Managers Desktop
Manual
Human Resources Division
4/23/2013
Table of Contents
Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 4
What is Managers Desktop?...................................................................................................... 4
Who is this section aimed at? ................................................................................................... 4
What will it show me? ............................................................................................................... 4
How will I learn about SAP?....................................................................................................... 4
SAP Details in Managers Desktop.............................................................................................. 5
Personnel Numbers ................................................................................................................... 5
Organizational structure............................................................................................................ 5
Employee group and subgroup ................................................................................................. 6
Using Dates with SAP Reports ................................................................................................... 7
Complete SAP Information ........................................................................................................ 7
SAP report, dates 05.10.12 – 05.10.12 ...................................................................................... 8
SAP report, dates 05.10.11 – 05.10.11 ...................................................................................... 8
SAP report, dates 05.10.11 – 05.10.12 ...................................................................................... 8
Using Managers Desktop......................................................................................................... 10
Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 10
Reporting ................................................................................................................................. 11
Report Descriptions ................................................................................................................. 12
Managers Desktop screen ....................................................................................................... 14
Dates ........................................................................................................................................ 15
Running reports ....................................................................................................................... 17
Results of the reports .............................................................................................................. 19
Report Documentation............................................................................................................ 20
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Sort and Filter Results ............................................................................................................. 22
To sort the report by the information in a column ......................................................... 22
To filter the displayed information.................................................................................. 23
To remove a filter ............................................................................................................ 23
To filter by multiple values .............................................................................................. 24
To export data to MS Excel.............................................................................................. 25
Configuring the MDT Screen ................................................................................................... 27
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Introduction
What is Managers Desktop?
Managers Desktop is a module of SAP designed to give quick and easy access to any
information using SAP reports.
Who is this section aimed at?
This section is designed for people who have used SAP at a basic level and who want to view
information about employees of the University of Salford, in particular about how to
produce reports through SAP for specific purposes.
What will it show me?
This section will describe how to use Managers Desktop, but it will not describe each report
in detail. Full documentation is available within Managers Desktop that can be accessed as
required, or you can contact the SAP Helpdesk Team for further training/information.
How will I learn about SAP?
Before useful information can be extracted it is essential to understand how it is initially held
on SAP. Once this has been achieved, using Managers Desktop is largely intuitive. Some
reports have additional features; it is strongly recommended that the brief details of each
report held within Managers Desktop are read before using the report for the first time.
Hopefully, by the time you are reading this you will be aware of the basic functions of SAP,
how to use it and where to find the information you are looking for.
This section largely presumes that you have a basic knowledge of SAP and its functions. If
you do not, please either read the above section or contact the SAP Helpdesk for further
training.
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SAP Details in Managers Desktop
Using Managers Desktop is largely intuitive, but it is important to understand how basic
information is described on SAP and how SAP handles the use of dates.
Personnel Numbers
Each person on SAP has a unique 8-digit number assigned to them called the Personnel
number. This identifies specific employees when using SAP. Each Personnel number has
details attached to it including a post at the University of Salford, personal details for the
staff member, payroll details, travel expense details and other personnel-related
information. Since each Personnel number has a post within the University attached to it,
employees who have multiple posts will have two or more Personnel numbers.
Organizational structure
Employees of the university are held on SAP in “org. units”. These organizational units can
represent Schools, Colleges, Research Institutes and Support Units. Each College is
represented by an organizational unit; each of these units contains other organizational
units representing Schools. These units can contain other units representing Research
Institutes.
The illustration below demonstrates how these org. units are built up to form a “tree”
structure. Only a small part of the overall structure is shown.
University of
College 1
School 1
College 2
School 2
Research
Institute
Support unit
Support unit
Support unit
Support unit
Support unit
Each of the above organizational units contains a set of “Positions”. These might include
“Lecturer”, “Senior Lecturer”, “Executive Officer” or “Cleaner” for example. Each employee
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of the university will be attached to one of these Positions. In this way every employee of
the university is held in SAP within this “Organizational structure” which can be thought of
as a tree structure.
