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.

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.

Infotypes are characterized by the following:

• Infotype Structure
• Data Entry
• Time-Dependent Storage of Infotype Data

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.

You perform data entry as follows:

• Your entries are automatically checked for accuracy and against table entries.
• Predefined default values help you to enter and maintain data.
• 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.

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 can define the permissibility of infotypes for each country, which will restrict the selection of infotypes available when you edit master data.

For more information, refer to the IMG for Personnel Management, under Personnel Administration ® Customizing Procedures ® Infotypes ® Assign Infotypes to Countries.