2827485 - Pending Approval or Approved Time Sheets are reset to To be Submitted status by System System

Symptom

The time sheet Workflow was pending approval, but got canceled by System System overnight.
The Approved time sheet has been replaced by a new amendment time sheet and the new amendment time sheet stays in To be Submitted status overnight.

Environment

SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central - Time Sheet
SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking

Reproducing the Issue

The time sheet Workflow was pending approval, but got canceled by System System overnight.
1. Submit Time Sheet.
2. Do not approve it.
3. Over the night the pending workflow will be canceled automatically by System System.

The Approved time sheet has been replaced by a new amendment time sheet and the new amendment time sheet stays in "To be Submitted" status overnight.
1. Submit Time Sheet.
2. Approve the Time Sheet.
3. Over the night, the approved time sheet is replaced by a new amendment time sheet. And the new amendment time sheet stays in To be Submitted status.

Cause

Possible root cause 1
You have at least one valuation where Valuation Method is "Valuate Up To Today".
When using Valuation Method of type "Valuate Up To Today," the system will consider the current date in the valuation. This means that if you have a Time Sheet submitted with or without a workflow before the end date of the time sheet period, when the midnight job runs, this valuation will consider current day/today (As the valuation method is valuate up to today). As a result, the valuation will change and since the system recognizes a change in the valuation results, it
- either automatically generates a new amendment time sheet if the original time sheet is already approved,
- or cancels the workflow if the original time sheet is still pending approval, so that the time sheet can be submitted again.

Regarding how to determine which valuations are using this method if you have multiple assigned to the users Time Recording Profile:

1. Add "Valuationmethod" as a searchable field on the "Time Valuation" Object in Configure Object Definition.
2. Search in Manage Data > Time Valuation > "VALUATE_UNTIL_TODAY"

Possible root cause 2
It is a negative time sheet and
- either Deviation with a minus number of days is configured in the "Time Recording Submission Configuration" so that the negative time sheet are submitted before the end date of the time sheet period,
- or Time Recording Calendar is configured so that negative time sheets are submitted before the end date of the corresponding period.

For negative time sheets, only the deviation from the planned working time is expected to be manually updated. So the daily "Generate Time Sheet" job scheduled midnight will generate the current day attendance recordings based on the negative time recorder's workschedule. As a result, the time sheet will be changed by the Generate Time Sheet job and with this change recognized by the system, it

- either automatically generates a new amendment time sheet if the original time sheet is already approved,
- or cancels the workflow if the original time sheet is still pending approval, so that the time sheet can be submitted again.

Possible root cause 3
A new Public Holiday is added to the employee's Holiday Calendar after the current time sheet has been Approved before time sheet period end date.
As of 1H 2025 release, changes within the Holiday Calendar will not trigger Recalculation automatically, but the time sheet planned working time would be impacted by the new public holiday.
The daily "Generate Time Sheet" job will detect such a difference of the planned working time for the current period time sheet and generate a new amendment time sheet to ensure the data are valid.

Note: As of 2H 2025 release, changes within the Holiday Calendar will trigger recalculation automatically. The What's New Viewer link will be attached once available.

ATTENDTION! The "To be Submitted" time sheets done by System System usually are not caused by Recalculation Triggers in the Time Sheet. Instead, recalculation now keeps the time sheet to be of the consistent workflow status as before the recalculation, which means,

if the original time sheet is approved, then the workflow will be skipped by such recalculation, and the new time sheet will be in approved status directly.
if the original time sheet is submitted and pending approval, then the time sheet will be submitted directly, and whether the workflow should be triggered or not depends on the logic within the customer save rule on EmployeeTimeSheet object for triggering workflow.

More details in 3492095 - Workflow not Triggered for an Approved Employee Time Sheet after recalculation can be referred to.

Resolution

This is the correct system behavior.
To get over the symptom, please consider not submitting the time sheets before the end date of the time sheet period in whatever way.
If submission before the end date of time sheet period is definitely needed, please consider avoid using valuation where Valuation Method is "Valuate Up To Today" if business requirement allows.
However, for negative time recorders, the above symptom is unavoidable if submission before end date happens.
Because it is correct system definition and logic that the attendance recordings are created on daily basis by Generate Time Sheet job.

Keywords

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Product

SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central all versions ; SAP SuccessFactors HCM Core all versions ; SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking all versions