This chapter provides an overview of orders and discusses how to:
Create staffing orders.
Define assignments.
Review employee job and assignment cross references.
View assignment transactions.
View assignment rates.
Note. If you have installed PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office and Oracle's PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management, refer to the PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office PeopleBook for information about how to work with orders and assignments.
See Also
Creating and Managing Orders and Assignments
A staffing order is a request for temporary or permanent workers. When you create orders and assignments in PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management, the system automatically generates projects, contracts, and employee job data with minimal data entry. PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management then leverages the functionality of the Project Costing, Contracts, and Time and Labor applications to streamline your pay and bill processes.
PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management shares the Order and Assignment tables and components with PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office, providing seamless integration between these two applications.
This section discusses:
How PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management uses profiles to create projects, contracts, and additional jobs.
Rate elements and rate profiles.
User order types.
Orders and assignments.
Temp to hire.
Order processing.
Credits and fall offs.
PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management uses profiles to create projects, contracts, and additional jobs. Before you can create an order, you must set up these profiles. They drive many of the values that are set up on the related project, contract, and job record.
The profiles consist of:
A contract profile, which establishes PeopleSoft Contracts and PeopleSoft Billing defaults for your orders and assignments.
A project profile, which establishes PeopleSoft Project Costing defaults for your orders and assignments.
A rate profile, which defines the types of rates that are captured in the temporary assignments and maps them to time reporting codes (TRCs).
Note. In addition to setting up profiles, the setup of customers, contacts, employees, and non-employees is essential for creating orders.
See Also
Configuring the PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management System
During implementation, you first define rate elements and rate profiles. The components consists of three pages:
Rate Element: In the Rate Element component, this page is accessible if you have either PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office or PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management installed.
Details: In the Rate Element component, this page is only accessible if you have PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management installed (with or without PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office).
Rate Profile: In the Rate Profile component, this page is accessible if you have either PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office or PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management installed.
When you add an order in PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management, you must select the user-defined order type that describes the transaction. Because user-defined order types map to one of two system-defined order types, a temporary order is really a user-defined order type that's mapped to a temporary system order type, and a career order is really a user-defined order type that's mapped to a career system order type.
Career orders are requests for one or more people to perform work in a permanent capacity at a client of the staffing organization. Creating a new career order is similar to creating a temporary order, except for specific fields that pertain to the career aspects of the position, such as prospective fees.
Temporary orders are requests for contingent workers for whom the client has no need for permanent positions. The customer can request one or more people on the same order. Creating a new temporary order is similar to creating a career order, except for specific fields that pertain to the billing and payroll aspects of the position.
Project and contract profiles are keyed by user-defined order type (not by system-defined order type), providing added flexibility in project and contract creation, as well as in accounting and reporting.
System behavior and logic are driven by the system-defined order type to which a user-defined order type maps.
The order type also drives the automatic project and contract creation business logic when the order is saved. Career orders create contracts in which the contract lines use amount-based products and milestones billing. Temporary orders create contracts in which the contract lines use rate-based products and as incurred billing.
The system captures different data elements depending on the system-defined order type. Most of the information captured for temporary and career orders is the same, but depending on the order type a few different data elements must be captured for billing and payroll purposes.
Note. You can convert a temporary assignment to permanent by using the temp-to-hire functionality. The Temp to Hire checkbox on the Resource Request page of the Order must be selected. For a temporary assignment, click the Permanent Hire button that appears on the temporary Assignment page. Click it to convert the temporary assignment to a career assignment indicating that the employee was permanently hired by the customer. The system actually does not covert the assignment, but creates a new one and associates it with the prior assignment. On the career portion of the assignment, the system then prompts you for a placement fee, billing schedule, and commission. After you enter and save this information, the system creates an additional assignment with the related activities and contract lines for the permanent placement.
Staffing orders are requests from customers for contingent or permanent workers. Assignments are the placement of employees at the customer work site to perform the services requested in the order.
The Order component captures the main information for an order, such as the customer billing and worksite address, start and estimated end dates, and billing information.
The Assignment component captures the details required to start an employee or non-employee on an assignment. Much of the information is populated from the order, such as start date, estimated end date, job code, and worksite address.
