Time Frequently Asked Questions

Updated 6/25/08 Advance Leave ............................................................................................................... 1 Time Evaluation and Review ........................................................................................... 1 Premium Pay................................................................................................................... 3 On Call/Callback ............................................................................................................. 5 Overtime Dual Employment ......................................................................................... 7 A/A Codes ....................................................................................................................... 7 Leave Balances and Liabilities ........................................................................................ 9 FMLA/FIL ...................................................................................................................... 17 Overtime........................................................................................................................ 19 Time Sheet Correction .................................................................................................. 21 Time Entry ..................................................................................................................... 22 MSS/ESS ...................................................................................................................... 30 Leave Hierarchy ............................................................................................................ 31 Work Schedule .............................................................................................................. 32 Time and Leave Infotypes ............................................................................................. 34 Voluntary Shared Leave (VSL)...................................................................................... 35 SAP Functionality .......................................................................................................... 35 HINT: Use the search/find function to assist locating the topic you have a question about.

Advance Leave
Q: I have an employee who is advanced leave a few days before the 15th almost every pay period. How do we set that up? A: This type of advance is NOT the intent of the Advanced Leave Policy (see OSPs website for policy details). However, if deemed necessary the employee must submit the Advance Leave Request form (it can be found in ESS) and it must be approved by the supervisor. If the supervisor agrees to the advance, the Leave Administrator can add the leave to the employees quota. Any future accruals or additional hours worked will be used to pay back the liability. Alternatively, the employee may record A/A type 9400 and be docked for the hours not worked.

Time Evaluation and Review

Q: DOC managers must plan the schedule for Custody staff so that they do not accrue too much overtime. Is there a way for them to look at or monitor OT accrual in the system (before the end of the month)? A: OT is not OT until the end of the period, so technically, no. However, there is a report that is available to R/3 users - CATC which allows someone to review an employees

timesheet hours with respect to their target hours. That would give the manager visibility to a data range and the ability to see if the employee is over or under their target hours for the period. Q: Some people who are eligible for time+1/2 OT pay now can also take time+1/2 days off for OT worked. Will they be able to do this with Beacon? A: OT is not OT until the period is completed. Employees that want to take time off in the SAME week must do that at the hour for hour rate, NOT the 1.5 rate, and must use existing quotas. Q: When viewing the time evaluation messages display (PT_ERL00), I understand that some messages will require that the time sheet be corrected and then the message will disappear. How can we make the message go away if the message does not require any action, such as correcting the time entry? A: You can filter PT_ERL00 to only show you the messages you need to do something about. Message type 4 = Errors. Errors stop processing and must be corrected. If you set Message Type 4 on the initial screen, that is all it will return. If you choose just specific messages that you want to see, you may list the specific message numbers on the initial screen. The training guide includes a list of message numbers that Time Administrators should keep an eye on. Q: What is travel time 1X? A: Travel Time is time outside work hours that the employee travels on business. It is comped at the 1-to-1 rate, and can never be paid. It expires after 1 year. OSP policy may be found at http://www.osp.state.nc.us/manuals/manual99/hourwkot.pdf. Q: What does "Time Eval.Message Display" mean when you see (At work despite day type "1")? A: If an employee records work time on a scheduled day off, the system generates a warning. It is ok to work any time, its just a warning in case the entry was in error. Had the employee been substituted, that day would be reflected as a work day, and the message would not be generated. Q: When the week spans the end of the month and we have flex that may show up either before or after the end of the month, will SAP process the time sheets and automatically carry the flex forward? A: Flex is a word used to describe a day in a work schedule in some agencies. It is not relevant to the schedules in SAP. All employees are assigned a work schedule. Some may have long days and short days. Whatever the schedule, BEACON looks at the employee's recorded work hours in a specific 7 day OT period. That 7-day period may span the end of one month and the start of another. Like every other week, when the 7-

day period is complete, Time Evaluation will add up all the hours, figure out the overtime, and take care of any leave time. If that period results in OT to be paid, that OT will be paid in the next available payroll. Q: If there is more than one Time Administrator within a unit, will error messages come back to all Time Administrators or only to the TA(s) that entered the time? A: Messages do not come back to anyone. Time Administrators must periodically check the Time Evaluation Error Messages (PT_ERL00) for the list of people for whom they are responsible. We recommend creating variants to store the personnel numbers and the IDs of the Error messages relevant to the time admin. Q: RE: Time evaluation messages - Will the "at work despite day type 1" message show for DOC employees who are more than 50%? A: It will appear any time an employee is at work when not scheduled to be at work. It is just a warning message to make sure that was the intended entry. Employees that are properly substituted will not get that message. The act of substituting them makes the day a work day for them. Q: Within the various agencies, who will be in the leave administrator role - e.g., generally speaking will the time administrator and leave administrator role be handled by one individual - that is the same individual in both roles? A: Agencies made their own decisions on whether the Leave Admin/Time Admin roles went to the same person or different people. A person may have both roles, where appropriate. Please check with your BEACON representative for information on role mapping. Q: If available, does this time revert to vacation when unused? 1) Sick Leave 2) Voluntary Shared Leave 3) Advanced Sick Leave A: No. Unused Sick can be held by the employee until they separate. After that it remains available for 5 yrs if the employee returns to state service. For VSL, the employee may retain 40 hours of sick leave. The rest is returned to the donors. Advanced Sick Leave expires at the end of a calendar year.

Premium Pay
Q: Someone who works a night shift, premium-eligible, stays over one hour. How do we code the extra hour? If we substitute a schedule, it will be for all the hours worked that day. A: The policy is that the extra hour is premium eligible. Use a premium code to mark the extra hour as eligible for premium. In some cases your agency may designate the extra

hour as not premium eligible, you can use a premium (push) code to mark the hour as not premium eligible. Q: When an employee works additional time over onto another shift, how can we be sure it is being processed accurately (according to the proper shift)? A: A shift is a single continuous period of time, so an employee on 2nd shift that works over will be paid all at the 2nd shift rate. Shift is determined by the work schedule set on the position that is held by the employee. Q: What are push codes? A: Push (or premium) codes are codes used on the timesheet to indicate shift premium-either night or evening premium. If a day employee works nights to fill in for someone, you could either 1) substitute his daily work schedule for a night shift (this is the preferred method) or 2) use a push code on the time sheet to get him the night shift premium. Q: How do we code shifts in a persons hours worked in a day (if they normally work 84, but on Monday worked 9-5)? At DHHS, there are temporary and permanent nurses and health care employees who get different premium pay rates based on the shift and day worked (e.g., nights, weekends). Currently, the DHHS employee does not see the correct push codes to account for all of these shifts. The push codes are different for permanent vs temporary employees. Who would add these push codes? A: There are not push codes for rates--just for shift designations. The rates are stored in the position data. They can be different for different positions. If an employee is eligible for night shift premium, and codes night shift work, then the hours are calculated at the percentage that is stored for that specific position. Temporary employees are typically not eligible for shift premium pay. Push codes are only appropriate as an exception employees are to be assigned to the work schedule that most closely matches their regular recurring work schedule. Employees properly assigned to a night shift will receive shift premium for hours recorded on their regular work days without any other designation. Shift premium is to be coded for entire shift, not parts of shifts. The only exception is designated split shifts when the employee leaves and returns to work in the same day. Q: At DHHS, there are temporary and permanent nurses and health care employees who get different premium pay rates based on the shift and day worked (e.g., nights, weekends). Currently, the DHHS employee does not see the correct push codes to account for all of these shifts. The push codes are different for permanent vs temporary employees. Who would add these push codes?

A: Push codes are to designate the shift, not the rate. The rate is stored with the position. If Sally Nurse is eligible for Night Shift, and is either on a shift normally or works an extra shift, she will be paid at the Night Shift rate stored with her position, which may be 20%. For John Nurse, he may be eligible, but his position pays 25%. Employees can see their position settings in the bottom of the Time Statement. Q: The code for Night Shift Premium (9007) is this from 12:00 am to 6:00 am? The code for Evening Shift Premium (9008) is this from 3: 30 pm to 12:00 am? A: Agencies determine whether a shift is Evening or Night when creating the work schedules to which all employees are assigned. The designation is for an entire shift, not for particular hours within a shift. Eligible employees who are REGULARLY assigned to a shift that is designated as Evening or Night are entitled to premium pay. Day employees that work over a few hours are not eligible for premium pay, as that is not their regularly assigned shift. Eligible employees that are properly substituted to a night or evening shift may earn premium pay. We expect to see all of a shift paid at premium, or none. The practice of splitting a shift into 4 hours of evening and then 6 hours of night will not be acceptable. The work schedule carries a designation that was provided by the agency, and that will be the prevailing rate of premium pay. Q: How do the premium pay codes correspond to 10%, 20% etc.? Is night premium (01) the 10% and evening premium (02) the 20%? And how do they apply to the medical class that gets 15% up to 30%? A: The codes do not correspond to rate. Each position has a designated rate for evening, night and weekend premiums. The rate is displayed on the bottom of the Time Statement. The codes that are entered tell us which premium to apply. The actual rate is stored with the position and referenced when a code for premium pay is entered. Q: What is the percentage of holiday premium pay that SAP generates, time and 1/2 or time and 3/4? We have heard that it was changing. A: Holiday premium pay is time and 1/2 for most of the state. There is a documented rate of time and 3/4 for DOC correctional officers. That is the only known exception to the time and 1/2 Holiday Premium rate. There are no pending changes to this policy.

