Time Approval

Portfolio and Project Management

A PLM Consulting Solution Public
Time Approval
The PPM Consulting Solution “Approval Dashboard” streamlines the
process of time recording verification. The solution allows a project
manager to either approve or decline selected time recordings.
The Approval Dashboard displays recorded times of business partners who
are assigned to projects the user is responsible for. Furthermore, other
important information such as the role the business partner is staffed on,
assigned tasks, project name, status of booking and already booked time
can be displayed.
Time Approval
Our Service
 An implementation-ready Solution
 Implementation of the Solution
 Documentation of the Solution
 6 Months of Bug fixing
 Optional Online Scoping Session and/or Presentation at Customer
 Time Approval
Functionality Overview

 Selection of business partners, projects, roles, tasks and statuses

 List view of recorded times (using standard ALV technology)

 Approving and declining of time recordings; field to enter reason for declining

 HTML E-Mail to business partner after declining time recordings

 Integration with SAP CATS or other customer developed solutions

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 4

Time Approval
Process in Standard (CATS)

1. The employee is
staffed to a role
2. Time records are
reported to WBS
elements, using the
cat2 transaction
3. After the records are
released for approval,
the line manager can
decide whether to
approve or decline the
recorded times.

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 5

Time Approval
Process in Standard (ESS)

1. The SAP PPM business partner is staffed to a role

2. Time records are reported to the project, using the WebDynpro ESS
3. After the records are released for approval, the line manager has to access the
backend to approve the recordings
The process and backend functionalities are not optimized to this scenario as
they have not originally been designed for SAP PPM.
© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 6
Time Approval
Process with Approval Dashboard

3. After the recorded times are released for approval, the project manager uses
the Approval Dashboard to get a clear overview of the times to be approved.
As Approval Dashboard is fully integrated with SAP PPM he can use
selection criteria to cluster the times he needs to approve.
4. If time recordings are declined by the responsible project manager, an email
is generated automatically to inform the business partner about the reason for
the decline.

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 7

Time Approval
Solution Integration Scenarios

With sophisticated time recording, the customer has the advantage to have full
control over who enters which effort, and therefore can introduce a real time
approval and monitoring process.
© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 8
Time Approval
Standard Selection Screen

The responsible project manager can select different modes of display:

 All time records to be approved
 Only the time records of a certain project
 Time records for a certain project member or
 Time records in a given time frame

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 9

Time Approval
Extended Selection Screen

The “Extended Selection” allows the user to further specify the selection by
adding additional attributes:
 Task
 Role
 WBS element
 Status (specific time record status)
© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 10
Time Approval
Search Help for Selection Criteria

 Search helps can be used to

fill the selection criteria as in
SAP GUI

 Only relevant objects are

displayed allowing for a less
time consuming selection.

 For example, if the user is not

authorized to see the time
records on a certain project,
the project does not appear in
the search help.

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 11

Time Approval
Authorization object in PPM project

 Approval authorizations can be set for projects, phases and for tasks
(customizable). It is possible to allow either only to view the recorded
times (TimeRead) or to view and approve them (TimeAppr).
 The authorizations can be assigned to users, user groups, HR-
organizational units and roles. This authorization is treated like any other
ACO authorization.

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 12

Time Approval
User Variants in Approval Dashboard

 Create preset selection criteria and settings

 Via “Load”, “Save” and “Delete Variant”, the user can create and change
reporting variants, as in other SAP GUI applications.

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 13

Time Approval
Results in Approval Dashboard

 Depending on the selection, the system comes up with a resulting table

 The staffing the user is responsible for approving is displayed for each task
 Sums are highlighted and show how much time the selected business partner
has recorded in sum.

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 14

Time Approval
Additional Information in Result Table

Together with the needed attributes, the approval dashboard provides you with:
 The overall recorded time on this role or task
 The overall approved time on this role or task
 The left time on this role or task (task/role effort - approved time)

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 15

Time Approval
Approve Times

 After approving the selected records they are shown in status “Approved”.
 This status cannot be changed (the approval and decline buttons disappear).

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 16

Time Approval
Decline Times

 After declining time recordings, a popup appears allowing the user to enter a
reason for declining
 After entering a reason, the selection is displayed in status “Approval
Rejected” along with the reason entered.

