This newsletter brings you SAP HCM tips on UK payroll (new tax year, PAE, RTI), e-recruiting, time management, social collaboration, training and events management, and validity periods for HR enterprise structure and employee structure.

We’ll also share some blog discussions, report some exciting news from iProCon and invite you to meet us at the European SAP HCM conference HR2014 in Nice with a special speaker referral discount.

Tips on SAP HCM

Validity Period for SAP HR Enterprise and Employee Structure

If your organisation has been using SAP HCM for, say, 10 or even 20 years, you’ll know this problem all too well, particularly if your organisation is spread over a large number of countries:

The list of personnel (sub)areas and employee (sub)groups gets longer and longer and there is no easy way of making sure users don’t pick obsolete objects, because none of them comes with time dependency or a validity period. Click here for the solution.

10 Improvements You May Find Useful in SAP HCM E-Recruiting

E-Recruiting was a focus topic for SAP’s Customer Connect program in April 2014 and we found that most on-premise customers will find some nuggets among these 10 improvement notes, most of which are easy to apply.

Training Correspondence: Email as Mailmerge Field

Using Mailmerge in MS Word is a very popular way to deal with correspondence in Training and Event Management or LSO. However, to make it work for emails, not just for printed documents, the email address needs to be available as a custom text variable. Read more.

Testdrive SAP JAM for free

Did you know you can use a basic version of SAP JAM, SAP’s and Successfactors’ social collaboration tool for free? Here’s how.

How to benefit from PU12 Interface Toolbox in SAP HCM

If you are using SAP HR or as a SAP HR consultant you may have come across PU12, an interfacing tool between SAP HR and 3rd party systems. As someone who worked with PU12, I want to share some insights into the prospects of this transaction as well as walk through basics of what can be done while configuring an export file. So, where is it used?

Changing daily working time maximum in time evaluation (DEFTP)

Most organisations have some policy in place to limit employees’ working time to a healthy maximum limit. Time evaluation in SAP HR PT provides for this in the standard schema TM00. Most people know about the constant TGMAX in table T511K, which is used in overtime generation rules “TOnn” in the standard schema as well as in limits set in table T559P and processed by the function LIMIT in the schema. But this is not the whole truth and will not always suffice, if you want to change the daily limit dynamically as recently requested again by one of our manufacturing customers. Learn the details.

Enhanced Workschedule Finder in Infotype 0007

It was always a problem for SAP HR users to find the right work schedules to assign in infotype 0007. As a result, quite often new work schedule rules were created, even though an appropriate one already existed. Here’s how SAP solved this as part of their Customer Connection program.

UK Payroll in SAP HR

Learn about payroll issues and solutions faster:

Payroll topics in particular are often rather urgent, so you may want to be alerted as soon as a blog post is published. Apart from following the blog on our website, one option to do this is to join our SAP Payroll UK Linkedin Group. It’s a dedicated group. Spammers and people with no real interest in UK payroll are kept out.

Changes for the Check of PAE Minimum Contribution

I guess we weren’t the only ones bothering SAP support about the inadequate solution of the monthly minimum check for pension contributions under Pension Auto Enrolment (PAE). Finally, SAP provides some solution.

HMRC Works Number Missing in P60 and Other Reports

We found that some reports or forms, including the P60 and P45, that are required for year-end may fail or be incomplete, because the HMRC works number is missing in infotype 0065. The works number should be in field PA0065-WRKNO and is displayed (but can’t be edited) in infotype 0065. Read more.

Missing Retroactive Calculations in Pension Auto Enrolment

We just found that some customers were surprised that the Pension Auto Enrolment process didn’t trigger the retro-active calculations through infotype 3297 they would have expected. This is usually due to missing manual work after putting in SAP note 1827202 or the respective Support Package. Read more.

New P60 Report for Tax Year End

Most UK SAP payroll users’ thoughts are probably turning to the year end process by now. Many of the processes have changed after the introduction of RTI, and this includes a new report for producing the P60s.

Changes in UK Payroll for the new tax year 2014/2015

The new tax year is near and not only are there the usual changes, but for the majority of SAP HR users it will be the first year end after the implementation of RTI and PAE (Pension Auto Enrolment). So, let’s have a quick look at this year’s changes.

Process Review for Payroll and HR Administration

We found that many SAP HR customers using payroll have been in survival mode in the last few years. Tight budgets, RTI and Pension Auto-Enrolment haven’t left much breathing space to make sure processes are efficient and safe.