On Call/Callback
Q: An employee carries a beeper one week in a month. They are paid a flat rate of $2 per hour for on call pay, just for being on call. Currently they do a time sheet that is separate from their normal time sheet, just for the $2 per hour on call pay. Do they still need a separate time sheet? If they put it on their regular time sheet can it be input into SAP? This cannot be counted for overtime payment. It is totally separate. How would this be handled? A: In BEACON, on call time is recorded on the time sheet using A/A code 9517. The On-Call time will be paid or comped according to the settings for that position. It is not

counted towards OT, but it will be paid at the rate that is stored with the On-Call setting, if eligible. Q: For on call employees for DHHS, some employees are requesting that their on call paid time be compensated in time off or leave time rather than actual money in their paycheck as approved by their management team. What is the correct procedure? A: The agency designates whether it is on call for comp or on call for pay on the employees position setting. The position setting should be consistent for a class of employees, so an employee shouldn't be making their own designation. The HR Master Data Maintainer can change Position Settings. Q: In DHHS, when the doctors key in their time such as being on call for a weekday, do they key in 16.0 hrs against 9517? Does the system automatically give them 2.0 of comp time in that bucket or do they just key in the 2.0 earned against 9517? A: All employees that are on-call should record the actual number of hours they served on call. Beacon will calculate. Q: Will remote call-back be used for DOC staff? A: DOC will determine that. Employees whose positions are flagged as Remote Callback Eligible will be compensated to the minimum (30 min) or their actual hours recorded, whichever is greater. Employees that are not eligible will not be compensated for the imputed time, but would still receive pay or comp time for the hours worked, if they were OT/Comp Time eligible. Q: Currently DOT has some employees who receive emergency call-back overtime pay. If they are called back to work after normal hours for an emergency, then they receive straight time overtime pay for those extra hours. One of my students, who is an office assistant, currently enters time for some of those emergency call-back employees. She heard a rumor that emergency call-back overtime pay might be going away and that instead those employees will receive comp time. Does anyone know anything about this? Is this time policy change due to Beacon? A: Emergency call back will now be in comp time instead of payment. They will still use the code, but instead of payment it will go to the comp time bucket. This was because of Beacon and OSP. Q: If we have an employee on-call who is called back more than once in the same night, should they enter separate entries for each time they are called back? A: Yes, a separate entry should be made for each time an employee is called back.

Overtime Dual Employment

Q: An employee has a full time job and works another job within the same Agency (a lower graded job with a lower pay rate). Time will be recorded but if OT is earned, will it be earned at the primary position or secondary position? A: Any person working jobs with different pay rates--even in the same agency--will be handled under the Dual Employment provisions. Q: EE works 38.5 hours and takes 1.5 hours of approved leave in his primary position, then works 13.42 hours in another position, considered OT. Will BEACON use the 1.5 leave or will the 1.5 hours be deducted from the OT? A: If this is a dual employment situation, then each position's "planned working hours" would have to be accounted for on the timesheet. In this example, the employee would use 1.5 hours of approved leave to account for all 40 hours of the Primary position. For the secondary position, all hours will be entered by BEST Shared Services. If this is not a dual employment situation, the employee can only be paid based on the planned working hours for the position they have been assigned to. Q: How are dual employment payments processed when employee is borrowed from another agency NOT using the Beacon system? A: Employees paid through Beacon must enter all of their hours in Beacon, regardless of the status of the borrowing agency. Q: How are dual employment payments processed when employee is borrowed from another agency using the Beacon system? A: Use Infotype 554 to reflect a separate assignment/pay rate, and then have BEST record the additional hours in Beacon for that employee.

A/A Codes
Q: "When a critical employee works during an emergency closure and is entitled to hour-for-hour comp time, what do we enter on the time sheet?" A: Attendance Type 9514 - Work during Emerg Closing should be used when a critical employee is required to work during an emergency closure situation. Please reference the Adverse Weather and Emergency Closing policy for more information on employee eligibility." Q: What is the difference between A/A Type 9511 Remote Call Back and A/A Type 9516 Call Back? A: Remote Callback is when someone is able to fix something/work remotely without returning to the office. The actual time worked is recorded as Remote Callback. The

system will calculate a minimum of 30 minutes for each remote callback event. The time worked counts in the OT calculation. The imputed time to meet the minimum does not. Positions must be Remote Callback eligible. Q: What is the difference between A/A 9500 Time Worked and A/A 9510 Additional Time Worked? A: Time worked 9500 is appropriate for all time worked. Only physicians and physician assistants that are eligible for "Extended Duty" should use A/A Type 9510. Extended Duty is not OT. It is payment for additional hours worked at a rate that is stored with the position. Unless you are eligible, you should not use 9510. Q: Is the AA Code 9510 restricted for use by physicians and physician assistants? A: Yes. 9510 is treated differently is for some Doctors and Physicians Assistants whose positions are designated as eligible for "Extended Duty." Unless you are eligible, you should not use 9510. Q: Will time logged as 9300 Holiday leave be offset? It was my original understanding that it will not, just as civil leave (9550) & other agency approved leave (9540) will not be offset. A: Holiday Leave does not offset. Q: Regarding 9514 Work during Emergency Callback: should this be a bucket added to the leave hierarchy? A: Not necessarily. The buckets that hold leave exist because the properties of those buckets are different. Emergency Closing Comp, which is earned when an employee works during an Emergency Closure (and to clarify, this is when the facility is closed, not just because of light snow) is similar to Travel Time Comp, which is leave that is earned at the hour for hour rate and is never payable. Q: I don't know what the A/A type for adverse weather makeup is for. I understand adverse weather, but it looks like if they charge adverse weather, then earn comp or other leave hours, it would offset adverse weather. Do employees need to enter the hours for adverse weather make-up? A: A/A type 9512 is the Adverse Weather Makeup attendance code. If an employee has used Adverse Weather Leave, and later works extra time, the system will use the extra time to recover the liability before it gives the employee any comp time. Using 9512 Adverse Weather Makeup may not really be necessary.When extra time is reported, the system uses it to recover the liability. Q: What is the significance of PTO sick leave and regular sick leave? It this a positive/negative time entry differential?

A: PTO applies to the NC Education Lottery only. Q: Can I use Attendance type 1010, 1020 and 1030? What are they used for? A: No. Employees and Time Administrators should stop using these Absence/Attendance (A/A) types immediately. These A/A types were only meant to be used by Beacon as part of the conversion processes. These A/A types should NOT be used for work dates after March 31. Beacon has delimited these A/A types. Following the removal of attendance types 1010, 1020 and 1030 no one will be able to change records using these A/A types on work dates after March 31. Time Administrators can use transaction CATS_DA to search for records with these A/A types. If these records have not been approved, employees can change them in Employee Self Service. If they have been approved, a Time Administrator will need to change them. Q: I have quota corrections who can process them? A: If you have adjustments that need to be made to comp time quotas (overtime holiday or on-call comp) you will need to work with BEST Shared Services. This ensures that they will age correctly. Corrections to other quotas (such as vacation, sick, bonus, etc.) can be processed by Leave Administrators using the infotype 2013 for the appropriate quota type. Remember not to create more than one 2013 with the same start date for the same quota type.

Leave Balances and Liabilities

Q: Will military leave and FMLA balances show on the ZNCTIME time statement under the Absence Entitlements table or on the pay stub under the leave balances section? Also, I'm assuming advanced leave and AWL balances will show on the time statement under leave liabilities table, correct? A: The Time Statement is variable, it will show all balances the employee has and will not show lines for things the employee doesn't have. Any Liabilities the employee has will show in the Liabilities section. FMLA is not a quota balance and does not show on the Time Statement. Time Administrators can view the remaining FMLA balance by using PTFMLA. Q: If employees are set up to either receive Pay or receive Comp Time, will we be able to tell this on the screen as we are keying? Im wondering as some employees receive pay and then one week they may decide they want comp time. Will we be able to tell which is set up and also have the ability to change that in Beacon to Comp Time (or vice versa)?

