SAP Work Schedules and Their Elements

Welcome to the tutorial on SAP Work Schedules and their Elements. In the SAP Time Management Overview and the SAP Planned Working Time infotype tutorials, we briefly touched upon the concept of Work Schedules. In this tutorial, we will elaborate on this topic by introducing you to the various elements that are included in a work schedule. At the outset, we’d like to clarify that the focus this tutorial is to conceptually familiarize you with these elements and their design on paper, rather than their configuration in SAP. Consequently, you will not see any SAP screenshots in this tutorial.

Elements of SAP Work Schedules

Daily Work Schedule

The Daily Work Schedule indicates the planned working time for each day. Among other details, it contains specifications for the daily planned working hours, the planned start time of work and the planned end time of work. In addition, it also indicates which Break Schedule is applicable for that day.

A Daily Work Schedule for a weekly off will specify “No planned working hours”, to indicate that there are zero planned hours for that day. Such a Daily Work Schedule need not contain any other specifications.

Break Schedule

A break schedule indicates when employees can take breaks, and how long the breaks may last. It also specifies if the break is a paid break, or an unpaid break. There are three types of breaks.

FIXED BREAKS

These breaks have a fixed start time and end time. For example, a lunch break from 1 pm to 1:45 pm.

VARIABLE BREAKS

Here, a time interval is set within which an employee can take a break of a fixed duration. These breaks do not have a fixed start time and end time. For example, an employee is entitled to a 45-minute lunch break anytime between 12 pm and 2 pm.

DYNAMIC BREAKS

These breaks can be taken after the employee works for a certain number of hours in a day. For example, an employee can take a 15-minute break after working for 3 hours.

Period Work Schedule

The period work schedule consists of a predefined sequence of daily work schedules. The length of the Period Work Schedule can vary between organizations, and within an organization, between work schedules. To arrive at the appropriate length of any Period Work schedule, you should determine the shortest period after which the shift pattern repeats itself. So, for a straightforward work schedule where an employee works from Monday to Friday, with the weekend off, the Period Work Schedule will only include one week. This is because the same work pattern will repeat after a week. On the other hand, when rotational shifts are involved, as is often the case in manufacturing plants, a more complex work pattern may be involved.

Work Schedule Rule

A work schedule rule is basically a description of the work schedule. A work schedule rule is assigned a period work schedule, which in turn is made up of daily work schedules.

The Work Schedule rule definition also includes specifications for the Daily working hours, Weekly working hours, Monthly working hours, Annual working hours and Weekly workdays. In the SAP Planned Working Time infotype tutorial, we had seen that these values get defaulted at the employee level in the Planned Working time Infotype (Infotype 0007).

Work Schedules must be generated for a specific period, by specifying a Work Schedule Rule and Holiday Calendar. The specification of the Holiday Calendar allows the public holidays to be incorporated into the work schedule.

Practical Scenarios

Case 1

Consider a company wherein the employees must work from 9 am to 6 pm, with a paid lunch break from 1 pm – 2 pm, from Monday to Friday. Saturday and Sunday are weekly offs.

Let us now design the Work Schedule elements for this scenario:

BREAK SCHEDULE

One Break Schedule, say BRK1, will be created, as a fixed break with the below specifications:

Start of Break: 13:00

End of Break: 14:00

No. of paid break hours: 1

DAILY WORK SCHEDULES

There will be two Daily Work Schedules created, with the below specifications:

Daily Work Schedule 1, say, NORM:

Planned Start time: 09:00

Planned End time: 18:00

Planned Daily Working hours: 9

Break Schedule: BRK1

Daily Work Schedule 2, say, OFF:

With the specification “No planned working hours”.

PERIOD WORK SCHEDULE

The Period Work Schedule will span over one week and will be as below:

Figure 1: Case 1 – Period Work Schedule

Case 2

Consider a manufacturing plant wherein there are three different shifts:

First shift from 6 am to 2 pm, where the employee can take a 30-minute break after four hours of work.

Second Shift from 2 pm to 10 pm, where the employee can take a 30-minute break after four hours of work.

Third Shift from 10 pm to 6am, where the employee can take a 30-minute break after four hours of work.

Let us consider a work schedule where an employee has to work for five days in the first shift, followed by two days off, followed by five days in the second shift, followed by two days off, followed by five days in the third shift, followed by two days off.

Let us now design the work schedule elements for the above scenario:

BREAK SCHEDULE

One break schedule, say DYN1, will be created, as a dynamic break with the below specifications:

Number of work hours after which employee can take the break: 4

No. of paid break hours: 0.5

DAILY WORK SCHEDULES

There will be four Daily Work Schedules created, with the below specifications:

Daily Work Schedule for the First Shift, say, FRST:

Planned Start time: 06:00

Planned End time: 14:00

Planned Daily Working hours: 8

Break Schedule: DYN1

Daily Work Schedule for the Second Shift, say, SEC:

Planned Start time: 14:00

Planned End time: 22:00

Planned Daily Working hours: 8

Break Schedule: DYN1

Daily Work Schedule for the Third Shift, say, THR:

Planned Start time: 22:00

Planned End time: 06:00

Planned Daily Working hours: 8

Break Schedule: DYN1

Daily Work Schedule for the day off, say, OFF:

With the specification “No planned working hours”.

PERIOD WORK SCHEDULE

In this case, the shortest period after which the shift pattern repeats itself is three weeks. Hence the Period Work Schedule will span over three weeks and will be as below:

Figure 2: Case 2 – Period Work Schedule

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