San Joaquin County rapidly deployed new capabilities for PeopleSoft Absence Management

PeopleSoft Absence Management - Enhanced user experience and easier for Payroll Processors to maintain

• HCM Image 24 – San Joaquin County's Sick and Vacation absence accruals in a pay period are based on Service hours worked in that Pay period. The employees are allowed to take Sick and Vacation hours in the current Pay period based on the total hours earned until the last finalized Payroll. Image 24 for Time & labor Integration has a new feature that generates payable Time when an absence calc is run. Now we do not have to finalize the absence calendar for it to generate Payable Time. Hence, first Payroll Calendar is finalized that will have total service hours for the current Pay period (based on which they get sick and vacation accruals) and then Absence Calendar is finalized. The Absence now has a valid balance until the last finalized payroll and the hours are available for the employees to use in the coming pay period. Before the application of Image 24, it was misleading to employees because the Absence balance grid used to show Previous Pay Period balance and not the current Balance that employee can use. Absence was one Pay period before the actual Pay period.

  Entry of Absence on Timesheet is more user friendly by introduction of Partial Hours in Absence grid on the Timesheet. The Absence data analysis shows that approx., 80% of the employees are entering single day Partial absences on the Timesheet. Employees really liked this feature as it reduced no. of clicks and time to request an absence through Timesheet.

• Enhanced Check Eligibility (Future Forecasting) - Check Eligibility now returns forecast value of 'Ineligible' for current absence request in case there is a future Absence Request that is becoming ineligible based on the current Absence Request. Hence the Forecasting now Checks not just the absences that have begin date less than the current absence but now it also checks future absence requests that have begin date greater than the current absence request.

  Future Forecasting helps to prevent submission of an Absence Request in case a Future Submitted Absence request is becoming ineligible. This feature is helping employees to plan their Time Off accordingly.

• Introduction of Compensatory Time Off Plan in absence. - San Joaquin County has earn and burn policy for Compensatory time off plan. Both Comp Time Earn and Comp time Takes are part of Absence now. Employees can now Earn comp time in absence and take Time Off from absence. The comp time earn and burn can be in the same pay period, and also burn can happen only after it’s earn even if the earn is in same pay period. In addition, the employees are allowed to Earn (from absence) more than the schedule hours for a day / or a Time off day / or a Holiday.

  Introduction of Compensatory Plan in absence helps employees to plan their vacation and utilize Comp Balance for the same. In addition, both Comp Earn and Burn are in Absence and hence it is easier for payroll processors to manage because everything- Earns, Balances and Takes is in one place (absence).

• Enhanced user Experience (reduced no. of clicks) for Absence on Time-sheet (Partial Hour absence) - Introduction of Partial Hours field on the Absence Grid in Time-sheet. For a single day partial hour absence request on the Time-sheet, the user does not have to Click on details and enter partial hour details for a single day absence. A field called partial hour becomes available on the time-sheet absence grid when Start date and End date of absence is same. The field also has a validation that prevents user from entering more than schedule hours in the Partial hour field.
• Separate approval path for the absences and Time entered through Timesheet. - Absence follows single Level approval for the absence entered through Timesheet. The Time entered on the Timesheet follows two level Approval. In addition, emails to supervisor are triggered for the absence request on the Timesheet but no email are triggered for the Time entered on the Timesheet.

  Separate approval path for the absences and Time entered through Timesheet. County's Business Process is that time entered on the Timesheet requires two level approval. One level is supervisor and second level is the Department level approval. Absences just need Supervisor approval - One level approval.

• Enhanced user Experience for Absence on Timesheet- On the Timesheet for a saved absence when check eligibility is clicked - it used to give message - Forecasting completed and needs true edit for Forecasting to happen. The no. of clicks is now reduced, and the user can now click check eligibility and it does not need a true edit to happen for forecasting to occur for a saved absence on the Timesheet.

  Enhanced user experience- reduced no. of clicks for 'Check eligibility' for a Saved Absence on the Timesheet.