(FRA) Managing French Regulatory Requirements

This chapter provides overviews of French regulatory requirements and integration with PeopleSoft Enterprise applications, lists prerequisites, and discusses how to:

• Manage learning costs and 2483 reporting.

• Manage learning hours.

Understanding Regulatory Requirements for France

Enterprise Learning Management helps you comply with French statutory requirements for employee training in the following areas:

• Training plan and budget preparation.

• Cost tracking and 2483 reporting.

• Hour tracking and DIF (Droit Individuel à la Formation or Individual Training Right) management.

Training Plans and Budgets

With Enterprise Learning Management, you can produce reports that estimate the demand for learning and projected costs. You can use the reports to plan training budgets and to satisfy the Worker's Council requirements for training plans.

See Managing Training Plans.

Cost Tracking and 2483 Reporting

The Training Report 2483 (TRN029), also called the Declaration 2483 report, is a French regulatory report that compiles information about the amount of money that a company has spent on employee vocational training. When you integrate Enterprise Learning Management with PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Resources 8.9 or above, you can use that application's Administer Training business process to generate this report. You collect most of the report data in Enterprise Learning Management and send it to Human Resources, where the actual report is produced.

Hour Tracking and DIF Management

Hour tracking refers to tracking the number of hours that learners spend on training outside of their normal work schedule. DIF management refers to tracking the usage of the DIF training hours to which employees are entitled, based on their seniority, contract type, and working hours. With Enterprise Learning Management, you can track how many learners have participated in DIF training and export approved hours to the Administer Training business process for inclusion in the 2483 report. You can also export other training hours that were done outside the normal work schedule.

When Human Resources is integrated with a payroll application, such as PeopleSoft Enterprise Global Payroll for France, the payroll system can calculate DIF entitlement and balance information for each learner, taking into account the DIF hours recorded in Enterprise Learning Management, and return the results to Enterprise Learning Management (indirectly through Human Resources). Enterprise Learning Management can then display DIF balances to learners and managers on the self-service pages and to administrators on the roster pages. Global Payroll for France can also calculate payments for training hours that are completed outside of the learner's regular schedule.

Understanding Integration with Enterprise Applications

Enterprise Learning Management integrates directly with the Administer Training business process in Human Resources 8.9 and above and indirectly with Global Payroll for France 8.9 and above, enabling you to produce the 2483 report, track DIF balances, and compensate learners for DIF training hours and training hours done outside the normal work schedule. The three applications interact as follows:

• Enterprise Learning Management is the application that you use to set up the learning catalog, instructors, vendors, and so on. You also use this application to track learning costs and to manage enrollment and other day-to-day tasks.

• The Administer Training business process in Human Resources compiles information provided by Enterprise Learning Management and payroll and generates the 2483 report.

• Global Payroll for France computes learner and instructor salaries for the 2483 report and calculates learners' DIF entitlement balances.

  It also calculates the salary for training hours done outside of normally scheduled work hours.

Important! When you use Enterprise Learning Management to set up and track learning, do not use the Administer Training business process for those tasks. Use the Administer Training business process to configure and generate the 2483 report only. A permission list designed for Enterprise Learning Management users provides access to the Administer Training pages that are needed to set up and generate the 2483 report.

The following diagram shows the relationships between the three applications.

Enterprise Learning Management Integration with Global Payroll for France and Human Resources

Enterprise Integration Points (EIPs)

Enterprise Learning Management uses EIPs to publish information to Human Resources and to subscribe to information provided by that application. Following is a list of the full sync and incremental sync EIPs that are used to track learning costs and hours.

Note. The full sync messages can generate a high volume of data. Use these messages only if you need to resynchronize HR data and Enterprise Learning data during the integration process.

EIPs and Staging Tables

Data that is imported through incremental sync EIP messages (DIF balances, and acknowledgements for the receipt of learning costs and hours) goes into intermediary staging tables. You must run a validation process to ensure that there are no data errors before loading the data into the system. You can run this process, as needed, and also schedule it to run on a regular basis using the Process Asynchronous Data page.

