Many Asian companies, especially in places such as India, are required to provide days off for certain employees for religion-specific holidays based on their religious specification in the SAP ERP HCM system. I have implemented this time-management requirement in many of my projects. I show how companies can design their holiday calendars to accommodate these religion-specific holidays and create the desired payroll integration.

I am using a case-study format, based on my own implementation experience, to help readers understand the concept and learn how to implement this in the standard SAP time system.

Case Study

Company A has the full-fledged SAP ERP HCM system with Personnel Administration, Time Management, and a well-integrated payroll system. The company has a region-specific holiday calendar that caters to the needs of the particular region, but doesn’t cater to the religion-specific needs of its employees.

Here is an example of the current holiday calendar of Company A (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Company A’s current holiday calendar, change view

Figure 1 lists the common holidays which all employees of Company A are entitled to have off in India. This list does not include religion-specific holidays, as those are configured manually by time administrators, which I show how to do later in this article.

In addition to these six days, employees are also eligible for religion-specific holidays, depending on which religion they register as being affiliated with. For example:

• Hindu employees are eligible for Diwali
• Buddhist employees are eligible for Buddha Purnima
• Muslim employees are eligible for Eid al-Fitr

As it currently exists, the company calendar does not include options for these holidays, and time administrators must manage these holiday requirements manually.

Now I show you how to configure the system with the three religious holidays listed above and how to apply these lessons-learned so that you can configure your system for any similar holiday requirements.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you need:

1. A full-fledged SAP ERP HCM system with Time Management
2. Payroll integration (optional)

Configuration Steps

Following these configuration steps, I show how to:

1. Create religion-specific holidays in the SAP system
2. Assign the religion-specific holidays to a specific calendar
3. Update the existing work schedule rules
4. Run the test case before and after assigning the religious data
5. Assign the employee’s religion in personal data for applicable employees

Step 1. Create Religion-Specific Holidays in the SAP System

Since my example is India, I show you how to create religion-specific holidays in the SAP system for the following religions:

1. Buddha Purnima (Buddhism)
2. Eid al-Fitr (Muslim)
3. Diwali (Hinduism)

Here is a quick reference table of the required religion-specific holidays for these religions in 2013 (Table 1):

Table 1

List of the case study religious holidays and their dates

To create a new religion-specific holiday in the SAP system, follow SPRO menu path

Time management > Define Public Holiday Classes, and click the execute icon . This results in the screen in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Create a new holiday subobject

Select the Public holidays radio button and click the change icon . This takes you to the screen in Figure 3.

Figure 3

Change the holiday

If required, check this list (Figure 3) to see if the desired holiday already exists and do the modifications, but in my example I am defining them from scratch. Click the create icon  to add new holidays to the list (Figure 4).

Figure 4

Create a new public holiday

In the screen in Figure 4, make sure that you choose the Floating Public Holiday radio button. This means that the dates may change from year to year, and that the dates will be published or announced at the beginning of the year. Then click the create icon, which takes you to the screen in Figure 5.

Figure 5

Create a public holiday (floating) for Diwali

Enter the details as shown in the screen.

Not Guaranteed radio button: Select this radio button to ensure that, for holidays that fall on a weekend, the employees still get a day off, moving it to the previous or next work day. For example, if Christmas is on a Sunday, you can choose to move the day off to Monday or Friday.

Sort Criterion: RH1 in the Sort Criterion field stands for religious-specific holidays; you can sort the holidays alphabetically with this option.

Religious Denomination: This is where you assign the religion to a holiday. This drop-down field is provided by the standard SAP ERP HCM system (22 is the sort key).

Public Holiday Class: This field specifies the holiday type. In this case, I specified 1, which is for a common public holiday (for example, Republic Day or Gandhi Jayanti), 2 is for a half-day holiday, and 3 is for a company-specific holiday. This is a standard drop-down option.

The Short Holiday Name and Long Holiday Name: These fields create a holiday for Diwali with the proper dates (Diwali and Diwali- Festival of Lights, respectively).

Once you have entered all the necessary data, click the Insert date button, which allows you to enter the future dates for this holiday, then click the create icon (these steps are not shown). The system adds this new holiday and its future dates to the common holiday list.

You have to repeat these same steps for each of the religious holidays you want added to the list (Figures 6 and 7).

Figure 6

Create a public holiday (floating) for Buddha Purnima

Figure 7

Create a public holiday (floating) for Eid al-Fitr

Step 2. Assign the Religion-Specific Holidays to a Specific Calendar

Now that all the specified holidays from Table 1 are available in the system, you need to assign these new dates to the relevant holiday calendar. The holiday calendar used for Company A is IN (as shown in Figure 1).