A: The employee does not get to choose. This is determined by the agency and is stored with the position data. Employee time control settings may be viewed at the bottom of the Time Statement Q: We have employees with Prior State Service that we have not received yet. We are giving them the minimum accruals of leave until we get that information. Once we do receive the correct service and leave balances, how do we correct in Beacon? A: Your agencys HR Master Data Maintainer will make the correction to the State Service in the Personnel Administration module of SAP. Once the State Service is corrected in Beacon, the leave accruals, for the months since go-live, will be adjusted the next time the Time Evaluation batch program runs. Any adjustments prior to go-live must be made by the Leave Administrator. Q: Is the only time a manager can see their employees leave balances when the employee requests leave or will they be able to see the balances at anytime via MSS? A: They do not have access to the leave balances in MSS without a specific leave request. Q: Will travel comp in the hierarchy be deactivated for agencies that do not offer that? A: Travel Time Comp is a State policy. If agencies don't allow their employees to record 9515, then the quota will be zero. It will remain the hierarchy, as the hierarchy applies to all BEACON agencies. Q: Does comp time taken apply to accrual time? For example if an employee meets 50% at the completion of the 11th day of work, yet they work 10 days and use comp on the 11th day, does the comp day count towards accrual? A: Yes, it does. Any single entry (even for one minute!) in pay status will cause that day to count as a day towards the 50% for leave accrual. Q: Is it possible to see in Beacon when an employee's leave will accrue so they can plan their time off? A: Not specifically, because for positive time employees it depends on their entries for the period. An entry of LWOP would delay an accrual. The math is: count the number of work days in the month for this employee, divide by 2, that is the number of workdays that must be recorded (not LWOP) and approved before the employee will accrue their leave. Q: Will the software automatically convert Vacation leave in excess of 240 at the end of the year into Sick Leave? A: Yes, the conversion will occur at the end of the year.

Q: With regard to adverse weather leave, do employees still have a year to make up their adverse weather leave outage before it starts pulling from the leave hierarchy? A: From the date of the Adverse Weather event, any additional hours worked in excess of the employee's work schedule will be intercepted and applied to the liability until it has been satisfied. If the employee does not have any additional hours worked, then after 1 yr, the employee will be required to elect to use 9000 leave or be docked to satisfy the liability. Q: If an employee does not pay back adverse weather time within 12 months, can the time be reallocated to vacation (and be deducted) rather than docked from pay? A: The employee may elect to have their leave quota reduced (if they have leave), or may choose to be docked. It is not automatic. The system will generate a message to the leave admin saying it needs to be resolved. It is a standard PA61 quota adjustment to reduce the advanced leave or adverse weather to zero, and make the corresponding adjustment to the quota they want to use to pay it back. Q: Holiday - "If the EE is in a pay status for >50% of the month, then that EE would be entitled to the holiday." Is this a change to existing policy, which grants the holiday if the EE is in pay status on the date of the holiday? A: The holiday will appear as available for the employee 30 days prior to the holiday. If is happens that the holiday comes, and the employee hasn't been showing up, and shouldn't be eligible for the holiday, the holiday quota may be manually removed from the employees quota. Because of the needs of agencies with 24X7 operations, the system will grant the holiday 30 days before, and cannot know what will happen in the meantime. Leave Administrators should be advised by a supervisor if corrective action is required. There has not been a change to the state policy on Holiday Leave, except to allow the quota to be created in advance, and to have the holiday remain available for 30 days after. Q: Leave Accrual information for Monthly Employee Payroll run important information to communicate. A: For monthly employees who are designated as "positive time", time data must be entered and approved for at least 50% of the working days in the month before Time Evaluation will generate their vacation and sick leave accruals for the month. The Payroll team is running Time Evaluation now for monthlies and will run Payroll later today. Any "positive time" employees who do not have this much time data approved at that time will not see the leave accruals on their pay statement for this period. Time Evaluation will generate the accrual once enough time data is approved, but it will not be reflected in the payroll cluster results that feed quota balances to the Pay Statement. These cluster results do not update unless Payroll for the same period is run again, which is unlikely to happen.

The most accurate leave balance information is available from within the SAP GUI in transaction PT50. Time Administrators or Leave Administrators can run this transaction. Q: In the TM300 Student Guide it says that if an employee works on a holiday they will receive Holiday Comp Time; the text does not mention how long the EE have before losing this time. Normally an EE has one year to use comp time vs. the 60 days: 30days before and 30 days after to use their holiday leave. A: Employees have up to one year to use Holiday Comp time. It is the first quota balance to be relieved when an employee records an Approved absence. The default holiday comp behavior is to pay it if the employee has not used that leave in one year's time. Holiday leave is the 9300 leave that is available for Positive Time employees from 30 days before a holiday until 30 days after. Q: Will Community Service Leave - 24 hrs default if nothing is entered into the system for CSL? And if so will the system default for those prorated as well? A: Community Service Leave is generated on the 1st of the year for eligible employees and is prorated automatically for employees starting after that. The first time a new hire is run through time evaluation, the allowable Community Service Leave will populate. Leave Administrators should not be making changes to Community Service Leave, unless the employee has elected CSL-Tutoring, which requires that the one quota be zeroed out and the other quota be created. Q: If an employee works more than his/her work schedule (8 hours) and takes a Community Service Leave day off on that Friday how will it be offset? Is Community Service Leave offset by OT? If so, how can we track to ensure that the employee is not taking more CSL than is normally permitted? A: Community Service Leave taken is offset with additional hours worked. For example, an employee works 2 hours over on Monday and takes 4 hours of Community Service Leave on Thursday. This employee will see their Community Service Leave reduced only 2 hours. The system will prevent employees from using more than the hours available in the quota. Quotas are checked when the timesheet is saved, or when Check Entries is selected from the toolbar in time entry. Q: Will employees who do not record time via ESS still be able to view time balances in ESS? A: Yes. The Quota Overview will still show an employee's quota balances even if they did not enter time through ESS. Q: Is Holiday Comp paid out 365 days from the holiday? I realize due to the leave hierarchy that in most cases it will be used up, but if it's not is the pay out date based on 365 days from the holiday are 30 days after the holiday?

A: Holiday Comp becomes eligible to be paid on the next available payroll after the 1 yr anniversary of the creation of the Holiday Comp. If you work the holiday, then it becomes holiday comp on the holiday and will pay one year from that date. If you let the holiday expire without taking it, and the leave admin goes in sometime after that and creates holiday comp, it will be payable one year from that date. Q: Do I need to enter holiday quota if I am a Negative time employee? I dont see any holiday time quota in my buckets. A: No, the system will assume that you are taking the holiday hours and enter the time automatically for you. You will not receive any quota holiday hours if you are a Negative time employee. The only time you are required to enter hours on a holiday is if you worked hours on that holiday. Q: Employees are advanced holidays further in advance than the 60 day window. How will Beacon handle this situation? A: OSP has approved the advancement of holidays 30 days in advance in Beacon. There is no State policy or provision to support holidays being advanced prior to 30 days before the holiday. Q: If a holiday falls on a non scheduled work day (holiday is Monday, their work schedule is T-Sa), what is DOC's (or everyone's) policy on that holiday - is it pushed to their next scheduled work day, etc.? A: The new OSP holiday policy allows the Holiday Leave to be taken up to 30 days in advance or 30 days after the holiday. It is up to the manager to schedule the time off. Holiday Premium pay will only result from work time reported on the holiday. Q: What does the expired column mean in the Absence entitlements in the ZNCTIME command? A: An exempt employee with comp time earned over 12 months ago will see that comp time amount expire after 1 year, in accordance with the state policy. Q: If a person has not worked 50% total hours for July, will they not get July 4 holiday even though they were in positive pay status on July 4? Let's say they went on LWOP on July 7. A: The employee will still get the holiday. Q: With DOC will employees leave accrual time change once Go-Live occurs. For example an employee with 10 years service earns 12.15 hours, will that change?

