What are benefits?

An organization can offer various types of benefits to their employees in addition to their regular wages. The benefits package differ considerably for each organization and may include health, life, disability and others. Smart Onboarding allows users to create effective benefit plans and benefit programs that are unique to their organizations.

Who can access Benefits Setup and Configuration pages?

The System Administrators are the only users who can access Benefits Setup and Configuration pages.

How to add benefits activity to the New Hire's onboarding?

Adding benefits activity in the New Hire's onboarding includes the following steps:

• Add benefit program in the Attribute Revision
• Add and configure benefits in the business process
• Attach the benefit program to the New Hire's invitation
• New Hire's enrollment in the company benefits

Add benefit program attribute in the Attribute Revision

The first step is adding the defined benefit program to its parent attribute in the Attribute Revision. To know more information on this, please click here.

Add and configure benefits in the business process

The next step is adding benefits activity in the business process. This can be done by creating a new Process Revision.

When configuring the Process Revision, click on Configure Business Process.

Configure benefits activities in the business process. Scroll down to "Benefits" and add them under Generic Benefits. 

Save and apply the Process Revision.

Attach a benefit program to the New Hire invitation

For adding and defining a benefit program in the New Hire invitation, click this link.

New Hire's enrollment in the company benefits 

For the benefits to appear in the onboarding process, the New Hire must enroll for company benefits. That means they must choose an 'Yes' in Benefit Elections option. 

If 'No' option is selected, the onboarding process will skip the benefits activity.

Below screenshot shows benefits activities added in the onboarding process for the New Hire. 

How to complete benefits activities?

Benefits enrollment for dependents/beneficiaries includes the following step:

Note: The following details include the recent changes/enhancements that are implemented to the benefits activity. For the transactions that are already process completed, a conversion App Engine will be run to apply these new changes. 

Define Dependents & Beneficiaries

The first step in benefits activities is adding the dependent/beneficiary information. 

The "Define Dependents & Beneficiaries" page can have the self/candidate row of the New Hire displayed by setting the "AllowDependentSelf" property value in product preferences. The System Administrator can decide whether to hide/unhide the Self row on this page by toggling the value of  "AllowDependentSelf" property to OFF/ON in Product Preferences. 

The system is delivered with  "AllowDependentSelf" property ‘OFF’ as default in Product Preferences. The default value of  "AllowDependentSelf" property and the corresponding runtime page are shown below.

This default value can be changed by the System Administrators to match the behavior how they would like in their system. 

If the value of "AllowDependentSelf" property is set to "ON" the Self record of the candidate displays on the page.  

To add a dependent/beneficiary, click on "Add Person" button.

Enter all the fields in the page shown below. The fields with asterisk ' * ' are required. The validation messages trigger if the required fields are not entered.

Example: 

The details of each section of this page is discussed below:

Name:

Fill out the fields as indicated below:

The name fields trigger error messages when invalid values are entered.

When "Relationship to Employee" is selected, the default value of dependent/beneficiary "Type" is auto populated. 

When modifying the default value for "Type", make sure it is appropriate to the relationship selected. Otherwise, the following error message displays on the page and you may have to modify your entries.

There is no mandatory to add beneficiaries in this activity, unless the "ReqBeneficiary" property is set to "ON" in Product Preferences. As per the default setting, the "ReqBeneficiary" is set to "OFF" with no mandatory to add Beneficiary in this activity. 

But the System Administrator can change this default setting to make the Beneficiary as required by changing the "ReqBeneficiary" property to "ON". Then, at least one person needs to be added as either Beneficiary or Dependent & Beneficiary before saving the activity.

The error message displays as follows if the activity is saved without adding Beneficiary or Dependent & Beneficiary.

Person Details:

The System Administrators can use the property "DepDOBRequired" in Product Preferences to set the Date of Birth value as required/optional for "Dependent"/"Dependent & Beneficiary" Types.

The system is delivered with "DepDOBRequired" property "ON" and Date of Birth required for "Dependent"/"Dependent & Beneficiary" Types. This default value can be changed to optional by setting the "DepDOBRequired" property value to "OFF". 

However, for Type = "Beneficiary", this property is not applicable. The Date of Birth is always optional for them.

