Deadlines based on factory calendar - is The Book wrong?
Dart, Jocelyn
jocelyn.dart at sap.com
Wed Oct 4 21:20:43 EDT 2006
Hi Folks,
The Book wrong??? !!! Say it isn't so! ;-)
No seriously folks this one definitely works.
There are a couple of different ways of coding it but all should end up
using fm END_TIME_DETERMINE which does count up the working days from
your base date/time.
Things that sometimes can go wrong on site are:
* You aren't passing a factory calendar id or aren't passing the correct
factory calendar id
* Your factory calendar doesn't exist - or doesn't extend to the dates
you are using - default approach is usually to try again without factory
calendar
* Ditto for the holiday calendar linked to your factory calendar
* Your baseline date/time is wrong - e.g. the date/time passed in is
from the wrong timezone - remember the baseline date/time needs to be
based on the work being done - not the agents doing it
If you want to pass in a specific start date/time rather than use
today's date/time that's fine of course - you would simply need to
extend the solution in the book a little further.
You should not have to write your own code unless you don't want to use
a factory calendar at all - e.g. if you only have a holiday calendar (in
which case you are on your own...).
And yes if you want to calculate long deadlines based on working days -
60 days is more effective than 2 months.
Oh and if you have to work out an "early" deadline - i.e. number of days
BEFORE a certain date, then use fm START_TIME_DETERMINE. Works a treat.
Regards,
Jocelyn Dart
Senior Consultant
SAP Australia Pty Ltd.
Level 1/168 Walker St.
North Sydney
NSW, 2060
Australia
T +61 412 390 267
M + 61 412 390 267
E jocelyn.dart at sap.com
http://www.sap.com
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-----Original Message-----
From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On Behalf
Of Mike Pokraka
Sent: Tuesday, 03 October 2006 6:37 PM
To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
Subject: Re: Deadlines based on factory calendar - is The Book wrong?
Got onto a system and grabbed a quick moment to test it:
FM END_TIME_DETERMINE, offset 5 unit TAG (day), fcal 99 (International):
5 days from now is Sunday 8-Oct. The FM correctly spits out Tuesday
10-Oct, which is NOT simply the next working day.
Today -2 days is Sunday 1-Oct, it returns Friday 29-Sep.
The thing it doesn't do is factory time. Run it at 3am and it returns
3am
of the correct day.
Cheers,
Mike
On Tue, October 3, 2006 00:43, Mike Pokraka wrote:
> Huh? Confused is me. I think it's due to answering wugs late at night
as
> a distraction from the tedium of doing overdue stuff for the taxman.
> I don't have the book handy but I think I've based mine on the book
and
> it works.
> Maybe the book uses a different FM, I use END_TIME_DETERMINE and it
does
> the job for me. I think.
> The nice thing about the FM is it will also work backwards.
>
> Cheers,
> Mike
>
>
> Paul.Bakker at osr.treasury.qld.gov.au wrote:
>> Actually, I think you are missing something!
>>
>> The problem with the code in The Book is that if you specify a 3-day
>> deadline on a Friday, it will be triggered on the Monday. (It simply
>> adds 3
>> days, and then checks that Monday is a working day).
>>
>> It should instead be triggered on the Wednesday, because that is when
3
>> full working days have elapsed.
>>
>> cheers
>> Paul
>>
>>
>>
>> |---------+------------------------------>
>> | | Mike Pokraka |
>> | | <asap at workflowconne|
>> | | ctions.com> |
>> | | Sent by: |
>> | | sap-wug-bounces at mit|
>> | | .edu |
>> | | |
>> | | |
>> | | 03/10/2006 08:23 |
>> | | Please respond to |
>> | | "SAP Workflow |
>> | | Users' Group" |
>> | | |
>> |---------+------------------------------>
>>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------|
>> |
>> |
>> | To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu>
>> |
>> | cc:
>> |
>> | Subject: Re: Deadlines based on factory calendar - is The
>> Book wrong? |
>>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------|
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Paul,
>> Perhaps I misunderstood, but I grasped it differently. What I got was
>> that factory calendars become less relevant as time goes on. You
might
>> as well specify 15 working days as three weeks / 21 days because an
>> extra day won't make much difference, as opposed to a 2 day deadline
>> kicking in on a task created on a Friday afternoon, giving the poor
>> bloke an hour to do his job.
>>
>> I've not had to trawl through working days either. The book and the
doc
>> Kjetil sent both refer to the same principle. Specify an offset and
the
>> deadline object gives you the end date in working days from TODAY. Do
>> not add anything, just plug the object attributes into the
expression.
>> So an instance of a deadline object with a key including an offset of
>> today+howevermanydaysuntilnextsaturday should have Monday in it's
>> DEADLINEDATE attribute.