A: Beacon knows when the employees anniversary date is, and how many months of service they have. When they cross a threshold to the next level of leave accruals, the system will know, and accrue accordingly. Q: If the Leave Administrator uses PT50 to make a quota correction, is there a way to create a note to explain why? A: No, there is not an option. Q: If you have a liability for adverse weather, will it take earned time from vacation or only comp time to settle that liability? A: The Time Evaluation process will take extra time worked, before it becomes overtime pay or comp time leave, to repay a liability for adverse weather. An existing comp time balance will not be taken automatically to repay a liability. Vacation leave is not connected to an adverse weather liability in any way. Q: When the above has been entered, Time Administrator will not see the correct entry until Time Evaluation is run. A: True. A quota correction will not be visible on the quota until Time Evaluation has run. Q: If I take Adverse Weather Leave in December, will I still have 1 year to make it up or if I don't make it up and have no other leave will it come out of my January pay check? A: Yes, the employee will have one year to make up this liability. Q: Is there a report to show if an employee has repaid Adverse Weather leave? A: An employee's Adverse Weather liability will display on their Time Statement every month until the liability is satisfied by either additional hours of work, an offset by vacation or bonus leave, or a payroll docking for the hours owed. Employees have access to the Time Statement in ESS, and Time Administrators have access in SAP. Q: Officers have 11.5 hours of comp time at the start of each pay period, because of their work schedule. How will this work in the SAP system? They must take it off before the end off the month or we have to pay them. The state does not like to pay overtime. We have about 42 officers that are affected by this, which must be done before the end of the Month. Can they take the day anytime that month? A: Officers do not have 11.5 hours of comp time. They have a work schedule that has them listed for 11.5 more hours than they are really expected to work. It is a scheduling issue. On one of their scheduled days, with the consent of their supervisor, they will not be at work. They absolutely should not record leave on this day. They have not earned comp time, and if they record that day as a regular 9000 Approved Leave absence, it

will consume existing leave. The system does not track this 'built-in comp'. It knows work schedules, and it knows recorded hours. The 42 officers that have not taken their time off can certainly do so in the month. Note that it is merely a scheduled day when the employee is not at work, not a day of leave. Q: How is the DOC Correctional Officers 11.5 hours applied to the comp buckets? Is it applied once the 50% is reached or at the beginning of the month? A: Officers do not have 11.5 hours of comp time. Built-in Comp time is a scheduling tool - not actual earned comp time. DOC employees should record all of the hours they work, and all of their absences in the period. Employees do not earn comp time until they 1) complete their period and 2) work hours in excess of their planned hours. Any normal absence in the period should be entered as 9000 - Approved Leave, 9200 Sick Leave, or 9300 Holiday Leave. When an employee records a 9000 absence, it will consume EXISTING comp time, earned in a prior period, not 'BIC', so the employee should not reflect Leave taken if the absence isn't a true absence but instead a scheduled day off to keep their hours to 160 for the period. Also note that if the employee does not have comp time, it will draw from vacation or bonus. Employees are not required to make an entry just because they are scheduled to work. Employees are required to meet their minimum work hours for the period, and reflect leave if their hours are less than the minimum hours (160 for corrections officers). Leave hours recorded in excess of the required hours will be restored to the employee's quotas. Hours worked in excess of the required hours will first go to offset absences in the period, and then ultimately to comp time if additional hours remain. Q: What happens going forward with employees who are currently on an easy-payment (repayment for overpayment) plan in view of the new recovery of liabilities policy? A: Repayments will continue. The recovery of liabilities will apply to debts incurred after go-live. Leave advances will always be reconciled at the end of the year. Adverse weather liabilities will be recovered at the end of a rolling year, if the employee hasn't already met the obligation by working additional hours. Q: Re: "Duration of Validity Period" for the creditable service. How will we know what type of creditable service we are looking at? Is this Total State Service, Continuous State Service or Creditable Retirement Service. Please specify where these are shown and what they are called. A: Continuous State Service and Creditable Retirement Service are not captured as fields in SAP. However, the Original Hire Date and Agency Hire date are stored in IT 0041. The Total State Service is available in BI. Q: Longevity: Will Beacon automatically manage longevity for eligible employees or will it have to be manually prompted?

A: Beacon tracks months of service and will automatically generate Longevity when it is due. Q: What about comp time balances over 240 hours? A: Comp Time balances under 240 hours will age until they expire or become payable. If a subject employee has a balance of 240 hour, any hours earned over 240 will be paid. Q: If an employee does not work his or her 8 regularly scheduled daily hours, how is it noted in the system without that person being compensated shift differential, holiday pay, etc? A: Employees that do not complete their work schedule should record leave or 9400 Leave without pay. Shift pay is only payable for explicit entries of time worked. Q: Can employees be given the option to work overtime for monetary compensation or time compensationnoting that an employee may make a different decision with each request to work overtime? A: No. The comp or pay setting is a property of the position, not the employee, and the employee may not elect to change that setting. Q: When employees want to be paid and they have less than 240 hours of comp time this would be considered an exception for payroll. In the create and maintain data class, HR staff have been told that there is an action called a push code that will allow for this. How do we do it? A: Employees may not elect to be paid for comp time. See above. Q: Individuals that are initially loaded into the Beacon system with a comp-time balance greater than 240-unless used during the month of April, will excess be automatically paid out in the 4/30/08 check? A: Comp balances over 240 are paid in the next available payroll for subject employees. Q: What end date will employee leave balances (vac/sl/csl/ct/bonus leave, etc) have when Beacon goes live? A: The end dates will be12/31/9999, except for community service leave, which expires 12/31 of each year. Q: Will we receive (or can we generate) a report on all employees after loaded to Beacon, to verify their leave balances that have been initially loaded to the system? A: Use PT_QTA10

Q: If an employee is changed from the Alternate Calendar designation to the NC Calendar designation, is there a chance that a holiday could be added to the holiday bucket twice? This should be answered from several angles: If the change is while the employee is in the same position If the change is because the employee is changing positions If the change is through a substitution change A: Yes, if an employees calendar is changed, a holiday may be added to the holiday bucket twice. The Time Administrator must review the employees holiday quota and remove duplicate holiday hours if they had been granted by the system as a result of a calendar change.

FMLA/FIL
Q: How do we post FMLA for an employee who has been out on FMLA before BEACON 4-1-08 and after Beacon starts? A: FMLA may be pro-rated to reflect the remaining balance at go-live. FMLA is maintained by the Leave Administrator and is covered in TM310 Leave Administration. Q: Is there a 2-digit code for FMLA? A: There are not any codes for FMLA. Q: When creating an FMLA event, there are options for continuous and intermittent. What is the "planned hours" section for? It is beside the intermittent option - is it to specify how many hours the employee is expected to be out on an intermittent basis? Is this field required, if intermittent is chosen? A: Some people will be out for a block of time, others will be in and out. Either way, the base entitlement is still the same. 12 weeks @ 40 hours = 480 hours. Q: When choosing the FMLA profile, what is the difference between the three options listed: FMLA tester, FMLA approver, and FMLA Absence Coordinator? A: The FMLA Approver as the ability to create an FMLA event. The FMLA absence coordinator may attribute absences to an event, but cannot create an event. All Leave Administrators should have the Absence Coordinator functionality. Select Leave Administrators will have the ability to create FMLA events. Q: At "go live", how will SAP know if an employee meets the FMLA eligibility criteria of having 1040 hrs of pay status in the preceding 12 months? Will this have to be a manual process to determine, until enough data has been entered into SAP to calculate this?

A: There won't be enough data for the system to determine eligibility, but the FMLA event can be approved without that check. Q: While an employee is out on FMLA does a person have to still submit a timesheet? The question was raised while using the PTFMLA transaction. How would the system know which dates to enter? A: Absences are still entered for the employee by a time admin unless the employee elects to do it themselves via ESS. The Leave Administrator will go into PTFMLA, review absences that have been entered in the timesheet, and select which of those absences would apply to the event. The system does not enter dates. The event is created by a Leave Administrator (who is an FMLA approver) with a 1 year rolling eligibility period. Absences during that period are the ones subject to review and application to the event, up to a total of 12 weeks. Q: Time Statement - will it show balances (used hours, remaining hours, etc.) for shared leave and/or FMLA for the 12 weeks? A: It will not show the FMLA tracking. It does show leave balances, leave taken, offsets, etc. It does show VSL. FMLA may be viewed through the FMLA workbench by a FMLA Admin. Q: Is there going to be a Statewide FMLA policy change? A: The federal rules have changed to reflect a need to provide coverage for military personnel. At some point we will incorporate that change. Q: How is FML/FIL documented on the timesheet? Currently FML is documented on the timesheet. There is not an established code listed on the Time Administration Quick Reference Guide for FML/FIL. How will the FML be documented on SAP so the system can track how much is used by the employee? Note many employees use FML sporadically and not necessarily on sequential days. A: FMLA is tracked in a separate tool within SAP, not on the timesheet. Absences recorded on the timesheets, if related to the FMLA event, can be associated with the event in the FMLA tool after the fact. Q: When creating an FMLA event, does the system generate a letter to the employee? A: No, the system doesn't generate any correspondence. The employee typically applies for FMLA and is approved before the event is entered in SAP. Q: Is it possible to create reports of FLMA information in the CATS_DA transaction? A: The CATS_DA report doesn't reflect the FMLA status, just the absence. You would need to know the employee's event date range, and then you could run a report for all

the leave absence codes for that period, but you'd have to double check to make sure (in PTFMLA) that all of those absences were applied to the event. Q: Do employees get 12 weeks for each event if they have more than one FMLAeligible event in a year? A: Employees get 12 weeks, regardless of the number of events. For example, I have surgery in January for something and I am out for a month. Later that year, I adopt a child. It is 2 events, but the FMLA obligation is 12 weeks in a rolling year. Remember that nothing happens automatically when the person reaches 12 weeks. It is just a protection under the law and we want to prove that we have complied. Q: What is the process for Family Illness Leave in Beacon? How will this be tracked? A: SAP can provide a report of all absences recorded in the past year. That list may be used to evaluate an employees achievement of the 52 week (over 5 years) entitlement.