When "DepDOBRequired" property is set to "ON", the Date of Birth value is required for Types = "Dependent"/"Dependent & Beneficiary".

In this case, if the value is not entered, the following error displays on the page:

When "DepDOBRequired" property is set to "OFF", the Date of Birth value is not required for Types = "Dependent"/"Dependent & Beneficiary".

In the above case (Date of Birth = not required & Type = "Dependent"/"Dependent & Beneficiary"), if Date of Birth is not entered the following error message displays:

When Type =  "Beneficiary", the Date of Birth is not required/optional.

Also, the Date of Birth value is validated against the current date and the following error message is displayed if it is greater than the current date.

Address:

The fields with asterisk are mandatory to enter. Based on the Country you chose in the drop-down, the address field format will change.

By default, the address field format displayed is for the United States.

The required address fields are validated and appropriate error messages are displayed if required fields are not entered.

When "Address Same as Employee" is checked, the dependent's/beneficiary's address defaults to the employee's Home address as given below. This "Address Type" can be changed to "Mailing" if the mailing address of the employee is to be populated.

When "Address Same as Employee" is unchecked, the dependent's/beneficiary's address has to be manually entered. Make sure the address fields are entered as required.

The Dependent/Beneficiary/Dependent & Beneficiary can be added with Country other than USA.

National ID

By default, the Country under National ID shows as "United States" and National ID Type as "Social Security Number". The Country can be changed by clicking on the dropdown value.

The values presented in the drop down for the National ID Type is presented based on the Country selected. Few examples are shown below:

Entering the National ID is optional, but if entered National ID Type is required.

The following validation message triggers on save when National ID is entered and National ID Type is not selected for a Country.

The value entered in National ID is validated based on the National ID Type. Error message displays if the entered format is not correct specific to that National ID Type.

Country = United Kingdom

The National IDs are also validated for duplicates for the same Dependent/Beneficiary Type. If the ID that you are trying to enter has already been entered for the person added with the same Type, then the following message appears on save and you may have to adjust the person's Type or correct the National ID of the person that is being added.

Phone Information:

If "Same Phone as Employee" is checked, the employee's phone information populates on the page as shown below:

If "Same Phone as Employee" is unchecked, the phone information has to be entered.

Email Information:

If "Same Email as Employee" is checked, the employee's email information populates on the page as shown below:

If "Same Email as Employee" is unchecked, the email information has to be entered.

After entering all the information, click on "OK" button provided at the bottom of the page. 

The added dependent/beneficiary information shows on the main page as given below:

To see the details, click on the arrow on the right side of the grid.

Once all the Dependent/Beneficiary information is added, click on "Save". The individual information can be edited until the process is submitted to HR.

If any change is required after the process submit, then the process/activity may have to be restarted. This is discussed in the following section.

To download the signed forms of the completed activity, click on the icon present at the right bottom corner of the page.

Benefits Enrollment

The Benefit Plans (of Plan Type "Medical", "Dental" & "Vision") that are included in the Benefit Program are shown in Benefits Enrollment activity.

On this page, you will have a choice to enroll for Medical, Dental and Vision benefits.

Click on the option "No" if you do not want to enroll for Medical benefits. The Medical Coverage Waiver form displays down the Medical benefits section as shown below.

Complete this form and then proceed to other sections i.e Dental and Vision benefit plans.

Click "Yes" if you want to enroll for Medical benefits. A drop down will display all the Benefit Plans available.

Note: The Benefit Plans showing in the drop down depends on the Benefit Program's effective date in the setup and the invitation Start Date.

The Benefit Plans configured in the maximum effective dated row of the Benefit Program will reflect in Benefits Enrollment activity only if the Start Date of the invitation is greater than the Benefit Program's maximum effective date.

For the invitations with Start Date less than the maximum effective date of the Benefit Program:

• the Benefit Plans will not show up in the drop down if there is only one effective dated row in the Benefit Program
• will show the Benefit Plans of prior effective dated row if there are multiple rows in the Benefit Program

If there are multiple Benefit Plans of Plan Type as "Medical" configured in the Benefit Program setup, then all the values of the Benefit Plan will show in this drop down. For more details on adding multiple benefit plans of the same Plan Type (Medical/Dental/Vision) in a Benefit Program, please click here. 