It's recommended that you do not select the option to Automatically delete completed process. Administrators can then periodically review the staging table for data that could not be loaded due to errors and purge the staging tables by manually launching the delete process. For example, if you schedule the asynchronous process to run daily, the administrator may want to check the staging table for errors every few days. If no errors exist, the administrator can launch the process with the delete option selected.

See Also

Processing Staged Data

Prerequisites

Before you can configure the system to manage learning costs and hours, you must:

• Activate French features.

  Some pages contain fields for tracking DIF hours and other French-specific data. You can control the display of these fields for a given learning environment using the Enable French Features check box on the Learning Environment - Defaults page.

• Ensure that the French permission list is assigned to the appropriate users.

  Access to administrator pages and components that are designed for France is controlled by permission list. Users must be associated with permission list LMLELM6600 or role LMLELM_FRENCH_ENH to access the following pages:

  • Learning Classifications

  • Financing Organization

  • Cost Export Options

  • Export Learning Costs

  • Hour Types

  • Training Hour Validation

  • Publish Learner Training Hour

Managing Learning Costs and 2483 Reporting

To set up the financing organizations that provide funding for training, use the Financing Organizations (LM_FIN_ORG_MAIN) component. To define conditions for exporting cost data to Human Resources, use the Cost Export Options (LM_STD_COTS_UPD) component. This section provides an overview of cost management and discusses how to:

• Define financing organizations.

• Define cost export options.

• Export learner costs.

Understanding Cost Management

Enterprise Learning Management enables you to track costs for learning activities and send cost data to the Administer Training business process in Human Resources for inclusion in the 2483 report. Activity costs include the cost of equipment, facilities, instructors, materials, and vendor products. The system automatically calculates an activity's costs based on the unit costs defined on the setup pages for the activity's resources. You can enter additional activity expenses and create offsetting entries to adjust the system-calculated amounts, as needed. You can also specify which of an activity's costs are chargeable for 2483 reporting purposes, and identify the financing organization for costs that are fully or partially financed.

An activity’s type and a learner’s enrollment status determine when costs can be sent to Human Resources. For each activity type—blended, scheduled, or self-paced—you define when costs are eligible for export, using the Cost Export Options page. As an example, for scheduled activities, you can specify that learners' costs are eligible for export when learners complete activities.

When you run the Publish Learner Cost (LM_STD_COST ) process, the system selects all activities that are associated with the learning environment specified on the run control page and that start and end within the defined period. Next, the system identifies the subset of enrollment records that meet the eligibility rules defined on the Cost Export Options page. For each activity, it calculates the costs per learner, based on the number of considered learners and training duration, and sends a message with the cost information to Human Resources.

After you export cost data for the 2483 reporting period, an administrator with the appropriate permissions for the Administer Training business process can use that business process to enter the additional information that is needed to produce the 2483 report and run the report. Permission lists control access to the subset of Administer Training pages that are used to prepare and produce the report.

Modifying Costs

If you run the export process for the same set of activities more than once, and the number of learners has changed since the last transmission, the system sends all costs again, splitting them across the learners who currently meet the enrollment status criteria (defined on the Cost Export Options page). If you modify a cost after exporting it and the number of learners is unchanged, the next time you run the export process for that activity, the system sends only the modified cost, split across the same set of learners.

Setup Tasks for Managing Learning Costs

To configure the system to manage learning costs:

See Reviewing and Defining Learning Classifications.

1. Define cost export rules.

   An activity’s type (blended, scheduled, or self-paced) and the learner’s enrollment status determine when activity costs can be exported to Human Resources. For each activity type, you must specify when cost data is eligible for export. Use the Cost Export Options page to define the export rules.

   See Defining Cost Export Options.

2. Define financing organizations.

   For a given activity, an administrator can identify the financing organizations that fund various training costs. Use the Financing Organizations component to define financing organizations.

   See (FRA) Defining Financing Organizations.

3. Activate the EIPs that are used to publish cost data to Human Resources (STUDENT_COST_SYNC and STUDENT_COST_FULLSYNC).

4. Enable the receipt of cost acknowledgement messages (COST_ACK_SYNC EIP) from Human Resources.

   The Administer Training business process in Human Resources can send a message to Enterprise Learning Management acknowledging receipt of cost data. Messages are sent to a staging table in Enterprise Learning Management and must be validated before they can be loaded. Use the Process Asynchronous Data (LM_LD_ASYNC) to schedule the validation and load process to run at regular intervals.

