2710797 - Frequently Asked Questions on Period Closure

This Knowledge Base Article has some frequently asked queries about Period Closure

SAP Business ByDesign

1. Default Period Closure 'SAP_COMMON' set by SAP is not allowed to edit further for any changes like "Relative Date' to be changed to 'Current Date'; Edit 'Fixed Date' to any future date; Edit 'Correction Start' Date

Day Closure Run ‘SAP_COMMON’ is pre-delivered by SAP and is responsible for maintaining consistency in time data of employees. It is protected due to this reason and hence there are very limited scope of changes which can be done on this. It shall only be allowed to de-activate this instance which is highly unrecommended as it shall cause time data inconsistency.

Also, new day closure runs can be created in the system based on your needs and applied to sets of employees like below:

• Employees can be included and excluded based on requirement.
• It can be set for either ‘Fixed Date’ or ‘Relative Date’. At a time, both are not allowed.

Also, ‘Fixed Date’ can be considered as a one time while relative date as repeated.

When above attributes are set, and instance has been activated, It can be scheduled to run by the button Schedule.

2. 'Schedule' option has options like 'Start Immediately', 'Run After Job', 'Single Run' and 'Recurrence' whereas these options do not take effect when changed to to a particular date or period. It's the same with options 'Schedule' and 'Schedule Directly' at the header level.

When ‘Schedule’ is clicked we have 4 options as below:

• Start Immediately: This will set a job in the system and which shall run based on either ‘Fixed Date’ or ‘Relative Date’.  Run shall be scheduled for specified date in the system for Fixed Date while for Relative Date, Run shall start immediately.
• Run After Job: This provided user the flexibility to run your run after some runs already scheduled either on provided ‘Fixed Date’. If its relative date is set, system shall schedule run your run immediately after your selected job is executed.
• Single Run: Here you can specify a date and time for the single run to be scheduled for both ‘Fixed Date’ or ‘Relative Date’ on specified date and time.
• Recurrence: Here you can schedule a run recurrence as per your requirement 

3. What happens because of this run?

This run be in ‘Fixed Date’ or ‘Relative Date’, validates all time data of employee from previous day as per the new settings (Time Account Rule, Time Model Changes, Time Account Bookable Period Changes), if everything is fine updated Period Closure Date to latest date but if any inconsistency is found, it errors out and Period Closure is not updated.

4. What not to expect from this run?

When any changed are done in settings as mentioned above in Time Accounts/Time models, this job would not apply new setting automatically. You need to run explicitly ‘Run Day closure for on Employee’ for all employees affected.

Example, if a Time Account TA1 assigned to 5 employees is changed, because of these change in the settings of this Time Account TA1, all of these 5 employees are affected (time data has become inconsistent and need a Day Closure Run). Under application log of run ‘SAP_COMMON’ you can find that these 5 employees has errors and Period Closure Date are not updated for them automatically.

5. What does ‘Run Day Closure for an Employee’ does to the Time Data?

When Day closure run is done, it checks for all configuration changes done which potentially can be applied to this employee and makes all the Time Data consistent. There are two steps of doing this:

• Go to ‘Time Administration’ WoC -> Regular Tasks
• Click ‘Run Day Closure for an Employee’-> Select Employee
• Choose action ‘Period Closure date to either today or tomorrow or any date in future. The main intention of this date is when Time Data will be validated by the system, it will be validated till this date (period Closure Date). Click on ‘Save’
• Now, choose the other action Run ‘Time Valuation’, Click ‘Run’ and  provide Time Profile Start Date of Employee , then ‘Save’

‘Time Profile Start Date’ is the date from which all Time Data of employees will be re-evaluated (checked for consistency and apply new settings).

Note : Time Data checks for consistency and apply new changes: Time Profile Start Date  to Period Closure Date

6. What is the logic behind 'Previous Day' set default by SAP in Period Closure Run.

In a Day closure Run we can either specify the run for a 'Fixed Date' or 'Relative Date', 'Relative Date can either be 'Previous Day ' or 'Current Day'. This basically means that as a result of this day closure run, the Period Closure Date for employee shall be set to either Previous Day/Date or Current/Today's Date.

Example: If the Run is set to 'Previous Day' and if the job runs today, Period Closure Dates for all employees will be set to Yesterday's date Provided there are no errors due to backdated configuration changes. In case there are errors for some employees, logs can be checked for details and Period Closure Date for employee shall not be updated by the run.

7. Why every hired employee has Previous Day as Day Closure Run. (Even before hiring an employee, what time is evaluated for the previous day).

When an employee is hired, it is expected to run manual day closure for him/her. By doing this Period Closure date is updated and is further taken up by the SAP provided Day Closure Run which runs on a daily basis to ensure Period Closure date is updated regularly(Previous Day = Today's Date - 1 ) and all time data is evaluated so that manual run or update or period closure date is not required.

Manual Day Closure Run is only required for this employee if there is any backdated configuration changes in either Time Accounts/Time Account Rules/Time Types/Time Model assignments which affects employees.

8. Is it possible to revert a Period Closure date to a prior date?

Currently it is not possible to revert the Period Closure date to a date before the one currently set.

Day Closure Run, Period Closure, Schedule Options , KBA , SRD-HR-TLM , Time and Labour Management , Problem