Oracle R12.1.2 HCM New Functionality Part 1

EBS R12.1.2 is released and much awaited gap in the OTL and Absence Management product is closed in the current release.
OTL timecard is integrated with the SSHR Absence Management, with this new functionality Absence entered in the Oracle Core HR/ ESS or MSS will be populated in OTL Timecard.Similarly Absence time entered in OTL can be viewed in Core HR and SSHR. This new functionality helps to maintain the data integrity and this new functionality also eliminates much of the custom work that need to be done by the consultants to validate the time entered in OTL against the Absence Management

To understand how to setup Absence Management refer the blog http://ramesh-oraclehrms.blogspot.com/2007/07/leave-management.html

Employee Directory

Most of company have a separate team or a department to handle the Organization Development or Organization Design (OD). The companies use Software Packages to design the new Org chart or to re-org the chart.These software package will get the data from the ERP system or HRIS or will be maintained as a separate stand alone package which will be accessed by the employee via intranet.Once the organization design is done the changes will be done in the ERP or HRIS reflecting the new Org design

In this blog I am trying to explain how we can use Employee directory function in Oracle which will allow employees to view the company's Organization structure and browse the employee details. Small company's who are not having any Org charting tool can use this functionality in Oracle which will enable the employee to view the Organization structure,their subordinates and the reporting relation within the organization

Setup:
Attach the function "Proxy Page" to the Self Service Global Menu with a prompt

The data can be refreshed using the concurrent request "Refresh Employee directory" with following parameter


Try it Out!

R12 Maintain Employee Data using a Single Responsibility in Multi Business Group

There will be always a question from the customers who are in an Global environment (in an multi Business Group environment) " How to maintain employee data using a single responsibility"

---Yes this was a constraint in 11.5.10, now in R12 this is made possible. Now customers will be able to maintain employees using the single responsibility across business group.

This functionality is Out of box with the product.
To leverage this functionality following are the pre-requistes/ Setups

• HR module should be in Multi Buisness Group Environment
  
• HR Organization hierarchy should be using Global hierarchy
  
• HR Security Profile should be defind using the Global Security Profile form
  
• Attach the global security profile to the HR: Security Profile at the Responsibility level

Once the above setup steps are completed, follow the below navigation

Global HRMS Manager > Maintaining Using Template > Maintain Employees

(M) View > find

Using the Find screen, In the Business Group Name field you will be able to select the Business group that you want to access the employee data and click find to retrieve the employee information.

Important Note: Using this method you will only be able to maintain the existing employee data. If you create any new employees using this responsibility, the employee data will be created in the default BG to which the responsibility is attached

Accrual Balance Display in Self Service HR

One of the comon requirement that often times come in the Absence Managment is HR team want their employee to be able to see their available accrued/PTO balance.
As an employee it is always good to know how much vacation balance an employee is left with

Here is a simple setup that can enable your employee to view the available balance through the Self Service absence Management

Step 1: Define the Absence element
Step 2: Link the Element based on the Eligibilty Criteria
Step 3: Define the Absence Type
Step 4: Define the Accrual Plan
Step 5: Attach the Accrual Plan to the Employee
Step 6: Complete the setup for the Self Service HR
Step 7: Make sure employee is able access the absence Management Functionality

Setup steps to enable the Entitlement Balance in the Absence Management

Step 1: Create an Element set with the type as ‘Run Set’
Step 2: Attach the element set to the Profile option HR: Accrual Plan Element Set Displayed to User at the Responsibility level (Employee Self Service)
Step 3: Bounce the Appache

Now Navigate to the Employee Self Service > Absence Management > (T) Entitlement Balance


Try this out

Job Vs Position

As a Functional consultant the first thing that we should decide before we can design the solution for a customer is whether the system going to be a Single Business Group or Multi Business Group.

The second main important thing we need to decide is whether the customer is going to use Job or position.

When we put this question to the customer the first expected question for the Customer side would be what is the difference between Job and Position

The content in this blog is more of my own view and the simplistic approach I always like. review the documentation before you can decide on the approach you want to take

To explain it in a very high level
Jobs are Generic Title or Role within a Business Group, independent of any single organization. Required. Usually more specific if positions are not used.

