Period types and time periods

This topic introduces what period types time periods are, and how to configure them.

Overview of period types and time periods

A period type specifies the frequency at which resources must submit time sheets. A time period (period) is a specific date range of a given period type.

The available period types include the following:

  • Weekly. Resources submit time sheets every week. Each period starts on a Monday by default. To change which day of the week each period starts on, see Enable and disable period types.

  • Bi-Weekly. Resources submit time sheets every two weeks. Each period starts on a Monday by default. For example, 8/29/10 – 9/11/10 is a biweekly time period in August and September 2010. To change which day of the week each period starts on, see Enable and disable period types.

  • Semi-Monthly. Resources submit time sheets twice a month. The first time period always starts on the 1st and ends on the 15th of the month. For example, the two semimonthly time periods of September 2010 are  9/1/09 – 9/15/10 and 9/16/10 – 9/30/10.

  • Monthly. Resources submit time sheets once a month. Each time period covers one full calendar month, such as 9/01/10 – 9/30/10 for September 2010.

Note: When period types are shorter, users experience faster response times as they use their time sheets.

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Enable and disable period types

You can enable up to four period types. By default, only the Semi-Monthly period type is enabled. When a period type is enabled, it is can be used in a time sheet policy. For details, see Time sheet policies.

To enable or disable period types, you should have the knowledge of SQL and DBA privileges. Contact your administrator for selecting and enabling period types.

Period types and supported duration_code values

The following table lists the supported period types and their associated duration code values. The values for the associated duration_code are case-sensitive.

Period Type

Supported duration_code Values

Weekly

WEEKLY

Bi-Weekly

BI_WEEKLY

Semi-Monthly

SEMI_MONTHLY

Monthly

MONTHLY

To enable or disable a period type:

  1. Connect to the database schema containing the PPM installation (using SQL*Plus or your choice of SQL editor).

  2. Run the following query to check the supported options:

    SQL> SELECT * FROM KTMG_PERIOD_TYPES

    This query should return the four period types.

  3. To enable a period type, set the enabled flag to Y for the period types.

    For example:

    SQL> UPDATE ktmg_period_types
    SQL> SET enabled_flag = 'Y'
    SQL> WHERE duration_code = '<SupportedValue>'

    where <Supported Value> is one of the supported values listed in Period types and supported duration_code values.

    Each period type can be enabled or disabled. For example, to enable the Weekly and Monthly period types and disable the Bi-Weekly and Semi-Monthly period types, use the following:

    SQL> UPDATE ktmg_period_types
    SQL> SET enabled_flag = 'Y'
    SQL> WHERE duration_code = 'WEEKLY'

    SQL> UPDATE ktmg_period_types
    SQL> SET enabled_flag = 'N'
    SQL> WHERE duration_code = 'BI_WEEKLY'

    SQL> UPDATE ktmg_period_types
    SQL> SET enabled_flag = 'N'
    SQL> WHERE duration_code = 'SEMI_MONTHLY'

    SQL> UPDATE ktmg_period_types
    SQL> SET enabled_flag = 'Y'
    SQL> WHERE duration_code = 'MONTHLY'

  4. For the Weekly and Bi-Weekly period types, you can change the day of the week that starts the time period, as specified by start_day_code. By default, the start day is Monday, but you can use SQL to change it to any day of the week. For example, to set start_day_code to Sunday for the Weekly period type, use the following:

    SQL> UPDATE ktmg_period_type
    SQL> SET start_day_code = 'SUNDAY'
    SQL> WHERE duration_code = 'WEEKLY'

    The possible values for start_day_code are as follows:

    • Sunday
    • Monday
    • Tuesday
    • Wednesday
    • Thursday
    • Friday
    • Saturday

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Create time periods

This section describes how to create time periods.

Overview

When you create time periods, you specify the number of time periods to create. For example, if the period type is set to Weekly and 52 time periods are created, a one-year supply of time periods becomes available to users for time sheet creation. You can add other time periods at any time. Period types must be configured before creating time periods. For details, see Enable and disable period types.

Create time periods

To create time periods:

  1. Prerequisite: You must have administrative access to the PPM Server such that you can run scripts under the home directory of the PPM application suite.

  2. Log on to the PPM Server as the application administrator.

  3. Navigate to the <PPM_Home>/bin directory, where <PPM_Home> is the location where PPM was installed.

  4. Run the kGenTimeMgmtPeriods.sh command as follows:

    sh ./kGenTimeMgmtPeriods.sh <number_of_periods> <start_date>

    where

    • <number_of_periods> is the number of time periods to create for a specific period type.
    • <start_date> is the starting date of time periods (date format: MM/DD/YY) to create for a specific period type.

    A prompt is displayed for you to choose the period type.

    For example, if you want to create 20 time periods starting from January 2, 2012, run the command as follows:
    sh ./kGenTimeMgmtPeriods.sh 20 01/02/12

    Executing the script with no parameters and selecting Help, you can get the information about the usage of this command and the format of time periods as follows:

    USAGE: java com.kintana.tmg.util.GenTimePeriod [-h] number_of_periods star_date

    number_of_periods - an integer value; specify the number of periods to create

    start_date      - MM/dd/yy; create periods starting from this date

  5. Repeat step 3 for each enabled period type.

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