You can enter additional information or change the default information here. This represents your last opportunity to enter assignment details before the system creates the related project activity, contract line, and employee job record information that drives the pay and bill transactions.
When you save an order, the system creates these items:
Project.
Status row for the project.
Contract with a Pending status.
Project owning organization (if you configure PeopleSoft Project Costing to use organizations).
When you save an assignment, the system creates these items:
Activity.
Activity status.
Activity team.
Project team.
Contract line.
Amendment.
Note. The first assignment creates the first contract line and activates the contract. However, starting with the second assignment, the additional contract lines are added via contract amendments.
Billing plan with a status of Ready.
Revenue recognition plan with a status of Ready.
In addition, when you save an assignment, the system performs these actions:
Creates a link between the project, activity, and contract line.
Creates a contract level rate set for the contract line and project activity (for temporary assignments).
Creates billing events with the billing dates and amounts (for career assignments).
Sends an application message to PeopleSoft HR to either create a job record (for temporary assignments only, and only if an additional job record cannot be reused and a new one must be created), or to add an effective dated record to an existing job record (for temporary assignments only, and only if an additional job record can be reused but some job information changed for the assignment, such as the tax location code).
For temporary assignments only, the system either creates the employee time reporter data in PeopleSoft Time and Labor (if an additional job record cannot be reused and a new one must be created) or changes the employee time reporter data in PeopleSoft Time and Labor (if an additional job record can be reused but the workgroup or taskgroup changed).
Creates a cross-reference between the employee job record and the project and activity (for temporary assignments only) in HCM.
Sends the assignment pay rates to PeopleSoft Time and Labor to populate the pay rate in payroll (for temporary assignments only).
This section discusses these areas of order processing:
Career assignments.
Temporary assignments.
Edits and amendments.
When you enter a career assignment, you specify the fee for the placement and how much to bill on specific days.
Because career assignments are direct hires, you do not bill the customer for the hours that an employee works. Instead, you bill a negotiated amount for finding the customer a permanent employee. Therefore the product associated with the contract line (assignment) is amount-based. The billing plan associated with the assignment uses milestone billing. By entering a billing schedule, you are creating events to trigger the billing for a specified amount or percent of the total negotiated amount on specified dates. If you previously set the product on the contract profile for this transaction to Billing Manages Revenue, the system does not create a revenue recognition plan. If the product is not set to Billing Manages Revenue on the contract profile, then the system creates a revenue recognition plan that is set to recognize revenue according to the billing schedule.
Processing Temporary Assignments
When you enter a temporary assignment, you bill on a time and materials basis for the hours that an employee works. Therefore, the product associated with the contract line (assignment) is rate-based. The system creates an as-incurred billing plan for the temporary assignments and creates an as-incurred revenue recognition plan.
For temporary assignments, depending on installation specifications, the system either generates a new job record in the HCM database for each new assignment or tries to reuse existing job records by comparing the fields specified in the assignment against the same fields in the employee's already existing job records.
As part of the installation options, you specify whether the system will try to reuse existing job records or whether it will always create an additional job record for each new assignment. Additionally, users with proper security access can override the option chosen in the installation options and force the creation of a particular job for a particular assignment.
Two check boxes on the Staffing Installation page enable you to define how the system handles additional job record creation: one controls the additional job records process for hourly employees, and the other does so for salaried employees.
If the system creates an additional job, it populates the job record with the department, company, tax location code, workgroup, taskgroup, and so forth from the values specified in the assignment.
PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management captures Job and Time Reporter information in the assignment to facilitate the creation of additional jobs if an employee hired in one staffing branch is borrowed to work on an order created by another branch. The new job record created may have a different PeopleSoft HR business unit, company, department, pay group, or location code than the one in his or her original hire record.
Note. Do not use this feature as a replacement for employee permanent transfers. Transfers should be done in the HCM job component; the system will use the new employee job information as a default for subsequent assignment. Even if the employee is temporarily borrowed from one branch to another, you should seriously consider not creating an additional job and paying the employee out of his or her home PeopleSoft HR business unit, company department, and paygroup and using the PeopleSoft Project Costing sharing rules to share some of the cost and the revenue between the department that owns the order and the department that originally hired the employee.
Paying the employee out his or her home job (and HR business unit) has the advantage of W-2 requirement at the end of the year (if the two branches belong to distinct companies or legal entities within your staffing organization), as well as making employee job data maintenance in HCM easier because the employee will have less job records.
