This complete guide to effectively configuring CATS provides detailed explanations of Special Approvals and customizing for Duet™, along with detailed steps for setting up CATS to fulfill the many complex configuration requirements. Details on each CATS User-exit and tips on what functionality can or cannot be accomplished with particular User-exits is also included . In addition, the author provides in-depth guidance for how to prevent and correct performance problems, answers to frequently asked questions, tips for audit report development, and much more.

Readers will explore how to perform frequently used activities, such as recording time or executing a CATS report directly from Microsoft Office and discover the key steps you can take to avoid or correct some of the most common causes for the slowdown of some CATS transactions. You'll learn how to effectively use the Business Application Programming Interfaces (BAPIs) provided by CATS to exchange time data with external systems and master the Import/Export functionality and how to increase the efficiency of the approval process by implementing rules for automatic time approvals. In addition, you'll uncover how best to customize the approval report with your own data fields and messages to facilitate the entire process.

Highlights

• Customizing CATS for Duet™
• CATS Performance and Support Tools
• Special Approval Techniques
• Importing and Extracting CATS Data
• Actual Labor Costing
• Deploying User-exits and BAdIs

About the Author(s)

Manuel Gallardo is a former platinum consultant for SAP, sits on the HR Expert editorial board, and has been working in SAP HR since 1994. In addition, he teaches classes on Cross-Application Time Sheets (CATS), is a regular HR Conference speaker, and has worked directly with the CATS Development team in Germany. He currently serves as an SAP HR functional architect at Tesoro Companies, Inc. in San Antonio, TX.

Table of Contents

1 ... Introduction ... 11
... 1.1 ... The Purpose of This Book ... 11
... 1.2 ... CATS User Interfaces ... 12
... 1.3 ... System Enhancements ... 14
... 1.4 ... Conclusion ... 15

2 ... Customizing CATS for Duet ... 17
... 2.1 ... CATS Customizing for the Duet Time Management Scenario ... 17
... 2.2 ... Customizing CATS Reporting in Duet ... 27
... 2.3 ... Conclusion ... 34

3 ... Special CATS Approval Techniques ... 37
... 3.1 ... Customizing the Approval Determination ... 38
... 3.2 ... Customizing the Approval User Interfaces ... 46
... 3.3 ... Conclusion ... 51

4 ... Actual Labor Costing and CATS ... 53
... 4.1 ... Options for Calculating Labor Costs ... 53
... 4.2 ... Implementing Your Labor Rate Calculation ... 56
... 4.3 ... Select the Right Costing Variant ... 72
... 4.4 ... Conclusion ... 73

5 ... Deploying User-exits and BAdIs to Enhance CATS ... 75
... 5.1 ... Enhancements for the Data Entry Process ... 76
... 5.2 ... Approvals, Workflow, and Reporting Enhancements ... 94
... 5.3 ... Conclusion ... 102

6 ... Importing and Extracting CATS Data ... 103
... 6.1 ... Analysis of the Time Sheet Manager Business Object ... 105
... 6.2 ... Techniques for Building a Time Interface ... 111
... 6.3 ... Tools for Extracting CATS Data ... 119
... 6.4 ... Conclusion ... 121

7 ... CATS Performance and Support Tools ... 123
... 7.1 ... CATS Performance ... 123
... 7.2 ... Support Tools ... 131
... 7.3 ... Conclusion ... 136

A ... Frequently Asked CATS Questions ... 139
... A.1 ... Sometimes the "Immediate transfer to HR" functionality does not work. Why is that? ... 139
... A.2 ... How do I add a field to the CATS time-entry screen so that I can store custom data? ... 140
... A.3 ... What is the difference between a Custom Field and the Customer "Name" Fields available in CATS? ... 142
... A.4 ... How do I add a custom column to the Display or Approval reports? ... 143
... A.5 ... How can I default a Receiving Object into the Time Sheet entry screen? ... 144
... A.6 ... How do I make a field mandatory without setting it to "Required" in the field configuration? ... 144
... A.7 ... Is it possible to interface a third-party time-recording system to CATS? ... 145
... A.8 ... In a Decoupled Environment, Can We Implement CATS in the HCM system? ... 145

B ... Installing the ABAP Code ... 147

C ... The Author ... 153