Select any Medical Benefit Plan that is applicable to you from the list. If the selected plan has downloadable attachment(s) configured in the Benefit Plan setup, then it will appear next to the Benefit Plan. The attachments showing here are driven by the invitation Start Date. The attachments configured in the maximum effective dated row of the Benefit Plan will reflect in Benefits Enrollment activity only if the maximum effective date of the attachment is less than the invitation Start Date. Otherwise, the attachments of prior effective dated row will show in this activity.

You can download by clicking on the download icon. For creating new Benefit Plans with attachments, please click here.

Until the Benefits Enrollment activity is completed, the changes made to the attachments in the maximum effective dated row of the Benefit Plan will reflect in Benefits Enrollment activity for the New Hire. Once the activity is completed using the Benefit Plan, the attachments of that Benefit Plan cannot be modified. 

After completing the Benefits Enrollment activity, if new attachments are configured in the Benefit Plan setup with new effective dated row, they will not reflect in the activity. (For details on configuring new attachments to an existing Benefit Plan, please click here), The New Hire can see these attachments only if the activity is opened in edit mode (until the process is not submitted to HR) and the effective dates of attachments, Benefit Plan and Benefit Program are less than the invitation Start Date. If the process has already submitted to HR, then the Benefits activities or the process has to be restarted to see these attachments. For more details on activity or process restarts, please click here.

If you have any other medical insurance, select "Yes" in other medical insurance option and enter insurance details as given below.

Similarly, enter the options for Dental and Vision Benefit Plans.

Complete Benefit Enrollment details and save.

To download the signed forms of the completed activity, click on the "Download Signed Forms" icon present at the right bottom corner of the page.

Life Insurance Designation

In this page, select the persons to add as primary and contingent beneficiaries for Term Life insurance. 

It is not mandatory to add Primary Beneficiaries in this activity, unless the "ReqBeneficiaryOnLifeInsurance" property is set to "ON" in Product Preferences.

As the default setting, the "ReqBeneficiaryOnLifeInsurance" property is "OFF" in Product Preferences.

When the "ReqBeneficiaryOnLifeInsurance" is set to "ON", adding the Primary Beneficiary in this activity is mandatory. If the Primary Beneficiary is not added, the below error displays on activity save.

Click on the Person ID drop-down and select a Primary Beneficiary from the list.

The details of the beneficiary from the previous setup (Define Dependents & Beneficiaries) populates on the page. Enter the percentage of Life Insurance benefit of the beneficiary.

To add another row, click on "Add Primary Beneficiary" button.

Select the beneficiary in the new row and add percentage.

Similarly, select a Contingent Beneficiary from the list and add the percentage and click "Save".

After saving, the signed forms can be downloaded by clicking on the "Download Signed Forms" icon present at the right bottom corner of the page.

Voluntary Benefits Enrollment

Add self details as well as dependents in the form given below to enroll for the Voluntary Benefits.

Employee details:

The Plan Types that the employee can enroll are: Accidental Death, Life, Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability and Supplemental Life.

For the selected Plan Type, all the Benefit Plans available will show in the drop down. Select a Benefit Plan from the list.

Note: The Benefit Plans showing in the drop down depends on the Benefit Program's effective date in the setup and the invitation Start Date.

The Benefit Plans configured in the maximum effective dated row of the Benefit Program will reflect in Benefits Enrollment activity only if the Start Date of the invitation is greater than the Benefit Program's maximum effective date.

For the invitations with Start Date less than the maximum effective date of the Benefit Program:

• the Benefit Plans will not show up in the drop down if there is only one effective dated row in the Benefit Program
• will show the Benefit Plans of prior effective dated row if there are multiple rows in the Benefit Program

Based on the Rate Type of the selected Benefit Plan, the values in the "Coverage" drop down will vary. 

If the Benefit Rate Type is "Compensation", the values displaying in the "Coverage" drop down are the "Compensation Multiples" entered under Rate Data section of the Benefit Plan.

If the Benefit Rate Type is "Covered Person", the values displaying in the "Coverage" drop down are the "Coverage" values entered under Rate Data section of the Benefit Plan.

if the Benefit Rate Type values are "Age" and "Flat Rate", then there will be no Coverage values in the activity.