Remember that even when the installation options are configured to reuse employee job records and when the assignment job-related fields match those of an existing employee job record, the system may still create an additional job if that existing job record is already in use by another concurrent assignment. This system behavior is intentional to enable the performing of data changes in the employee job record for one assignment (for example, a tax location code change) without affecting an unrelated concurrent assignment.
When an assignment is created in the FSCM database, two application messages are sent to the HCM database:
FO_ASGN_CREATE |
The subscription code of this message uses component interfaces CI_JOB_DATA_EMP (for employees) and CI_JOB_DATA_CWR (for non-employees) to create a new employee job record number for the assignment with an action or reason of ADL, (additional job). A row is inserted in the FO_EMPL_XREF table to maintain a reference between the employee job record number and the project or activity in the FSCM database. This information is used on the PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management Time Entry pages. |
FO_ASGN_RATES_SYNC |
This message sends the assignment rates to the FO_ASGN_RT_DTL table in the HCM database. The rates are mapped to time reporting codes in PeopleSoft Time and Labor through the rate element configuration table (FO_RATE_ELEMENT). |
Processing Edits and Amendments
Once orders and assignments are created, some of the fields become display-only and can only be changed in the appropriate pages in PeopleSoft Project Costing, PeopleSoft Contracts, and PeopleSoft Human Resources by using the appropriate links in the Order and Assignment components.
Note. Changes performed directly in those applications are not reflected back on the PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management Order and Assignment components.
See Also
Using Enterprise Integration Points
Creating and Managing Orders and Assignments
When you create a career assignment or you convert a temp-to-hire assignment, you charge a fee for the placement. You might also make guarantees regarding how long the employee will stay employed by the customer to earn your full placement fee. If this guarantee is not met, the customer may want part of the placement fee credited or refunded. This credit is called a fall off.
If you have both PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management and PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office installed, the system can automatically create a fall off credit for a career assignment by simply clicking a button.
If you only have PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management installed, this button is not available, so if a fall off occurs and requires a credit, you must manually add a credit memo in the delivered PeopleSoft Billing pages. You must provide the necessary reference information on these pages—such as the project, activity, contract, contract line, and billing plan—to have visibility to these credits from the PeopleSoft Project PeopleSoft Costing and Contracts pages.
Note. If you have PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office installed, see the PeopleSoft Enterprise Staffing Front Office 9.1 PeopleBook for information regarding fall offs.
See Also
Placing Candidates in Assignments
Branch |
Branches can represent companies, agencies, subsidiaries, divisions, departments, or branch offices within an organization. You can map each staffing branch to business units for these PeopleSoft products:
|
Pay/Bill Management Center |
Click to access the PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management Center page. |
You use the same component to create both career and temporary orders.
Note. PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management and PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office share the same Order component. However, certain pages and fields within pages only display depending on which of these two products is installed.
You enter order information using pages described in the Staffing Front Office PeopleBook.
See Also
Creating and Managing Orders and Assignments
Creating Orders for Career and Temporary Placements
You use the same component to create assignments for both career and temporary assignments; however, the fields on the Assignment header page vary based on the order type. These pages are discussed separately. In addition, the Assignments - Initial Payroll Setup page does not apply for career orders.
Note. PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management and PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office share the same Assignment component. However, certain pages and fields within pages only display depending on which of these two products is installed
Refer to the pages described in the Staffing Front Office PeopleBook to enter assignments.
See Also
Creating and Managing Orders and Assignments
Placing Candidates in Assignments
PeopleSoft Pay/Bill Management provides a component in the HCM database to inquire about the employee job record used to pay an employee for a particular assignment (and project and activity). This component facilitates employee job data maintenance when the data changes should only affect particular assignments. The information in the component is display-only.
Page Name |
Definition Name |
Navigation |
Usage |
HCM database Workforce Administration, Job Information, Review Staffing Assignments |
Review staffing assignment information. |
This section discusses how to view assignment transactions.
Note. This page is display only.
See Also
Reviewing and Adjusting Project Cost Transactions
Page Name |
Definition Name |
Navigation |
Usage |
|
View transactions pertaining to assignment activity. |
Access the View Assignment Transactions page (Staffing, Pay/Bill Management Center, Orders and Assignments, View Assignment Transactions).
