Overview

External Absences is an Absence Management feature for using absence information received from an external system in AristoTelos.

The feature associates an externally received absence with the relevant employee and employee contract, and uses that information to create or update the related period time-off in the shift plan.

This documentation describes the business capability in general terms. The currently documented external source is the Czech eNeschopenka source. Source-specific behavior is identified explicitly as Czech eNeschopenka behavior and does not define the behavior of every possible external source.

Business purpose

External Absences provides the business process for receiving externally maintained absence information and reflecting it in employee absence management and shift planning.

The feature covers the relationship between:

• an external absence record;
• the employee and employee contract;
• the related period time-off;
• the shift plan;
• attendance closing;
• employee contract changes; and
• downstream export processes.

When to use the feature

Use External Absences when absence information is received from an external system and must be reflected in the employee’s period time-off and shift plan.

The documented implementation applies to an external sickness-absence source. The source is currently eNeschopenka in the Czech implementation.

Business scenarios

An external absence is received

An external source provides a new absence record. AristoTelos stores the record, tries to identify the relevant employee contract, and creates the related period time-off when the documented conditions are met.

An external absence changes

An external source provides changed absence information. AristoTelos updates the stored external absence and evaluates whether the related period time-off must also change.

The employee cannot be identified

An external absence can be received before the relevant employee is available in AristoTelos. The absence remains available for later processing, and employee association is retried during later synchronization.

The related period time-off was changed manually

An Administrator can change the start, end, or absence type of a period time-off that originated from an external absence. A later automatic update does not overwrite the manually changed component.

Business process

1. An external source provides new or changed absence information.
2. AristoTelos identifies the external absence and tries to associate it with the relevant employee contract.
3. AristoTelos determines the related period time-off type.
4. AristoTelos creates or updates the external absence record.
5. AristoTelos creates, links, or updates the related period time-off where the documented rules allow it.
6. The shift plan reflects the resulting period time-off.
7. Changes that cannot be applied automatically remain available for review.

Business rules

• An external absence belongs to the employee contract identified by the external employee identifier.
• A person can have more than one employee contract. An absence associated with one contract does not automatically apply to another contract.
• Changes to employee association, absence interval, and absence type can affect the related period time-off.
• A manual Administrator change takes precedence over later automatic synchronization of the same component.
• External absence information can be retained when the employee cannot yet be identified and can be processed later.

Preconditions and dependencies

External Absences depends on:

• external absence information being available;
• employee contracts being available for matching;
• a corresponding period time-off type being available;
• the employee shift plan being available for synchronization; and
• employee-contract processing when the employee contract ends or is extended.

Inputs and outputs

Inputs

• external absence identification;
• employee or employee-contract identifier;
• absence start and end information;
• absence-category information; and
• information used to determine the related period time-off type.

Outputs

• created or updated external absence record;
• employee association where the employee can be identified;
• created or updated period time-off;
• change in the shift plan; and
• information, warning, or error about the processing result.

Impact on other business processes

Shift plan

A period time-off linked to an external absence is distinguishable in the shift plan.

Attendance closing

An absence without a supporting document can remain in attendance. During attendance closing, the Manager is informed that the absence will be exported as unpaid sickness.

Employee contract lifecycle

A period time-off linked to an external absence can end when the relevant employee contract ends. It can be extended again after an employee-contract extension where the documented synchronization conditions are met.

Shift-plan publishing

A period time-off linked to an external absence is not connected with an overlapping period time-off during shift-plan publishing.

Export

The documented implementation includes an adjustment of SAP export for the affected absence process.

Exceptions and special cases

• The employee cannot be identified.
• The absence interval is invalid.
• The absence cannot be associated with a period time-off type.
• A manually changed component is no longer available for automatic synchronization.

Limitations and considerations

The current documentation describes the behavior of one external source. A different external source may provide different information, including different identification, update, or deletion behavior.

The source-specific sections below must not be interpreted as requirements for every external-absence source.

Czech eNeschopenka-specific behavior

The currently documented Czech external source is eNeschopenka, provided through ORDS.

For this source:

• ORDS provides eNeschopenka records in which a change occurred during the previous seven days, regardless of when the eNeschopenka was originally created;
• ORDS provides complete eNeschopenka data, not only changed values;
• AristoTelos can create and update eNeschopenka records;
• ORDS does not provide information about deleted eNeschopenka records, so AristoTelos does not delete an eNeschopenka merely because it is missing from a later import;
• eNeschopenka is associated with an employee contract through the employee personnel number;
• a person can have more than one personnel number, and an eNeschopenka for one personnel number does not automatically apply to another personnel number;
• the imported scope does not include stay addresses or information about permitted walks;
• eNeschopenka information typically arrives one to two days late and can arrive up to five days late after a weekend combined with a month boundary;
• an eNeschopenka that lies entirely in the past can still be added when it does not affect shifts in a finished roster period;
• an eNeschopenka change that would hide or reveal shifts in a finished roster period is not applied automatically and requires manual resolution.

Open business questions

The source documentation contains open questions about:

• notification of the end of an external sickness absence;
• notification recipients when an illness is deleted;
• notification of absence without a supporting document;
• ownership of removing absences without a supporting document;
• visibility of external-absence information; and
• required reporting.

Implementation and configuration

For configuration, administration, source processing, shift-plan behavior, employee-contract processing, and SAP-export details, see the related Application Documentation.