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 17

Time Approval
Actually Saving Time Approvals & Declines

 Up to this point all decisions are stored only in the internal buffer
 To write the approvals/declines to the database, the “Save” button is used
 In case of wrong entries, changes can be discarded using the “Undo” button.

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 18

Time Approval
Emails are being sent for declined Times

 For declined time recordings an HTML email is generated and sent to the
responsible business partner
 The responsible business partner is asked to correct his records or get in
contact with the approver
 The email contains links to the SAP PPM projects, tasks and roles.
© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 19
Time Approval
Integration to Project Management

 The approval dashboard is offered as additional tab strip in SAP Project

Management and can be launched from there.
 Further possibilities would be:
 Started from the NWBC
 Used as standalone WebDynpro application

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 20

Time Approval
Integration to Project Management on Task Level within a Project

 possible to display the recorded times directly for a certain project, task,
phase or role within SAP PPM depending on customizing
 additional tab is shown for the project element, directly displaying the
records for this project element and its sub elements
 Approval is also possible there, but saving of the changes is done via the
usual SAP PPM save button.
© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 21
Time Approval
Generic Integration Approach to other Time Sheet Applications

 generic interface for

assigning a Time
SAP CATS Sheet application

 Included with this

consulting solution
is an integration
with SAP CATS and
an alternate
scenario for non
Approval
CATS customers
Dashboard
 All integrations can
Alternative
Scenario run in parallel,
Others differentiated by the
(next
slide) project type.

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 22

Time Approval
Alternative Time Recording Integration without using SAP CATS

 The user does not record the time via CATS, but sets it directly in PPM
 Effort changes are recorded by the alternate integration and written to a
customer table
 The time of the change is taken as the working date, the user as the
working business partner
 The responsible approver can display these recordings in the approval
dashboard and approve or decline
© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 23
 Time Approval
PPM-Based Approval Functionality for Time Records

The Consulting Solution “Time Approval” streamlines the process of time recording verification. The solution allows a project
manager to either approve or decline selected time recordings.

Business Challenges Availability, Technical Details Contact

 You seek to have time approval functionality for project managers  Available for SAP PPM 6.0
 You want to be able to check on time records from external employees and SAP PPM 5.0
 You strive to have a general overview on time records per project  Delivery via transport
 Distributed ERP systems are
 You only have limited project resources
supported
 Complete documentation of all
development objects
 SAP Note: 1238739
 SAP Service No.: 50109202,
Enhancement Services for SAP
PPM
 Contact: PLMServices@sap.com

Key Features
 Selection of business partners, projects, roles, tasks and statuses Related Services
 List view of recorded times (using standard ALV technology)  List of Open Points
 Periodic Status Management
 Approving and declining of time recordings; field to enter reason for
 PowerPoint Export
declining
 Risk Management
 HTML e-mail to business partner after declining time recordings  Time Recording
 Integration with SAP CATS or other customer developed solutions

Business Benefits
 Ensure correct billing from external partners
 Ensure correct usage of project budget
 Slim and robust time approval process
 Reduce administrative time
 Cost reduction through efficient processes

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 24

Contact Information

Tobias Gläser
SAP Portfolio and Project
Management Consulting

SAP Deutschland AG & Co. KG

Hasso-Plattner-Ring 7
69190 Walldorf, Germany

M +49 160 908 23181

tobias.daniel.glaeser@sap.com

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company.
All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or for any purpose without the express permission of SAP SE or an
SAP affiliate company.

SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE
(or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. Please see http://global12.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx for additional
trademark information and notices.

Some software products marketed by SAP SE and its distributors contain proprietary software components of other software vendors.

National product specifications may vary.

These materials are provided by SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company for informational purposes only, without representation or warranty of any kind,
and SAP SE or its affiliated companies shall not be liable for errors or omissions with respect to the materials. The only warranties for SAP SE or
SAP affiliate company products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and
services, if any. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.

In particular, SAP SE or its affiliated companies have no obligation to pursue any course of business outlined in this document or any related
presentation, or to develop or release any functionality mentioned therein. This document, or any related presentation, and SAP SE’s or its affiliated
companies’ strategy and possible future developments, products, and/or platform directions and functionality are all subject to change and may be
changed by SAP SE or its affiliated companies at any time for any reason without notice. The information in this document is not a commitment,
promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code, or functionality. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties
that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking
statements, which speak only as of their dates, and they should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Public 26