In my first article of this series, I examined a few basic strategies for selecting a time evaluation starter schema. As you become more familiar with time evaluation schemas, it will become clear how these starter schemas are only frameworks for the customized schema you require. As part of the customization process, you will discard some parts of the starter schema and introduce your own custom parts.

In part 2 of the series, I’ll review an integral concept of SAP time evaluation — the time pair. This term refers to a distinct piece of time data that has a duration and frequently a start and end time. I’ll start with the meaning and characteristics of time pairs.

Time Pair Basics

Master data and time data, such as leave requests or work records, form the main data input for the time evaluation program RPTIME00. During processing, this program imports time data with P functions as specified in the time schema. Function P2001 imports absence data, P2002 work data, and P2011 time event data (e.g., clock in and clock out). A few other P functions also import data from a time infotype. For instance, P2000 imports work schedule data from infotype 0007 and P2012 deals with time revision data.

Once RPTIME00 imports time data records, the records are represented as time pairs during processing. In the following example, the time schema reads a work record and represents it in the TIP table as a time pair. The TIP table only exists during time evaluation and contains time pairs. It serves as input to those personnel calculation rules (PCRs) that process time pairs, as well as to functions such as GWT, which generates wage types from time pairs.

First, a user records two hours of work in an infotype 2002 entry with attendance type 1000 where attendance type 1000 has been configured to represent regular work. You can configure other attendance types to, for example, record overtime or call-ins.

There are many ways for a user to document this record, including the Time Manager’s Workplace (TMW), the Cross-Application Time Sheet (CATS), Employee Self-Service (ESS) time entry, or transaction PA61. Regardless of the user interface, infotype 2002 stores the attendance record (Figure 1).

Figure 1

An infotype 2002 attendance record

Next, the time evaluation program imports this record by calling function P2002 in schema ZM04. I’ve copied starter schema TM04 to ZM04 with transaction PE01, which enables me to customize ZM04 without changing TM04.

Time evaluation schema ZM04 imports infotype 2002 data with function P2002 (Figure 2). The processing table TIP then represents the infotype 2002 record as a time pair (Figure 3).

Figure 2

Time evaluation log that shows time evaluation schema ZM04

Figure 3

Attributes of a time pair

Time Pair Attributes

The TIP table in the time evaluation log lists time pairs as table line entries. The first row of the table contains the column headers, and subsequent rows list the actual time pairs. Each of the columns in this time pair represents a time pair attribute. They include:

• From (start time) — The time that a time pair begins; the attendance record in Figure 3 starts at 8 am
  
  
• To (end time) — The time that a time pair finishes; the attendance record in Figure 3 ends at 10 am
  
  
• 1 (time pair status) — This value contains information about the start and end time and duration of a time pair. Because its usefulness is not directly related to TIMTP and TYPES, I’ll leave it out of the discussion.
  
  
• P (pair type) — The first P attribute refers to the pair type. Time evaluation sets the pair type attribute according to a simple set of rules:
  • 0 indicates time pairs representing non-recorded times. TIMTP creates time pairs of pair type 0.
    
    
  • 1 indicates time pairs from infotype 2011 or pairs generated from the current day’s shift
    
    
  • 2 represents absence time pairs from infotype 2001
    
    
  • 3 represents attendance time pairs from infotype 2002 (as in Figure 3)

  The pair type is used as input to both functions TIMTP and TYPES.

• ID (time identifier) — this attribute is not set in the example time pair. However, it is an important attribute for function TIMTP and I’ll examine it in more detail in the next section.
  
  
• CT (CLTIM type) — The time evaluation program automatically fills the CT attribute when the schema imports a time record from infotype 2001 (absences) or 2002 (attendances). This attribute is central to how function TYPES works.
  
  The CT attribute value depends on how the processing type/time type class of an absence or attendance type has been configured. I’ll refer to it as the CLTIM attribute after its technical field name.
  
  When RPTIME00 imports an absence or attendance record, it sets the CT attribute according to the CLTIM setting of the absence or attendance. In Figure 3, the time pair is set to 01 because the CLTIM setting for attendance type 1000 is 01, as is shown in the T554S table view in Figure 4. This table view is accessible via the IMG menu path Time Management>Time Evaluation>Time Evaluation without Clock Times>Time Data Processing>Assign Time Types and Processing Types> Determine Processing Type/Time Type Class for Absence/Attendance.
  
  
• P (Processing type) — The second P attribute, the one to the left of TTyp, is important for generating wage types and is one of two attributes set by functions TIMTP and TYPES. Note that a record imported from infotype 2002 is automatically flagged with a P value. I will explain how this attribute is set when I explain how TIMTP and TYPES work.
  
