Customers have been using various methods of stopping employees from entering time, when payroll is processing. The reason being, last minute changes might create balancing issues in Payroll. Before Payroll is run, Time and Labor data is loaded through the time and Labor load process. The last Time admin run before Paysheets is created is very critical and hence no change should be made to time before Paysheets are loaded. Many people may ask why is the timesheet lockdown really needed when there is additional safety of approvals and final time admin run. The answer to this is before time is loaded to Paysheet many customers validate and audit the Time and labor data specially reported time against payable time, this validation can go for a toss in case changes are made to timesheet.  Many customers do not implement any approval in that case payable time can be created directly by running Time Admin and Time Admin is frequently run just before payroll, in order to take care of exceptions and adjustments. Also customers find it difficult to explain employees if certain last minute changes to time are not paid in current pay cycle. So it becomes very critical that during Payroll processing timesheet remains static that is in lockdown mode.

In PeopleSoft HCM 9.2 version Oracle has introduced a new feature called Timesheet Lockdown. Peoplesoft provides administrators the ability to lock down timesheet during Payroll processing based on Company /Paygroup combination.  Timesheet Lockdown can be implemented for all company Paygroup combinations or selective combinations. Note for Global payroll users lockdown is based on Paygroups. Important point to note here is that the lockdown is not based on workgroups. Since Workgroups and Paygroups are not directly linked and multiple workgroups can be created for a single Paygroup, care should be taken to cover all Company Paygroups combination while implementing lockdown so that no employee is accidently allowed to enter a time.

When a lockdown is implemented employees cannot enter or change the timesheet for time in the past and past time becomes read only. The employee can still go and add a future time. A message is displayed to an employee that the timesheet is under lockdown. The timesheet is released to the employees when the lockdown is removed by the Administrator

Lockdown based on Workgroup would have been more desirable, still this new feature will surely help customers get rid of their customizations. I think many customers will build lockdown based on workgroup on top of the delivered functionality or just retain their old customization.

Implementing the Timesheet Lockdown using Time and Labor Workcenter:

Timesheet Lockdown based on Company/Paygroup combination for Payroll for North America

Timesheet Lockdown based on Paygroup combination for Global Payroll users

Readonly timesheet after implementing Timesheet lockdown