U.S. patent application number 14/300254 was filed with the patent office on 2014-09-25 for benefits selection in a benefits administration domain model.
The applicant listed for this patent is ADP Workspace, Inc.. Invention is credited to Thomas A. Cooper, Colin J. Turner.
Application Number | 20140289155 14/300254 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 42106891 |
Filed Date | 2014-09-25 |
United States Patent
Application |
20140289155 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Cooper; Thomas A. ; et
al. |
September 25, 2014 |
BENEFITS SELECTION IN A BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION DOMAIN MODEL
Abstract
In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities
are described for a human resource management platform that
includes applications targeted to solve a variety of human resource
and benefits administration management problems. Applications of
the human resource management platform include business
applications such as benefits administration that may provide a
single solution for facilitating employee benefits management and
organizational efficiencies through automation of benefit
management functions, measurement of benefit provider
effectiveness, and the like.
Inventors: |
Cooper; Thomas A.; (Sutton,
MA) ; Turner; Colin J.; (Hudson, MA) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
ADP Workspace, Inc. |
Marlborough |
MA |
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
42106891 |
Appl. No.: |
14/300254 |
Filed: |
June 10, 2014 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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14290466 |
May 29, 2014 |
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14300254 |
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12579985 |
Oct 15, 2009 |
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14290466 |
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61105593 |
Oct 15, 2008 |
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61105615 |
Oct 15, 2008 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
705/322 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06Q 10/103 20130101;
Y02P 90/86 20151101; G06Q 10/067 20130101; Y02P 90/80 20151101;
G06Q 10/10 20130101; G06Q 10/1057 20130101; G06Q 10/105
20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
705/322 |
International
Class: |
G06Q 10/10 20060101
G06Q010/10 |
Claims
1. A method of benefits selection, comprising: taking an employee
benefits domain model comprising a hierarchical set of benefits
eligibility criteria and a plurality of domain objects representing
employee attributes; using a processor to receive an employee
identifier and access the domain model to retrieve attributes of
the employee; presenting a first selection of benefits to the
employee based on a comparison of the employee attributes with the
benefits eligibility criteria; receiving a benefits selection from
the employee; and presenting a second selection of benefits to the
employee based on the comparison and the received benefits
selection.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of domain objects
is effective dated.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein accessing the domain model is
based on a target date.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the attributes retrieved are
associated with a domain object version that is in effect as of the
target date.
5. The method of claim 3, wherein the attributes retrieved are
retrieved from a domain object version that includes the target
date within an effective date range of the object version.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the second selection of benefits
is further based on a hierarchical relationship between the second
selection and the first selection.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the domain objects further
represent employee benefits information.
8. A method of benefits selection, comprising: taking an employee
benefits domain model comprising a hierarchical set of benefits
eligibility criteria and a plurality of domain objects representing
employee attributes; using a processor to receive an employee
identifier and retrieve employee attributes from the domain model
based on the employee identifier; presenting to an employee
associated with the employee identifier a first set of benefits
options that are consistent with the hierarchical benefits
eligibility criteria that are indicated by the employee attributes;
receiving a selection of at least one of the first set of benefit
options from the employee; and presenting a second set of benefit
options to the employee based on the indicated benefits eligibility
criteria and the received benefits selection.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of domain objects
is effective dated.
10. The method of claim 8, wherein accessing the domain model is
based on a target date.
11. The method of claim 10, wherein the attributes retrieved are
associated with a domain object version that is in effect as of the
target date.
12. The method of claim 10, wherein the attributes retrieved are
retrieved from a domain object version that includes the target
date within an effective date range of the object version.
13. The method of claim 8, wherein the second selection of benefits
is further based on a hierarchical relationship between the second
selection and the first selection.
14. The method of claim 8, wherein the domain objects further
represent employee benefits information.
15. A benefits selection system, comprising: an employee benefits
domain model comprising a hierarchical set of benefits eligibility
criteria and a plurality of domain objects representing employee
attributes; a processor adapted to receive an employee identifier
and retrieve employee attributes from the domain model based on the
employee identifier; a first set of benefits options that are
consistent with the hierarchical benefits eligibility criteria that
are indicated by the employee attributes; and a second set of
benefit options that are based on the indicated benefits
eligibility criteria and a selection of at least of one of the
first set of benefits options.
16. The system of claim 15, wherein the plurality of domain objects
is effective dated.
17. The system of claim 15, wherein the processor retrieves
employee attributes from the domain model based on a target
date.
18. The system of claim 17, wherein the retrieved attributes are
associated with a domain object version that is in effect as of the
target date.
19. The system of claim 17, wherein the attributes are retrieved
from a domain object version that includes the target date within
an effective date range of the object version.
20. The method of claim 15, wherein the second set of benefit
options is further based on a hierarchical relationship between the
second set of benefit options and the first set of benefit options.
