Why PeopleSoft Time and Labor + Absence Management

Around two years ago, UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group) announced end of life (EOL) dates for two of their workforce management solutions: Kronos Cloud (KPC) will be retired on December 31, 2025 and On-Premise Workforce Central (WFC) will be retired on March 31, 2027.

As a result of this announcement, UKG users were faced with the decision to either move to a Cloud system or another On-Prem system. This led to increased interest in PeopleSoft products, specifically regarding Time and Labor and Absence Management modules.

These modules are tightly integrated with Payroll. Together, they can meet and exceed your organization requirements to capture, process, and distribute time and attendance data.

The purpose of this post is to describe the compatibility of Time and Labor and Absence Management. It will give you a broad overview of the many capabilities and the latest functionalities of each module.

Time, Absence and Payroll Module Integration

Absence Management is a stand-alone module within PeopleSoft. It is included in the license of the Payroll module, meaning if you’re already running Peoplesoft Payroll, then you can implement Absence Management without an additional license. Time and Labor, however, may require an additional license to the Payroll license.

Absence Management has a full suite of functionality. It includes the following:

• Employee and Manager Self-Service
• Absence Events and Workflow Approval
• Balance Forecasting
• Absence Takes and Entitlement Calculation
• Absence Balance Maintenance

All key stakeholders of Absence Management process have capabilities in the system modules that meet requirements.

Similarly, Time and Labor covers end-to-end time-keeping aspects. These include:

• Time Reporting & Collection
• Employee and Manager Self-Service
• Time Admin Rules and Exceptions
• Time Approvals
• Payable Time Management

As for Payroll, when it comes to the process flow, Absence comes first. Absence flows into Time and Labor, and that flows into the Payroll module. Some customers may choose to use Absence Management or Time and Labor. The two do not have to be used together.

For a deeper dive of the capabilities of Absence Management based on role, review the following:

Employee Capabilities:

• Request absences
• View absence balance
• Forecast future balance
• Cancel absence request
• Donate leave
• Request extended absence
• Request schedule change

Manager Capabilities:

• Request absence (On behalf)
• Approve/reject absence
• View absence balance
• Forecast balance
• Cancel absence request
• Schedule management
• Team absence analytics

Administrator Capabilities:

• Manage absence events
• Manage absence calendars
• Run absence calc process
• Review absence results
• Resolve exceptions
• Manage adjustments
• Approve/Manage donations

Time and Labor is an elaborate module with many capabilities, as well. Below, you’ll find them listed by role:

Employee Capabilities:

• Elapsed/punch time entry
• Web-clock
• Task reporting
• Manage exceptions
• Payable tie review
• Overtime request

Manager Capabilities:

• Time entry and approval
• Manage exceptions
• Manage schedules
• Team calendar
• Overtime approvals
• Team time analytics

Administrator Capabilities:

• Time reporter maintenance
• Process payable time
• Manage schedules
• Manage exceptions
• Reported/payable time analytics
• Send time to payroll

When it comes to absence and time data integration, as mentioned, absence data flows into time and labor modules. Then it gets integrated to various modules.

Expenses:

• Time Reporting Code Sync from TL
• Elapsed Time Load from Expenses

Project Costing

• Track time for Projects (Granular Task Level)
• Publish Estimated and Actual Costs from Payroll
• Time entry rules based on project allocations
• Track time and cost by tasks for Commitment Accounting

Streamlined Process Flow

When you use Time, Absence, and Pay together, the processing sequence begins with Timesheet Lockdown. This is when the pay period is ending and pay is ready to be processed. If you have approvals set up, you’ll need to make sure there is time for approvals to occur.

Next is Run Time Admin Process for the entire population. Then is Run the Leave Donation Process. After that, you’ll “Calculate All” on the “Calculate Absence and Payroll.” This is similar to Payroll processing. You’ll initiate a period, run it multiple times, calculate, and review multiple times if desired. The remaining steps are to review the Allowable Exceptions and Fix Exceptions, correct errors and run Re-calculate all, and run Finalize on Calculate Absence and Payroll.

Once this has been completed, the Employee and Admin can see the absences, accruals, takes, adjustments, and final balance. They’ll check if the absence data has been successfully processed to Time and Labor. Then the process moves from Timesheet into Payroll.

Paysheet loads Time and Labor, calculates payrolls, and releases timesheet lockdown so that employees can have access to it. Then, you can proceed with Payroll Review and Confirmation tasks.

Insights

A major benefit of using Absence, Time, and Payroll all in one system is the ability to analyze all of the information in one place. The three modules have detailed insights and dashboards available. You can review from a Payroll, Absence, or Time standpoint. Having access to all of these insights in a single place can be incredibly insightful for your organization.