Organizational unit
–
Position –
Position –
Position –
eg.
eg.
eg.
Person –
Person –
Person –
Sue Smith
Bob Smith
Ian Smith
SAP does not display all employees’ records to all SAP users – each user can only see
records for employees in their specified organizational units
Employee group and subgroup
Employees are also grouped in to the type of job they hold on SAP. These groupings make
reporting from SAP easier to use.
All employees are assigned to an “Employee group”. Employee groups classify staff as
“Academic”, “Academic-related”, “Assistant staff”, “Casual” and several others.
Each employee group is further divided into “Employee subgroups”. These groups further
describe the employee’s role at the university. For example the “Academic” Employee
group includes the Employee subgroups “Lecturer”, “Senior Lecturer” and “Professorial”
amongst others.
In this way information can be extracted for specific groups of staff. For instance the length
of service of all Senior Lecturers in a specific organizational unit can be rapidly extracted.
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Using Dates with SAP Reports
Information is not static on SAP. New employees will be entered on SAP by HR Division as
people area are appointed, thus a report can be different each time that it is run.
Historical information is held on SAP so employees who have worked for the university for
some time will have records held on SAP showing previous jobs, previous grades, previous
salaries, previous addresses etc.
*Careful use must be made of the date range chosen for each report*
If, for instance, a report showing job details for an employee is run for “today” it will show
the current post. If the same report is run for a day in the past it might show a previous
post. If the report is run with a date range of “today”, to a day in the past the report might
show details of both posts.
The example below illustrates this:
Sue Jones is a Senior Lecturer, recently promoted from a Lecturer
Complete SAP Information
Name
Post
Started post
Left post
Sue Jones
Lecturer
01.04.11
01.10.12
Sue Jones
Senior Lecturer
02.10.12
If a report is run from SAP for the date range 05.10.12 to 05.10.12, the following
information is retrieved:
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SAP report, dates 05.10.12 – 05.10.12
Name
Post
Started post
Sue Jones
Senior Lecturer
02.10.12
Left post
If a report is run from SAP for the date range 05.10.10 to 05.10.11, the following
information is retrieved:
SAP report, dates 05.10.11 – 05.10.11
Name
Post
Started post
Left post
Sue Jones
Lecturer
01.04.11
01.10.12
If a report is run from SAP for the date range 05.10.10 to 05.10.11, the following
information is would be retrieved:
SAP report, dates 05.10.11 – 05.10.12
Name
Post
Started post
Left post
Sue Jones
Lecturer
01.04.11
01.10.12
Sue Jones
Senior Lecturer
02.10.12
However most reports used in Manager Desktop will only return one record for each
employee. In such situations the latest record will be the one shown by the report. So in
the example above, the “Senior Lecturer” post would be the one shown by Managers
Desktop.
This example shows how date selection can affect the results of a report. Any information
can change over time on SAP, be it regularly eg. salary or rarely eg. name change at
marriage. This very important principle must be borne in mind at all times when analyzing
information from SAP.
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SOME REPORTS WILL BE BEST RUN USING A DATE RANGE OF “TODAY”.
For example, the Annual Leave Quota report shows leave quotas and remaining leave.
Should this report be run for a range of dates, it will not be clear which of these dates is used
to calculate the amount of leave remaining.
A staff list report should be run for the current day. Running the report for a day in the past
will give an out of date report. Running a report for a range of dates will include staff who
have left, along with current employees.
OTHER REPORTS WILL BE BEST RUN FOR A RANGE OF DATES.
The Starters and Leavers report shows all employees entering or leaving the university. If
this report is run for “today”, it will only show those employees who have left or started on
that specific day. More valuable information will be retrieved using a wider date range.
Reports to analyze sickness absence should also be run for a range of dates.
If a report is run to show all sickness absences for a year for an organizational unit, it will
show all absences for any employee who has worked in that unit. If employees have started
or left during the period selected, all of their absences will be shown. This can mean
absences will be reported that occurred while the employee worked for a different
organizational unit.
