Updating Position Data

To make changes to position data, follow these steps:

1. Open Position Data - Description.

2. Insert a new data row.

   The system enters the system date, which is usually the current date, as the effective date. Change this unless the current date is the first day that the change takes effect.

   Note: The Update Incumbent function will only run if you are entering a current or future dated row.

3. Enter a reason for the new row.

4. Make your changes to the appropriate pages.

5. Save the changes that you made to the position.

You usually update position information in Human Resources by adding effective-dated data rows to the position data and incumbent job records. Effective dates enable you to maintain a complete chronological history of all your data and tables, whether you changed them two years ago or want them to go into effect in two months. With this information, you can roll back your system to a particular time to perform analyses on position data or employee records. Similarly, you can roll forward and set up tables and data before they take effect.

The system also uses effective dates to compare pages and tables so that the prompt tables that you see display only the data that is valid as of the effective date of the page on which you're working.

Effective dates are always important in Human Resources, but they take on special significance when you maintain positions, particularly when you change data in the fields that appear in both the Position Data and Job Data pages. To update this information, enter the changes by inserting new data rows in the Position Data pages. The system maintains the data in the current incumbent Job Data pages by inserting a new data row for you with the same effective date.

However, the system can only maintain the incumbent data if the new or changed data row is either the current row or a future row for both position data and job data. Unfortunately, Human Resources can't determine your intention: it doesn't know whether you wanted overrides on or off in the past, whether you made mistakes that you're trying to fix, or whether you just forgot to put some data in when it took effect. If the system inserted data rows with effective dates that fell in the middle of either of the stacks, you'd run the risk of getting the effective dates out of order and having incorrect data inserted.

This also means the system cross-updates current and future incumbent job data. It can't go back and update previous incumbents that were assigned to the position because they are linked in historical data rows. The only way to make sure historical information matches in both the position data table and the incumbent job data table is to update it manually.

To make sure the system cross-updates data when you want it to and to save yourself cross-checking time, try to update data in both the Position Data and Job Data pages in the correct chronological order the first time that you enter it or make corrections shortly thereafter.

Only one person should update the incumbent and position data in both the Workforce Administration pages and the Position Data pages because the effective dates and sequence of data rows greatly affect how the system updates and maintains matching incumbent and position data. So that they can update data in both places, the user must have security access to both the position and the person.