Position are Specific occurrence of one job, fixed within an organization. Not required

If you are in US legislation your job will drive you FLSA and EEO reporting. Personally I feel maintaining the Position is hard in an unstructured organization. Position Hierarchy will suite for the University/college/School and Government Organization

The Maintenance is more in the Position hierarchy than in the Job. If your customer feel they need less maintenance activity then you should recommend Job not the Position

R12 Suitability Matching functionality

Suitability Matching Functionality is the new functionality available in both Employee and Manager Self Service.
To explain this is in a very common language - this function helps the employee to find the opportunity in the organization that suites his role and competency.The employee can compare the various competency that is desired and essential for a particular role
For the manager Self service this function helps them to find the employee / applicant based on the competency and the role


List of Options available in the Manager Self Service




In the manager Self Service lets take an example of searching the employee/contingent worker/an applicant based on the competency profile and View it in a Graph for analysing the competency for the Job

Start with the option 'Find Suitable People by Competency'

Add the list of competency that you want to search for



Once you select the continue button, you will be able to list of people that match your competency requirement



Click the button Graph people by Competency button that will help you out in the viewing the graph based on the Min , max and the personal proficiency level



Try this out!!!

R12 Global Deployment functionality

It is a common Operation process in any industry to move people around or transfer employee’s temporary basis for a particular project or Assignment. Or transfer them permanently to a different country.

Though this functionality was available in 11i for the HR professionals to do it manually if the cross business group is enabled they can update organization and location in the assignment form, or another method of doing this is to terminate and hire the employee in the new business group.

Now in R12 this functionality has been made as a standard functionality in the Manager Self Service Responsibility Under the function 'Transfer'

Manager Self Service > Transfer

Select the employee you wanted to transfer, follow the wizard which will take you through complete process like new salary change, new direct report, New Location Change, Time card approver, work Schedule etc., finally you will receive a Review summary page where you can review and submit for the approval

Note: if you are a Oracle Payroll Customer you need to take necessary actions when changing the work location for the payroll Taxation

Try this out!!!

HRMS PFK RUP2 Global name Search

Mainly in the multi BG environment we end up in creating duplicate employee name, the current HRMS search functionality some times the duplicates are missed out due to the localization and the Name format used in each legislation.

In the Family Pack K Rup 2, System Uses Global Name format to Search for the Duplicates Across Business Group.
The Global name format is independent of the Legislation which helps us to avoid the duplication.

To Enable this Functionality we need to enable the profile HR:Cross BG duplication Person Check.

Still the HRMS uses the same existing functionality to search the employee in single business group

Try this out!!!

Regards
Ramesh Kumar S

Changing Salary Basis

An interesting scenario came in one of my current projects with my customer who are already using Oracle HRMS for past three years
They wanted to change the salary basis from Monthly to Period (Biweekly). It is a common scenario that many company may change their Salary basis from monthly to biweekly or Bimonthly, but the interesting thing in this project is they wanted to modify the history salary information for all the employees from Monthly to Biweekly.

The first thing that came in my mind was the Auditing issue that we might run since we are touching the most sensitive information of the employee data (SALARY), But the HR Users clearly informed us they can provide us with the exact data that need to be loaded.
Another advantage was the customer is not using Oracle Payroll,Oracle HRMS system is not a transactional system

We followed the following approach

• Remove the salary proposal for the employee for whom we need to modify.
• Update the Assignment with the new Salary Basis in Correction mode
• Reload the salary with the same Change date as we unloaded

We used WebADI for unloading Salary information, updating assignment with the new salary basis and loading the salary proposal for the new salary basis.

We used WebADI custom Integrator with the following API

• HR_MAINTAIN_PROPOSAL_API.DELETE_SALARY_PROPOSAL
• HR_ASSIGNMENT_API.UPDATE_EMP_ASG_CRITERIA
• HR_MAINTAIN_PROPOSAL_API.UPDATE_SALARY_PROPOSAL

Try this out!!!

Assignment Set

Assignment set are to be defined for the following purpose

• For processing only the subset of the Assignment for the payroll processing eg: Payroll for the People who work in the night shift need to be processed first as they need to receive the pay advice before the day shift employees
• For generating the quick paint report for the set of assignment
• Can be used in the BEE for creating the identical entry for all the assignment in the Assignment set

Before we start defining the Assignment set we need to decide whether we are going to use Assignment set for the payroll process or for some other process like reporting etc.

