This chapter provides an overview of on-demand event maintenance processing and discusses how to:
Begin the On-Demand Event Maintenance process.
Move events through the process.
Reprocess participant events.
Set up and manage on-demand event maintenance.
The administration of an event maintenance or open enrollment schedule can extend from several days to several weeks, depending upon the number of employees involved. This can involve time correcting processing errors, delivering enrollment forms, entering employee elections as the forms are returned, validating elections, and sending out confirmation notices.
With on-demand event maintenance, you can run an individual participant through the entire Benefits Administration process—from participant event scheduling to enrollment confirmation—with a single page.
Using on-demand event maintenance, you can:
Process participant events quickly, without setting up run controls.
Correct processing errors as they occur.
Link to Benefits Administration pages to review processing information and enter option elections.
You might use on-demand event maintenance for an employee who has been promoted and is transferring offices in a few days. In one day, you could:
Produce a benefits package.
Enter elections.
Produce a confirmation statement.
You can also integrate the On-Demand Event Maintenance page into the standard Benefits Administration processing cycle. For example, a new hire is typically scheduled as a participant event during a regularly scheduled Event Maintenance batch process. However, what if the new employee needs to submit an enrollment form right away to make a doctor's appointment and show proof of medical insurance? You can use the On-Demand Event Maintenance page to produce the enrollment statement on demand. The employee makes elections that same day using the company's interactive voice response system or self-service website with eBenefits, and the system finalizes the elections and prints a confirmation statement during the next run of the Benefits Administration process for the normal event maintenance schedule.
See Also
Moving Events Through the Process
This section discusses how to:
Start the On-Demand Event Maintenance process.
Select an activity to process.
Page Name |
Object Name |
Navigation |
Usage |
BAS_ON_DEM_EM |
Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Events, On-Demand-Event Maintenance, On-Demand Event Maintenance |
Process a single participant through all stages of the Benefits Administration process. |
|
BAS_ACTY_EMPL |
Click the Show Activities button on the On-Demand Event Maintenance page. |
Review the list of activities waiting to be processed for a particular employee ID/benefit record number combination and select one to be processed. |
Access the On-Demand Event Maintenance page.
Empl Rcd# (employee record number) |
Used for employees with multiple jobs. Employees with multiple jobs can have different sets of benefits elections. The system keeps track of the different sets of elections by assigning benefit record numbers for each benefits package. |
Activity Date and Show Activities |
This is the date on which the trigger activity for the Benefits Administration event occurred. If the system finds only one activity for the employee, the system automatically displays the date. If there is more than one activity, click the Show Activities button to select an activity to process. |
Source |
The type of action that triggered the activity record: a change to the employee address, multiple job flags, or job data; manually adding an event through the BenAdmin Activity page; or a passive event. |
Schedule/Prepare Activity |
Click to run the Schedule/Prepare Activity process. |
Pending Activities |
Displays the number of activities waiting to be processed into participant events for this employee ID/benefit record number combination. As activity triggers are processed into participant events, they are deleted from the BenAdmin Activity page. If there are no activities waiting to be processed, the Pending Activity field is blank and the Show Activities button is not available. |
Action |
The type of job action associated with the action trigger. For example, if the triggering action is a hire of an employee, the action is HIR. When the system processes the activity into a participant event, it uses the action to determine which event classification governs the event. |
The remaining features, discussed in the following sections, are unavailable until the activity is scheduled.
Access the BAS Activity (Benefits Administration Activity) page.
Sel ACTY (select activity) |
Select to process the activity. When you select an activity record, information from that record populates the Activity Date, Source, Empl Rcd#, Pending Activity, and Action fields on the On-Demand Event Maintenance page. |
Event Effseq (event effective sequence) |
If there is more than one event for this employee that occurred on the same day, indicates the order in which it occurred. |
COBRA Action |
This indicates whether this is a COBRA qualifying activity. |
This section discusses how to:
Schedule and assign activities.
Prepare options.
Print enrollment statements for on-demand event maintenance.
Enter elections.
Validate and finalize elections.
Generate confirmation statements.
To schedule the activity record as a participant event and assign the event to a benefit program, click the Schedule/Prepare Activity button on the On-Demand Event Maintenance page.
The Schedule/Prepare Activity button is active only if there is an activity waiting to be processed.
If the activity record is processed successfully, it is:
Scheduled as a participant event.
Deleted from the list of activities waiting to be processed.
Added to the BAS Participant table.
Assigned to a specific benefit program where event classifications are determined.
Prepared (option eligibility and costs are calculated).
Note. In certain cases, the system will process the event to FP status, in which case the event will be closed and processing will
stop. This can happen, for example, when event processing rules have Use History selected and there is no change in eligible
options.
The system always assumes that you intend the selected activity on the On-Demand Event Maintenance page to be the event currently
in process. So if you're working with a participant who currently has an event midway through the Benefits Administration
process cycle and a pending activity record selected for on-demand maintenance, the system closes the current event by changing
its event status to Closed, converts the activity trigger into a new participant event, and gives that event an event status of Open.
See Also
Scheduling Events and Assigning Benefit Programs
Typically, after the event has been scheduled and assigned, options and costs are automatically prepared (so long as no errors were encountered during scheduling and program assignment). However, if errors are encountered and need further resolution, click the Prepare Options button to continue automated processing and to prepare benefit options and election defaults.
Due to an error during the scheduling and assignment, the Prepare Options button is only available when the event's process status is AS, AE, or PE.
See Also
Process Status and Option Preparation
After options have been prepared, click Enrollment Statements to generate an enrollment statement for the participant. The Enrollment Statements button is only available when the process status is PR or NT.
The Run Date field displays the date that an enrollment statement was last run for the participant event currently in process.
