An Introduction to CATS

CATS is a standardized, cross-application tool for recording the times of both internal and external employees.

The basic idea behind the time sheet is to record working times for individual persons. Both internal employees and external service providers can enter their own attendance and absence times in the system, or the data can be maintained in a central data entry office.

Employees enter their working times together with information on the work order, purchase order, and so on. Based on these working time attributes, the data can then be passed on to the relevant SAP applications.

The SAP time sheet is a cross-application development. You do not need to use a specific SAP application to benefit from its functionality.

Target applications

The time sheet provides the following applications with information on employees’ working times:

CO: Activity Allocation

 

HR: Time Management

 

MM: Services

 

PM: Plant Maintenance/Confirmations

 

PS: Project System/Confirmations

 

SM: Service Management/Confirmations

The time sheet is used to enter information on the duration and reference object of working times but not on quantities (units, liters, and so on). The user does not have to be familiar with the functions of the target application to enter data. You can determine which fields for working time attributes appear on the entry screen when you customize the time sheet.

Depending on which working time attributes you specify, data is passed on for further processing to Human Resources (HR), Logistics, and/or Accounting.

The user can also enter data for the following applications:

MM: Material withdrawal

The time sheet has a function that allows you to branch straight to the MM Enter Goods Issue transaction.

HR: Trip costs

You can also branch directly to the HR transaction Maintain Trip Data: Framework Data from the time sheet. Working times that were part of a business trip are indicated by a trip number.

Transferring data

Data is not transferred as you enter it, but can be transferred periodically. Data is supplied to the target applications by means of interface tables.

The HR application is an exception: It is possible to transfer data immediately to HR once the data has been released or approved.

Entering data

The layout of the time sheet and the procedure for entering data have been kept as simple as possible. This means that even users with little or no experience of the SAP R/3 System can maintain data easily.
Simple, user-oriented operation is made possible by the following functions:

Pre-allocation of working time attributes from the employee’s master data

 

Task- and goal-related entry models

 

Employee-specific worklists

 

Copy functions

 

and lots more

Users enter the data with a personnel number and the relevant working time attributes. If required, specially authorized users can check the recorded times in a follow-up approval procedure. A special SAP business workflow facilitates this procedure.

You can also use the time sheet to enter working times centrally. A screen is provided for entering data for several persons at once. If you choose this option, administrators in a central data entry office copy information from paper time sheets to the time sheet in the system.