Create a Time Consumer Set

You can identify the apps that consume time data for specific groups of workers. Also configure the consumer validation rules, approval periods, and transfer rules that apply to these worker groups.

Go to Setup and Maintenance > Workforce Deployment > Time and Labor > Time Consumer Sets.
Create a time consumer set.

Complete the required and relevant optional fields for the time consumer set.

Select the appropriate consumer or consumers based on how the time data is used:
- To pay workers, select Payroll.
- To bill customers for time worked on projects, select Project Costing.
- To figure out project staffing, select Project Execution Management.
If managers regularly submit and approve many time cards at one time, we recommend that you don't enable informational workflow for bulk time card submission. Otherwise you could have hundreds of FYI notifications sent as a result.
If workers should approve or reject their own time cards, enable approval workflow for workers. This workflow is separate from the manager approval task and doesn't affect the time card status or processing.

Specify how all selected time consumers should handle approvals for absence entries on time cards.

Absence Approval Routing Option	What the Approval Process Does
Absence approval rules	It uses the absence approval task to approve absence entries. It uses the time card approval task to approve worked time entries. It sets the time card status to Approved after both approval tasks complete.
Time approval rules	It uses the time card approval tasks to approve all time card entries, including absences. Tip: To include absences from time cards with only project and absence attributes, you also need to select the Payroll and Project Execution Management time consumers. Here's why: The Payroll time card approval workflow handles absence approvals. For projects, all absence data transfers only to project execution management.

Absence Approval Routing Option

What the Approval Process Does

Absence approval rules

It uses the absence approval task to approve absence entries.
It uses the time card approval task to approve worked time entries.
It sets the time card status to Approved after both approval tasks complete.

Time approval rules

It uses the time card approval tasks to approve all time card entries, including absences.

Tip:

To include absences from time cards with only project and absence attributes, you also need to select the Payroll and Project Execution Management time consumers. Here's why:

The Payroll time card approval workflow handles absence approvals.
For projects, all absence data transfers only to project execution management.

Complete the required and relevant optional fields for each selected time consumer.
- The time category that identifies the time data to transfer to the time consumer. For example, Global Payroll doesn't want time data with project attributes, so you select a time category that identifies only payroll-related data.
- For Project Costing, we recommend that you continue to validate on Submit and Save time card actions. Then workers working on time cards know immediately if they're saving time entries to closed projects.
- The Required Time Card Status option is only for reporting purposes.
  - To report on missing time cards when the consumer set is for workers who regularly submit time cards, we recommend that you select Yes.
  - To report on exceptions, such as absences and training, when the consumer set is for workers who submit time cards sporadically, we recommend that you select No .
- When you configure a time processing profile, you select a time card period and a time consumer set. The period types, lengths, and start days need to match for each selected time consumer Approval period and the profile time card period.
- If you want approvers to see only the time card entries that they need to approve, select Entry level approval. If you want approvers to see all time card entries, even those that they can't approve, don't select it.