In the Frequency group box, you can indicate how to display benefit option cost information on the enrollment statement. Use Deduction Frequency to print the cost of the benefit per pay period for each available option. Use Annual Frequency to print the annual cost of the benefit option.
Note. If you're using eBenefits, this step may be optional (because the employee has access to enrollment choices directly from the self-service website).
After options have been prepared and you’ve received the participant’s election choices, click the Election Entry button to access the Benefits Administration data entry pages. The button is only available when the process status is PR, NT, EE, RE, or ET.
On the On-Demand Event Maintenance page, the Entered ... Of ... field tells you how many plan election choices have been entered for the participant versus the total number of plan election choices the participant can make. When an election has been entered, you can also click Show Plans to review changes.
See Also
Entering Participant Benefit Elections
After entering elections, click the Validate/Finalize button to validate and load the information to benefit tables. The button is available if the process status of the event isET, EE, or RE.
Note. If a participant's elections have not been updated and event rules dictate the participant cannot keep some or all current
elections, the system determines default elections for the participant and enrolls them.
Select the Finalize/Enroll Defaults check box to force-finalize a participant's elections and enroll the participant in default elections, or both, even if the
current elections are in error. Events with a process status of PR and NT can be force-finalized, as well as events at ET, EE, or RE.
See Also
Validating and Loading Elections
After validating and finalizing the participant's elections, click the Confirmation Statement button to generate a confirmation statement. The Confirmation Statement button is available when the process status is FE or EE.
The Run Date field displays the date that a confirmation statement was last printed for the participant event in process.
See Also
If an event requires reprocessing, click the Reprocess button on the On-Demand Event Maintenance page to reprocess the event to a previous stage of the Benefits Administration process. The Reprocess button is not available for events with AS status.
As with the normal Benefits Administration process, use the Event Status Update page to identify events that may need reprocessing. To open the Event Status Update page from the On-Demand Maintenance page, click the Event Status button.
Note. If you need to reprocess an event that has been closed, open Event Status Update, close the currently open event, and open
the event that you want to reprocess. When you return to the On-Demand Event Maintenance page, the system displays the event
you reopened for processing.
Use the Process Indicator menu to indicate the level to which you want the system to reprocess the event. The following table
describes Process Indicator values:
Process Indicator |
Processing |
A (assign benefit program) |
Event status must be Open. Schedule assignment is not reviewed or changed. Elections for participant events are rolled back (deleted) from the Base Benefit enrollment tables. Elections are not retained in the BAS_PARTIC table. Program eligibility is determined again. Option eligibility, cost credits, defaults, and preentry are recalculated. The system attempts to reprocess participants to PR status. |
E (elect options) |
Event status must be Open. Schedule assignment, program assignment, and option eligibility is not reviewed or changed. The system rolls back elections from Base Benefit enrollment tables. Elections are retained in the BAS_PARTIC table. It revalidates elections for this event and loads them, if there are no errors, back into the Base Benefit enrollment tables, resetting the final process status to FE. |
N (normal processing) |
Standard processing for Benefits Administration. |
P (prepare options) |
Event status must be Open. Schedule assignment and program assignment are not reviewed or changed. Elections for participant events are rolled back (deleted) from the Base Benefit enrollment tables. Elections are not retained in the BAS_PARTIC table. The system recalculates option eligibility, cost credits, defaults, and preentry information. The system attempts to reprocess participants to PR status. |
R (reenter) |
Use to correct election errors for finalized events, when enrollment information has been loaded to benefit tables. Event status must be Open. Schedule assignment, program assignment, and option eligibility is not reviewed or changed. The system rolls back elections back from Base Benefit enrollment tables. It retains elections for this event in the BAS_PARTIC table. The system leaves the event at a process status of RE. When you post election changes to the data entry component, the system updates the process status to ET. |
V (void) |
The system updates the event status to Void and removes the event from processing. The system does not review schedule assignment, program assignment, and option eligibility. If the event is in a process status of FE-Enrolled, elections are rolled back from Base Benefit enrollment tables. The system retains prior elections for this event in the BAS_PARTIC table. The system leaves the event at a process status of RE. |
See Also
To set up online printing, use the Online Printing (BAS_ODEM_PRINT_PG) component.
This section discusses how to:
Set print options.
Review changed elections.
Review and update event status.
Review error messages.
Access the BenAdmin Online Form Printing page.
You set up print options only once for each user ID. Use the fields in the Output Destination group box to determine the output destination of the enrollment and confirmation forms you print with the On Demand Event Maintenance facility. If you want to print the report on a printer, select Printer. If you want the system to generate the form as a text file, select File. In File/Printer, either give the path to the directory in which you want the system to save the file (if you've selected File), or the printer to which you want the system to send the form (if you've selected Printer).
Note. Reports are always run from the client.
Access the Participants Enrolled page.
Election Made |
A Y value indicates election has been entered or changed. |
Option Cd (option code) |
The benefit option code can also indicate the participant has waived a certain option. |
Note. The Participants Enrolled page displays only the plan types for which the participant is currently eligible to choose or change benefit option elections. It might not display all of the plan types in which the participant is currently enrolled.
Just like in the normal Benefits Administration process, you can use the Event Status Update page to open and close events and reprocess events. You can also use the Event Status Update page to review the participant events currently associated with the participant and benefit record number combination with which you are working. To open the Event Status Update page from the On-Demand Event Maintenance page, click the Event Status button.
See Also
Manually Updating Event Status
Access the On Demand EM - Error Messages page.
The error messages generated by the last processing action you initiated appear in the Messages area. Each time you run the Benefits Administration process, the system deletes the error messages generated by the previous run. If errors from a previous run are not corrected, they are generated again with the new run of the process.