Absence Processing Features

This topic discusses:

• Process lists.

• Iterative processing for preliminary absence runs.

• Stream processing.

• Group lists.

• Troubleshooting tools.

Process Lists

Once you’ve finished setting up your absence system, you’re ready to run an absence process. Whether you’re running the process for absence take or absence entitlement, the steps are the same. Your process list and calendar definitions determine who and what gets processed. Useful features of process lists include:

• The absence period can be the same as or different from the pay period. For example, January absences can be paid in January or February. You specify the target calendar pay for each absence process.

• You can run the entitlement and take processes together or separately.

• More than one take process can target the same pay calendar. For example, vacations taken in January and sick time taken in February can be paid in February. To accomplish this, create two absence process lists, one for vacations and another for sick time, and attach each process list to a separate absence calendar. On each absence calendar, select the pay calendar as the target calendar.

• The system can process absence takes according to their sequence on the process list or in chronological order. To process absences in chronological order, you include take elements in an absence take section of a process list.

Iterative Processing for Preliminary Absence Runs

Iterative processing enables you to process complex, preliminary absence runs quickly with minimal demands on system resources. You launch an Identify phase that flags each payee that meets the selection criteria for your absence run, then launch a Calculate phase that computes absence take or entitlement, as applicable, for all identified payees. After reviewing the results and making the necessary corrections, you rerun the Calculate phase for payees that have had changes since the last run.

Stream Processing

Stream processing is an optional feature that you can use to reduce processing time. You divide payees into subsets, based on their employee IDs, so that the system can perform calculations for multiple sets of payees at the same time.

Group Lists

Group lists are user-defined subsets of the payee population that are scheduled for processing. This feature enables absence administrators to work concurrently with different sets of payees in the same pay group.

Troubleshooting Tools

When you run absence calculations, you can generate an element resolution chain that shows, by payee, how and in what order each element was resolved. This chain also shows how long it took to resolve each element on the process list. Significant system resources are needed to produce an element resolution chain, so we recommend that you use this feature for problem solving only.