Overtime
Q: If an employee takes community service on Tuesday and works overtime on Wednesday and Thursday, will the system automatically offset the community service leave time with the comp time? If so, can the Leave administrator make adjustments to reverse the offset? Is it true that you can use comp instead of vacation and sick leave but not for community service leave. A: Yes, community service leave is offset if the employee uses leave and then works additional hours in the same period. It is not offset by Comp Time. It is offset by hours worked in the same period before comp time has been computed. Offsetting is the policy of the State. Time Administrators should not be manipulating balances to override system offsets. If an employee records Sick or Vacation, they too would be offset by additional hours recorded in the same period. Q: If a negative time employee who normally works an 8-hour day works a 13-hour day, when the employee records the 5 hours worked and clicks Refresh, does the system show the time worked as 13 hours? A: For negative time employees that work 5 additional hours, they would key the 5 additional hours and 5 would be the total for the day. For a negative time person any entries for work time are considered in addition to the defined work schedule, but it will not show 13 for the day, the first 8 hours are assumed and handled behind the scenes in time evaluation. Q: For a DHHS employee who would be a positive time subject employee, would it be possible for this employee to receive leave time instead of getting paid overtime? If so, who would enter this time (time administrator or HR Data Maintainer)? What is the procedure?

A: Positive Time Subject employees will be compensated for overtime in accordance with their Position setting for overtime. If the position is set to comp, the employee will receive comp time. If it is set to pay immediate, overtime will be paid in the next available payroll. Position settings are determined by the agency. They should be consistent for a class of employees. Overtime settings are often driven by budgetary constraints. Q: If an employee works 5 hours overtime in week 1 and time is entered on the following Monday, once time evaluation is run will the system convert those 5 hours to time and 1/2? A: The 5 extra hours in week 1 will become overtime when they have been approved, and then processed in Time Evaluation at the end of that overtime period. For the 7-day overtime period, the 5 hours would be reflected as overtime by Monday if the employee did not have any absences in that same period to offset. Please note, for the 28-day employee, the 5 hours from week 1 will not be considered OT until the entire 28-day period is complete. Even then, it will not be overtime until absences in the period have been balanced against any additional hours that may have been worked. Q: What agencies have 28 day employees? A: Agencies with certified law enforcement officers may use 28 day work schedules to manage overtime. Q: If an EE owes Advanced Leave, and they work 5 hours extra during the week, will the 5 hours be credited to the liability -- or will the time be credited as time and 1/2? A: If the person is a 40 hr/7 day person, eligible for overtime/Comp Time AND Subject to FLSA, the hours are 40 are computed at 1 and 1/2 before they are applied to the liability. Q: Does work schedule or pay period determine period for leave offsetting? For example, for employees paid once a month, can overtime comp earned in week 1 offset leave taken in weeks 2-4? Please clarify "period" referenced in the answer to in the question about Comp Time earned in a period when leave was taken. A: Neither the work schedule nor the pay period determine the period for leave offsetting. The period used for offsetting is the overtime period for the employee. This is stored in the system on IT0007 as the "Working Week". It is typically a 7-day period, but it some cases can be 14 days, 28 days, or 1 year. Q: Will employees still be able to choose whether they want to use comp time or get paid for their overtime? If yes, how would they do this?

A: No, employees do not get to make the election. It is determined by their position. People in similar positions should have similar settings. Your OM person has access to the position infotypes that affect overtime eligibility and pay out. Q: When an employee is eligible for overtime and earns comp time it indicates on page 27 in the notes that the comp time earned will stay on the books for 60 days until the employee will receive the overtime pay. We need clarification on what this statement means. A: How long comp time stays on the books depends on the OT setting for that employee. The default is 365 days. Some agencies allow for a shorter period. Whatever the setting is on infotype 9005 is what the system will do. To see when comp time will pay out, go to PA20 or PA51, and view infotype 9901 for an employee (be sure to select 'all' as the date range). Q: What happens to "mutual consent," a term used by Dept of Corrections that means when an employee has a week over 40 hours, and later works a week less than 40 hours, and he wants to use overtime by "mutual consent." How will this affect weekly time data entry for employees? A: There is no mutual consent functionality provided by Beacon. Each week stands independently in the system. Leave is used to bring an employees time up to 40 hours (or whatever is assigned to the employees schedule). For example, an employee normally works 40 (8 hrs Mon-Fri) a week. The employee takes Monday off and selects 8 hrs of leave. However, if the employee then works 10 hours a day the rest of the week and totals 40 hrs at the end of the week, the leave will not be deducted.

Time Sheet Correction

Q: If time has already gone through evaluation, and a correction needs to be made reducing the number of hours worked, how would that be done? If additional time entered after time evaluation has run requires the use of an additional line, would an additional line be used to show the deduction? A: When a time sheet is edited, it flags Time Evaluation to re-run all the way back to the start of the week with the changed record. Additional hours may be entered as an additional line or the original cell may be overwritten with a lesser value. The fact that a cell has been changed may be viewed in CATS_DA - there is a little icon within the table that, when clicked, will display the change history of that entry. Q: Once the Time Administrator views the Time Evaluation Messages Display, how do they correct the problems? A: You need to research and correct the problems on the Time Sheets. If you need further assistance with the Time Sheets, please contact BEST Shared Services.

Q: Will all Time Administrators be able to change/correct entries for non-ESS users when the time has already been approved? A: Time Administrators can correct entries for their own people, not for everyone in the organization. Time Administrators can correct entries regardless of their source (ESS or CAT2) or status (Released, Approved). Q: If the agency time administrator enters time for an employee, can the employee go into ESS and make a change after a week's work of info has been keyed in (if the agency has both ESS and time administrators keying in time)? A: Time entered by a Time Administrator is stored as Approved. The only person that can modify Approved records is the Time Administrator. The employee entering time in ESS may make changes to their own entries until it is approved by the supervisor. After that, the only person that can modify the record is the Time Administrator. Q: If you find youve made an error in keying an employees time and a. Its already been approved by their supervisor b. Its before the actual pay date Is there a way to fix this in the system? A: Time Administrators have the ability to correct entries after approval. Corrections made after the payroll cutoff will be corrected in the next payroll. Q: I keep reading and hearing about mistakes being red flagged who sees these red flags? Who is responsible for correcting these flagged mistakes? A: Errors at the point of entry are noted before the record is saved. Hard errors will prevent the entries from being saved. Time Evaluation errors are available for the Time Admin to review via PT_ERL00.

Time Entry
Q: Is it mandatory for an agency to use the Time Approval System in Beacon? Can they use a manual approval process for approving leave? A: When an Agency allows Time Administrators to enter the time, it is assumed that the time has been keyed from a Time Sheet that has already been approved by a supervisor or manager. When an employee makes their own entries in ESS, it is mandatory that a manager or supervisor approved those records before they can be processed for payroll. Without that approval, records will not be processed

The Leave request process is entirely optional. The Leave request doesn't reduce the balance, only the actual entry for the absence reduces the quota. It is more of a planning/information tool for managers and supervisors. Q: Do contract employees enter time through ESS or through a time administrator? A: Temporary employees may be handled either way --it depends on the Agency. Some have their temps using ESS; others have the Time Administrator key the time into Beacon. Q: What A/A type do you use to record Bonus Leave? A: 9000 Approved Leave. Q: Will all employees receive 1/12 of their base pay (annual salary) even if hours worked have not been keyed into the system? A: Yes, except for temporaries and DOT personnel. However, Positive Time employees that do not record their time will not accrue leave. Q: Scenario: The last two days of the previous month are taken as R days by an employee. Employee then takes another R day during the same 7 day week period that falls at the start of a new month. Can this be corrected- shift diff on day actually worked the previous month? In addition, will Beacon automatically flag mistakes where too many R days are taken in a 7-day work week? A: Beacon doesnt have R days. Q: What do the "Release View" and "Variable View" buttons do in the CAT2 transaction? They are on the bottom of the time sheet screen. When would these be used? A: All of the profiles available for the time admin save the records as released and approved. The Release View button is only relevant is the Time Admin had to release those records prior to the Approval Process. They don't, because it is automated. The variable view shows the time sheet based on the status of the records. Again, because the statuses are released, approved, and released not approved, they aren't really relevant to the Time Admin. If the time is entered in error using one of the ESS profiles, the time administrator can use the buttons to release the time. This would only happen if the time administrator used the wrong profile. Q: When a positive time employee who works 5x8's M-F(no other special time rules or exceptions) works 10 hours on Monday, how will they code the 2 additional hours? Do they use 9510 for the extra hours and 9500 for the other 8 hours? Will they code all 10 hours as 9500 time worked? Is 9510 ONLY for the physicians and physicians assistants as noted in class and in the student guide?

