PA Q n As

Q. Infotype

A. Infotype is a set of logically related data fields.

• · 0000 to 0999 – Master data
• · 1001 to 1999 – Org management
• · 2001 to 2999 – Time management
• · 4001 to 4999 – Applicant
• · 9000- Customized

Infotypes are characterized by the following:

• · Infotype Structure
• · Data Entry
• · Time-Dependent Storage of Infotype Data

You can assign authorizations on an infotype as well as subtype basis.

You can define the permissibility of infotypes for each country, which will restrict the selection of infotypes available when you edit master data. Eg, Infotype Fiscal Data D (0012) should only be displayed for employees assigned to country grouping Germany.

Q. Infogroups

A. Infogroups is a sequence of infotypes to be used while executing a personnel action. It guarantees that during the personnel action, all information needed for the business processes is stored.

For example, when you hire, you would want to use IT0000, 0001, 0002, 0006, 0007, 0008 etc in a sequence- in a particular order.

In such a case we define an infogroup which will contain all these infotypes, their order of execution and the user groups it is applicable for. This infogroup will then be assigned to the required action.

The info groups can be defined so that they are dependent on the user group (user parameter "UGR"). If there are no entries for an info group for the user's user group or if the user has not maintained their user group, then the info group is determined using the reference user group.

Q. Infogroup Modifier

A. The info group can be set up so that it is dependent on the employee's control data. You can do this by using feature Info group modifier (IGMOD).

Q. Infotype Menus

A. Infotype menus are menus that you see when you

• Display HR Master Data (transaction pa20)
• Maintain HR Master Data (transaction pa30)
  

Infotype menus are user group dependable and you can have different infotype menus for different user groups. To make sure that a user is able to see the appropriate infotype menu you need to make sure that in the user parameters of the sap hr user (use transaction SU3), you maintain the user parameter UGR=<usergroup value>. Typically in most of the implementations you may see that the UGR = <usergroup value>=<country grouping value>, however there is no hard and fast rule for that states that this applies everywhere.

It can be customized via SPRO-> Personnel Administration--> Customizing Procedures

Q. Which control options do you have for Customizing when configuring Infotypes?

A. There are different levels of user control:

• Controlling View: What the user sees on the screen and menus, and what information is readily and easily available for the user to view. Additionally, there are controls for what information may be appropriate for data entry for certain employees, for example, country-specific infotypes.
• Controlling Access: What the user can access.
• Track Changes: involves tracking what changes are made (or what reports are run)

Q. Personnel Actions

A. Personnel procedures, such as hiring an employee, organizational reassignment, or an employee leaving the enterprise are represented by individual personnel actions in Personnel Administration. Each personnel action contains the infotypes that you must maintain to record the personnel action at hand. The infotypes are retrieved in succession so that you can maintain them. For example, all the fields in which you need to make entries to hire an employee will be offered to you for maintenance automatically by the system in the personnel action Hiring.

This ensures that all the core data is entered into the system. This function also facilitates entering data as you do not need to access each infotype within the personnel action individually.

Q. Fast Data Entry

A. Fast data entry enables you to create and maintain same infotype records for multiple employees at the same time. This results in a faster and more efficient data processing as you do not have to enter a separate record for each individual employee; instead a single screen enables you to enter data for more than one employee simultaneously.

Different ways of selecting the personnel numbers to be processed:

• Enter the personnel numbers directly in the fast entry screen
• List the personnel numbers yourself before maintaining the fast entry screen
• Use a report to list the personnel numbers on the basis of specific search criteria
• Choose your own selection criteria using the Ad Hoc Query 

Q. Organizational Key

A. The organizational key is a 14 character code which is restricted to a combination of certain fields of the organizational assignment infotype -0001 like organization unit, personal area, personal subarea, etc. Organization unit is a part of IT0001 and it is often used as a part of the organization key. For most organizations, the organization key suffices. However, when complex authorization requirements arise than organizations with SAP HR opt for structural authorizations.

If you want an employee to have authorizations to certain employee data of 5 sub-ordinate organization units you would probably have to maintain all the five organizational keys in the role assigned to the employee which means more maintenance. This increases authorization role maintenance and authorization errors (if there is data inconsistency), which is realized by organizations who are implementing or in a process of implementing structural authorizations.

If you want to restrict the SAP HR user access on the basis of training calendar or other HR structures then you would need to use structural authorizations and cannot use role based authorizations unless you do some custom development( which is not recommended, when you have standard SAP meeting your requirements). Many organizations deviate from the normal practices and have their own specific practices for which wherever appropriate, Business Add-Ins also known as BADI’s have been provided to handle such scenarios.

VDSK1 is the feature to represent the Organizational Key .

Q. Can several personnel actions be performed on the same day?

A. Yes. Infotype 0302 Additional Actions allows you to automatically log all of the personnel action types that are performed for an employee on a specific date. It allows you to perform and document several personnel action types for an employee in the R/3 System on the same day.