To modify the holiday calendar to include the newly created holidays, follow SPRO menu path Time management > Define public holiday classes (Figure 8).

Figure 8

Holiday calendar change view

Select the Holiday calendar radio button and click the change icon, which takes you to the screen in Figure 9.

Figure 9

Change the holiday calendar

Choose the relevant calendar (IN India, in my example) by highlighting the row, and then click the change icon again. This generates the screen you see in Figure 10, which is where you can make modifications to the holiday calendar.

Figure 10

Assign the new public holidays

Click the Assign Holiday button to assign your newly created holidays, as shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11

Insert the new holidays in the public holiday list

Select the check boxes next to the new holidays in the pop-up window and click the Assign publ.holiday button to assign them. After you have selected the newly created holidays and assigned them, you see the screen in Figure 12, which shows that your new holidays have been properly assigned to the holiday calendar.

Figure 12

Save your new public holiday calendar

Click the save icon to save your changes and exit this screen.

Step 3. Update the Existing Work Schedule Rules

Now you need to update the relevant work schedule rules in the system to make this change effective. Follow SAP Easy Access menu path SAP Menu > Human resources > Time management > Work Schedule > Change (Figure 13).

Figure 13

Change the employee’s work schedule

Here you enter the relevant details: Employee subgroup grouping, Holiday calendar, Personnel subarea grouping, work schedule rule, and Calendar month from and to. Then select the Calendar radio button. Click the Change button and the save icon to save your new employee work schedule, and you get the following message (Figure 14).

Figure 14

Confirm that your new work schedule has been created

Step 4. Run the Test Case Before and After Assigning the Religious Data

Now that the work schedule has been regenerated, let’s see how it affects the employee master data for the employee. I have chosen one employee for this test, and he does not have any religion attached in his employee master data. Display the HR master data and infotype 0002 via transaction code PA20 (Figure 15).

Figure 15

View the employee personal data

Note that the Religion field for this employee is left blank.

Next, go to the planned working time screen to review the work schedule for this employee in infotype 0007 (planned working time), via transaction code PA20 (Figure 16).

Figure 16

The employee’s master data (infotype 0007) work schedule

This is where things get tricky and time administrators commonly become confused. His work schedule shows that he has a holiday on 04.11.2013 with the Holiday class 1 (off/paid). As a result, this holiday should appear as off/paid for this employee in the SAP Payroll system as well. However, since the employee has not specified a religion in his personal data (Figure 15), according to the payroll calculation engine this is a normal working day.

To clarify this step, let’s take a look at the payroll log for this employee; I am running a payroll simulation to illustrate. To analyze the payroll impact, choose the payroll log as shown in Figure 17, and double-click the PSP line. This takes you to the screen in Figure 18.

Figure 17

Payroll log view for the employee

Figure 18

Payroll log view of table PSP

According to the payroll log, the Day type is 0 for Date 04.11.2013 and the public holiday class (PublHolCal) is also 0, which means that this religious holiday is just a normal working day for this employee, not a paid day off.

Step 5. Assign the Religion in Personal Data for the Applicable Employee

To test the effect of the religion-specific holiday in the system, I have assigned Hindu as the religion in the employee’s personal data (Figure 19) via transaction code PA30 (infotype 0002), and saved it.

Figure 19

Employee’s personal data with Hindu assigned as the religion

This makes the employee eligible for holidays specific to particular religion. In this case, he is eligible for a day off on Diwali (assigned to the religious denomination of Hindu.)

Now let’s run the simulation and review the PSP table (Figure 20).

Figure 20

Payroll simulation view after assigning religion in personal data

As shown in Figure 21, the payroll log for 04.11.2013 has the Day type as 1 with a public holiday class of 1, which means that 04.11.2013 is a paid public holiday for this employee. However, during this same payroll run, for the other, non-Hindu employees, this day is shown as a normal working day.

Figure 21

Payroll simulation view for the employee of different religion

You can test the other scenarios by assigning respective religions to test employees and running the payroll on applicable month. Then review the results to make sure it’s working the way you intended.

Raghavendran Parthasarathy

Raghavendran Parthasarathy works for Hexaware Technologies as a Principal Consultant,where he manages SAP solution design for customers across the globe. He has worked in SAP ERP HCM for over 14 years in various capacities, including payroll projects in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia/Pacific. In addition to payroll, Raghavendran has experience in negative time management, personnel administration, and recruitment. He has also been a part of portal implementations. Currently, he is involved with cloud-based HCM applications such as SAP SuccessFactors and Workday.

You may contact the author at raghs99@yahoo.com.

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