Analysis Group |
Analysis types belonging to the analysis group determine the kinds of transactions available for viewing. |
Max Number of Rows in Scrolls (maximum number of rows in scrolls) |
Enter the number of rows that you want the system to display on the page. |
Get List |
Click this button to populate the fields in the Transactions group box with values from the PROJ_RESOURCE table that meet your search criteria. |
Project Costing Transaction List |
Click this link to be transferred to the PeopleSoft Project Costing transaction list component, where more search capabilities and information is provided. |
Add Transaction |
Click this link to be transferred to the Project Costing Add Transactions component where you can add records directly to the project resource table in PeopleSoft Project Costing. |
Transaction Adjustment |
Click this link to be transferred to the Project Costing Transaction Adjustment component where you can adjust project resource records in PeopleSoft Project Costing. |
See Reviewing and Adjusting Project Cost Transactions.
Analysis/Invoice
Analysis Type |
Displays the transaction analysis type. Values might include: PAY, BIL, ACT and others. |
Time Rptg Cd (time reporting code) |
Displays the TRC associated with this transaction. |
UOM (unit of measure) |
Displays the unit of measure. |
Invoice |
Displays the invoice number for this transaction record, if applicable. |
ADJ Invoice (adjustment invoice) |
Displays the adjustment invoice number, if applicable. |
Description/Amount
Description |
Displays a description of the transaction item. |
Quantity |
Displays the quantity for this transaction item (for example, number of hours). |
Multiplier |
Displays any relevant multiplying factors (for example, bill rate). |
Total Amount |
Displays the transaction amount in the order currency. |
Line Description |
Displays a shorter version of the Description field. |
Billing/Currency
BI Status |
Displays the billing status for this transaction item: D (done), I (ignore), N (not distributed), P (priced), U (unbillable or nonbillable), and W (billing worksheet). |
Date/Time, Account, and Department |
Displays accounting information to use for this transaction. |
Foreign Currency |
Displays the currency of the original transaction. |
Amount |
Displays the amount in the original transaction currency. |
Rate Type |
Displays the method that the system uses to calculate currency translations. Examples include: Floating Rate and Spot Market Rate. |
Currency Effective Date |
Displays the currency effective date used when converting the original transaction currency to the book currency. |
Exchange Rate |
Displays the exchange rate used when converting the original transaction currency to the book currency. |
Transaction Detail
Transaction Date |
Displays the date on which the transaction occurs. |
Trans ID (transaction ID) |
Displays the unique ID number that the system assigns to the transaction. |
User ID |
Displays the identity of the user who entered the information. |
This section discusses how to view assignment rates.
Page Name |
Definition Name |
Navigation |
Usage |
|
View assignment pay and bill rates based on search criteria such as customer ID and vendor ID. Useful when negotiating rates for new orders and assignments to verify past rates; reference this page when you discuss rates and work with a customer. Note. This page is available for temporary assignments only. The system does not display this page for career assignments. |
Access the View Assignment Rate page (Staffing, Pay/Bill Management Center, Orders and Assignments, View Assignment Rate).
You can narrow your search by selecting values in the SetID, Customer ID, Vendor ID, Personnel Status, and Assignment Status fields. Click Search to populate the table with assignments based on your search criteria.
Vendor ID or Customer ID |
Select either a vendor or a customer. |
Personnel Status |
Select Employee or Non-Employee. |
Assignment Status |
Select Canceled, Ended, or Open for the assignment status. |
Search |
Click this button to return the results. |
Name |
Displays the employee name. |
Description |
Displays the assignment descriptions. |
Job |
Displays the job description that corresponds with the associated job code. |
Start Date and End Date |
Displays the dates when the assignment begins and ends. |
Pay Rate and Bill Rate |
Displays the amount per hour that you will pay employees or bill customers for work performed at the customer's site for the assignment. The rate appears in the billing currency. |
Currency Code |
Displays the billing currency for the assignment. |
|
Click the Assignment Information button to access the Assignment page for additional rates and information. |
This section provides an overview of Mass Assignment Rate Changes and discusses how to:
Search for assignments for rate changes.
Enter mass rate change criteria.