A: Unless you are an eligible physician or physicians assistant, you will record all time worked as 9500. Your work time, overtime, and comp time is computed using settings for your position. The only time 9510 should be used is for some Doctors and Physicians Assistants whose positions are designated as eligible for "Extended Duty." Q: What would Beacon would do if an employee recorded work on a holiday and then recorded 9300 Holiday Leave on the next day, or another day in the same week. When Beacon time evaluation processes 8 hrs of work time on a holiday, it will move 8 hours from the Holiday quota to the Holiday Comp quota. When BEACON time evaluation processes the 9300 on the next day, it will look for hours in the Holiday quota, which at that point would actually be for the next holiday, if there is one in the next 30 days. A: Holiday time taken within 30 days of the holiday (before or after) is coded as 9300. If the holiday is not taken within that window, the leave administrator must create quota in the Holiday Comp bucket. When the employee takes any Approved Leave, Beacon will use that time first. In that case, the proper way to record the time off is to use 9000 Approved Leave. That is where the "equal time off" or "holiday comp" hours have been moved to. Use 9300 Holiday Leave if the leave is taken before the holiday, on the holiday itself, or up to 30 days after the holiday. Q: When an employee participates as a Disaster Service Volunteer with the American Red Cross, what is the appropriate A/A Type to code? This policy provision is usually covered under Community Service Leave. The CSL quota is limited to either 24 or 36 hours per year. What happens if they use this initial CSL quota and also need to assist with a Disaster Event? Provided the supervisor approves (according to the previous answer), where / how is this Disaster Leave event(s) covered in the system? How is it coded? A: The policy covering Community Service Leave is posted online at the OSP website. It allows for more than 24 hours of community service leave under some very specific circumstances. If an employee were to be granted additional CSL, it would be added to the quota by the Leave Administrator. The employee would use those hours by recording 9560 - Community Service Leave. Q: One of the students has a question pertaining to time entered during the week of go live. If an employee works overtime during the week of go live on Monday 3/31, will the employee receive their hours for that day and any other overtime they might work for that week In other words, how will BEACON account for this one day prior to go live and the resulting overtime for that week? A: Employees will enter work time and non-quota leave time (9400, 9540, 9550, etc) for their OT period at go-live. For the 28 day employee, the entry will extend over a longer period of time. For the 7 day employee, they will only make entries for the 7 day period that is their work week (ie, Sat - Fri, or Sun-Sat). Example: April 1 is a Tuesday. Employee has a Sun - Sat work week. We will expect that employee to enter work time

(if appropriate) for Sunday, March 30th and Monday, March 31st. Leave time (vacation or sick) should be entered with extreme caution. Employees that projected their absence may have already had that amount deducted from their leave balance prior to go-live. If the absence was unexpected, it may be entered and will be deducted from the leave quota. The complete OT period -- 7 days or 28 -- will be processed to determine OT. Q: What data entry profile would someone choose if their start date occurs on a Friday? A: The start day of the profile should match the agency's work week. At go live, there will be ESS profiles and CAT2 profiles to match all of the work weeks identified by the agencies. ESS-Fri will be the ESS profile with a Friday start, NORML-FRI will be the CAT2 profile. Q: Re: A/A Code 9400 - What are the paperwork requirements? A: That is an internal agency decision. In BEACON, 9400 may be entered at any time. When 9400 is used, it will reduce the employee's pay. It may be used when an employee comes up short, like having on 38 hours when they need 40. Employees using 9400 should do so only after receiving consent from their supervisor. Q: If there is an AWL balance on the system, will OT entries for A/A 9500 be used to satisfy the AWL balance or MUST the A/A 9512 type be used? Also, will OT entries using 9512 generate time & 1/2 calculations for those subject to OT? A: 9400 is the appropriate entry if an employee was not at work and doesn't have leave to cover the absence. 9400 may be used to get the employee to 40 hours, but not over. If the employee has additional hours worked in the week (recorded as 9500, 9510, or 9512) in the week, those hours will be considered towards the 40. The employee will only be docked for LWOP hours if they are still under 40 and have made a 9400 entry. Time entered as 9500, 9510, and 9512 will all be considered in the OT calculation, once leave offsets in the same period have been considered. Q: Can the Time Administrator enter time early for example - if the Time Administrator knows that he or she is going on vacation can he or she enter the next weeks time before leaving on vacation? Or what if an employee is working in the "field" and wanted enter time in for that week? A: Yes, time can be entered in advance of the actual date. Q: DOC staff has conflicting information regarding how often they will enter their time sheet data. Can someone please confirm their input schedule? A: The system does not require a change in the timing of time sheets. It is up to DOC leadership if there is a required change. None has been communicated to the Beacon team

Q: If the employee is calling in sick and has a lot of comp time, is it ok to not put in A/A 9200 and use A/A type 9000 instead? What are the precautions or considerations? A: If the employee ELECTS to use comp time for an illness, they may record 9000, instead of 9200. The employee cannot be forced to use Comp Time before Sick Leave. Q: If an EE does not earn shift premiums Mon-Fri, does a Substitution code need to be used in order to pay that EE if working on his/her "free" day? If no Substitution code is required, how is it handled and posted? A: Employees may work on their day off and reflect the time as time worked. The 2003 substitution becomes important if the employee agreed to work an extra day, but then went home sick. If substituted, they could reflect the leave. Otherwise, you cannot reflect leave on a scheduled day off. As noted in the question, substitutions are also relevant when there are premiums associated with the shift the employee will be working. Q: Will employees who start 2 days before a holiday have the benefit of the holiday? A: Yes. Q: Which code would the Time administrator used for the following scenario? The employee does not have any leave time and takes a day off but works on Saturday to make it up. A: The employee would record work hours on Saturday, and not record anything on Monday. Q: Beacon recommends weekly time entry to ensure timely accruals. DOC will continue using paper time sheets for now. Does this mean DOC should get an employee's time sheet weekly, input the information, and give the time sheet back to the employee each week? A: Yes, weekly entry is recommended for all agencies. The final decision on how is with DOC leadership. Q: If position is not approved for overtime and it is entered on the time sheet what type of error or warning will be given and will the employee get paid for the overtime entered? A: Employees that are not eligible will not receive payment for additional hours recorded on the time sheet. Q: Before April 1, 2008, employees on salary continuation submit timesheets. Will they continue to have to submit timesheets in Beacon?

