SAP EWM 9.5 brought one more novelty to the Labor Management module – what is called Time and Attendance (TATT for short). What does it mean? Let us have a closer look.

 Time and Attendance is functionality that records the actual time spent at work, and the times of leaving for and returning from a break, a smoke or lunch.

Time and Attendance makes it possible to connect, for instance, to an automated warehouse access control system and record when an employee enters and leaves the warehouse, and thus to calculate the actual working time.

This allows you to monitor how much time employees spend resting and smoking, and also to record in SAP EWM the working time of those who do not work with an RF device at all.

There are three ways to load the data into the system:

• By calling the interface /SCWM/IF_API_LM_TAT via RFC:

• By uploading a CSV file in transaction «/SCWM/TATT_UPLOAD - Upload Time and Attendance Data» (or in the background with the report /SCWM/R_TATT_UPLOAD). The file structure is quite simple:

• Directly in the Warehouse Management Monitor, in the node «Labor Management» - «Time and Attendance»:

The most important parameters are «Event Direction» and «Reason»:

«Direction» means leaving or arriving at the workplace. The «Reason» can be any text of up to 12 characters.  For example, the following combinations of direction and reason are possible:

1. I + WORK – arriving at the warehouse for work
2. O + BREAK – leaving for a smoke break
3. I + BREAK - returning from the smoke break to the workplace
4. O + DINNER – leaving for lunch
5. I + DINNER - returning from lunch
6. O + WORK – end of work, leaving the warehouse

In the Warehouse Management Monitor you can also change or delete the TATT records that were created.

In the system, the data that was created or uploaded is written to the table /SCWM/LM_TATT:

Note: records can also be deleted in transaction /SCWM/TATT_DELETE (or with the report /SCWM/R_TATT_DELETE).

The main purpose of loading this data into the system is to use it later to create executed workload – the so-called Executed Workload (EWL). Based on the EWL you can calculate an employee's performance.

The EWL is created either by a job (program /SCWM/RLM_EWL_PREPEOS) or manually in transaction «/SCWM/EWL_PREPEOS - Create Indirect Labor Activity Based on Attendance» in the menu:

The transaction has a lot of fields and checkboxes, so let us go through them in detail.

1. The «General» section - the only parameter here is «Warehouse Number», which needs no explanation.
2. The «Processor» section: you can filter the selection of TATT records by processor, processor group, group owner, shift supervisor and shift sequence:

3. The «Time Period» section - filtering the records by the date and time of the TATT event. The value is compared with the field /SCWM/LM_TATT-EVENT_TIMESTAMP:

4. The section «Preparation Based on Time and Attendance» - creating an EWL for getting ready for work. The preparation time is the difference between the time the first order of the shift starts being processed and the time of arrival at work. You can also select only TATT events that do not exceed the specified time. You must specify the external process step the TATT event will be assigned to:

5. The «End of Shift Based on Time and Attendance» section - creating an EWL for the end of the employee's work. It is calculated as the difference between the confirmation time of the last order of the shift and the time of leaving work.

6. The «Break Based on Time and Attendance» section - creating an EWL for breaks. It is calculated as the difference between the end and the start of the break.

7. The «Break Based on RF Logoff» section - again creating an EWL for breaks, but using a slightly different formula. The time is calculated as the difference between the time the first order after the break starts being processed and the time of logging off from RF with the corresponding reason:

The reason has to be entered by the processor when logging off from RF:

8. The «Program Control» section

• Simulation mode – a simulation run, without creating an EWL
• Detailed log - write a detailed log for every action. For it to work, it has to be activated in transaction «/SCWM/ACTLOG - Activate Application Log» for the object «TATT».
• Display the list of created workload – show the list of EWLs that were created.

So, to sum up, what can be said? Previously EWM could only account for direct and indirect labor. Now SAP EWM can «see» the employee's entire working day, including how much of it they spent smoking, having lunch or simply goofing off. I consider this very useful functionality.