Description
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 14/290,466, filed on May 29, 2014, which is
hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety; U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 14/290,466 is a continuation of U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 12/579,985, filed on Oct. 15, 2009, which is
hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety; U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 12/579,985 claims the benefit of the following
provisional applications, each of which is hereby incorporated by
reference in its entirety: U.S. Prov. Appl. 61/105,593, filed Oct.
15, 2008 and U.S. Prov. Appl. 61/105,615, filed Oct. 15, 2008.
BACKGROUND
[0002] 1. Field
[0003] The inventive methods and systems described herein generally
relate to human capital management and particularly relate to a
scalable platform for enterprise level human capital management
including performance, compensation, benefits, and the like.
[0004] 2. Description of the Related Art
[0005] Human resource management systems must provide support for
diverse applications such as compensation planning and execution,
performance appraisal and management, alignment of compensation and
performance, benefits administration, benefits user self service,
and the like. There exists a need for a scalable human resource
management system that facilitates the effective application of
these services to a wide range of entity sizes, structures, and
business processes while ensuring a high degree of configurability
and client data separation for use on distributed, networked
computing environments.
SUMMARY
[0006] In an aspect of the invention, methods and systems
comprising a user interface for interacting with the applications
in accordance with various embodiments of the present invention are
provided. The systems may include a persistence layer for storing a
benefits administration domain model; a business logic layer
comprising the domain model; a plurality of employee benefits
management applications; and a presentation layer comprising a user
interface for interacting with the applications. The methods may
include storing a benefits administration domain model in a
persistence layer of a human capital platform; manipulating domain
objects of the domain model with employee benefits management
applications; configuring the benefits management applications
within a business logic layer of the platform; and presenting a
user interface for facilitating user interaction with the
applications using a presentation layer of the platform.
[0007] In the aspect of the invention, the domain model may
comprise domain objects representing employee benefits information.
In the aspect of the invention, the domain model may also comprise
domain objects representing employee information and employee
benefits information.
[0008] In the aspect of the invention, the plurality of
applications may include an employee benefits enrollment
application, an employee beneficiary and dependent maintenance
application, an employee life event application, an administration
application, an input file application, an output file application,
a reporting application, or some other type of application.
[0009] In the aspect of the invention, the plurality of
applications may also include an employee benefits application. In
the aspect of the invention, the employee benefits application may
further include employee self-service and administrator
self-service.
[0010] In the aspect of the invention, the plurality of
applications may also include benefit eligibility applications,
enrollment applications, or some other type of applications.
[0011] In the aspect of the invention, the persistence layer may
include a database for storing the benefits administration domain
model, synchronization facilities for updating the domain model,
and the like. In the aspect of the invention, updating the domain
model may include bulk updating of the domain model.
[0012] In the aspect of the invention, the persistence layer may
also include security for limiting access to the database. In the
aspect of the invention, the security may allow a plurality of
independently accessible domain models to be stored in the
database. In the aspect of the invention, the independently
accessible domain models may be stored in separate schemas.
[0013] In the aspect of the invention, the user may be an employee,
a benefits administrator, or the like.
[0014] In the aspect of the invention, the benefits administration
applications may include an employee benefits application that
includes employee self-service and administrator self-service
features that are accessible via the user interface. In the aspect
of the invention, the benefits administration applications may also
include benefit eligibility applications, enrollment applications,
and the like.
[0015] In the aspect of the invention, the benefits administration
model may be stored in a database that is accessible through the
presentation layer.
[0016] In the aspect of the invention, the domain model may be
updated with synchronization facilities. In the aspect of the
invention, updating the domain model may include bulk updating of
the domain model.
[0017] In an aspect of the invention, methods and systems for a
domain model comprising a plurality of objects in accordance with
various embodiments of the present invention are provided. The
aspect may include providing a domain model comprising a plurality
of objects containing employee and employee benefits information
and dynamically adjusting, with a processor, the plurality of
objects using the transaction information in each object to
reproduce a state of the domain model as it existed when any one of
the transactions was applied. In the aspect of the invention, each
of the plurality of objects containing employee and employee
benefits information may contain data describing all state changes
of the object and all transactions applied to the object.
[0018] The aspect may further include separating effective dates
from the domain model to facilitate the objects dynamically
adjusting to operate with properties and associations in effect as
of an effective date. In the aspect of the invention, the effective
date may be a date range. Embodiments may further include
responding to a query of the domain model with the processor by
retrieving data from at least one version of at least one of the
plurality of objects that is indicated by the effective date;
dynamically adjusting the plurality of objects based on an
effective date; responding to a query of the domain model with the
processor by retrieving data from at least one version of at least
one of the plurality of objects that is indicated by the reproduced
state of the domain model; and responding to a query of the domain
model with the processor by retrieving data from at least one
version of at least one of the plurality of objects that is
indicated by an effective date.
