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What are Infotypes in SAP HR?

Posted by Arun - 07/01/09 at 06:01 pm

Definition
Infotypes are units of information in the Human Resource Management System.
Recording employee data for administrative, time recording, and payroll purposes is of primary importance for master data administration in HR. In the SAP System, the information units used to enter master data are called infotypes.

Use
Infotypes are used to group related data fields together. They provide information with a structure, facilitate data entry, and enable you to store data for specific periods.

Structure

Infotypes are characterized by the following:

1. Infotype Structure
2. Data Entry
3. Time-Dependent Storage of Infotype Data

Infotype Structure
To the user, infotypes appear as data entry screens. They contain whole series of information (for example, last name, first name, date of birth) that you enter in data fields. Data fields concerning the same or similar subject matter are combined into data groups or information units.

In database terms, infotypes represent a data structure or set of related data records. When you update an infotype, old data is not lost but is instead stored in the system for historical evaluation purposes.

Data Entry
You perform data entry as follows:

1. Your entries are automatically checked for accuracy and against table entries.
2. Predefined default values help you to enter and maintain data.
3. Checks and default values depend on the employee’s organizational assignment. The organizational assignment determines the relevant information used from time recording, wage type and pay scale structure.

Time-Dependent Storage of Infotype Data
When you update an infotype, the old data may not be lost. Instead, it must be retained so that past data can be evaluated. When you update an employee’s personal data, the old data is automatically time-delimited. The system creates a validity period for each infotype record. As a result, each employee infotype has several data records that differ from each other by their validity periods.

You must also define how the various data records of one infotype interact with each other with respect to their validity periods. This time-based reaction is determined by the infotype Time Constraint.

Example
To store an employee personal data, SAP provides Infotype 0002, referred as IT0002. To enter the data into this infotype, we can use the transaction code PA30 (Maintain HR Master Data). In the transaction, enter the employee ID and infotype no. as 0002. Once the data is entered and saved, you can view the data in the data dictionary in the table PA0002.

Related Posts:

1. Time contstraints in SAP HR Master Data

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 6:17 pm and is filed under Infotypes. The entry is tagged under Infotype. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.