Managing activity events

Hourly employees enter activity events in the timecard by entering start and stop times or durations. Salaried employees enter durations to match schedules in the timecard. Employees and managers may use forms to enter activity information at a PC, data collection device, or mobile device. Managers can also manage activity events across multiple employees simultaneously using group edits through the employee summary page or dataviews. How employees and managers enter activity information is based on their function access profile and activity profile. In some situations, it may be necessary to use Supervisor forms to correct information that employees have entered.

Before you begin managing activities, ensure that you understand the following information about data validation, activity duration entry, and editing restrictions: Activity information is integrated directly into each employee's timecard where you perform most of the management tasks such as adding, editing, and approving events. You generally access timecards through dataviews. Instructions for specific tasks are in the Timecard portion of this online Help. Use the Help Search feature.

Data Validation

Activity data receives the same validation regardless of whether an activity was entered through a form or the employee timecard.

Note: Data can only be edited in the timecard if the user's assigned function access profile has those privileges enabled.

For quantity data, update the following values directly in the activity event using the timecard:

  • Quantity Complete
  • Quantity Reworked
  • Quantity Scrapped
  • Completed Quantity Code
  • Reworked Quantity Code
  • Scrapped Quantity Code
  • Start Comments
  • Stop Comments
  • User Field 1-4
  • Any user-defined field definitions

For other non-quantity results, submit forms to correct the data.

Standards and Efficiency

Standards and Efficiency enable organizations to measure productivity, efficiency and utilization. Associating a standard to an activity sets a benchmark used to calculate efficiency by comparing the standard against entered results.

Efficiency results can be found in the timecard by viewing the Activities Summary tab or the Quick Glance for a specific activity.

For more information on associating Standards with Activities, see Administration > Application Setup > Activities Setup > Activities > Standard tab in the online help or use the online help search feature.

Anomalies

Anomalies indicate areas of concern in the timecard to managers so that they can be addressed if necessary. Anomalies help managers to account for their employees' workday time and can be tracked in dataviews and reports. Anomalies are indicated in the timecard with two vertical blue squares ( ). Hovering above an anomaly indicators will show what type of anomaly is being indicated.

There are seven anomaly types:

  • Idle: A shift has not been assigned an activity.
  • Orphan: An activity has been entered but has not been assigned to a shift.
  • Concurrency: Shifts or activities have been entered with overlapping times
  • Mismatched Results: Entered results do not match the results template associated with the activity.
  • Missing Results: Results were not submitted for the activity.
  • Over allocation: The time entered for an activity is longer than the associated shift.
  • Auto Resolve: An exception configured to auto resolve itself with a paycode.

Anomaly types must be configured to appear. To configure anomaly indicators, navigate to Setup > Display Preferences > Timecard Settings > Edit Timecard Settings > Show Activity Anomaly Indicators. Anomalies can be configured to appear in the Hourly Employee timecard, the Project employee timecard, or both.

Additional information:

Orphan Shifts

If you enter duration or start stops activities without corresponding hours in the timecard, an orphan will be generated. The orphan then creates its own shift in the timecard.

Warning: Any activity entered that cannot be attached to an existing Timekeeping shift will generate a Timekeeping shift that will default to the user's home account. The user will be paid for the orphan shift. To prevent users from automatically being paid for orphan shifts, create a Work Rule (from Pay Policies) specific to orphans and configure the Work Rule not to pay an employee for any orphan shift. Attach the Work Rule to the Activity Profile in the General tab at Orphan Work Rule.
  • For more information on Work Rules, navigate to Administration > Application Setup > Pay Policies > Work Rules in the online help or use the Help Search feature.
  • For more information on Orphans, navigate to Administration > Application Setup > Activities Setup > Activity Profiles in the online help or use the Help Search feature.

Concurrency

Concurrency applies only to start stop, start only, or stop only employees. Concurrency is not applicable to duration employees.

  • If you copy a set of concurrent activities from a previous day to another day with concurrent activities, the system adjusts the sequence number in the “Concurrent” column to group the activities correctly.
  • Starting different activities at the same time will make them concurrent.

Auto Resolve

You can select a default Auto Resolve paycode to prevent future Auto Resolve anomaly indicators from appearing in the timecard.

  1. Go to Application Setup > Activities Setup > Activity Profiles.

  2. Select the Activity Profiles page.

  3. Scroll down the page to the Defaults section and choose a default in the Auto Resolve drop down menu.
  4. Click Save( )

Duration entry guidelines

You may manage employees who enter activity duration in their timecards instead of activity start and stop times. Be aware of the following behavior and features of durations when you manage create or edit durations.