Note that only one personnel action type per day is stored in the infotype Actions (0000).

Q.  What is the Additional Actions Infotype used for?

A. Infotype 0302 Additional Actions allows you to perform and document several personnel action types for an employee in the R/3 System on the same day.

This infotype cannot be maintained directly, but it is located for viewing at the bottom of the Actions infotype (0000). You can display and edit the data records logged in the infotype Additional Actions (0302) on the list screen of the infotype Actions (0000).

Q. What is the deciding criteria as to whether a personnel action type should be stored in the infotype Actions (0000) or Additional Actions (0302) ?

A. The deciding criteria as to whether a personnel action type should be stored in the infotype Actions (0000) is its effect on the status indicators. (Status 1 - customer specific; Status 2 - employment; Status 3 - special payment)

Personnel action types that change the status of an employee, for example, the Leaving personnel action type, are stored in infotype Actions (0000) . When you execute one of these personnel actions, the maintenance status ensues automatically.

Note: Check the STAT2 field entries you have in Table T529A. This is how SAP determines if an action is a status changing one and only allows one of these each day. If field STAT2 is blank, not a status change. Otherwise, a change. If a second status changing action is done, it will replace the first. Also, if action code/reason code combination is already there, it will overwrite.

Q. How can a personnel action change the status feature of an employee in Infotype 0000?

A. The status indicators in the Actions infotype are automatically maintained by the system if you execute an action. The status indicators have the following meaning:

• Customer-specific status - you can determine your own specific employee status with this indicator
• Employment status -
• Value 0 - The employee has left the company and should no longer be included in the payroll run. An individual retroactive run is permitted for him or her in the system.
• Value 1 - The employee belongs to the company, but is granted leave for military service, maternity leave, or other absence reasons. In reality, most inactive contracts are not entered in the system as status changes but as absences. Payroll is run for inactive employees, but their pay can be reduced according to special factoring rules.
• Value 2 - The employee is retired. If this person is entitled to a company pension, the system still includes this employee in the payroll run. If not, the system assigns specification 0 to this employee.
• Value 3 - The employee belongs to the company and is active.

•  Special payment status - for wage type decisions

When you execute a new action, the system checks whether the attributes of the new action match those of the previous action. If the old action has:

• • STAT2=0→ There is an error because the employee has already left the company
• • STAT2=2→ There is an error because the employee has already retired
• • STAT2=3→ The processing continues because the employee is active

This check is controlled by the following features:

• • MSN20 for leaving
• • MSN21 for hiring
• • MSN32 for early retirement/retirement

Q. Will the system allow the Hire and Terminate actions on the same day?
A. SAP has a limitation in that you cannot have two actions that change the employment status (STAT2) on the same day (e.g., active, withdrawn, etc). No matter what the action is called, hire, terminate, retirement etc, if they change STAT2 only one can be done in a day. If you do enter two actions with different values on STAT2, the second action will overlay the first.

Q. In which Infotype are administrators defined? Why are administrators defined?
A. IT 0001. Authorized to maintain payroll/time/master data for the employees belonging to their area.


Q. What are various function characters for action ?
A. Below are the function characters as given by SAP.

• · '1' First hiring
• · '7' First hiring and transfer of data from Recruitment
• · '8' Activation of personnel assignment in host country (for global employees)
• · '9' Activation of personnel assignment in home country (for global employees)
• · '0' Other actions

Q. Which control features are controlled using the employee subgroup?

• The employee subgroup grouping for the personnel calculation rule controls how an employee's payroll is processed, for example, whether an employee is to be paid on an hourly or monthly basis.
• The employee subgroup grouping for primary wage types controls the validity of wage types at the employee subgroup level.
• The grouping for collective agreement provision restricts the validity of pay scale groups to specific employee subgroups.
• The employee subgroup grouping for the work schedule allows you to define which work schedules are valid for which employees.
• The employee subgroup grouping for time quotas allows you to specific which attendance and absence quota types are valid for which employee subgroups.
• The employee subgroup grouping for appraisals allows you to define appraisal criteria for each employee subgroup.
• Assign employee characteristics, such as the activity status, employment status, and level of education/training, for statistical purposes.
• The employee subgroup allows you to define default values for data entry, for example, for the payroll area or basic pay.

Q. Can a personnel area be assigned to many company codes?
A. No. A Personnel Area can be only assigned to one company code. Many personnel areas can be assigned to the same company code but the vice versa is not true.  

Q. Do we need to give country assignment to personnel sub areas in customizing?
A. No. We do not need to give country assignment to personnel sub areas. We need to give country assignments to the employee subgroups on assigning to employee groups in the enterprise structure.

Q. What is user group and reference user group?
A. Reference user group is 00 and is the default user group for accessing. We create different numbers for each module to be created under HR so that access is barred for users other than current module.

