Understanding the Benefits Administration Process Flow
Running the Benefits Administration process can be complex because the events that you process can follow a variety of different paths. Some employees will have a number of events that require processing, others will have events that don't change their benefits eligibility, and in the case of open enrollment, many employees won't be picked up for event processing at all. In addition, you'll run into situations in which events process erroneously, which means that you'll need to reprocess them until you get the right result.
Remember that Benefits Administration processes events, not participants. At any given time, a participant may be associated with several unprocessed events that are of different event classes on different event dates. During a particular run of the Benefits Administration process, the system uses a set of rules to decide which event to process first and then processes that event from scheduling to finalization before continuing with the next one.
Ideally, you would run the Benefits Administration process two to three times to complete the processing of a participant event:
During the first run, the system assigns participant events to a Benefits Administration processing schedule, and scheduled events are, in turn, assigned to a benefit program.
In addition, Benefits Administration determines benefit program eligibility, options, and defaults, and calculates credits and rates for the participant associated with the event.
During the second run, after you've generated enrollment statements for your participants and entered their election choices into the system through the data entry pages, the system validates and loads updated participant plan, dependent, and investment election information.
During the final run, Benefits Administration finalizes elections for participants who did not return their enrollment statements and for participants with errors in their records.
More realistically, errors will occur, resulting from incomplete rule setup, inconsistent HR data, or invalid election entry by the employee. After you review and correct the errors and run the Benefits Administration process again, the system moves the participants who had errors further along in the process.
Each time you run the Benefits Administration process, the participant events you process are assigned a process status designation, so you can determine status and correct errors.
The next tables describe the general flow of the Benefits Administration process, which is divided into three parts.
Before Running Benefits Administration
This table lists the steps that you should take before running the Benefits Administration process:
|
Step |
Description |
Details |
Pages or Processes Used |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Build your benefits administration benefit programs. |
Create benefit plan options, calculations rules, rate tables, event rules, eligibility, and flexible credits. Link these building blocks to your benefit program. |
|
|
2 |
Prepare the system for Benefits Administration processing. |
Create pay calendars, audit benefit data, create BAS (Benefits Administration System) group IDs, and create process schedules. For Open Enrollment (OE) or Snapshot, create OE IDs or Snapshot (SNP) IDs. |
See Understanding the Benefits Administration Preparation Process. |
|
3 |
For EM (Event Maintenance) only, review, add, or delete unprocessed events. |
Use the BAS Activity table to review the list of unprocessed events. Add and delete events as necessary. |
BAS Activity. |
|
4 |
Set up the Benefits Administration run control. |
Benefits Administration Run Control. |
Scheduling, Assigning Benefit Programs, Preparing Options, and Entering Elections
This table lists the steps for scheduling, assigning benefit programs, preparing options, and entering elections:
|
Step |
Description |
Details |
Pages or Processes Used |
Process Status Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
5 |
Assign participants to a processing schedule and prepare options. |
Run the Benefits Administration process to assign participants to the processing schedule, determine eligibility, calculate prices and credits, and identify option defaults and terminations. If the process finishes without errors, go to step 7. If the process results in errors, continue with step 6. |
Benefits Administration Process Run Control component. Use the Participant Lists run control page to schedule specific participants for processing. |
If scheduling is successful: AS (Assigned) or AN (Assigned None). If scheduling is not successful: AE (Assigned Error). If option preparation is successful: PR (Prepared), FA (Finalized Program None), or FP (Finalized Prepared None). No additional processing will occur for participants with an FA or FP Process Status. If option preparation is unsuccessful: PE (Prepared Error). |
|
6 |
Review the results and correct errors from first run of the Benefits Administration process. |
Review processing results and correct errors. During the next run of the process, the system will reevaluate participants and attempt to move them through the process. Use the Processing Controls Update to review and reprocess event processing results for individual participants. Use the Review Eligibility Results page to correct eligibility errors. |
Processing Messages, Schedule Summary, Employee Event Summary, Processing Controls Update, Eligibility Debugging, Employee Process Status (BAS027), Eligible Participants (BAS001), Ineligible Participants (BAS010). |
|
|
7 |
Create and deliver enrollment forms. |
Enrollment Statements (BAS004). |
When you create an enrollment form for a participant, their process status is updated to NT (Notified). |
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|
8 |
Enter employee elections. |
Use the Data Entry pages or eBenefits. |
Use the Data Entry pages or eBenefits. |
When you enter elections for a participant, their process status is updated to ET (Elections Entered). |
Validating, Loading, and Finalizing Elections
This table lists the steps for validating, loading, and finalizing elections:
|
Step |
Description |
Details |
Pages or Processes Used |
Process Status Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
9 |
Validate and load employee elections. |
Run the Benefits Administration process again to validate participant elections and load them into the system. If the process finishes without errors, go to step 12. If the process results in errors, review and correct them in step 10 and reprocess participants until you have eliminated as many errors as possible. If you're running Open Enrollment, go to step 11 when you're ready to finalize Benefits Administration processing. |
Benefits Administration Process Run control. |
When you successfully load elections for a participant, the participant's process status is updated to FE (Finalized - Enrolled). If errors occur in the validation and load process, the participant's process status will be EE (Election Error). |
|
10 |
Review validation processing results and correct errors. |
Print reports that list participants who did not return elections, participant election errors, and dependent election errors. Use summary pages and reports to review processing results and correct errors. The system reevaluates participant elections and attempts to validate them. Use the Processing Controls Update to review and reprocess event processing results for individual participants. |
Employee Process Status (BAS027), Missing Elections (BAS006), Invalid Benefit Elections (BAS003), Dependent/Beneficiary Elections (BAS007), Processing Messages, Schedule Summary, Employee Event Summary, Processing Controls Update. |
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11 |
For Open Enrollment Only: Finalize employee elections. |
Complete processing by running the Benefits Administration process to finalize elections for participants whose elections were in error or who failed to turn in election forms. The system will assign these participants the benefits election defaults that were assigned to them during option processing. |
On the Open Enrollment page, select Finalize/Apply Defaults to finalize elections for all participants. |
When you run the Benefits Administration process with Finalize/Apply Defaults enabled, the system updates the process status of all the participants scheduled for that process to FE (Finalized - Enrolled). |
|
12 |
Create and deliver confirmation letters to participants. |
(BAS005) Confirmation Statements. |