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Using Managers Desktop
Introduction
Managers Desktop is mainly used for reporting purposes, as it will allow easy access to the
data which has been input on SAP. Once the data is on SAP, it can be run through a specific
report in Managers Desktop which will then allow specific details to be produced.
Data can be presented through export into Excel and Word, which will allow easy reporting
at a later stage.
The SAP Easy Access screen gives access to all areas of SAP for which the user has been given
access. The Easy Access screen may show more options than that illustrated below.
Double click Managers Desktop
By now you should be confident in how to log onto SAP, and what the main screen looks
like. To access the Managers Desktop facility, double click on the infotype (as displayed
above).
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Reporting
Reports are shown on the left hand side of the screen below and employees are shown on
the right hand side. To run a report for an employee, drag that employee from the right
hand side of the screen on to the required report. The results of the report are
automatically displayed.
Groups of employees can be selected and dragged on to a report, or an entire organsational
unit can be selected.
The “Time Period” can be altered as required, this will affect the results of the report as
discussed above.
Time period
Reports
Reports
Employees
This has shown you how to complete a simple report function through the Managers
Desktop. The following sections will go into more detail on how to run reports through the
Managers Desktop as well as give you an overview of some of the functions which are
possible as well.
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Report Descriptions
Dependent on what access you have in your SAP login, you may be able to see diffferent
reports on the left hand side of the screen.
Below is a breakdown of the reports and a brief description of what each one covers.
Report Name
Description
Staff Reports
Staff List
Shows a list of all employees reported on,
including start and leave dates, service years
and employee area details
Staff Salary/Costing
Shows basic pay information, including grade
and level, annual salary, cost centre and
other relevant details
Univ. Starters/Leavers
Shows start and leave date of all new
starters/leavers to the university, including
grade, salary and other relevant details
Unit Starters/Leavers
Shows start and leave dates for all
employees within university internal area,
inlcuding dates, and org. unit details
Future Retirees Report
Shows all employees who are due to reach
‘retirement age’ of 65, including years of
service, grade and annual salary
Absence Monitoring
Dates of Absences
Shows all absences taken within date range,
including hours of work lost (includes both
annual leave and sickness leave)
Calendar view – monthly
Breakdown of absence over week/month,
coded by type of absence (possible to do
either one person or whole org. unit)
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Calendar view – weekly
Breakdown of absences over calendrical
weeks (both annual leave and sickness) but
most useful for individual employee
Calendar view – multiple employee
Brings through one month period showing
any leaves of absence over the period (can
be useful to show patterns of absence over
period)
Annual Leave Quotas
Pulls through all leave on system, but only
that which has been taken (total leave
column will not be correct due to future
leave not being taken yet)
Overview Att/Abs
Best not to use – creates charts which are
not necessary and so best to use other
reports
Sickness Monitoring
Dates of Sickness
Shows only sickness absences taken over
selected period, including hours and days
lost work
Reasons for Sickness
Brings data for employee sickness type
which is taken from inputting fit notes/self
certs
Employers Cost of Absence
Shows monthly breakdown of employer cost
against sickness leave taken, including salary,
NI and pension cost as well (best used by
college accountants)
Sickness Summary
Shows sickness leave days taken, hours
taken and days taken over period (best used
for top level reports, not support level)
1 or more sick in specified period
Bespoke reports linked with sickness policy
which trigger OHSS contacts if multiple
sickness leave is taken over specified period
3 or more sick in specified period
6 or more sick in specified period
Sickness Spells
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Highlights a period of more than 12 days of
sickness over a 12 month period
13
Managers Desktop screen
This is the main screen from where the Managers Dektop is run, and as such holds most of
the key functions which you will need to use when producing reports.
The below image gives a simple indication of what features are possible:
Click here to open a folder of reports
Click here to open a folder of employees
Click here to view the name of the
employee holding that Position
To simplify the displayed screen, reports and employees are held in folders e.g. “absence
reports” or “School of ……”.