   See Processing Staged Data.

Ongoing Tasks for Managing Learning Costs

To manage learning costs on a day-to-day basis:

• When defining activity costs, specify which costs are chargeable for 2483 reporting purposes, and identify the amounts funded by a financing organization. For facility and vendor costs, you can specify only one chargeable cost; only the chargeable cost is exported. For all other cost types, the system exports chargeable and non-chargeable costs.

  Review and update activity costs on the Activity Costs page. You can also add instructor expenses, for lodging, transportation, meals and other items on that page.

• Export costs to Human Resources.

  Use the Export Learning Costs component to export cost data.

  See Exporting Learning Costs.

Note. The 2483 report includes statistical information that is collected when you use the hour tracking features of Enterprise Learning Management. Follow the procedures for Managing Learning Hours and DIF to ensure that this data is available for the report.

Cost Management for Self-Paced Activities

When generating a 2483 report in Human Resources, the user identifies the declaring year for the report. The declaring year determines which costs to include, based on the activity begin and end dates.

For self-paced activities that have no end date, the system cannot determine the declaring year. Therefore, it is recommended that you set the end date for each self-paced activity to December 31. You can then clone the activity for each year it is offered so that each activity is dedicated to a specific year and a single 2483 report. This not only ensures that costs for self-paced training are included in the appropriate 2483 report, it also prevents the modification of costs that were included in a previous year's report.

Pages Used to Manage Learning Costs

Defining Financing Organizations

Instructions for defining financing organizations are covered elsewhere.

See Also

(FRA) Defining Financing Organizations

Defining Cost Export Options

Access the Cost Export Options page.

When you run the process to publish learner costs, the system refers to the settings you define here to determine which enrollment records to consider.

Exporting Learning Costs

Access the Export Learning Cost page.

Use this page to identify the set of activities for which you want to publish learner costs and to launch the Publish Learner Cost process.

During this process, the system retrieves each activity that meets the run control parameters and splits the activity costs across the learners that meet the enrollment status criteria defined on the Student Cost Publish Options page. Cost splitting is based on the number of learners and the training duration for each learner according to the Learner Roster. It also triggers the incremental STUDENT_COST_SYNC EIP message that publishes cost data to Human Resources.

It is recommended that you schedule this process to run at a regular interval; a minimum of once a year is necessary to export costs for preparation of the 2483 report.

Managing Learning Hours and DIF

This section provides an overview and discusses how to:

• Review and define learning classifications.

• Set up hour types

• Validate learning hours

• Export learning hours

Understanding Management of Learning Hours and DIF

Hour tracking in Enterprise Learning Management provides these benefits: it captures statistical data that is required for the 2483 report, and it enables you to track and send DIF training hours and training hours that occur outside a learner's regular work schedule to a payroll application, such as Global Payroll for France, through the Administer Training business process in Human Resources. The payroll application can calculate each learner's new DIF balance and return this information to Enterprise Learning Management for display during the enrollment process and on self service pages. It can also calculate the training allocation payment for training done outside the regular work hours.

For each of an activity's components, you can track the number of DIF and non-DIF training hours that occurred during a learner's normal work schedule and outside the work schedule. Hour types are used to track this information. Four hour types are delivered as system data: Regular Training Hours - in working schedule; Regular Training Hours - out of working schedule; DIF Training Hours - in working schedule; and DIF Training Hours - out of working schedule.

When an administrator defines an activity, he or she enters a duration, in hours, for each of the activity's learning components. The administrator also indicates which activities are eligible for DIF and selects an approval definition, if applicable. After learners complete the activity, the administrator can use an online roster page, if needed, to record the amount of time the learner spent on each component, by hour type.

For example, assume that a DIF-eligible activity has one session component with a duration of five hours. The learner spends one hour during the normal work schedule at the training session and four hours outside the work schedule. After the learner completes the training, the administrator uses the roster to associate hours types with the learner's hours as follows:

Learning administrators can validate training hours and transfer this data to Human Resources, so that an HR administrator can approve and send the hours to payroll. Hours approved by the HR administrator are converted to positive input that can be processed during the next pay run. When you use Global Payroll for France, the payroll system can use the hours recorded in Enterprise Learning Management to update learners' DIF balances.