Q. What is the connection between Planned Working Time (IT 0007) and Basic Pay (IT 0008)?
A. The system takes the employment percentage and the monthly working hours form infotype 0007 and suggests them as default values for the capacity utilization level and working hours per period in infotype 008.
If an employee's working hours are reduced it will have an effect on the pay which is based on the working times.

Q. How are personnel actions and dynamic actions linked?
A. Personnel action is a series of infotypes that should be created/maintained when an "event" happens, such as hiring, reassignment, leave, termination.  Each personnel action can have it's own series of infotypes.

A dynamic action is what happens when you create/change an infotype or a field on an infotype, specially when that change is not done through a measure.

For example, if you have to create a new IT0006 because the employee has changed address, you may want to update IT0009 with the new postal code.  This can be done through a dynamic action, triggered by a change on the postal code field of IT0006.

If you have such a dynamic action on IT0006 is created correctly, you do not require IT0009 in your "Hire" personnel action since you will "modify" the postal code field and trigger the creation of a new IT0009.

Q. If an employee leaves the enterprise, are all Infotypes delimited?
A. No. When an employee leaves the company, you cannot change certain infotypes because the system needs them to create a history. However, you must delimit  some infotype records when an employee leaves the company.

When an employee leaves the company, his or her personnel number cannot be deleted. A new Actions infotype record (0000) is created for the leaving action.This infotype record stores the leaving date and the reason for leaving. When an employee leaves the company, the system automatically changes the employment status to zero. The system recognizes this status and does not pick up the employee for subsequent payroll period. Also, the system does not select employees with status 0 for several other evaluations.

You must leave organizational data, personal data, addresses, and basic payroll data in the system. You cannot delimit the data records, as the employee may still receive payments (for overtime or leave compensation, for example), or may still have to be contacted after the last payroll has been run. In addition to this, this data is also used for reporting purposes.

You cannot delimit the Basic Pay infotype (0008). If you delimit this infotype, the system cannot perform retroactive accounting correctly.


Q. At what level the regulation of employees are defined in SAP?
A. Company regulations (for HR) are defined at the Personnel subarea level. These regulations maybe legal, contractual or company-specific.

Q. What is the difference between Master data and transactional data?
A. Master Data is the data that remains unchanged for a long period of time. Ex. Employees Personal details etc.
Transactional data is the data pertaining to day to day transactions with keeps changing. Ex. Time data,


Q. What is screen header?
A. Screen header indicates the first few lines of the individual on the main / infotype screen.
Below are the steps to be used while changing the screen headers:

• Header Structure per Infotype: In the view Header Structure per Infotype (V_582A_B), a header has been assigned to every infotype. It is also determined whether the data is valid from the system date or on the record's validity start date.
• Header Modification: Depending on the transaction class (A = Personnel Administration, B = Recruitment) and the country grouping, a header modifier is assigned to this infotype header in the Header Modification view (V_T588I).
• Infotype Header Definition: You can display any standard SAP infotype and subtype fields in the infotype header. In addition, you can use all applicant infotypes. 

When doing so, set up the Infotype Header Definition view (T588J) to suit your requirements.

Note, however, that not all infotypes will be relevant to your requirements. For example, the Actions infotype (0000) is only intended for employees. Likewise, the Applicant Actions infotype (4000) only has relevance for applicants.

• Passport Photos: In addition to any infotype fields you can also include passport photos of your employees in the infotype header in Infotype Header Definition view (T588J).

In the System Table view (T77S0), determine the document type with which you want to enter the passport photos in the optical archive.

• Infotype Header Data Selection Control: In the Infotype Header Data Selection Control view (T588H), you can control the selection date for data in the infotype headers depending on the infotypes/subtypes you want to edit or display. In table T588H, you enter the infotype to be displayed.
• Field names for screens different from DDIC entry: In the Field names for screens different from DDIC entry view (T588L), you can create your own key fields and long texts.

SAP recommends that you do not use your own key fields, since the documentation for the fields cannot be automatically adjusted to your changes.

Q. Can a screen in HR data consist of several Infotypes?
A. You can display any standard SAP infotype and subtype fields in the infotype header. In addition, you can use all applicant infotypes.

When doing so, set up the Infotype Header Definition view (T588J) to suit your requirements.

Note, however, that not all infotypes will be relevant to your requirements. For example, the Actions infotype (0000) is only intended for employees. Likewise, the Applicant Actions infotype (4000) only has relevance for applicants.

Q. What are the key aspects defined for dynamic actions?
A. Here, you control the initiation of actions when maintaining an infotype record. This can be the maintenance of an additional infotype record or performing a routine.

For each action, you can determine whether it is always carried out when you change an infotype or a subtype or whether it is only carried out if you change certain fields.

• · You can state whether the action is to be carried out for "Change", "Create" and/or "Delete" record.
• · You can store the conditions for executing the action, for example, the comparison of the old and new value of a field.
• · Finally, you can also specify default values for a record that is to be created.