Newsletter November 2004

1. What's new in Human Resources?

New Research Results on Learning and Sleep
In its November issue, the German edition of the "Scientific American" magazine reports about new research results in brain science. The authors Jan Born and Ulrich Kraft show that after learning new procedures the brain actively performs a kind of review session during sleep, thus improving upon the new knowledge learned during the day.
To guarantee optimal success of a learning, people need sufficient amounts of sleep (probably 7 to 8 hours) in a period of 24 hours after the training.
The authors proved in their tests that 8 hours of sleep created an improvement in the freshly learned procedures, that is three times as strong as the effect of only 3 hours of sleep. Learners that didn't sleep enough in the night after the training but made good for it later, didn't show the same positive effect.
This might be interesting news for Personnel Development. While it is generally agreed upon that you should be well rested when starting a training session, only few people think, that it is as important to get sufficient sleep after a seminar to benefit as much as possible.
(see also: Jan Born und Ulrich Kraft: "Lernen im Schlaf - kein Traum", Spektrum der Wissenschaft, November 2004, pages 44-51)

2. Tips in mySAP® HR

Personnel Cost Planning: Article
With release 4.7 (extension set 1.10), the HR module provides a new solution for Cost Planning, which fixes most of the old solution's problems. So, many organizations that up until this point relied on third-party-products, interfaces to office-software or somehow got along with the restrictions of the old solution now are thinking about switching to the new solution.
In many cases, only extension set 1.10 is installed. While this is generally sufficient to implement the new "Cost Planning and Simulation" component, extension set 2.0 provides some new features that might make it even more efficient.
Read the article to learn more about the improvements in extension set 2.0 and whether you should upgrade to this extension set before starting your cost planning project:
Or ask for a cost planning workshop with an expert from AdManus: mailto:kontakt@iprocon.com.

Tracing the Payroll Scheme
Anybody who is responsible for the configuration of payroll in SAP® HR often has the problem to read from the log, to find out what happens within a calculation rule. While the FUNCTION "PRINT" is widely used to see the results after a certain rule in the log, the OPERATION "PRINT" is rarely used. It allows you to see the results of the tables "IT" (input table) and "OT" (output table) at any point of the calculation within a certain rule.

Custom Fields in your Applicant Correspondence: Article
The recruitment module in R/3® supports an automatic applicant correspondence. There are many text variables available to be used in the letters - but most companies need some more variables, that are not available in the SAP® standard functionality. But you can create additional text variables. In an article that was published in the November 2004 issue of HR Expert AdManus consultant Sven Ringling describes step by step how to do this. Use this link to get the article in English language as a PDF-file.

SAP HR 2005 Conference in Orlando
After a successful start of their HR conference in 2004, WIS, the publisher of SAP Insider and HR Expert, will host the SAP HR 2005 in Orlando from March 14 to March 16 2005. More than 90 sessions in all areas of SAP HR provide first-hand information to use in your own projects.
You also can use the opportunity to meet an expert from AdManus at the conference. Just send a message to mailto:info@admanus.de so that we can arrange an appointment.
Have a look at the official website of the event to get more information: http://www.saphr2005.com.

3. News from AdManus

Conference "SAP HR in Practice": February 15 and 16 2005 in Cologne
24 presentations show solutions in SAP® HR that really work. Key users from 10 different companies as well as experienced consultants from AdManus and its partners guarantee high value for your business. The conference language is German, but it addresses attendees from any country as long as they understand German. The experts from AdManus will gladly answer your questions in English, so that you do not necessarily have to be fluent in German.
A selection of the presentations:

• The Business Information Warehouse in HR
  (Stefanie Lenz, PIKON International Consulting Group; Achim Lehmkuhl, Eisenbahn & Häfen GmbH; Jörg Edinger, iProCon GmbH)
• Introduction in shift planning with SAP
  (Jürgen Figaj, Projektkultur GmbH)
• Personnel Cost Planning at Scheufelen Paper (the new solution!)
  (Elke Mayerle, Papierfabrik Scheufelen GmbH & Co. KG; Jörg Edinger, iProCon GmbH)
• International HR at the Schaeffler-Group: worldwide rollout in one client
  (Matthias Moosmaier, INA-Schaeffler KG)
• E-Recruiting vs. Applicant Management
  (Gerd Schade, SAP AG; Christian Krämer, iProCon GmbH)

For more information in German language: http://admanus.de/PT2005
If you have any questions about the event, do not hesitate to send an e-mail to this address: mailto:info@admanus.de so that we can contact you.

New AdManus Member
With Lars Möller and his company LM-Consulting AdManus grew to 5 companies in October. Lars Möller has a broad knowledge in SAP® HR and special expertise in the Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS). This is also the topic he will speak about at the AdManus conference mentioned above.

PIKON International Consulting Group and AdManus establish a Partnership
AdManus customers are used to the first class expertise of our consultants in SAP HR projects. Now they can benefit from the same quality in Finance, Logistics and SAP Technology / NetWeaver as well. The consultants of our new partner PIKON represent a broad experience in nearly all SAP components except HR. This cooperation enables customers of AdManus and PIKON to get the support for an implementation project or an upgrade from one homogenous team. A special focus of PIKON is SAP® Business Intelligence, so that the use of BW (Business Information Warehouse) and SEM (Strategic Enterprise Management) in HR also is an important area, where PIKON and AdManus work together. Learn more about PIKON: http://www.pikon.com .

English Website
The AdManus website is now available in English too. Using the URL http://admanus.de/int/index.php you'll get information about AdManus Network, its quality management and code of ethics and some publications. If you have German colleagues, direct them to our German Website: http://admanus.de. There you'll find our solution database and even more publications on topics around SAP® HR.
You also find interesting content on the English websites of the responsible AdManus companies Projektkultur (http://www.projektkultur.biz) and iProCon (http://www.iprocon.com).

4. Book Recommendations

"HR Personnel Planning and Development using SAP": SAP PRESS®
This book was written for SAP PRESS® by three AdManus-consultants (Christian Kraemer, Christian Luebke and Sven Ringling). It covers all processes in personnel development and personnel planning based on R/3® enterprise or R/3® 4.6c. Anyone using 4.6b or 4.5b as well as users of mySAP® ERP 2004 will also benefit from most of the content.
The authors do not just tell you about screens, customizing tables and other things you may as well read about in the normal SAP® documentation. They focus on showing the reader how to get from the process design to a system that really supports these processes. In any chapter you will first learn about the general design of the solution within SAP® and then about the most important customizing activities. There are many best practices, work-arounds, typical traps and critical factors of success based on the experience of many projects.
Read more about the book or order it at
- SAP PRESS®
- Amazon.com

If you want to benefit even more from this broad knowledge for your project (best in an early stage of your project in order to leverage your team - but also for post-implementation optimization), ask for a workshop with the authors: mailto:kontakt@iprocon.com

"Shift planning with SAP"
Also from SAP PRESS® and written by two AdManus consultants (Martin Esch and Juergen Figaj) this book is based on a broad international expertise from projects in the U.K, Germany, Austria and Scandinavia. By now, it is available in German language only. If you are interested in an English edition, do not hesitate to send us an e-mail. We will forward it to SAP PRESS® to encourage a translation into English and inform you as soon as an English edition will be available.

If want these experts to guarantee the success of your project in the SAP® shift planning component, please contact the authors directly via e-mail: mailto:info@projektkultur.biz.

5. German Language Lesson

For 3 years now, we encourage our German subscribers to improve their English with a small lesson containing vocabulary from HR-related topics. Now we give you the chance to learn some German HR-vocabulary as well.
In this issue, the subject of the lesson is "shift planning". You find it via this link: Language Lesson