General behavior

  • Duration entry supports pay-from-schedule and pay code edit features.
  • Employees who enter durations should not use the auto-deduct meal break rule.
  • Minimum/maximum durations that employees can enter for activities are specified in their activity profiles or the definition of the activity itself. The settings in the activity definition always take precedence.

Hours or percentage entry

  • You can only enter time as a percentage through the Time Period Entry window. Time cannot be entered as a percentage through the timecard.
  • Time entered as a duration in the Time Period Entry window can exceed the equivalent of 100%, but time entered as a percentage cannot exceed 100%.
  • In hourly timecards (each day lists punches, paycodes, schedules, daily total, and total time to date), you enter durations in the "Duration" column; in Project View timecards (each day lists the schedule, projects and total hours), you enter durations in the column for the day of the week.
  • If the entry needs to be in the form of a percentage, when you click in the entry cell, a percent sign appears. After you enter a percentage, the corresponding number of hours also appears in brackets ([ ]). The calculation is based on the length of the shift.
  • If the duration exceeds the timecard hours, the system rounds the amount and converts it to a percentage. If the duration is less than the timecard hours, the system creates an IDLE record (minus deductions) to fill the time.
  • If the total percentage for the shift or day exceeds 100, the system rounds the amount and converts it to a number of hours. If the total percentage amount less than 100 percent, the "Total Activities Charged" box is outlined in red. The system creates an IDLE record to fill the time. Adjust the percentages so that they equal 100.

System-generated events

Some events are automatically generated with an associated indirect activity by the system. Indirect activities do not directly contribute to productivity. The system creates these events based on:

  • Start and stop activity transactions
  • Pay code actions

System-generated events cannot be edited. There are four possible system generated events:

  • Idle time
  • Paid meal breaks
  • Unpaid meal breaks
  • Pay code actions(events created by pay codes that are linked to activities)
Note: System-generated events appear in purple. You can change the activity associated with idle time to another activity by adding a new row with an activity that covers the idle time. Once a new row has been added with an activity that covers the idle time, the idle time will disappear.

Idle Percent Allocation

When configured, Idle Percent Allocation will cause idle time to be filled with multiple idle-activities, with time allocation split between the idle-activities using predefined percentages. Idle Percent allocation can be configured in the Person Record by navigating to Activities > Defaults, or in the Activity Profile under Defaults.

Note: When defaults have been configured in both the Person Record and the Activity Profile, the defaults chosen in the Person Record will override the selections made in the Activity Profile.

For information on configuring Idle Percent Allocation, navigate to Maintenance > People Information > Activities > Defaults OR navigate to Administration > Application Setup > Activities Setup > Activities Profile > Defaults tab in the online help or use the search engine.

Multiple Idle Row Compression

When multiple idles have been configured in the Person Record or Activity Profile, users have an option available in the Timecard to view each Idle Activity as a separate row or to collapse all of the Idle Activities into one consolidated row called Default Allocation. When multiple idles are compressed to the Default Allocation row, users can right-click the Default Allocation row to view a Quick Glance with the full set of details for each Idle Activity.

To compress multiple Idle Rows into the Default Allocation row:

  • In the timecard, click Activities and select Collapse Default Allocation Details.

To view multiple Idles with their own rows:

  • In the timecard, click Activities and select Expand Default Allocation Details.

Note: To use this feature, Administrators must enable Enable Effective date Defaults and Idle percentage allocation in the Activity Settings page in Activity Setup. This setting is disabled by default.

Using the Activities Summary tab

At the bottom of the Employee Timecard page, users have the option to select Activities Summary for a consolidated view of information related to Activities performed in the specified time period.

Columns shown in the Activities Summary tab are determined in their Activities Summary Add-on Profile, which is then assigned in the Timecard Settings page using the Activities Summary Add-On Profile field:

  • For more information on the Activities Summary Add-on Profile, navigate to Administration > Application Setup > Display Preferences > Timecard Add-on Profiles > Configure the Activities Summary Add -on Profile in the help or use the search feature.

  • For more information on the Timecard Settings page, navigate to Administration > Application Setup > Display Preferences > Timecard Settings in the help or use the search feature.

When configured, the following activity detail columns are automatically displayed in the summary table:

  • Activity

  • Location

  • Job

  • Cost Center

  • Labor Category

  • Pay Code

  • Amount

  • Wages

When configured, the following additional activity detail columns can be viewed by selecting Time Item and Segment Detail from the drop down boxes in the top left of the Activities Summary tab:

  • Start Time

  • Stop Time

  • Actual Hours

  • Allocated Hours

  • Variance

  • Efficiency

Note: Any columns that have been configured as viewable but are not automatically displayed in the Activities Summary tab can be found using the filter icon ( ).