To uncover the levels held within the Managers Desktop, please follow the below
instructions:
 Double click on a folder to open it
 Click on the small arrow to the left of a folder to open the folder
 Click on the small arrow to the left of a position description to see the employee
occupying the position
Note that wherever there are arrows to the left of the folder, you can go deeper in the level
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The right hand side of the screen (containing employee details) is made up of several tabs:
 Use the Directly subordinate employees tab to view Position names. The name of the
employee holding the Position can be viewed by opening the Position folder (click on the
small arrow).
 Use the Directly reporting chief tab to view only employee’s names.
 Notice that employees with a fixed term contract – expiring in the selected time period –
are indicated with an arrow pointing upwards. Those joining the university in the
selected Time period are shown with an arrow pointing downwards.
Use the Directly reporting chief tab
to view employee’s names
Use the Directly subordinate
employees tab to view Position
names (and employee’s names)
This employee is on a fixed term
contract that ends as shown
Dates
The employees displayed on the right hand side of the Managers Desktop screen are all staff
employed in the selected organizational unit during the Time period shown at the top of the
screen.
If the Time period is set for one day, only employees working on that date will be displayed.
If the Time period is set for one year, all employees who worked at any time during that year
will be displayed (including employees who left during the year).
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The screenshot below will give you an idea of what the time period options are:
Click here to change the Time Period
Enter “From” date
Enter “To” date
Click Enter to accept these
dates
 Click the Date button to change the Time period
 Enter From and To dates
 Use the format dd.mm.yyyy or dd.mm.yy or ddmmyy, (but not dd/mm/yy)
The table below shows how changing the Time Period will affect the employees displayed –
Time Period
From
Employees displayed
To
Today
Today
Only current staff
Day in past
(Same)day in past
Staff as of that date
Day in past
Today
Current staff and those that left during the time period
Today
Day in future
Current staff and those soon to start (if entered on SAP)
01.01.1950
31.12.9999
All employees who have ever worked, or will ever work in the unit
*Changing the Time Period will also change the information produced by the reports*
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Running reports
There are various different ways to run reports from the Managers Desktop screen (the main
screen overview is shown below).
To run a report, follow the below instructions:
Firstly select the appropriate Time period.
Secondly, select the group of employees for which the report should be run –
 Click an individual employee/Position to select that person
 Hold down the CTRL key and click several employees to select a variety of
employees
 To select a range of employees, hold down the SHIFT key and click on the employees
at either end of the required range
 To select an entire organizational unit, click the folder that represents that unit
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Then select the report to be run –
 Drag the selected employees onto the required report
 Click on the required report
 Right click on the selected employees and select the required report
The results of the report are displayed automatically, and from here can be exported to
excel and amended as required.
The following section will give you an idea of what can be done with the results of your
report.
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Results of the reports
The format in which reports are produced varies from report to report with the nature of
the information that they contain. Additional screens can be accessed from some reports or
greater detail can be obtained, but all reports share some common features.
Features common to all reports are described below. Report-specific features are described
by the documentation available within Managers Desktop.
Use the scrollbars on the right hand edge of the screen to view the complete report once
you have completed the reporting function. The lower toolbar contains additional functions
to aid analysis of the information
To print information
 Click Back to return to Managers Desktop
 Click Print to print the report
 Click the right-hand-most button of the top toolbar (illustrated with a TV screen), then
select “Hardcopy” to print the currently visible screen (will not include information
included in the report but not visible).
Click Back to return to Managers
Desktop
Click to print the current
screen only
Click Print to print the whole
report
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Report Documentation
The following pages show how documentation for each report can be
accessed and how the information from reports can be further
manipulated.
A description of each report is available within Managers Desktop. This information, as it is
specific to each report, is not held in this training manual. If you wanted some further
inforamtion on the reports which are held in the Managers Dekstop, then you would be best
to contact the SAP Helpdesk.
