Getting the Most Out of this Powerful Vista Utility

The “Issue Detective” was released as a new job in the September 2014 release to assist with diagnosing specific support issues. This new tool is able to be run from the Human Resources, Payroll, or Benefits applications. Some of these issues have been known to interrupt the copy from open to current, prevent benefits processing from running to completion, or not successfully update an employee’s record. Previously sent from Customer Support as one-off diagnostic scripts, the “Issue Detective” currently includes 18 notifications with more in development to be released in future product updates. Each notification was written by technical support to identify specific scenarios in your data that need to be addressed, but was designed for any kind of administrative user to be able to run. It is beneficial to run this job often and regularly; therefore, Support would like to help explain the results you may be receiving. Below are explanations and troubleshooting tips should you return results after running the “Issue Detective” in your own environment.

But first a note to say that we are always looking to add to the delivered content of this configurable tool. We would like to hear of any data issues that you would like the “Issue Detective” to include as part of the delivered queries. Email your suggestions to support@pdssoftware.com. Your suggestions will then be considered for a future enhancement!

The notifications below are sorted in the order they will appear when you run the “Issue Detective”, using their base system notification ID’s (1-18)

1. Active Benefit plan(s) without any active plan options
-This notification will appear when created/active benefit plans do not have any active associated options. To address this, review your benefits setup and create an active option for the listed benefit plan or delete the plan if it was in error.

2. Active plan(s) without assigned Eligibility rules to the plan(s) or their options
-“Issue Detective” will check active plans (tblbplanver is_active = Y) to ensure eligibility rules are assigned. To resolve, check the eligibility rules assigned to the plans listed and add if needed.

3. Active plan option(s) without any assigned eligibility rules to the options or plans
– “Issue Detective” will check active plan options (tblbpoptver is_active = Y) to ensure eligibility rules are assigned. To resolve this, check the eligibility rules assigned to the plans or options listed and add if needed.

4. Eligibility rules without required inputs
-Every eligibility rule you assign to a plan will require inputs or benefits processing will not be able to run to completion. These may include waiting period rules or skip period fields that have been left blank. If you return this error, examine the eligibility rule values assigned to the plan or option noted by the “Issue Detective” and populate any fields that were left blank.

5. Individual(s) active in benefits without a corresponding empprim record
-This notification will examine if the benefits status assigned to the benefits participant (ben_status in bencomp) is flagged as an active benefits status (tblbenstatus where is_active = Y). There will then be a check for a corresponding empprim record for that individual (employee primary position/job). Add a primary position or job for that employee.

6. Individual(s) active in benefits without a corresponding empcomp record active in either HR or PR
-As above, this notification will first check if the benefits status assigned to the employee (ben_status in bencomp) is flagged as an active benefits status (tblbenstatus where is_active = Y). There will then be a similar check against tblhrstatus (HR) and tblprstatus (Payroll) to determine first if the payroll status is flagged as an active payroll status (tblprstatus is_active = Y) and if the HR status is an active status (tblhrstatus where is_active = Y). If the employee is assigned to an active benefits status but either not an active status is HR or Payroll, the “Issue Detective” will return this notification.

7. Individuals active in benefits, using an age rule, but without a birth date
– If the individual is active in benefit plans that are using an age rule (Age Range Test, Minimum Age Test, Maximum Age Test), this notification will check if they have a birth date populated. To resolve this, ensure the user has the birth date field populated on the personal information page.

8. Individuals active in benefits, using a rehire/hire waiting period rule, but without a hire or rehire date
-If the individual is active in benefit plans that use a rehire/waiting period rule and they do not have a hire or rehire date the “Issue Detective” will return these individuals. To resolve, ensure the person’s employee information page is populated with either a hire or rehire date.

9. Current benfund row(s) during open enrollment without corresponding Open row and either open benfunda or active benplan rows
– This will check if the employee has added funds in current enrollment after open enrollment plans have been created without copying these funds to open.

There is a flag as part of current enrollment to create a copied fund in open enrollment that needs to be checked. To correct this, you will need to manually add the fund to the employee’s open enrollment plan.

10. Current benpact rows without corresponding open benplan rows
-This will notify you if there are any records in the employee’s pension activity (Benefits Information -> Pension Plan -> Costs tab -> Pension Activity) that do not have corresponding records in the employee’s open benefit plans. Ensure the employee’s pension plan has successfully copied to open from current.

11. Current benbenef rows (dependent/beneficiary) without corresponding Open rows
– If open plans have been created from current, this notification will check the dependents/beneficiaries assigned to the benefits participant in current and return a message if there is no matching row in open. This may occur if a dependent/beneficiary was added to an employee’s contacts in current after copying plans to open.

12. Benefit company transfer tables improperly set up
This notification runs a check against the Tables in System Administration (pdstbls) and checks to see if the mentioned table is both flagged as “copy” (is_benefit_copy = Y) and that it has a table order sequence that is logical (table_order). Lower numbers will be copied before higher numbers. Consult with your system administrator regarding how to properly set these fields.

13. Company records without a without a ui_calendar_id but with active benefit options set as ACA plans
-ui_calendar (unemployment insurance for Canadian clients) is also referred to as the ACA Calendar for U.S. clients. If you receive this error, you will need to create a calendar for your company and set it as the UI/ACA Calendar default (Human Resources -> Companies -> ACA link).

14. Company records with a ui_calendar_id and active ACA benefit plans but without current year calendar entries
-ui_calendar is also referred to as the ACA Calendar (for U.S. clients). If you receive this error, the calendar you have set up in your company may need its date range extended. This can be modified from Time Management -> Setup Tables -> Calendars. Extend the date range of the affected calendar by adding multiple weekly periods.

15. Company records with active benefit plans but without a holiday calendar
-This notification checks if your company is assigned a holiday calendar if there are active benefit plans with the company code. You can check if a holiday calendar is assigned from Human Resources -> Companies -> Calendars -> Holiday Calendar.

16. Individuals who still need benefit Processing as of the day before the new enrollment date, for companies in mid year open enrollment
-Plans that contribute to W2 reportable benefits costs (U.S. clients) must have a benefits processing run on the last day of the old plan year in order to bring over the current plan year accumulators.

If the effective eligible date (date of the last completed benefit run, pictured above) on current plans in which the employee was active anytime in the current tax year is not the last date of the old plan year, you will return this error. If you are running benefits processing for these individuals but continue to receive this notification there is likely a setup issue that is preventing benefits processing from updating this individual, even though the processing job may have a status of “Completed”. Many of the “Issue Detective” notifications are written to diagnose why benefits processing would not be completing, so it is recommended to first address all other notifications you may receive in an “Issue Detective” run. If you continue to receive this notification after all other issues are addressed, please contact support.

17. Current benfsapy row(s) without corresponding Open benplan rows
-This notification will be returned if the benefits participant has generated a pension claim that has not been copied from current to open (Benefits Information -> FSA/HSA Plan -> FSA/HSA Tab -> Claims). To correct this issue, ensure the rows that are present in current are copied to Open.

18. Individual(s) with multiple spouses
-If your “Issue Detective” is returning this notification an employee may have more than one spouse assigned to them. Review the employee’s Personal -> Contacts to verify there is only one contact designated as a spouse.

Adam Bonanni
Customer Support Representative
PDS
abonanni@pdssoftware.com