Person Number Generation Methods

You can select one of the following person number generation methods for your enterprise on the Edit Enterprise page of the Manage Enterprise HCM Information task in the Setup and Maintenance work area.

Person Number Generation Method	Description
Manual	Use the Manual method to manually enter a person number when creating person records. You can update person numbers in the personal details page.
Automatic prior to submission	Automatically creates person numbers when creating person records. This method is the default method for person number generation. Note: The Automatic prior to submission method may create gaps in the person number sequence if the transaction is canceled after the person number is generated.
Automatic upon final save	Creates person numbers only after the transaction where you're adding a new person is approved. You can't view the person number when creating the person record. However, you can view the person number on the personal details page after the transaction is approved. This method generates person numbers without gaps in the sequence. When a new person is added, a temporary random person number is assigned until the final approvals are received. This temporary number has the format TEMP123456790123 and is displayed in notifications generated before final approval. After the final approval, the final person number is assigned and displayed in the approval notification. Note: Person numbers are also assigned to contacts if they are created as part of a transaction where you're adding a new person For example, if a person is assigned person number 5 and two contacts are created during the Add Person transaction, then the contacts will be assigned person number 6 and 7. This means the next new person will be assigned person number 8.

Person Number Generation Method

Description

Manual

Use the Manual method to manually enter a person number when creating person records. You can update person numbers in the personal details page.

Automatic prior to submission

Automatically creates person numbers when creating person records. This method is the default method for person number generation.

Note: The Automatic prior to submission method may create gaps in the person number sequence if the transaction is canceled after the person number is generated.

Automatic upon final save

Creates person numbers only after the transaction where you're adding a new person is approved.

You can't view the person number when creating the person record. However, you can view the person number on the personal details page after the transaction is approved. This method generates person numbers without gaps in the sequence.

When a new person is added, a temporary random person number is assigned until the final approvals are received. This temporary number has the format TEMP123456790123 and is displayed in notifications generated before final approval. After the final approval, the final person number is assigned and displayed in the approval notification.

Note: Person numbers are also assigned to contacts if they are created as part of a transaction where you're adding a new person For example, if a person is assigned person number 5 and two contacts are created during the Add Person transaction, then the contacts will be assigned person number 6 and 7. This means the next new person will be assigned person number 8.

The Automatic prior to submission and Automatic upon final save methods use an enterprise number sequence. By default, the sequence starts from 1; however, you can change the starting number. The person number increments by one for each new person record created.

You can change the person number generation method anytime. But if you have existing data, you must be careful of the method that you select. You can change the method from Automatic prior to submission to Automatic upon final save, and change it back again. You can also change from the automatic method to the manual method and change it back again.

How the Person Number Generation Method Impacts Users

This table summarizes how the users are impacted when the person number generation method is set to manual versus automatic.

Person Number Generation Method	Implications for the user
Manual	The Person Number field is editable, but only to elevated users such as HR specialists in the My Client Groups tab: They can see and enter the value when adding a person in flows such as Hire flows. They also see the Person Number region on the Personal Details page when they edit a person record, and on the Family and Emergency Contacts pages when they add or edit a contact.
Automatic	The Person Number field isn’t editable. The user can't enter the person number when they’re adding a person or contact. They also can't edit this field when they’re editing a contact. The value is always generated automatically.

Initial Person Number

You can specify the initial person number for your enterprise when you generate person numbers automatically. The application uses this number for the first person record that you create using the automatic person number setting, and increments the number by one for subsequent person records. By default, the initial person number is 1.

Using the initial person number option, you can retain the legacy person numbers for existing persons. Additionally, you can automate the number generation for new persons, starting from the last legacy person number plus one. You can change the initial person number.

Person Numbers for Contact Records

Workers and contacts have the same number sequence when the generation method is Automatic. You can correct automatically generated person numbers for contacts on the personal details page if the person number generation method is Manual. If contacts are later hired as workers, they retain their original person numbers.

Note: For employee self-service accessed from the Me tab:

The Person Number is always autogenerated for contacts, regardless of the generation method.
The Person Number field is never shown to employees when they’re creating family or emergency contacts.