A: No, employees on salary continuation do not have to submit timesheets in Beacon. Q: Would employees see an error if they were using ESS and they wanted to use time before they earned time for this month? A: When the employee records leave and selects review, it checks to see if they have leave to take. If they do not, it will return an error saying the employee doesn't have sufficient quota to cover the absence. The employee must fix the error before they will be able to save the record. An employee entering an absence in advance for next week or the week after will not be able to make the entry if they don't have quota at the time they make the entry. Q: In some cases workers comp claims and injury leave can take several months/years. Will the time sheets have to be recoded or can the Leave Administrator just make a manual adjustment? Is it handled the same way as military leave? A: What the agency can do depends on when it happens. There is a difference between pre-go live and post go-live. If the entire event is in BEACON, then changing the entries might be appropriate. The entries could be changed in the timesheet, or on the 2001/2002 infotypes directly. As far as the agencies policy on military leave, please contact OSP. Q: Im the Time Administrator, and I cannot make changes to someones time sheet. If its been approved, shouldnt I be able to make changes? A: When going back and making adjustments to approved time, you must make those adjustments using a profile that allows changes after approval - such as the non-ESS profiles. If using a profile that does not allow changes after approval (such as the ESS profiles) then the correction entry to the time just goes away. To determine whether a profile allows changes after approval, choose the profile in transaction code CAT2, then click on the Settings button (the floating head). On the General tab, if there is a check in the box No changes after approval, then the profile will NOT allow you to make changes. Locate a profile that allows you to make changes (no check in the check box). Q: When entering time my schedule shows 50 hours of expected work I normally only work 40 hours a week. A: The particular work schedule you may be on is a "flex" schedule set up to allow up to 10 hours a day on Monday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday are designated as "Off" days. There is a separate setting that tells the system you are only required to work 40 hours within your 7 day overtime period. The "flexibility" of your work schedule is reflected on the timesheet as 10 "planned hours" on each of the days Monday through Friday. This does not mean you are expected to work 10 hours on each of those days - it means you are allowed to report up to 10 hours of absence on any of

those days. You can always report up to 24 hours of "time worked" on any day, regardless of your work schedule. Q: Will Time Administrators have a requirement to input time sheets for employees on Short Term Disability before and after April 1? A: They definitely will not have that need prior to when the employee goes live in SAP. After go-live, the STD process may include the use of paid leave hours, but they will be entered in IT 2001 within one of the PA transactions, not in the time sheet. Q: If a person is out sick and without comp hours available, will vacation cover that sick time? A: Employees can use comp leave or vacation leave to cover a sick absence. They are not required to do so. By recording 9000, comp leave would be reduced first, and then vacation leave. Q: Can an agency decide what type of reporting to use or are they required to report according to the definitions listed in TM300? For example, will the system allow an agency to use Positive time/exception pay reporting for employees who are not subject to FSLA? For example, all employees subject to and not subject to FSLA enter all time and exceptions. A: All Subject employees must be Positive Time, because the State must pay them for all hours worked. Except for DOT, all employees are exception pay. We will pay the employee their base salary in the absence of any entries at all as long as they are active. The difference between Positive and Negative Time recording is an agency decision for their non-subject employees. Employees that are Negative Time must record their exceptions, like leave taken, but otherwise could go indefinitely without making an entry. Holidays are assumed, and leave accruals are automatic, based on the assigned work schedule. If the agency is ok with those assumptions, then Negative Time recording could be an appropriate election for non-subject employees. Q: If an agency has an employee who has been deployed for almost 3 years and under current rules a time sheet must be completed for the purpose of tracking sick and vacation leave earned while on active duty. Will the system be set up to automatically calculate the leave balances due the employee or will someone need to complete a time sheet in SAP for the employee every week? A: The employee on an extended LOA will not be required to do timesheets. When the employee returns, the amount of leave owed will be calculated and added to their quota balances. If the employee does not return, the amount that is owed will be determined and paid in accordance with the normal separation procedures.

Q: How do you record if an employee starts with a -0- balance for sick and then is out before the 15th of the next month? (This is a frequent occurrence for nurses- had two this month) A: If an employee does not have any leave, he or she must record 9400 for hours when not at work. 9400 is the code that will dock them for the missing hours. Q: Who covers time input if Im out? A: Employees that normally use ESS should contact their Time Administrator if they are unable to make their entries by the deadline. Time Administrators should have a designated backup if they are unable to complete their entries by the deadline. Q: Will we be printing our a timesheet for employees? Will they sign it? Will we keep hard copies of the signed timesheet? A: Agency policies will dictate the need for paper copies and signatures. Q: How does a timekeeper substitute rights to key hours worked, leave taken, etc. for their assigned employees to another timekeeper? A: They dont. All Timekeepers should have a designated backup that already has security authorization for their employees. If the Time Admin is unable to get the timesheets entered, the backup should be able to make the entries. (Security Roles and Authorizations require lead time to enable.) Q: Can a managers substitute approve employees hours? If so, how is this done? A: No. Managers may not routinely designate someone else to manage their employees. Under emergency circumstances, a Time Approver may use SAP to approve time entered in ESS that a manager failed to approve. Q: If a timekeeper or manager resigns/leaves employment, what are the steps to get the employees they were responsible for temporarily re-assigned for Beacon processing purposes? A: All Timekeepers should have a designated backup that already has security authorization for their employees. If the Time Admin is unable to get the timesheets entered, the backup should be able to make the entries. (Security Roles and Authorizations require lead time to enable.) Under emergency circumstances, a Time Approver may go through R/3 to approve time entered in ESS that a manager failed to approve. Q: Do negative time employees need to enter additional hours worked (more than normal schedule) in the system?

A: If an employee is on a negative time schedule, they are not required to enter time to receive credit and reimbursement for their normal work schedule. It is at the discretion of the Agency whether they want to use the system to track additional normal hours worked on attendance type 9500. For example, if the individual is scheduled for 8 hours of work on Monday, and they work 10 hours, if the Agency would like to use the system to track these additional 2 hours, they may for internal reporting purposes. They may also choose not to track the additional 2 hours using SAP, they may track it in an offline system. All non-worked time (approved leave, sick, etc.) must be entered for negative pay employees. Do not use 9510 to track additional hours worked unless you are an eligible physician of physicians assistant. Q: If a person starts work as a new hire, then realizes after only a day of work that this job isnt for them, how is that recorded on their time sheet? A: If a person starts on Monday, and only works part of the day before leaving the job, based on an 8-hour a day work schedule, enter 4 hours of Time worked, 4 hours of 9400 Leave without pay, and process a separation effective the next day, Tuesday. All hours on their work schedule must be accounted for, even if they didnt work them all, to be processed by payroll.

MSS/ESS
Q: Can managers approve leave in MSS even though no official ESS leave request form was entered? A: Managers can approve absence (leave) time records in ESS even though no ESS Leave Request has been entered. ESS Leave Requests and the entry of an absence time record in ESS are completely separate items in SAP. Managers must approve absence time records for time processing to be completed. Use of the Leave Request functionality is optional. Approving or rejecting a Leave Request does not have any effect on absence time records. Q: How long does Beacon/ESS keep a pay stub accessible to the employee? A: There are no specific plans to remove payroll results data from the system at this time. At some point in the future, an archiving strategy will need to be implemented so that older data can be moved out of the Production system. A decision will be made then regarding whether payroll results will be moved to BI and made available through ESS or not. Q: Im trying to enter a leave request in ESS in the past, but it wont let me. Why? A: The concept of Leave Requests in SAP is primarily to facilitate resource planning, not for historical documentation. According to this logic, it doesn't make sense to "plan" for days in the past, so ESS will not let you submit leave requests for past dates.

The user will still have to enter time records for the absence, and the supervisor will have to approve them before SAP will process them.

Leave Hierarchy
Q: Is military leave in the leave hierarchy? Does overtime offset military leave? A: Additional hours worked will be used to offset Military Leave recorded in the same OT period. Military leave is not in the leave hierarchy. Q: Will unused Holiday be paid after the 13th cycle (DOC) or does the spend it, move it, or lose it rule apply? A: Unused Holiday Comp Time will pay once the anniversary date has passed, and it will pay in the next available payroll after that date. Because Holiday Comp Time is the very first in the Leave Hierarchy, it is not likely that the employee will see holiday comp payouts unless they never record a day of leave. Q: To confirm - they understand the order of the 'buckets' of what gets taken first, does it then move to the sick 3-bucket order, or is that completely independent? When does the second sick bucket hierarchy kick in? A: The hierarchies for Approved Leave and Sick Leave are separate. Reporting time with absence type 9000 will only result in deductions from the Approved Leave hierarchy of "buckets". Reporting time with absence type 9200 will only result in deductions from the Sick Leave hierarchy of "buckets". There is no crossover. Q: Will the system exhaust all comp time balances before sick leave and other available leave balances? A: Comp Time and Sick Leave are not related. The 9000-Approved Leave code will relieve quotas in the established order. An employee cannot be required to use comp time for a Sick absence, although the employee may elect to do so. Otherwise, all sick absences would be reported as 9200 - Sick Leave. Q: If I have a person who works 45 hours week one earning 5 hours overtime and 32 hours in week 2. When he codes approved leave to those 8 hours on week two, will it pull from the comp bucket first even though it is a different week? Or will he be paid out for the time in week one? A: Approved Leave will always deduct from the quota buckets in the order of the hierarchy, using the available hours in each quota at that time. Any overtime comp earned is put into the quota buckets when the last day of the employee's overtime period is processed in Time Evaluation.