Defining the Assignment set

• Enter the name of assignment set (Only Char, ( _ ) and Numbers are allowed and NO SPACE allowed)
• If you need to use this assignment set only for the payroll then select the Payroll from the LOV Otherwise it is an optional field we can leave it blank.
• Save the work

If we want to use the formula criteria for defining the Assignment set choose the button Criteria from the assignment set window

• Enter the Seq Number
• Leave the Condition field Blank for the first line, you can choose either AND / OR depending on the criteria
• Choose the Database Item as the variable for the criteria (all the Database Item will be prefixed by '&')
• Choose the Operator (=, <=, >= , etc..,)
• Enter the Value or choose the Database Item
• Keep entering the other criteria from the second line
• Save the work

If you specifically want to include or exclude any assignment choose the button Amendment button

• Choose the option Inc/Exc from the LOV
• Select the Name from the LOV
• Save the work

Select the Generate Button for generating the Fast Formula for the criteria defined above. The Fast formula will be created with the same name as the assignment set

Try it out!!!

Cost Allocation flexfield and Costing process

Following are the important Key flexfield in HR and Payroll

HRMS

• Job Flexfield
• Position flexfield
• Grade Flexfield
• People Group
• Cost Allocation
• Competence Flexfield
• Personal Analysis Flexfield
• Soft Coded KeyFlexfield

Payroll

• People Group Flexfield
• Cost Allocation Flexfield
• Bank Details KeyFlexField

Setting up of Cost allocation flexfield is an mandatory setup step for the Payroll Setup

Cost allocation Flexfield is used to accumulate the employee costing information, if we use Oracle Payroll we can accumulate the cost associated with the payroll and transfer to GL and if we are not using Oracle Payroll we can able to interface the costing information to the third Party Payroll system

Few important points which should be taken care before creating the Cost allocation flexfield.

• If we are planning to integrate with the GL, then the number segment in the cost allocation flexfield should be same or more than the accounting flexfield.


• We should atleast have one segment for the cost allocation flexfield otherwise will run into error when defining payroll or in other form which is having this flexfield

Cost Allocation flexfiled makes use of qualifiers, we can use the segment qualifiers to control the level at which the costing information can be entered in the system.the various level at which we can cost are

• Element entry
• Assignment
• Organization
• Element Link
• Payroll

If the element is not costed at any level then the final costing information will get accumulated in the suspense account which is defined in the payroll form.

Use the GL Map window to map the cost allocation flexfield with the GL Accounting flexfield, we should map each cost allocation segment with the GL Segment for each Payroll. for the addition segment in the cost allocation flexfield should be mapped to 'Null'

Following are the process that you need to run for transferring the costing information from Oracle to Payroll

• Costing process
• Costing of Payment
• Transfer to GL

Try it out!!!

Maintaining An Element

As I previously mention in my Blog 'Element are the Building Blocks for both HR Analysis and for the Payroll Processing'
For Element Creation refer http://ramesh-oraclehrms.blogspot.com/2007/07/element-definition.html

After you have defined and used the Element following are the list of changes that can be made:

• You can Change the Required Input Value to Not-required
• Alter the Sequence of the Input Value to be displayed in the Element Entry Screen
• You can Change the Input Value Validation Rule minimum, Maximum, Lookup and Formula
• Change your specification of which input values create Database Items. Note, however, you cannot remove Database Items if they are used in any formulas or QuickPaint reports.
• You cannot remove existing input values or add new one if you have created any entries for the element

If you wish to delete the element or make any modification you have to follow the below process

• Delete the element entries from all the assignment
• Delete the Element Link
• Date Track to the Element creation Date and modify the details needed or you Can delete the element in the current date itself.

Salary Management and Administation

This is sample setup for the Salary Management.

Before we start the setup we need to have the plan and the complete analysis of the Business Requirement.

• Salary Frequency
• Single Currency or multiple Currency involved
• Does company follow any grade Scale for the salary etc..,

LOV for the Salary PROPOSAL_REASON

Follow the setup for the defining the salary

Salary Element Setup

1. Set the effective date.
2. Define an Recurring Element with classification Earning, Actual Termination, Multiple Entries allowed, and with process in Run option selected.
3. Create the input value with the Unit as Money.
4. Link the element based on the Eligibility criteria.
5. For more details about the element setup refer my previous posting http://ramesh-oraclehrms.blogspot.com/2007/07/element-definition.html

Grade Scale Setup (Optional based on Requirement)

workstructure > Grade > Grade Rate

1. Define the Name for the grade rate
2. Select the Unit as 'Money'
3. Save the header information
4. Select the grade name and the enter the minimum and maximum value
5. Save the work
   