Hours are exported by component. If an activity has more than one component, the system exports whatever hours have not been sent before. For example, suppose that an activity with several learning components lasts for several months. As soon as the hours for one component are approved, they can be sent to HR (and then the Payroll application) so that the training allocation can be paid and DIF balances can be updated without waiting for the end of the activity.

Catalog Setup Considerations

You can make DIF-eligible activities easy to find in the learning catalog and easier to manage if you adhere to the following guidelines when building the catalog:

• Create a separate category or categories for DIF-eligible learning.

• Include the DIF label in category names, when appropriate.

• Include the DIF label in catalog item names, when appropriate.

If you follow these guidelines, users will be able to find learning that qualifies for DIF usage by searching for categories and catalog items with DIF in the name.

Approval of DIF Training Requests

Enterprise Learning Management handles enrollments that require approval for DIF the same as it does enrollments that require approval for other reasons. That is, the administrator selects the approval process on the Activity Details page and uses the approval pages or roster to grant approval.

Employees can specify that they want to use DIF hours while completing a learning request, supplemental learning, or when enrolling in an activity. When the enrollment request is entered, workflow triggers an email to inform the approvers of the request using the approval framework. An administrator or the manager can approve the request and, once approved or rejected, an email is triggered to inform the learner. If approved, the activity is identified with a DIF indicator on the roster. This indicator is selected automatically if the request is from the learner. If not selected, the administrator has the ability to check it. When requesting the use of DIF hours, the system assumes that all hours for that training are to be applied against the learner's DIF balance.

Setup Tasks for Managing Training Hours

To configure the system to track learning costs:

1. Review the delivered learning classifications and modify if necessary.

   Under French law, training must be categorized according to a specific set of learning classifications, such as competency check, CIF (Congé Individuel de Formation) and experience validation. These classifications appear on training reports, and can affect a learner’s compensation for training time. Enterprise Learning Management delivers the valid classifications that are required by French law. You can modify the classification descriptions, but you should not modify their numerical identifiers. Changing the numeric codes can compromise the integrity of the data used in the 2483 report. Learning classifications are also used to produce training plans.

   See Reviewing and Defining Learning Classifications.

2. Review the delivered hour types and modify if necessary.

   Administrators use hour types to designate for a learner, when training occurred—that is, how many hours occurred during or outside of the learner’s regular work schedule—and whether any of the hours were related to DIF. Enterprise Learning Management delivers four hour types. You can modify the descriptions of the delivered hour types but should not update their numerical identifiers.

   See Defining Hour Types.

3. (Optional) Import DIF balances from Human Resources.

   If Administer Training is integrated with Global Payroll for France, you can import DIF balances that the payroll application has calculated for learners. First, run the full sync EIP: LM_DIF_BALANCE_FULLSYNC to load the balances into a staging table, then run the Process FullSync Data (LM_LD_STGDAT ) process to validate and load data into Enterprise Learning Management.

   See Processing Staged Data.

4. Enable the ongoing receipt of DIF balances and hour acknowledgement messages from Human Resources.

   Activate the DIF_BALANCE_SYNC and the TRN_HOUR_ACK incremental EIP messages. Ensure that the Process Asynchronous Data (LM_LD_ASYNC) process is scheduled to run at regular intervals.

   The first EIP imports updated DIF balances from Human Resources. The second EIP enables Enterprise Learning Management to display current hour tracking statuses. Each time the hour tracking status changes, it can send Enterprise Learning Management an update.

5. When creating the learning catalog, complete the following tasks:

   • (Optional) Create a separate category for DIF-eligible learning.

   • When defining catalog items for which DIF hours can be used, select the DIF-eligible check box on the Item - Item Details page.

   • (Optional) Assign a default learning classification to each catalog item.

     Activity enrollment records inherit the learning classification from the catalog item. If there is no default value, the administrator can specify the classification through the roster pages.

   • For each activity, enter the duration of the constituent learning components.

     The values that you enter become the default values for the component hours on the roster pages.

