CATS notebook enables employees in your company to record their working times on notebooks (laptop computers), wherever they are. The notebooks do not require a connection to SAP R/3 for time recording. It is aimed primarily at employees who have to travel a lot and cannot always have a connection to SAP R/3.

CATS notebook users can use an intuitive user interface in a Web browser to record their working times. They can save their working time data on the notebook and then transfer it to SAP R/3 when they are able to set up a connection.

Working time data recorded by users in CATS notebook can be synchronized with SAP R/3 at intervals of the users’ choice. As soon as the data has been transferred to SAP R/3, you can process it in the same way as you would process data records that are entered using any other Time Sheet user interface. CATS notebook uses the same business logic and the same database table (CATSDB) as the other user interfaces of the Time Sheet.

Time recording in CATS notebook provides the following functions:

• You can enter working times for each working time attribute and day in hours or decimal fractions of hours (for example, 0.25 hours = 15 minutes).
• You can change or delete as many data records as you want in CATS notebook. The same applies to data records that were originally entered in SAP R/3.
• You can synchronize the data records entered with SAP R/3 at intervals of your choice. Synchronization also transfers data records that have not yet been released. SAP R/3 checks the data records transferred from CATS notebook and sends the result of the checks to the user’s notebook to enable the user to correct the errors if required.
• Changes in Customizing and master data in SAP R/3 are transferred to CATS notebook automatically.
• You can use a picklist to select working time attributes, or you can manually enter new working time attributes that are not yet displayed in the picklist.
• You can release individual data records or release all data records at once.
• You can double-click on individual data records to access a detail view.
• You can enter long texts for individual data records in the detail view. You can use an SAP enhancement in SAP R/3 to create standard texts for frequently-used long texts and transfer them to notebooks.
• You can accommodate customer-specific requirements that cannot be met using Customizing settings (such as additional fields and special data checks). SAP enhancements and Java interfaces are available for this in SAP R/3.
• You can cut, copy, and paste one or more rows of the data entry area. CATS notebook also takes account of the information that you enter for a data record in the detail view.
• You can enter working times for other employees.
• You can use different field selections that you have defined in Customizing in SAP R/3.
• You can select the data entry period by entering a start and end date.

The checks performed by CATS notebook are not as extensive as the checks performed by other Time Sheet user interfaces that are constantly linked to SAP R/3. This means that data records accepted by CATS notebook may cause an error message in SAP R/3 in the course of synchronization.

However, because SAP R/3 sends the check result to the user’s notebook, he or she can correct the data and transfer the corrected data to SAP R/3 in the course of the next synchronization.

Donna Moore works for a management consultancy and is involved in consulting projects for various customers. Her company uses various user interfaces of the Cross-Application Time Sheet (CATS).

While the employees who work at fixed work centers with a continuous connection to SAP R/3 record their working times using CATS regular via mySAP Workplace, Donna cannot do so because she often has no SAP R/3 connection during her working time. CATS notebook is therefore far more practical for Donna. It enables her to record her working times on the plane or in the train, for example, and then transfer the data to SAP R/3 later when she has a connection.