Hi

The client has a requirement to be able to record the benefits that an applicant is eligible for (depending on their grade, using core recruitment only) so that this can be extracted into the offer letter & contract if the applicant is employed.

When they are employed, they want these benefits to be filtered through and automatically created as elements for the employee. The client want as much automation as possible.

As far as I know, this cannot be done with standard Oracle functionality. The closest workaround I can find is as follows:

1. The applicant is assigned a grade in the application form during the recruitment process.
2. When the applicant accepts the offer, a letter & Contract is generated using the 'concurrent processing with word processors' letter generation method, which somehow gets the benefits linked to the applicant's grade, perhaps stored in the grade dff (we are not using web ADI).
3. When the employee starts, he is manually assigned the elements (benefits) linked to his grade.

Does that sound like the closest automated solution the client will get for this requirement? Or is there a better way?

I would say make the links 'standard' or get the OAB manual out and get reading!

Hi CT

Thanks for your response!

I can't use 'Standard' links because the elements an applicant/employee is eligible for are determined by their grade - everybody doesn't get the same elements (Just out of curiosity though, if I were to use this, would you have to manually go to the element entries form for each person assigned to the standard elements to set their input values?)

We don't have an OAB license, only inplementing Oracle HR & pay.

Anybody with other ideas?? Is there a better way then the above 3-step workaround solution?

Sorry, it might have been OSB (Standard Bens) I was thinking of, rather than Advanced - in which case, it's bundled with Payroll ie no additional licences needed. Any Benefits nerds out there want to support or refute this?

It's possible that my addled brain has not understood the scenario properly, but I still don't understand why a standard link cannot be used? If an employee is eligible for an element by virtue of being on a certain grade, then surely it's possible to make the link a standard one instead of discretionary. The only extra thing a standard link will do is create the element entry automatically, effective from the date at which the emp is eligible. The only issue I can see here is, if you have lots of grades, then there is a high likelihood that you will need lots and lots of links. And it would be a good idea to set them up correctly first time, too. Removing an erroneous standard link from a system which already has employees using it can get phenomenally tedious... no names mentioned here by the way <Cough>Delboy</Cough>

As far as defaulting inputs is concerned, yes you can do that but not on a person-by-person basis. The nearest you would get to, link wise, is to have different defaults on each link. The other way of doing is is Benefits where I believe you can use a certain type of formula (with, therefore, much greater flexibility) to come up with the desired value which can then feed it through as an extra input to the appropriate input value. Again, not sure if this is OSB or OAB.

PS Having just read your original post again, requirement '2' won't be possible with links, standard or otherwise, as I believe element entries only get created against employee assignments. It's remotely possible that Benefits may go some way to achieving this for you, but as you've probably already gathered, Bens is not my strong suit so I couldn't possibly elaborate.

Thanks CT

Using standard links with each grade might just work - have tried it.

For the applicant offer letter generation listing his benefits, might have to do a report of some sort which looks at the applicant's grade and derives using sql the associated elemets linked to it.