*It is strongly recommended that this information is read the first time a report is to be
used*
It contains a description of the information produced by the report, explains how different
Time Periods can affect the results of the report and explains any additional features of the
particular report (for instance additional pertinant information can sometimes be accessed
by double clicking).
Click here to access Report
documentation
Click a report to view the documentation
Click a report to quit the
documentation page
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 Click Reports documentation (in the left half of the screen) to view the documentation
menu
 Click a report to view the relevant documentation (this is actually held as web pages;
Managers Desktop can display any internet site in the same way it shows results of a
report)
 Click Back to return to documentation menu (either at the top or bottom of the screen
 Click on a report to display the employee list in the right hand half of the screen
Report description
Results description
Click Back to return to the
documentation menu
Click a report to quit the
documentation page
Report specific
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Sort and Filter Results
Information can be sorted into ascending or descending order and can also be filtered.
Filtering is restricting the values that are displayed in that column.
Be aware that much of what you can do in SAP, you can do in Excel too. Therefore it may
be easier for you to export your results into an Excel spreadsheet and then filter or sort
what you need through there instead.
In the example below a filter could be set to only show those employees with a leave
entitlement of 27 days or those with more than 5 days leave remaining.
Highlight a column by clicking on it
Click Set Filter to filter the report
Click either of these buttons to
sort the data by the selected
column
To sort the report by the information in a column
 Highlight the column by clicking the column header
 Click either the Sort in ascending order or Sort in descending order button
 Alternatively, right click on a column header and select Sort in ascending/descending
order
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To filter the displayed information
 Highlight the required column by clicking the column header
 Click the Set Filter button
Set filter value (or use a range of values)
Multiple selection button
Double click to use the ‘greater than’ or
‘less than’ operators
Click Enter to set the filter
Use this button to remove a filter
 Enter the value (or a range of values) which is to be the only value(s) displayed. Double
click in the field if the ‘greater than’ or ‘less than’ operators are required.
 Click Enter to set the filter.
To remove a filter
 Highlight the filtered column (indicated by a very small arrow in the column header) by
clicking the column header.
 Click the Delete selection flag button to remove the filter.
 Click Enter to view the full report.
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To filter by multiple values
 Click on the Multiple Selection button (see above)
The following screen comprises 4 tabs:

Use the first tab to enter multiple selection criteria. The possible entries button can be
used to select from all the valid options.

Use the “Ranges” tag to select a range of values (or several ranges)

Use the tabs marked with “red lights” to select information not to be returned by the
report

Use the small button on the left hand end of the line to use “greater than/less than etc”
the value that has been entered on that line.
 Click Copy to return to the main screen. Note that the Multiple Selection button is
highlighted in green to indicate multiple selections have been made.
Enter multiple values in these fields
Enter a range of values not to be
selected on this tab
Enter values not to be selected on this tab
Enter a range of required values on this
Click here to select “greater than/less than”
the specified value
Click Copy to continue
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To export data to MS Excel
Information can be passed directly from SAP into an MS Excel spreadsheet, which can then
be amended and filtered depending on the criteria/data you want to present.
*Sorting and filters are not taken in to account in this transfer*
Spreadsheet button
 Click the Spreadsheet buttton
This will show a new pop up box:
 Click Enter to acknowledge this warning message
 Select Excel display
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 Click Enter
Excel is started, SAP transfers the report into a new spreadsheet.
*Note that you will need to save the spreadhseet immediately or you will lose the data*
Once the export is in Excel, you can amend as desired and filter to show the results you
want. SAP will usually automatically assign colours to the headings, but again this can be
amended to your personal preference.
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Configuring the MDT Screen
A lot of information is displayed about each employee on the right hand side of the
Managers Desktop screen. The display can be greatly simplified by removing redundant
information. The procedure below will only need to be followed once to achieve this display
improvement.
Click here to display the
Column Configuration screen
Remove the ticks from each field
except “Key” and “Validity period”
Click Enter to finish
 Click Select Column
 Remove the ticks from each field except “Key” and “Validity period” by clicking in the
selection boxes
 Click Enter to finish
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