  
• TTyp (time type) — The TTyp attribute refers to the time type of the time pair. Time types are often referred to as time balances or variables, meaning that they act as buckets for accumulating similar values. This is the other attribute determined by functions TIMTP and TYPES.
  
  
• O (origin) — The O attribute refers to the origin of the time pair. In Figure 3, its value is P, which means it was read from infotype 2002. Other possible values include A, which refers to an absence record from infotype 2001. An E correlates to a time event stored in infotype 2011. A D refers to a time pair that was generated on the basis of the employee’s shift for that day.
  
  
• Number — Lastly, a time pair has a duration attribute. Figure 3 shows that the documented work activity lasted two hours.

Figure 4

In this view of table T554S, the column P/T refers to the CLTIM setting, which is imported to the CT attribute of a time pair

You can find further documentation on time pair attributes, including the ones I haven’t listed, in several places in SAP R/3. For instance, see the documentation for time evaluation operations OUTTP and FILLP via transaction PE04.

Daily Work Schedule Table and Time ID

The ID attribute, which appears in the TIP table, indicates what the relationship is between a time pair and the work schedule for the day on which the time pair exists. To understand the time identifier, you need to look at the daily work schedule table, known as the TZP table in R/3 time evaluation.

In R/3, a work shift is called a work schedule. A daily work schedule is an employee’s shift on a particular day. For example, it could be a day shift from 8 am to 5 pm, with an hour unpaid lunch break, or a night shift from 10 pm to 7 am.

During time evaluation, the time evaluation program constructs a daily work schedule table based on what an employee’s shift looks like on that day. This timetable is stored in the internal TZP table. For an employee with an 8 am to 5 pm shift, the TZP table looks like the one in Figure 5.

Figure 5

The daily work schedule table TZP in the time evaluation log

In this instance, the TZP is interpreted as follows: The employee is scheduled to work from 8 am to 12 pm and 1 pm to 5 pm. A lunch break is scheduled from 12 pm to 1 pm.

The Time ID is the guide to reading the TZP. Time ID 01 refers to periods outside planned working time; 02 refers to planned working time, and 05 refers to a break. Reading from the top down, the TZP table in Figure 5 indicates that from midnight to 8 am no work is scheduled, work is scheduled from 8 am to 12 pm, from noon to 1 pm a lunch break is scheduled, work is scheduled from 1 pm to 5 pm, and from 5 pm to midnight no work is scheduled.

The Time ID in table TZP is the same concept as the ID that is one of the time pair attributes in table TIP. I will explain how the time pair attribute ID is filled when I explain how TIMTP and TYPES work. The complete list of time IDs and their meanings can be found in the SAP documentation. Go to IMG menu path Time Management>Time Evaluation>Time Evaluation with Clock Times>Time Data Processing>Set Time Type Determination and press F1 for the ID table field in T555Z. You can find more documentation by navigating the documentation icons in this area of the IMG.

Functions TIMTP and TYPES

Functions TIMTP and TYPES process time pairs, and as such they interact with five of the time pair attributes. Their goal is to set or change two of the time pair attributes — the processing type and the time type. To successfully do so, the functions require the CLTIM type, the identifier, and the pair type. Table 1 summarizes the relationship between TIMTP and TYPES and the time pair attributes.

Function TYPES uses the CLTIM attribute of a time record (e.g., 01 for the regular attendance type 1000) and the pair type of the associated time pair. It uses these two time pair attributes along with table T555Y configuration to set the time pair’s time type and processing type. Access the T555Y configuration via the IMG menu path Time Management>Time Evaluation>Time Evaluation without Clock Times>Time Data Processing>Assign Time Types and Processing Types.

On the other hand, function TIMTP uses the time identifier from the TZP table and the pair type of the time pair. Along with table T555Z, it uses these attributes to set the processing type and time type values of the time pair. T555Z is configured via the IMG menu path Time Management>Time Evaluation>Time Evaluation with Clock Times>Time Data Processing>Set Time Type Determination.

As I will explain in the next article of this series, TIMTP actually does more than this — it can also split a time pair into several smaller time pairs based on the daily work schedule. As part of this process, it sets the ID attribute for each of these time pairs. Both TIMTP and TYPES must be called from the time evaluation schema after work and absence time data has been imported.

The outcome of TIMTP and TYPES processing prepares the time evaluation program to generate time wage types and to form time balances for further calculations, quota processing, and reporting. In my next article, I will discuss how TIMTP and TYPES bring this about by interacting with the time pair attributes as well as tables T555Y and T555Z.