For those customers, who know or suspect that the way they use SAP in Payroll and Master Data is far from best practise, we offer review workshops as well as help with implementing results. We’d usually find quite a few points for improvement, e.g. in pensions or absence valuation, which often pay for themselves, such as:

• Higher degree of automation in calculation
• Identifying and reducing the number of cases, where pay data is calculated incorrectly
• More user friendly handling of data capturing and payroll processes
• Standardised testing procedures and tools for test automation for fast and low-risk upgrades and support packages
• Effective reporting and reconciliation processes
• Targeted training of SAP users, where gaps have sneaked in over time
• ESS and MSS solutions to reduce HR workload and empower managers and employees
• Transforming your SAP HCM system to look like a 21st century tool using the latest SAP User Interface technology (HR Renewal, UI5, Mobility)
• Etc.

Get in touch, if you want to learn more about improving your SAP HCM based processes.

SAP HCM and HRIS Strategy

What is the most important Quality for an SAP HR consultant?

As someone, who has worked in this field for almost 18 years now, I’ve been asked the question quite often: “What is the most important quality for an SAP HCM consultant?”. It’s not an easy question, if you want to provide a meaningful answer. My answers have actually changed quite a bit over time with the changing market, with changes in the SAP HCM solution and underlying technology, and also with experience. Here we go.

Podcast: SAP HCM architecture dead-ends and the cloud panic

Why is SAP HCM architecture meant to be agile often going fragile, thus blocking innovation? And what is to be done about it? When, if at all, should we move all or some HR systems into the cloud? The main questions discussed in our recent podcast peppered up by some conference talk and poetry.

When getting home from abroad on a Friday night after an interesting, but exhausting week covering 3 countries in the world of SAP HCM, a nice drink and a sofa are usually high on my agenda. Click here to find out, what gets me onto Skype to record a podcast on SAP HCM until after 10pm.

Selected Posts from the SCN (SAP Community Network)

• A personal and professional profile from our UK director on the SCN „blog it forward“ initiative – to be taken with a pinch of salt ;-)
• A guideline for new users of the SCN – with an interesting discussion
• What you should know about Fiori
• Loads of links to resources about SAP JAM
• Security and Authorisations in SuccessFactors: always an interesting topic in discussions about cloud solutions

Events for SAP HCM

iProCon Presenting at the SAPInsider HR2014 Conference in Nice, France

It’s that time of the year again: the European SAPInsider HR conference is on the horizon. I’m happy the event organiser accepted some of my sessions again, so I will be presenting on SAP HCM authorisations, HR global rollout and SAP HCM strategy for on-premise agility. I’ll also be honoured to be guest in a discussion panel hosted by the one and only Martin Gillet. Find out more and get your speaker referral discount

iProConference SAP HCM in Hamburg: a Review

iProCon hosted their SAP HCM conference on 18th and 19th March in Hamburg this year. The feedback from the 90 delegates on the 24 sessions and keynote from SAP AG as well as the evening event in the Hagenbeck “Tropical Aquarium” was overwhelmingly positive. Click here for a summary and here for pictures. If you couldn’t come, let us know, if you want to discuss any of the topics presented or pre-register for future SAP HCM events in English or German.

News from iProCon

New Payroll Expert on board

We are proud and glad to present a new team member: Owen McGivney joined in February and brings 14 years SAP HR experience to our UK team. He’s an expert in UK and Irish payroll, but covers some other SAP HCM modules as well – complemented by a strong technical background. Owen is currently supporting one of our American customers with their UK rollout and helps various UK customers with year-end work, pension, RTI and HR analytics.

UK events

• We plan our second UK SAP HCM conference for March 2015. If you are interested and want to be updated, when registration opens, just get in touch.
• If you don’t want to wait until 2015 to meet us at a UK event, we’ll also be represented at the SAP UK and Ireland Usergroup 23.-25. November in Birmingham – sharing an exhibition stand with our partner for FI/CO, BI, and Logistics, PIKON.

Publications

• Our Team has recently delivered a few new editions for our SAP PRESS HCM books – in German for now, but translations may be due.
• A completely new book on SAP Travel&Expense is in process as a joint project between iProCon UK and Germany and will be published with a new publisher in the second half of 2014. If you want to receive a message, as soon as the book is available, let us know.