Q: Some DCC employees have a 28 day work cycle and the question is as follows: If at the end of the cycle and on the last day, the employee is sick and shows 8 hours as sick leave. If the employee has time showing in the leave buckets, will the system offset and use the leave time in the leave bucket? A: When an employee takes leave in a 28 day period, that absence will be offset with additional hours worked in that period - that is before anything gets computed and bucketed for the period. An employee showing 8 hrs of Leave on the last day of the month, who worked 16 additional hours in the previous 28 days, would see that 8 hours of leave restored to his leave quota and would end the period with 8 extra hours (instead of 16) that then would be considered for OT or Comp, depending on eligibility. If that same employee has an absence on the 28th day but did not have any extra hours worked in that period, the leave would come from existing quotas. Q: Policy question about leave hierarchy: How will the policy read regarding employees who are out sick and do not want to use comp time as shown in the hierarchy? A: Sick leave and the 9000 hierarchy are distinctly different. If you record sick leave (9200), it comes from your sick leave, if you record approved leave (9000), it pulls from your comp and then you vacation in the prescribed order. Some employees may choose to use their comp time instead of sick. They can do that by recording 9000, instead of 9200, even if they are home with the flu. Q: Will the system allow you to take holidays in advance or following the date that they actually occur? If so, whats the window of opportunity to do that? A: Positive Time employees may take their holiday 30 days in advance, or up to 30 days after the designated holiday.

Work Schedule
Q: What happens if you have multiple work schedules? What will show besides 40 hours? Where will this display? A: An employee can only have one "work schedule rule" valid on any given date. Q: Questions regarding DOC-specific work schedules. How will we handle people who work non-standard work schedules such as 8 hour days but the days are different each week? How is a work schedule where a person works four 10 hour days except for one week when they work four 9 hour days and one 1/4 day accommodated? DOC has this schedule and the person working the four 9 hour days and on 1/4 day changes each week. A: There are numerous work schedules loaded for DOCs different scenarios. Time administrators can also override the work schedule with manual time entry for exceptions. See the work schedule job aid online.

Q: Who will enter the initial work schedule for a position? Will this be an OM or PA role. Also, what transaction code will that be? A: The Master Data Maintainer has access to manage the work schedule which is stored on Infotype 7. It can be done with PA30. Q: How do you view who entered the substitute work schedule? Is there a display function? A: You can display substitutions (Infotype 2003) in an overview format to review a list of entries. There isn't a way to display the person who changed the record. The only people with access to create a substitution are people that have authorization for that particular employee. I could use a person from another department to fill in for a shift, but their own Time Admin would have to enter the substitution for me. Q: Can an employee make a schedule substitution in ESS? A: No. An ESS user cannot create a work schedule substitution. Q: For temporary pool people: The work schedule was reported as working irregular hours. The positions are not set up as particular shifts. How do you enter into Beacon? (Different shifts make different rates of pay.) A: All employees are assigned to a work schedule. Employees that are eligible for shift pay will be compensated for shift pay if their time is coded for shift pay. In some cases, push codes are needed to make sure employees hours are paid properly. Q: How would a staff persons time be keyed when he/she is hired into a 10 hour 4 day work week when he/she is required to take New employee orientation for 8 hour days for about 7 working days? A: Employees should record their work hours as they occur. Employees that meet their total number of required work hours in the week do not need to make additional entries. BEACON will allow employees to record work hours on any day, even if the say is not a scheduled work day for that employee. Q: How do work schedule rules, working weeks, and personnel subarea interact with each other, and what is their effect on various pay elements and time entry? (The majority of our 7K employees rolled over as 7 day norm). A: Changes to work schedule rules need to become effective at the beginning of the overtime period (rather than the beginning of the pay period) so that the overtime calculation, and therefore pay, is not pro-rated.

Q: How do time and leave entries interact in rotating schedules, where one week is greater than 40 hours and the alternating week is less than 40 hours for 7K and exempt employee schedules? (For example - Worked 44 hours one week and 36 hours the next on a rotating exempt schedule. The system puts 4 hours comp in the bucket, doesnt offset in the short week, and wont let them enter leave on short week since theyre not scheduled to be at work). A: To enable a rotating schedule for an employee, the working week needs to identify the total number of days in one rotation of the schedule. In the example cited above, the working week should be defined as 14 days. Exempt employees can be on rotating schedules. Employees subject to overtime pay cannot be on rotating schedules because by definition, a subject employee will be paid overtime for time worked in excess of 40 hours in a week.

Time and Leave Infotypes

Q: What is the difference between the 2 Infotypes of IF2003: Substitution and Substitution:Indiv. Working Times? A: Here is the list of 2003 subtypes: Employee Substitution 02 Shift substitution 05 LOA Generic 06 STD (1st 6 mths prior 89) 07 STD (2nd 6 mths prior 89) 08 STD (1st 6 mths after 89) 09 STD (2nd 6 mths after 89) 10 LOA FMLA 11 LOA - WC Regular 12 LOA - WC Salary Cont 13 LOA - Military I assume you are referring to the first two. An Employee Substitution works by entering the Personnel Number of the employee whose work schedule you want to substitute in place of the current one. A Shift Substitution works by entering a Daily Work Schedule or Work Schedule Rule that you want to substitute in place of the current settings. Q: What is the subtype "PERT eligibility & rates" used for? It is a subtype of the infotype 2012-"Time Transfer specifications". A: PERT stands for "Prison Emergency Response Team". This 2012 is used for additional pay to designated employees. Q: Where is longevity shown? Please specify field, infotype and/or what course this is covered in.

A: We store a date on IT0041 that is used to derive total months of service. We are in the process of including the information on the Time Statement, which will be available through ESS or through a Time Administrator. In the meantime, infotype 0041 may be viewed by anyone with the Display Time role, which includes Time Administrators, Leave Administrators, HR Master Data Maintainers and some payroll functions. It is also available as part of the Time Evaluation results, calculated overnight, every night PT_BAL00, for Time Administrators with access to that information

Voluntary Shared Leave (VSL)

Q: Will the system do the return pro-rated calculation for VSL? A: No, the return of VSL is a manual process. That is due to the complications associated with sorting out active employees from inactive employees in BEACON and non-BEACON agencies if there is leave to be returned. Only employees still active when the leave is returned are eligible for the return of leave. Where agencies outside of BEACON have donors, that is a manual notification process to let them know to restore leave. BEST will be available to assist if agencies need to execute the return of shared leave process to donors in other agencies. Q: How is voluntary shared leave handled, added to an employees record for them to use? A: Using Infotype 696 and 613. See the BPP for Voluntary Shared Leave.

SAP Functionality
Q: How do you modify or update a variant report? A: Once you have established the criteria you want, choose Goto --> Variant --> Save as ... and give it a name. When you return to the transaction to use the variant Goto-->Variants ----> Get Variant ... and choose the variant you created. Q: Can CAT2 show weekdays as default instead of dates? Also, is there a way to expand the columns automatically when you choose "Show Weekdays"? A: No to both questions. Q: Display Time ZNCTIME, on the Print Statement Form, does the spool retention period only being able to go up to 9 days mean that you can print off a time statement for that period for up to 9 days after it was generated? Can you please explain what this field means? A: Spool retention in SAP means that if you print a document, and don't dump the memory, it will only keep in the spool for 9 days, then will dump from memory. Q: What is the trash can icon for on Leave Administration? When is it used?

A: PA61 and Infotype 2013 should be used instead of the trashcan function. Remember, only Leave Administrators have the ability to correct leave quotas. Q: Can Time Statements be emailed from ZNCTIME? A: No Q: Will there be a way to type a comment on the PA61 screen so that an explanation can be typed when changing leave quotas? A: Within the PA61 transaction, when creating or editing infotypes, you may hit F9, record text and save that entry. It creates an icon on the screen you can click on to see the text. That is the only way to see the entry. It doesn't appear if you choose 'overview' for an infotype or if you choose list entry Q: What is the code "Z021 Process Adverse Weather" used for? We are guessing that it is used to recoup pay for an Adverse Weather day if time was not made up by an employee. A: It is a background process for managing the creation of a Liability when an employee records Adverse Weather. If an employee has a liability that is outstanding, Time Evaluation will generate a message that the Liability must be reconciled. Q: We have been told there is one HR person per facility who will be able to view old information (e.g., Social Security numbers) is this true? A: There are SAP roles that have access to that information. The role-mapping exercises determined who in each agency should have access to what. Please contact your BEACON representative to see who was mapped to the HR Master Data Maintainer role. That role has view access to the infotype containing the SSN. Q: When you're looking at the calendar and see 4 under Holiday time why do you have numbers 1-9 to choose from, and not just one number (such as 4) to show Holiday? A: PA51 is just display, so the user should not be changing anything in this screen. They do not need to select a value in this dropdown. They do not need to click on the drop down at all. If they see a 4 in the field, it means it's a holiday. That is the "holiday class" value Beacon chose to configure for holidays. Otherwise it is not a holiday.