What is an Infotype?

What is an Infotype?

A SAP Infotype is an information unit used to store employee relevant data required for administration purposes.

It has a 4 digit-code and a related name. It stores similar data into one screen.

For example, Personal Data (Infotype 0002) stores the employee's personal data (i.e., first name, last name, birth date, marital status).

Every SAP infotype has fields for which data needs to be entered. There are two types of fields:

• Mandatory fields, which have a tick in the field.
• Optional fields, which are blank.

Number ranges for infotypes have been pre-determined by SAP. They are as followed:

• HR/Payroll Data = Infotype 0000 to 0999
• Organizational Data = Infotype 1000 to 1999
• Time Data = Infotype 2000 to 2999

Authorization to access SAP HR Master Data can be defined at the infotype level. Therefore, SAP users can be given access only to the employees' information relevant for their position, allowing appropriate level of security to be maintained for confidential personnel information.

Infotypes Sub-Types

Some infotypes are divided in different groups linked to the same theme.These groups are called subtypes. "Permanent Residence" and "Emergency Address" are subtypes of the Infotype 0006 (Addresses).

Infotype Periods

Infotypes are maintained according to specific validity dates : start and end dates. which allows to maintain an employee's data history. When you update an employee's data, the previous data is most likely automatically time-delimited. As a result, an employee can have many records for one infotype, with different validity periods.