Ongoing Tasks for Managing Learning Hours and DIF

To manage learning hours and DIF tracking on a day-to-day basis:

• Approve requests to use DIF hours as you would other requests that require approval.

  You can use the roster pages or an approvals page to approve enrollments where the use of DIF hours is requested.

• As learners complete activities, use the roster pages to update, by component, the number of training hours that were DIF-eligible or non-DIF eligible and how many hours occurred outside the learner's regular work schedule.

  By default, the system assumes that learners spent the number of hours specified on the component's Recommended Duration page. For activities not eligible for DIF, it further assumes that all of those hours occurred during the learner's normal work schedule. For DIF-eligible activities, the system assumes all of those hours occurred outside of the learner's normal work schedule. If you need to update this information, use the Hours tab of the Learner Roster page.

• Validate hours.

  Use the Training Hour Validation page or the activity roster to validate hours before they are exported to Administer Training. Use the Learner Roster to validate hours for individual learners; the Training Hour Validation page is more efficient for mass validations.

• Export hours to Human Resources.

  Use the Export Learning Hours page to publish validated hours.

• Monitor exported hours and follow up on rejected hours.

  After exporting hours, review the Training Hour Validation page for rejected records.

Pages Used to Manage Learning Hours

Reviewing and Defining Learning Classifications

Access the Learning Classifications page.

The first three classifications are used with training plans; some of the other classifications can be used within the 2483 report.

Warning! Nine learning classifications are delivered as system data with Enterprise Learning Management. You can modify the descriptions, but should not change the corresponding numerical codes. Modifying the codes can compromise the integrity of the statistical data that is reported in training plans and the 2483 report.

Defining Hour Types

Access the Hour Types page.

Warning! Four hour types are delivered as system data with Enterprise Learning Management. You can modify the descriptions, but should not change the numerical classification codes. Modifying the codes can compromise the integrity of data that is reported in training plans and the 2483 report.

You can add hour types, however no system logic is tied to new hour types and they will not be exported to Human Resources.

Validating Training Hours

Access the Training Hour Validation page.

Administrators can validate hours for activities within their own learning environment.

To review and validate training hours:

1. Enter the search criteria to locate the enrollment records you want to review.

   In the search results, the Hours tab shows the validation status (for example, whether the hours are pending review or have already been sent to Human Resources) and a breakout of the learner’s hours by hour type. Administrators specify the number of hours by hour type on the Component Duration page (LM_LRNR_ROSDUR_SEC) of the activity roster.

2. Update a learner’s hour tracking status or use the Group Action feature to change the status of multiple learners simultaneously.

   When using the Group Action feature, you can change the status to Approved by ELM Administrator, Canceled, or Pending Review from ELM Administrator.

Hour Tracking Status

Select the tracking status of enrollment records you want to review. For example, select Pending to see the records that require validation; select Approved to see the records that have been validated and are ready for export.

Dates Tab

This tab displays the activity name, code, type, start date, and end date.

Status Tab

The Status tab shows the learning classification, the completion status, and a DIF check box that is selected if hours for the activity are to be applied to DIF. Learners can request the use of DIF hours on the self-service page during enrollment; administrators can indicate that DIF hours are to be used on the Learner Roster page that is accessible through the activity roster.

Hours Tab

Use this tab to review the current hour tracking status and to validate hours so that they can be exported to Human Resources.

Exporting Learning Hours

Access the Export Learning Hours page.

The LM_STD_HOUR Application Engine process uses an asynchronous XML message (TRAINING_HOUR) to publish validated training hours to Human Resources. You can set up the process to run at regular intervals, such as daily or weekly. You can also run the process on an as-needed basis.

For affected learners, the message publishes information about the activity, learning component, session start and end date, session duration, and the number of hours associated with each hour type. When you run the process, only those hours that have an hour tracking status of Approved by ELM Administrator are published. As soon as the hours are published, their status changes to Pending Review from Payroll. You cannot modify or resubmit these hours unless the payroll administrator rejects the hours, which sets the status to Rejected by Payroll Admin.

Upon receipt of the message, a Human Resources administrator validates the training hours and sends the approved information to Global Payroll for processing.

After you publish training hours, use the Training Hour Validation page to search for enrollment records with a status of Rejected by GP or Publish Error.