>>
>> ....or am I missing something?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Mike
>>
>> Paul.Bakker at osr.treasury.qld.gov.au wrote:
>>> WUG Experts,
>>>
>>> Thank you very much for all your valuable comments on the factory
>> calendar
>>> / deadline problem.
>>>
>>> I am going to go ahead and code the solution that was suggested :
>> increment
>>> one WORKING day at a time, until the deadline offset is reached. I
will
>>> share the code with you once it's bedded down.
>>>
>>> At first I didn't grasp the distinction that Kjetil made between
short
>> and
>>> long deadlines, but now I get it. A deadline specified in DAYs
should
>>> be
>>> interpreted as working days, whereas a deadline specified in MONTHS
or
>>> YEARS would not be.
>>>
>>> thanks again - this group is great!
>>> Paul
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> |---------+---------------------------->
>>> | | "Kjetil Kilhavn" |
>>> | | <KJETILK at statoil.|
>>> | | com> |
>>> | | Sent by: |
>>> | | sap-wug-bounces at m|
>>> | | it.edu |
>>> | | |
>>> | | |
>>> | | 28/09/2006 18:30 |
>>> | | Please respond to|
>>> | | "SAP Workflow |
>>> | | Users' Group" |
>>> | | |
>>> |---------+---------------------------->
>>>
>>>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------|
>>
>>> |
>> |
>>> | To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu>
>> |
>>> | cc:
>> |
>>> | Subject: RE: Deadlines based on factory calendar - is The
>>> Book
>> wrong? |
>>>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------|
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hmmmm... I looked a little more at the code in the presentation
>>> (embedded text file), and it looks like it is exactly the same
solution
>>> as the appendix in the book.
>>>
>>> However, there is one thing that makes me wonder about your
>>> requirement.
>>> You say that not only should the deadline be a working day, but only
>>> working days should be taken into account. It may make some sense
for
>>> very short deadlines, e.g. a two-day deadline, but should a 15-day
>>> deadline be a three-week deadline? In the worst case (I don't know
what
>>> options the standard function modules give you) you will have to
loop
>>> over every date in the range and check if it is a working day or
not.
>>> --
>>> Kjetil Kilhavn, Statoil OFT GBS BAS DEV SAP
>>>
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Kjetil Kilhavn
>>>> Sent: 28. september 2006 10:14
>>>> To: 'SAP Workflow Users' Group'
>>>> Subject: RE: Deadlines based on factory calendar - is The Book
wrong?
>>>>
>>>> I think this has been discussed several times before (have
>>>> you searched the archives?) in this group, but I can't recall
>>>> if anyone has had quite the same requirements as you.
>>>>
>>>> I have attached a PDF file (can't remember where I got it,
>>>> whether it was in this group or perhaps on ASUG's site) with
>>>> another implementation, and a PowerPoint file with an
>>>> implementation that seems to be exactly what you want.
>>>>
>>>> If you find none of these match your needs than please create
>>>> the ultimate solution and share it with the rest of us.
>>>> --
>>>> Kjetil Kilhavn, Statoil OFT GBS BAS DEV SAP
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu
>>>>> [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On Behalf Of
>>>>> Paul.Bakker at osr.treasury.qld.gov.au
>>>>> Sent: 28. september 2006 09:13
>>>>> To: sap-wug at mit.edu
>>>>> Subject: Deadlines based on factory calendar - is The Book wrong?
>>>>>
>>>>> Hello all,
>>>>>
>>>>> We have a requirement to calculate the deadline for a
>>>>> workitem (eg Latest
>>>>> Start) based on the Factory Calendar.
>>>>>
>>>>> For example, if the workitem was created on a Thursday and
>>>>> the 'Latest Start' deadline is +3 days, then it should be
>>>>> triggered on the following Tuesday (not Sunday). In other
>>>>> words, it should only take working days into account.
>>>>>
>>>>> Surprisingly, SAP standard does not cater for this scenario.
>>>>> I therefore implemented the solution suggested in the The
>>>>> Book, in Appendix A9. It shows you how to create a custom
>>>>> deadline object based on the factory calendar, and use the
>>>>> expression ZDEADLINE.DATE as the reference date in the step.
>>>>>
>>>>> Surprisingly (again), this solution DOES NOT work. Deadlines
>>>>> are triggered without taking weekends into account.
>>>>>
>>>>> When I had a closer look at it, I noticed that the Factory
>>>>> Calendar is only being used to determine the Workitem
>>>>> _Creation Date_; it is not being used to calculate the Latest
>>>>> Start Date. The book even seems to concede this:
>>>>>
>>>>> "Note that the reference date gives the date based on
>>>>> the factory calendar, but any offset will simply be added to
>>>>> the reference date as normal".
>>>>>
>>>>> If this really is the case, then what is the point of
>>>>> implementing this solution?
>>>>>
>>>>> Has anyone gotten it to work? I'm sure it must be me... sigh.
>>>>>
>>>>> cheers
>>>>> Paul
>>>>>
>>>>>
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