MANAGING CONSISTENT INTERFACES FOR EMPLOYEE TIME EVENT AND HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT VIEW OF PAYROLL PROCESS BUSINESS OBJECTS ACROSS HETEROGENEOUS SYSTEMS

• US 20110307360A1
• Filed: 06/15/2010
• Published: 12/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Duparc, Jacques, Moser, Thomas, Sieber, Peter, Thorleifsson, Helgi, Guenther, Fabian, Bold, Andreas, Timalapur, Arun Kumar
• Granted Patent: US 8,515,794 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/32
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1091 Recording time for administrative or management purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/125 Finance or payroll

Abstract

A business object model, which reflects data that is used during a given business transaction, is utilized to generate interfaces. This business object model facilitates commercial transactions by providing consistent interfaces that are suitable for use across industries, across businesses, and across different departments within a business during a business transaction. In some operations, software creates, updates, or otherwise processes information related to employee time event and human capital management view of payroll process business objects.

Claims

1. A tangible computer readable medium including program code for providing a message-based interface for processing and exchanging information for employee time events, including events on a given date and at a given time that starts or ends for an employee, the medium comprising:

program code for receiving via a message-based interface derived from a common business object model, where the common business object model includes business objects having relationships that enable derivation of message-based interfaces and message packages, the message-based interface exposing at least one service as defined in a service registry and from a heterogeneous application executing in an environment of computer systems providing message-based services, a first message for requesting the creation of a bundle of employee time events for an employee that includes a first message package derived from the common business object model and hierarchically organized in memory as;

an employee time event bundle create request message entity; and

an employee time event package comprising an employee time event entity, where the employee time event entity includes a type code and a date time;

program code for processing the first message according to the hierarchical organization of the first message package, where processing the first message includes unpacking the first message package based on the common business object model; and

program code for sending a second message to the heterogeneous application responsive to the first message, where the second message includes a second message package derived from the common business object model to provide consistent semantics with the first message package.

2. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the employee time event entity comprises at least one of the following:

an employee time recording card identifier (ID), an employee universally unique ID, a reason code, and an employee time recording device ID.

3. A distributed system operating in a landscape of computer systems providing message-based services defined in a service registry, the system comprising:

a graphical user interface comprising computer readable instructions, embedded on tangible media, for requesting the creation of a bundle of employee time events for an employee using a request;

a first memory storing a user interface controller for processing the request and involving a message including a message package derived from a common business object model, where the common business object model includes business objects having relationships that enable derivation of message-based service interfaces and message packages, the message package hierarchically organized as;

an employee time event bundle create request message entity; and

an employee time event package comprising an employee time event entity, where the employee time event entity includes a type code and a date time; and

a second memory, remote from the graphical user interface, storing a plurality of message-based service interfaces derived from the common business object model to provide consistent semantics with messages derived from the common business object model, where one of the message-based service interfaces processes the message according to the hierarchical organization of the message package, where processing the message includes unpacking the first message package based on the common business object model.

4. The distributed system of claim 3, wherein the first memory is remote from the graphical user interface.

5. The distributed system of claim 3, wherein the first memory is remote from the second memory.

6. A tangible computer readable medium including program code for providing a message-based interface for exchanging payroll-related information used by a human capital management system as a view of a payroll process, the medium comprising:

program code for receiving via a message-based interface derived from a common business object model, where the common business object model includes business objects having relationships that enable derivation of message-based interfaces and message packages, the message-based interface exposing at least one service as defined in a service registry and from a heterogeneous application executing in an environment of computer systems providing message-based services, a first message for collecting payroll-related information used by a human capital management system as a view of a payroll process that includes a first message package derived from the common business object model and hierarchically organized in memory as;

a payroll process collection request message entity; and

a payroll process collection package comprising a payroll process collection entity and a payroll process package comprising a payroll process entity, where the payroll process collection entity includes a reconciliation period counter value, a payroll process list complete transmission indicator, a country code and a payroll group code, and where the payroll process entity includes an action code, an employee list complete transmission indicator and an identifier;

program code for processing the first message according to the hierarchical organization of the first message package, where processing the first message includes unpacking the first message package based on the common business object model; and

program code for sending a second message to the heterogeneous application responsive to the first message, where the second message includes a second message package derived from the common business object model to provide consistent semantics with the first message package.

7. A distributed system operating in a landscape of computer systems providing message-based services defined in a service registry, the system comprising:

a graphical user interface comprising computer readable instructions, embedded on tangible media, for collecting payroll-related information used by a human capital management system as a view of a payroll process using a request;

a first memory storing a user interface controller for processing the request and involving a message including a message package derived from a common business object model, where the common business object model includes business objects having relationships that enable derivation of message-based service interfaces and message packages, the message package hierarchically organized as;

a payroll process collection request message entity; and

a payroll process collection package comprising a payroll process collection entity and a payroll process package comprising a payroll process entity, where the payroll process collection entity includes a reconciliation period counter value, a payroll process list complete transmission indicator, a country code and a payroll group code, and where the payroll process entity includes an action code, an employee list complete transmission indicator and an identifier; and

a second memory, remote from the graphical user interface, storing a plurality of message-based service interfaces derived from the common business object model to provide consistent semantics with messages derived from the common business object model, where one of the message-based service interfaces processes the message according to the hierarchical organization of the message package, where processing the message includes unpacking the first message package based on the common business object model.

8. The distributed system of claim 7, wherein the first memory is remote from the graphical user interface.

9. The distributed system of claim 7, wherein the first memory is remote from the second memory.