What's New in Oracle HRMS Release 11.0 (New Features in Oracle HRMS)


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What's New in Oracle HRMS Release 11.0

The following lists what's new in this release of Oracle HRMS:

Career Management

This new functionality is built upon the emerging disciplines of performance management and the competence approach. This gives a single, unified model and language for traditionally different activities (such as appraisals, assessment, recording accomplishments, and such). By using this one approach, you can:

operate more effectively at work

perform key human resource management processes consistently across the enterprise

achieve clearly defined business goals within a common framework

A common framework for describing and assessing competencies speeds the deployment process within your enterprise. This is both cost-effective and desirable. Imagine how quickly your managers can respond to new challenges when they can identify and select employees and applicants on a common basis--they can also match employees and applicants with opportunities that arise across the whole enterprise. This ability to perform global deployment effectively, through a 'virtual job market', provides your enterprise with the competitive edge with deployment. Consider being able to create opportunities in the US and recruit globally using common terminology to build up teams with complementary skills.

Oracle Human Resources provides you with web and workflow-based access for many line manager and employee end-user activities through an intuitive, easy-to-use interface. Alternatively, you can perform many activities using standard Oracle HRMS windows.

See: Introducing Career Management Activities

Note: The Career Management information is likely to change during the Release 11 cycle. See Updates to R11 Online Help - Career Management.

Seeded Task Flows

In this release we supply a window (PERWSHRG) that includes both the People and Assignment windows. This enables the Assignment window to open more quickly from the People window. The seeded task flows use this new window, and we recommend that you use this window in place of the People window (PERWSEPI) and Assignment window (PERWSEMA) in any task flows that require both windows.

Improved Performance

If you have a large HRMS database with many organizations, jobs, positions, grades, locations and cities, you will see a performance improvement on the list of values on these fields throughout the system. They have now been defined as "long lists". This means you are presented with a dialog box in which to enter selection criteria when you ask for the list of values on these fields.

New HR:Security Profile User Profile Option

We have changed the way a security profile is associated with a responsibility. You associate a security profile with a responsibility by setting a new user profile option called HR: Security Profile.

When you set the HR:Security Profile profile option for a responsibility, the HR:Business Group profile option is defaulted to the Business Group of the security profile chosen earlier.

During the upgrade to Release 11, the HR:Security Profile profile option is set for all responsibilities for which the HR:Business Group profile option has been set. Responsibilities that connected to a secure Oracle user in Release 10 are given the restricted security profile that corresponds to the datagroup held against that responsibility in Release 10.

See: Setting Up Security in Oracle HRMS

HR:Business Group Profile Option

HR Business Group Profile Option is now a read-only profile option, defaulted from the new HR:Security Profile profile option. It now exists at only Site and Responsibility level. In Release 10 it was possible to set it at Application Level.

During the upgrade to Release 11, application level settings for the HR:Business Group profile option are replaced by responsibility level settings.

MIX

Mix now enables you to do the following:

Rollback

You can rollback the MIX transfer process for newly inserted element entries. You cannot rollback element entries that have been updated.

Rolling Back a MIX Process

Note: This is only available through the standard Submit Requests window.

New batch process and window

On the Batch Header window you can now create batch lines for whole assignment sets using the Create Batch Lines window. This speeds up the process of making batch element entries for MIX processing.

Creating and Updating Batches of Element Entries

Note: This functionality is also available to HR-only customers.

Define Function

You can register new FastFormula functions directly using this window. User defined functions, such as calculating the proration for mid-month salary increases, enable implementers to meet specific business requirements for each enterprise.

See: Defining Functions

New Menu Feature - FastPath

You can now call directly from the menu certain windows that are normally available only in task flows. A Find window displays, enabling you to select the Person or Assignment you want to see.

See: FastPath Windows

APIs

We publish the current list of production status:

APIs in Release 11.0

APIs With User Hooks

Business Process APIs

When you run the Business Process APIs against the APPS Oracle user, they access data through an unrestricted security profile.

Payroll and FastFormula Multibyte Support

Oracle HRMS can now handle multibyte characters for languages such as Japanese.

Latest Balance Retention

When a payroll run completes, Oracle Payroll saves latest balances for each balance type that have been defined as a latest balance, leading to high performance in subsequent runs and post run reporting. Before Release 11.0, however, rolling back a payroll run deleted all these balances, leading to slower processing time for the next payroll run.

In Release 11.0, the latest balances from the previous run are retained. They are not deleted if you roll back the current run, and so they remain available for the next payroll run.

Note: You will now only lose your latest balances if you roll back both the current run and the previous run, perform a reversal or perform a balance adjustment.

Process Restartability

In previous releases, if the system crashed during a payroll run it would resubmit the payroll from the beginning again when it restarted, thereby processing some assignments twice. Release 11.0 prevents this from happening. To restart a payroll run after a crash, contact Oracle Worldwide Customer Support for assistance.

FastFormula now callable from PL/SQL

HR users as well as Payroll users can now call FastFormula from PL/SQL, making it possible to use formulas in a wider context, for example, in business rule validation.

Restricted Security Profile

Oracle HRMS users with a restricted security profile now connect to the same Oracle user as those with an unrestricted, or View All, security profile: the APPS Oracle user.

Reporting users are unaffected by this enhancement. As in previous releases of Oracle HRMS, you can optionally create a read-only reporting Oracle user for each restricted security profile. This enhancement simplifies the administration of security profiles. It is no longer necessary to maintain secure Oracle users for every restricted security profile. The Generate Secure User process is now run only if you are creating reporting users.

Line Manager Direct Access users have access to the security profiles defined through Oracle HR.

Mass Update of Applicants

This window now clears the information from the fields once you accept or cancel the update, saving you from having to remove the information before performing another update.

You can also look at ten rows of information instead of five.

See: Mass Updates

Renamed Secure Views

Secure Views which had a _SECV suffix in Release 10, have been renamed and restructured to use a PL/SQL function. If you connect to the APPS Oracle user through SQL*Plus, the secure views return an unrestricted set of data.

If you connect to a reporting Oracle user, the data returned by the secure views is restricted according to the definition of the security profile associated with the reporting Oracle user.

Telephone Numbers on the Person Window

The Work Telephone field is no longer stored on the Person table, or maintained through the Person window. It is now maintained in the new Phones table, and through the task flowed Phones window.

The Phones window enables you to hold multiple telephone numbers of different types for people. These may include work numbers, home numbers, mobiles, fax numbers, and such. You can add your own phone types.

Telephone numbers may still be held directly on addresses as well. These are held independently of the personal phone numbers, to cater for customers who want to associate the telephone number directly with an address.

See: Adding Telephone Numbers

List of Values (QuickCodes)

The customization level for the QuickCode FREQUENCY has been changed from Extensible to System.

Custom Library

We publish the current list of windows and event points from which calls can be made to Custom Library

See: Custom Library Calls

Create Task Flows Using Oracle Workflow

You can now model your task flows using Oracle Workflow (version 2.0.3.8.1 or higher). This method of creating task flows has the advantage of using a diagrammer to help you design the sequence of windows.

See: Creating Task Flows Using Oracle Workflow