Salary Basis Setup

Salary Basis form is used to define the salary basis for each salary element to be used in the salary administration

1. Enter appropriate name for the salary Basis
2. Select the Basis Monthly or Annual or Hourly or Period
3. Based on Basis we selected, we need to enter the annualization Factor. The annualization factor for monthly and Annual will be defaulted by the system. For hourly and period we need to enter
4. Select the element name that we defined above or the seeded element name (Regular Salary or Regular Wages)
5. Select the input value e.g in US legislation for the Regular Salary element choose the option Monthly Salary
6. Select the Grade Rate defined above
7. Select the appropriate Grade rate Basis as defined in the Grade rate form
8. Enter the Grade Annualization factor e.g. for hourly 40 * 52 = 2080 hours
9. Save the Work
   

Navigate the People > Assignment (B)

Note: From the Family ack PF K salary PUI form is replaced by the Self Service Screen

1. Select the Salary information Tab
2. Select the Salary Basis
3. Save the assignment
4. Select the salary button> Add new Salary
5. Enter the Details in the salary Screen
6. Once you apply the salary will be automatically approved for the first time entry.
7. The Salary Element entry will be automatically created once the salary information is saved

Points to be noted

The Salary will be automatically approved during the first time entry and from the second time onwards only the menu or the responsibility having the salary approval function will be able to approve the proposed salary.

Enjoi Implementing!!!

Leave Management

High Level Setup details for the Leave Management and Accrual Plan Setup

Define the lookup for ABSENCE_CATEGORY and ABSENCE_REASON

Navigate to the element form

1. Define an element Name and Description
2. Select the classification as Earning or Information
3. Select the type as 'Non Recurring'
4. Select the termination rule 'Actual Termination, final close or Last Standard process'
5. Select the option Multiple entry,
6. Process in run(optional)
7. Enter the qualification condition if needed
8. Save the Element
9. Create the link for the element

Absence Type form

1. Enter the name of the Absence Type (Best Practice same name as the Element defined)


2. Select the Category of the Absence


3. Associate the element that is defined above


4. Select the Input Value


5. Units get selected same as the one which we defined in the element input value


6. Select the Balance either Increasing or Decreasing


7. Select the list of Reason for the LOV

You can end the setup if you want to just use the abscence element as the adhoc abscence type. To define the PTO accrual follow the below steps

Accrual Plan form

1. Enter the Accrual Name (Same as the Absence Name)


2. Select the Accrual Category, based on the category that is selected the balance will be displayed in the SOE


3. Select the Accrual start date, based on the date we select the accrual balance will be calculated


4. Accrual Units will be same as the Unit the we selected above in the Absence type


5. Select the Accrual formula provided by the oracle or a custom formula based on the business requirement


6. Select the carryover formula seeded one or the custom one based on the requirement


7. Select the Absence information form the list.


8. Based on the Business requirement select the Balance reset date e.g if you need to reset the accrual count on Jan 1st, select the option 1 January. We can also build our custom balance if needed


9. Select the Period of ineligibiltiy: Legth, units or any custom formula


10. Save the work.


11. This will create 5 element and also link will be created automatically similar to the Absence element link


12. Enter the accrual Band


13. Optionally you can include Net Calculation Rule in addition to the once which is created during the accrual definition


14. Save the work


15. Attach the Accrual Plan to the employee assignment

Following are the elments created autmatically once an accrual plan is saved

• Accrual Plan


• Acrual Plan Payroll Balance


• Accrual Plan Carried over


• Accural Plan Residual


• Accrual Plan Tagging

Try it out!!!

Element Definition

Element are the Building Blocks for both HR Analysis and for the Payroll Processing

Elements can be used define Salary, Benefits, Absence from Work etc..

Here is the brief description of creating element in general.

Before we start building a new element we need to identify

• Whether the element is a recurring or nor recurring
• Whether we need to process it in the payroll
• Whether it is deduction or earning or information or non taxable or non payroll payment etc..
• What are the input and the output expected from the element
• Whether we need to build any formula for processing an element
• Whether the element is to be linked to all employees or is there any eligibility criteria that has to be set.
• What is the currency that is going to be used for processing
• Whether we need to cost the element.
• Whether the element is taxable or non-taxable

Once we are able to identity the type of element from the above list of criteria.

