Understanding Absence Element Setup

Before you define any absence elements, review the introductory topic that provides an overview of absence features.

You define the policies or rules that your organization follows for tracking and compensating payees for absences by creating absence entitlement and take elements. Absence entitlement elements define the conditions under which payees accrue paid time off and the amount of time that they can accrue. Absence take elements specify the rules that the Take process applies to determine whether an absence should be paid.

Consider the following factors before you begin your set up:

• Several absence features require the use of formulas.

  At a minimum, you define a day formula for the take definition. If you're creating entitlement elements that resolve per absence, you also define a per absence formula element. You cannot save the entitlement element until you enter the name of the formula on the Absence Entitlements - Calculation page.

• Entitlement and take elements are linked.

  When you define a take element, you specify which entitlement rules apply. If you define take elements before defining entitlement elements, return to the take pages in correction mode to select the entitlement elements.

• You assign an absence type to each absence take element.

  Absence types provide a way to group or categorize absences. You can assign the same absence type to more than one take element.

• Depending on your take rules, take elements can have several interdependencies.

  Mapping out the relationships between these elements can reduce setup time. Take elements are related when:

  • You allow payees to use an entitlement that is associated with another take when they exceed the entitlement balance.

  • You request the system to create a duplicate event for a second take element.

  • You prevent users from entering more than one absence for the same payee for the same day, but you want an error message to give information about the priority of the conflicting events.

• Entitlement, adjustments, balances, and other absence-related values are stated in the same units (hours, days, or some other period of time).

  For example, if you express entitlement in days, make sure that any supporting elements that define adjustments, balances, and other absence-related amounts also resolve to days. The units that you use to define absence elements must match the units that the users enter when they adjust or override an entitlement.

• Although you define most absence entitlement and take elements during implementation, you can create additional absence elements anytime.

  As your business needs change, we recommend creating new absence elements, rather than modifying existing elements. Changing existing elements can affect retroactive processing.

Formulas offer a convenient way to implement various absence management features. You can create different formulas for the features that you use or use the same formula in as many situations as you need to.

This table lists the absence-related formulas that you may need:

Many system elements are designed for use within absence formulas and point to columns in the absence daily data table.

For example, assume that you use the system element named SCHED HRS in your Day Formula and that you define the formula, named WRK DAY, as follows:

IF SCHED HRS > 0
THEN 1 ->> WRK DAY
ELSE 0 ->> WRK DAY
END IF

The formula checks to see if scheduled hours are greater than zero. If they are, the day equals one workday. If they are not, it is not a workday. As long as there is at least one scheduled hour, the absent day is considered a workday.

The formula processes each row of the daily data for the specified period for the absence take element that is being processed. For each row, the system retrieves the value for SCHED HRS from the daily data table.