This feature provides users with the ability to update rates for several assignments at once. Also, if those updates are applied against assignments that already have transactions entered in the system, the system automatically triggers a process to create retroactive transactions to address such updates. Mass Assignment Rate Changes allows the user to enter search criteria to select the assignments to be updated. The selected assignments are then listed and users are able to create, update and delete rates, rate elements, markups for the assignments, either row by row either for the entire set. The system will check that Pay/Bill management is installed and a non-compliance reason has been entered.
Time and Labor Integration
By submitting the request, application messaging will be sent to the HCM database. Such application messaging will update the records FO_ASGN_RT_DTL and FO_TL_OVR_TBL. Both records are responsible for the storage of default override rates that are used on Staffing time reporters.
After submitting the mass change request, the status is updated to Submitted and an application message is sent to HCM.
The Mass Assignment Rate Changes component is available in HCM to perform the mass change. In HCM the updates will resume to the record FO_ASGN_RT_DTL. New time entries will not be created in this process. The request is sent to HCM through the application message FO_MC_ART_BATCH. The request can be submitted in HCM by clicking the Submit button. In HCM, by submitting the mass change, the system will update the FO_ASGN_RT_DTL record as needed and retrieve impacted time reporters from TL_RPTD_TIME and TL_RAPID_TIME.
Page Name |
Definition Name |
Navigation |
Usage |
Mass Assignment Rate Changes – Search |
FO_MC_ASGN_RT_REQ1 |
Staffing, Orders and Assignments, Mass Assignment Rate Changes, Search |
Search for assignments for rate changes. |
Save Search Criteria As |
FO_SAVE_SEARCH_SEC |
Click the Save Search Criteria As link on the Mass Assignment Rate Changes – Search page. |
Save the search criteria for future use. |
Delete Search Criteria |
FO_DEL_SEARCH_SEC |
Click the Delete Search Criteria link on the Mass Assignment Rate Changes – Search page. |
Delete previously saved search criteria. |
Personalize Search Criteria |
FO_SRCH_CUSTOM_SEC |
Click the Personalize Search Criteria link on the Mass Assignment Rate Changes – Search page. |
Select the fields you want to appear on the Mass Assignment Rate Changes – Search page. |
Request Mass Assignment Rate Changes – Update |
FO_MC_ASGN_RT_REQ2 |
Staffing, Orders and Assignments, Mass Assignment Rate Changes, Update |
Enter mass rate change criteria. |
Request Mass Assignment Rate Changes |
FO_MC_ASGN_RT_REQ1 |
HCM Database Time and Labor, Report Time, Request Mass Assignment Rate Changes |
Request mass assignment rate changes in the HCM database. |
Access the Request Mass Assignment Rate Changes – Search page (Staffing, Orders and Assignments, Mass Assignment Rate Changes, Search)
Description |
You must enter a description for this mass change request. |
Audit |
The Audit process will always be run for a Mass Change Request, either separately by clicking the Audit button or along with the Submit processing. If the audit is run along with the submit process, the audit is run before the actual mass change so that errors are caught prior to the updates. The Audit process will check for:
A warning will be issued for each of these situations:
|
Submit |
For the Mass Assignment Rate Changes, the FO_MC_ART_AE Application Engine process will perform the mass updates. By Submitting the Mass Assignment Rate Changes request the system will first run the Audit Report and display it on the screen. If critical errors are reported, then no updates will take place. The user will need to review the Audit Report and take actions prior to submitting the request again. If no errors are found, the Application Engine FO_MC_ART_AE is called and the updates will take place. |
Save Search Criteria |
Click to access the Save Search Criteria As page. The search criteria is unique to each user. |
Delete Search Criteria |
Click to access the Delete Saved Search Criteria page and to delete previously saved searches. Only searches created by this user will be available for deletion. |
Personalize Search Criteria |
Click to access the Personalize Search Criteria page and to select which fields you want to appear in the search criteria group box. |
Add Selected |
From the list of assignments matching the search criteria, displayed in the Search Results grid, select those assignments that are to be updated and clicking this button. The selected assignments are listed and displayed in the Selected Assignments grid on the Request Mass Assignment Rate Changes – Update page. |
Access the Request Mass Assignment Rate Changes – Update page (Staffing, Orders and Assignments, Mass Assignment Rate Changes, Update)
SetID |
Select the SetID for the new rates. |
Rate Profile ID |
Select the rate profile to copy rates from. This is a required field. |
Effective Date |
Enter the date the rate changes become effective. |
Currency |
Select the currency to display the information. |