If the selected plan has downloadable attachment(s) configured in the Benefit Plan setup, then the download icon will appear next to Coverage field. If the Benefit Plan has no attachment, the download icon will not appear.

The attachments showing here are driven by the invitation Start Date. The attachments configured in the maximum effective dated row of the Benefit Plan will reflect in this activity only if the maximum effective date of the attachment is less than the invitation Start Date. Otherwise, attachments of the prior effective dated row will show up in this activity.

You can download the attachment by clicking on the download icon. For creating new Benefit Plans with attachments, please click here.

When Plan Type is selected, providing the Benefit Plan and Coverage (if available) is required. If you save the activity without providing these details, the following error messages display on the page.

If Plan Type is selected and Benefit Plan is not selected:

If Benefit Plan has Coverage values available and if activity is saved without selecting the Coverage:

Employee can have multiple Benefit Plans of different Plan Types added under Voluntary Benefits Enrollment. 

If multiple rows of same Plan Type are added under Employee, the following error displays on the page.

Dependent details:

Adding Dependent information is optional on this page.

Select a "Person ID" under Dependents and proceed with adding the Plan Type. Dependents can be enrolled for three Plan Types: Accidental Death, Life and Supplemental Life. 

After adding the Person ID, if activity is saved without selecting the Plan Type under Dependents, the error message displays as below.

Vice versa, if Plan Type is selected and "Person ID" is not selected, the error displays as follows.

After selecting the Plan Type, add the Benefit Plan. The error displays as follows if Benefit Plan is not selected.

If Coverage is applicable for the Benefit Plan, and the activity is saved without selecting the Coverage value, an error displays as follows.

Note: Coverage values will show up for the Benefit Plans with Rate Type configured as "Compensation" and "Covered person" in the Benefit Plan Setup. For the Benefit Plans with Rate Types "Age" and "Flat Rate", the Coverage values will not be available. This is explained in detail in the above Employee section. Please click here for more details.

If Benefit Plan has attachment configured in its setup, then the download icon will show up next to the Coverage field. Click on the icon to download the attachment.

Also, make sure dependents are not enrolled for the same Plan Type multiple times. If multiple rows of the same Plan Type is added for a dependent, the following error displays on the page.

When enrolling for dependents, you can add multiple dependents as shown below.

However, the same dependent cannot be added multiple times. If same dependent is added multiple times, the error displays as below.

After entering the enrollment details, click "Save". 

The signed forms can be downloaded by clicking on the icon present at the right bottom corner of the page.

This completes all the benefits activities. 

How to edit the information provided in benefits activities after the activities are completed?

The information provided in the benefits activities can be edited until "Submit to HR" activity is completed. 

To edit the information in any benefits activity, click on the "Edit" button available at the bottom of the page. This will open the activity in edit mode.

The below example shows editing the Voluntary Benefits activity. 

The fields on Voluntary Benefits activity open in edit mode as shown below.

Update the information for Employee and Dependents as needed. Like in add mode, the field values (Plan Type, Benefit Plan and Coverage) are validated and the corresponding error messages are displayed when the errors are found. For more details on Voluntary Benefits field validations, please click here.

If new attachments are configured in the Benefit Plan setup (with the effective dates of attachments, Benefit Plan and Benefit Program less than the invitation Start Date) then the attachments will show in the edit mode. For details on configuring new attachments to an existing Benefit Plan, please click here.

After updating the information save the activity.

Can you delete the individuals from the benefits activity?

The individuals who are added as Dependents/Beneficiaries can be deleted if they are not enrolled in any benefits. This can be done before "Submit to HR" activity is completed.

Click on "Delete" to delete the Dependent/Beneficiary row.

Click "Yes" to continue.

The row gets deleted from the Dependent/Beneficiary list.

If the individual is enrolled in benefits, the following message displays when you try to delete the corresponding row.

How to get multiple values of Benefit Plans in the dropdown in Benefits Enrollment activity?

If you wish multiple values of Benefit Plans (Medical, Dental, Vision) to be shown for the New Hires in Benefits Enrollment activity, then follow the steps given below:

1. Create multiple Benefit Plans as needed with the same Plan Type using "Benefit Plan" activity. For more details on creating Benefit Plans, please click here.

