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Dissecting SAPs ESS Record Working Time service in EhP5 Part 1 by Francois Botha
Posted by Sarah Enders on Martes, 24 Enero 2012 in EPI-USE America
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At this year's 2012 SAP HR Insider Show (HR 2012) held at the MGM in Las Vegas, I will be presenting on "How to optimize your ESS time entry process with new functionality in SAP enhancement package 5." (http://hr2012.com/US/Sessions/2564/?tid=507&s=&u=). With over 13 years of SAP experience, I have been involved in over 15 SAP HR implementations, and currently work at EPI-USE as the Center of Excellence Lead in SAP Time Management.

To introduce you to this topic and to prepare you for this session, I will be writing a series of blogs about my trials and tribulations while dissecting the redeveloped SAP ESS (Employee Self Service) Record Working Service in EhP5. In preparing for my HR2012 presentation as well as planning an upgrade from EhP4 to EhP5, I decided to start this blog with the following goals in mind: Share my experiences and knowledge gained in dissecting the new EhP5 Record Working Time Service Solicit feedback and creative ideas that fellow SAP experts and bloggers have gained while implementing or replacing an older version of the Record Working Time service As many of you might be aware, SAP has redeveloped the CATS (Cross Application Timesheet) ESS service a total of 3 times J: o 4.6c (Internet Transaction Server using Business HTML) ECC5.0 & ECC6.0 EhP4 and before (Web Dynpro for Java) ECC6.0 EhP5 and beyond? (Web Dynpro for ABAP) http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-wdabap#section2 My initial reaction after getting my hands dirty in configuring the new Record Working Time service in EhP5 was optimistic and excited. I was very disappointed with SAP after their first redevelopment attempt using Web Dynpro for Java. Clients were very disappointed in the configuration capabilities, the downgrade in functionality from the previous version, as well as the disappointing usability of the service. With the new redeveloped service in Web Dynpro for ABAP, SAP has reintroduced much of the functionality that was available in the original HTML based version of the service. In addition, SAP has provided extensive configuration capabilities using the ABAP floor plan manager (FPM) framework. (http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-ui?rid=/webcontent/uuid/00b4312a-ac72-2b10-e0ade0219cfeb78e )

Below is a quick comparison table between the high-level functionality delivered in the 3 versions of the ESS Record Working Time Service.

Functionality

4.6c B(HTML)

ECC5.0 (Web Dynpro Java)

ECC6.0 EhP5 (Web Dynpro ABAP)

Different Data Entry Views?

Based on IMG configuration

Static: Daily View Daily, Weekly and and Weekly View Bi-Weekly View. Horizontal and Vertical View

Change or select data entry profile?

Yes

No

Yes

Enter clock times on all data entry views

Yes

Yes (Daily View Only)

Yes

Default Planned Working Time

Yes

No

Yes

View or Integrate Leave Requests

~ ~ (via collision checks) (via collision checks)

Yes (Not editable)

View/Integrate Leave Balances

No

No

Yes

* Additional functionality exists but I wanted to keep this table simple and highlight the major areas.