Applies To |
Specify whether the rate information applies to the Pay Rate or Bill Rate. |
Increase/Decrease Rate by % (increase/decrease rate by percentage) |
The value entered here will increase or decrease all rates of type Regular or Overtime in the assignment. If this value is entered, the New Rate, New Margin, and New Markup % fields will not be available for edit. If the New Rate, New Margin, or New Markup % fields are completed, this field will not be available for editing. If this field is filled, then the Apply button will not be available because the changes will be done directly on the selected assignments. |
Target Margin |
If this field is completed, the Increase/Decrease Rate by (%) and New Markup % fields will be unavailable for edit. |
Default Markup |
If the New Markup %. Increase/Decrease Rate by (%), or New Target Margin fields are populated, this field will be unavailable for editing. |
Apply Rate |
Click to populate the rates grid according to previously entered information. If the Increase/Decrease Rate by (%)field is populated, the apply button will not be available as the changes will be done directly on the selected assignments. Otherwise, the rates grid will be populated with the rate set determined by the rate element and according to the rate profile. |
Create Audit Report |
Click to create an audit report for this request. The report shows a preview of the updates (based on the Selected Assignments grid) and will run validation against the proposed changes. The report will provide the user with information on possible errors and warnings. Once requests for Mass Assignment Rate Changes are saved under a Request ID. the system will automatically run an audit report. Audit reports can be created for requests that are in an Open or Submitted status. |
Process Warnings |
Assignments without a respective master contract will only be processed if this checkbox is selected. |
Mass Contract Non-Compliance Reason |
Enter a reason for not complying with a customer master contract. |
Apply to Selected Assignments |
Click to update all lines in the Selected Assignments grid. Users can review all updates by checking the assignments directly on the Selected Assignments grid or by saving the request and running the audit report.
|
Reset Selected Assignments |
Click to reset the Selected Assignments grid. The system will display a warning message will be displayed prior to proceeding with the reset. |
Rate Set Detail
Action |
The Action field in the Selected Assignments Grid will determine which action , Add, Update or Delete, will be taken for each rate element of an assignment. Important Note: Pay Rates and Bill Rates can only be modified for the regular rate element. Overtime and Double Time rates derive the rates according to the multiplier factor of the corresponding Time Reporting Code (TRC). The action field is available for editing but it is also automatically set when using the Apply To Selected Assignments feature of the Rates Area. It can assume the following values: None, Add, Delete, Update. It indicates for the Mass Change process what to do with that particular rate line. The system will examine each selected assignments rowset and will update the new rates (Pay Rate / Bill Rate), New markup %, and New margin %. If this is a new rate element that is being added to the rate profile of that assignment the action field will be New. If it is about a deleted rate element for that assignment, the action field will be Delete. If it is about a rate modification of an existing rate element for that assignment the action field will be Update. Action Field will also determine whether the assignment rate line has been processed or not for that Mass Change Request. If it has already been processed its status goes to 'Done' (updated in FSCM) or 'Submitted' (sent to HCM). If the Status is done, the selected flag gets blanked out and will be made unavailable. Assignment Rate lines with status 'Submitted' will not be considered for another Mass Change run in the same request. |
Status |
The Status field is a read-only field and set by the Audit and Submit processes. It can assume the following values: Ready, Error, Warning, Done. |
Assignment Rates
The Selected Assignments grid allows the user to directly update/override the assignment rates (Effective Date, Pay Rate, Bill Rate, Markup %) in a row-by-row basis. The Action field will determine which action – Add, Update or Delete – will be taken for each rate element of an assignment. If the rate effective date is such that it already exists for a particular assignment the system will consider this action as an update request. Existing rate elements will be updated. Non-existing rate elements will be added. Rate elements that are not in the new set will be deleted. If the rate effective date is such that it does not exist for a particular assignment the system will consider this action as a request for new set of rates as if adding it from the Assignments component. All rate elements will be added. Saving the request still will not change the rates on the assignments. The user has to submit the request by pressing the Submit button.