2. Add these Benefit Plans under the Benefit Program. For details on creating a new Benefit Program, please click here.

If you want to add Benefit Plans under a new effective dated row on an existing Benefit Program, please click here.

Note: Make sure the Benefit Plans are created with effective date less than or same as the effective date of the Benefit Program. Benefit Plans with later effective dates cannot be added under an already existing Benefit Program for the current effective date.  In such case, you can create a new effective dated row in the Benefit Program and add the newly created Benefit Plans.

In this example, a new effective dated row is added in the existing Benefit Program to add the newly created Benefit Plans. Here the previous Benefit Plan with Plan Type as "Medical" is deleted and the newly created three "Medical" Benefit Plans are added and saved.

3. Create an invitation using the above Benefit Program with invitation start date on or after the maximum effective date of the Benefit Program.

(Note: If you are using a new Benefit Program then it should be configured in Attribute Revision to appear in the Benefit Program lookup on the invitation. For more details, please click here. If you have updated an existing Benefit Program which has already been configured in the Attribute Revision then there is no need to repeat this step)  

If invitation start date is less than the Benefit Program maximum effective date (which is 02/27/2023 in the above example), then the Benefit Plans configured under that maximum effective dated row of the Benefit Program will not appear in Benefits Enrollment activity for the New Hire.  The Benefits Enrollment activity will show the Benefit Plans that are configured under prior effective dated row (which is 06/25/2021 in the above case) of the Benefit Program.

To have the newly added Benefit Plans appear in the Benefits Enrollment activity, the start date of the invitation should be same or greater than the maximum effective date (i.e "02/27/2023" in the example) of the Benefit Program.

In this example, an invitation is created with start date same as the maximum effective date of the Benefit Program i.e "02/27/2023".

4. When the New Hire chooses to enroll for the Company Benefits by choosing "Yes" in the Benefits Elections option in Employee Biographic information, the Benefits activity will appear in their onboarding process. 

In Benefits Enrollment activity, the new Benefit Plans of Plan Type "Medical" configured under the maximum effective dated row of the Benefit Program will appear as shown below. 

How to edit benefits information after New Hire submits the process to HR?

After the process is submitted to HR, the New Hire cannot edit the onboarding information unless the activity/process is restarted by the HR Specialist. There are two ways to restart the benefits.

• Restart Activity
• Restart Process
  
  

Restart Activity:

Must be a HR Specialist to perform this action. 

Let us consider a New Hire's process with Submit to HR completed.

Restart activity through Invitation Console:

Select the Invitation ID for which you want to restart the benefits activity. Click on "Info and Actions" and select "Restart Activity" under Actions.

Restart activity through Elasticsearch:

Click on the Elasticsearch icon and select "Invitations" in the Category drop down. Enter the keyword in the "Keywords" field and click "Search".

Here, Invitation ID is used as the search keyword. This displays the invitation in the search results. Click on actions and select "Restart Activities".

Select from the Restart Group dropdown which activity you want to restart. Each option in the Restart Group is a collection of different activities that was previously configured.  

To restart benefits activities, select "Correction to Benefit Forms" option from Restart Group dropdown.

Enter a comment explaining why you are restarting the activity and click "Submit".

Click "Ok" to continue.

Confirmation message shows as below:

The New Hire receives the following email about the restart activity.

The benefit activities show under pending tasks for the New Hire. By clicking on the link, the New Hire can open the activity and complete them.

Restart Process:

This option will restart the complete New Hire's process.

Restart process through Invitation Console:

Select the Invitation ID for which you want to restart the process. Click on "Info and Actions" and select "Restart Process" under Actions.

Restart process through Elasticsearch:

Click on the Elasticsearch icon and select "Invitations" in the Category drop down. Enter the keyword in the "Keywords" field and click "Search".

Here, Invitation ID is used as the search keyword. This displays the invitation in the search results. Click on actions and select "Restart Process".

Select the Reason and enter a Comment explaining why you are restarting the process. Click on "Submit".

Click "OK" to continue.

This sends the following email to the New Hire to let them know that the process has been restarted.

The New Hire needs to start the onboarding process over, starting with the electronic disclosure. They can edit the benefit forms in the process and resubmit to HR.