ESS ability to CHANGE dependent Info

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beverly godwin

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Posts: 0

4/27/2010 7:39 PM

In ESS, if I have my husband as dependent #1 and my child as #2, this is how it shows in the EMDEPEND. In the HRDEPBEN table it REFERS to these #'s in regards to WHICH dependent is on the insurnace policy. With the ability for employees to make changes, if I decide that I want to remove my husband and add my mom (for example)...there is no delete, so I may just CHANGE all of the info on dependent #1 (name, dob, ssn, relation, etc)..now dependent #1 is my mom and not my husband. The unique key remained the same (SEQ_NBR, but the info changed. two problems with this:

1) HRDEPBEN.DEPENDENT links up to EMDEPEND.SEQ_NBR to show info on the dependent that is on the insurance...this key field did NOT change for the new dependent. Also..my history in HRDEPBEN is now messed up..as it shows in 2008 dep #1 was on my health insurance. Dep #1 is now showing as my mom and she was NOT on my health insurance in 2008.

2)The HRHISTORY table is not tracking changes made to dependents

3) Any comments that you've put on that dependent in HR..is now showing on the wrong dependent

SOLUTION:

We are thinking of locking down ESS so the user cannot make changes to dependents, they'd only be able to do adds, changes would go through HR.

How are others handling this? Is anyone else SHOCKED that this is set up in such away that the historical benefit records lose their credibility in regards to matching up dependent info with dependent record in hr tables?

donnaM

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Posts: 5

4/27/2010 8:04 PM

We only allow employees to add dependents via ESS for the same reasons you have outlined. We locked down the capability to change or delete dependents when we stumbled upon a couple of scenarios where the employee replaced former spouse information with new spouse information. We added some text to the page instructing employees who need to change or delete a dependent record to contact the Benefits Department.

I would be open to any alternatives.

Shane Jones

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Posts: 460

4/28/2010 3:57 PM

Ouch... Never thought about this happening. It makes me want to do some data audits to see if my dependent information is still reliable when linking to benefits.

(I am wondering if the following might be a solution worth researching - send an email when there are changes in the EMDEPEND table. The information could be sent to the benefits department showing only dependent records that have "CHANGED". This way I can still allow ESS changes and just ask my benefits person to review the changes. Just a thought...)

beverly godwin

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Posts: 0

4/28/2010 4:13 PM

I'm pressing lawson now for their thoughts about this...but yes, it appears that your dependents could easily be messed up. We had one employee here that had changed his dependents around (all 4 of them)...just becuase he wanted them in a certain order...luckily for him, all of his dependents are on all insurnace. I'll be interested in seeing what lawson says about this, though I don't have any high expectations. We are now researching to see if beneficiary is also affected. In regards to lawson not storing changes to dependents, they suggested an enhancement request. We like the idea of locking down changes so that HR is in control of CHANGES...but your email idea is also a good one.