List of steps for creating the element

1. Select the Effective date
2. Enter the Element Name
3. Enter the reporting name- The name which will be displayed i the SOE (Optional)
4. Enter the Brief description about the element
5. Select the classification of the Element form the LOV-this classification may vary from Legislation to legislation
6. Select whether the element is Recurring or non Recurring
7. Based on the termination Rule that you want to set for your element, choose the option Actual Termination, Final close or Last Standard process
8. Choose Multiple entries for the Non Recurring element Additional Entries if needed from the recurring element, Process in Run for the element that need to be process through payroll.
9. choose the option closed for entry if want to prevent any new entry for this element, this does not affect the entries which are previously defined.
10. Select the Currency Input and Output if not using the default currency defined in the BG
11. Select the Tax With holding rule from the Further Information DFF.
12. Priority of element processing will be defaulted based on the classification selected
13. Skip Rule can be selected based on the requirement.
14. Save the Element definition
15. Enter the Input Value, Select the Input Value type based on the element e.g Date, Number, money or Time
16. Select the Option Database Item if we plan to use the Input value in the Fast formula for any processing
17. Enter the Default Value for the Input Value if needed
18. Save the Input Value Definition
19. Select the Balance Feed if we need to feed any Balance in addition to the Default balance created

Defining Element Link

Once we define the element, We need to Link the Element before we can able to use the element for any assignment

1. Set the Effective date
2. Select the element from the element link Form
3. Select the Standard Link if the element need to be attached to all the assignment
4. Select the Eligibility criteria based on Job, Position, Grade, salary Basis, Payroll , Group, position and Location
5. Select the costing if the element need to be costed and transferred to GL
6. Select the qualification condition based on Age and the Length of Service
7. Save the work

Attach the element to the assignment

Enjoi HRMS implementation :)

Security Profiles Setup

Once the Business Group is Setup a Default Security Profile will be created with the same name as the Business group with security type as "View All Organization", It is Strongly recommended not do modify the default Security Profile.

Attach this profile option to HR:Security Profile and attach the Business Group to the HR:Business Group at the site level if it is the Base Business Group or attach it to the responsibility if it is the Multi Business Group

In case of the multi Business Group, if we need to enable the Security Group ,
set the Profile option 'Enable Security Groups' to yes at the Application level,


Either we can attach the new security group manually to each responsibility at the time of attaching it to the User or we can able to create the responsibility for each of the Security group defined by running the concurrent program 'Enable Multiple Security Group process'


To Build the Custom Security Profile:

Enter the name of the Security profile and select the Business Group from the LOV. Now three type of security can be assigned

• 'Secure Organization by Single Operating Unit' or 'Secure by Operating unit and Inventory organization' are for the restricting certain Financial and Manufacturing Business View.Attach this profile option to MO:Security Profile at the responsibility level

• 'Secure Organization by Organization Hierarchy and or Organization List', this security type is for the restricting the user to access certain Organization based on the hierarchy. Select the Organization hierarchy from the LOV, you can include the top organization in the hierarchy or you can exclude the Business Group. Once the necessary setup is done you can attach this security profile to the Responsibility level in the Profile Option HR:Security Profile.

Note: Once the security is setup we need to run the concurrent program 'Security List Maintenance' and choose the parameters based on the requirement.

Enjoii Implementing :)

Business Group Creation

To start new implementation or even during planning Phase we need to come up with the plan Whether we need to go for Multi business Group or Single Business Group

The Need to go multi Business Group:

• If you are going for the global Implementation with Multiple Legislation
• If you going to implement Payroll then we need to have the Localization specific to the Particular country
• If suppose the company mainly operates in one country and if they have very few employees in the Other countries we can go for two BG once for the home country and other for the Rest of the World

Single Business Group are advantages if the company operates in only one country.

If suppose the instance in single BG and if the business exist in multiple Legislation.If the instance is already live then we need to do a shared HR to a Full HRMS conversion. The Best Practice to follow for this conversion is

• Create the new BG with the required Legislation
• Migrate the Employees data to the new business group
• Also we need to take care of the migration of Legal entity, Organization and the operating Unit
• After the Data migration we need to apply the legislation Patches and the Run HRGlobal.drv

Once the HRGlobal.drv is run, all the legislation specific data will be loaded automatically, Based on the Legislation code the Bank and the Legal entity flexfield get mapped to the BG

To View the data across Business Group use the Profile option HR:CROSS BUSINESS GROUP

Rest in the Next Post.......