the other, or are clearly stronger in one although they understand how the other works. Fortunately, I have spent a lot of time with both from a consulting perspective as well as teaching the classes on both so that gives me a good perspective to compare the two and write a few blog posts around it as requested by colleagues and customers.
In one of our Time Management classes WNA311 there is a section on displaying messages in the Time schema for Time Administrators. In this class if there is anyone who works with payroll they always tend to ask - what about messages in the Payroll schema? This is a topic that also always appears to come up in one of my favorite classes - the advanced Payroll Schema Rule Writing Workshop class WNA11 when people ask how they can accomplish this. I have configured custom messages when a scenario occurs in the Payroll schema as well as custom messages when a scenario occurred in Time Management so I decided to write this first article going into a comparison of custom message in Time vs custom message in Payroll.
Creating a custom message in the Time Schema
In Time Management SAP has a standard operation COLER that is used to display messages in the Time schema. We are going to utilize that in order to display our message.
Now when I run Time Evaluation, my custom message will be displayed if the criteria (Screenshot of the schema log included) is hit and I can go to PTMW/PT_ERL00/PT40/ and see this message being displayed as well as from within the schema log.
That process was relatively painless and your average Time Management functional resource should certainly be able to write this logic pretty easily.
Next, I am going to show you what needs to be done in order to do the same thing in Payroll.
Creating a custom message in the Payroll Schema
In Payroll, SAP has an operation XMES that is used to display a custom payroll message. There used to be an operation MESSG in Payroll, but it was deleted when XMES was created. SAP created a note 504704 which explains creating a message in payroll. I have pasted a screenshot of this note here for informational purposes. I will point out that this Note mentions there is a sample implementation 99TST that you could theoretically use if you only needed to create a message one time without requiring an ABAP code change.
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So what do you have to do in order to create a message in the Payroll schema? Here is what is required:
Now when I run Payroll for the associate I am testing with I can see the message being displayed.
We can see the clear difference in the complexities of creating messages between Time and Payroll. In Payroll, your average functional resource will not be able to do this and would need to rely on a technical resource in order to make this change. In addition, many organizations are stricter with enhancement to SAP code.
Time Administrators can work with the custom messages via the Time Managers Worplace (PTMW) or the Time Management Pool (Transaction PT40) and it is also something that SAP delivers standard in Time Management in the standard schema's (TM00/TM04) as well as standard messages on V_T555E. So the framework of Time Management supports the creation and clearing of messages and that is likely why it is much easier.
In Payroll, the framework for writing custom messages is more restrictive which is likely because there inst a framework for clearing and dealing with those these messages. So with that being said, it does not always make sense to create a payroll message for a scenario occurring such as if an employee meets a particular limit, because then the message (depending upon the logic calling it) could come up in all future periods and it could quickly get out of control if not implemented correctly. I have come across scenarios where people want to be notified of a particular scenario occurring (Typically an exception that should be fixed) in Payroll via a message. This makes it so that these messages will also come up when you run a simulation or live payroll and then the appropriate Admin can clear the message by fixing the master data and you wont have an issue with messages getting out of control because the message triggers a reaction to fix it.
With the new functionality SAP has delivered in the Payroll Control Center and validation checks that you can build, it will make it less likely that you will need to create messages in your schema because they could be created in the form of data validations with a framework to acknowledge and clear the messages via your Admin role.
Regardless of the complexity, the beauty and power of SAP is that it is still possible for you to create messages in your payroll schema if that is something you really wish to do.
Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below. I would love to hear from others on the topic comparing Time and Payroll including potential future comparisons you may be interested in!
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