[0019] In an aspect of the invention, methods and systems for an
effective dated domain model comprising a plurality of effective
dated objects in accordance with various embodiments of the present
invention are provided. The aspect may include providing a domain
model comprising a plurality of effective dated objects containing
employee and employee benefits information and dynamically
adjusting, with a processor, the plurality of objects using the
transaction information in each object to reproduce a state of the
domain model as it existed when any one of the transactions was
applied. The aspect may include each of the plurality of objects
containing employee and employee benefits information may contain
data describing all state changes of the object and all
transactions applied to the object. The aspect may include
separating effective dates from the domain model to facilitate the
objects dynamically adjusting to operate with properties and
associations in effect as of an effective date. In the aspect, the
effective date may be a date range. The aspect may further include
responding to a query of the domain model with the processor by
retrieving data from at least one version of at least one of the
plurality of objects that is indicated by the effective date;
responding to a query of the domain model with the processor by
retrieving data from at least one version of at least one of the
plurality of objects that is indicated by the reproduced state of
the domain model; and responding to a query of the domain model
with the processor by retrieving data from at least one version of
at least one of the plurality of objects that is indicated by an
effective date.
[0020] In an aspect of the invention, methods and systems for an
effective dated domain model comprising a plurality of effective
dated objects in accordance with various embodiments of the present
invention are provided. The aspect may include providing a domain
model comprising a plurality of effective dated objects containing
employee and employee benefits information, wherein each of the
plurality of objects may contain data describing all state changes
of the object and all transactions applied to the object; receiving
a query of the domain model that references an effective date; and
dynamically adjusting, with a processor, the plurality of objects
using the transaction information in each object to reproduce a
state of the domain model as it existed on the effective date. The
aspect may include responding to the query by retrieving data from
at least one version of at least one of the plurality of objects
that is indicated by the reproduced state of the domain model. The
aspect may include separating effective dates from the domain model
to facilitate the objects dynamically adjusting to operate with
properties and associations in effect as of an effective date. In
the aspect, the effective date may be a date range.
[0021] In an aspect of the invention, methods and systems for
applying a change to an effective dated domain model in accordance
with various embodiments of the present invention are provided. The
aspect may include accessing a domain model to acquire a current
version of a domain object containing employee and employee
benefits information; determining an effective start date for a
change of a portion of the domain object, the domain object being
associated with a current generation; creating a new generation of
the domain object that includes a copy of the current generation;
creating a new version of the domain object within the new
generation based on a current version; and allocating the effective
start date to the new version.
[0022] In the aspect of the invention, methods may further include
storing the new generation with a processor in a human resources
management database.
[0023] In an aspect of the invention, methods and systems for
supporting a pending state in a domain model in accordance with
various embodiments of the present invention are provided. The
aspect may include providing a domain model comprising a plurality
of objects containing employee and employee benefits information
and dynamically adjusting, with a processor, the plurality of
objects using the pending state in each object to produce a state
of the domain model that includes the pending state based on the
business application context. In the aspect of the invention, each
of the plurality of objects containing employee and employee
benefits information may reflect a pending state of the object
based on a business application context.
[0024] In the aspect of the invention, the pending state may be
accessible to the processor in a pending delegate of the object. In
the aspect of the invention, the pending delegate may only be
accessible through the object.
[0025] The aspect may also include configuring a pending state of a
domain model; receiving a change to an employee benefits data item
in a domain object of the domain model that requires authorization;
using a processor to create a pending delegate of the domain
object; and accessing the data item in the pending delegate.
[0026] In the aspect of the invention, accessing the data item in
the pending delegate may include accessing the pending delegate
through the domain object and may be achieved only through the
domain object. In the aspect of the invention, creating the pending
state may be based on the configuration of the pending state and
may include employee and employee benefit data.
[0027] In the aspect of the invention, the aspect may include
configuring a pending state of a domain model; determining a change
to benefits data accessible in a domain object of the domain model
that requires authorization; using a processor to create a pending
delegate of the domain object; and accessing the data item in the
pending delegate.
[0028] In the aspect of the invention, accessing the data item in
the pending delegate may include accessing the pending delegate
through the domain object and may be achieved only through the
domain object. In the aspect of the invention, creating the pending
state may be based on the configuration of the pending state.
[0029] In an aspect of the invention, methods and systems for
benefits selection in accordance with various embodiments of the
present invention are provided. The aspect may include taking an
employee benefits domain model comprising a hierarchical set of
benefits eligibility criteria and a plurality of domain objects
representing employee attributes; using a processor to receive an
employee identifier and access the domain model to retrieve
attributes of the employee; presenting a first selection of
benefits to the employee based on a comparison of the employee
attributes with the benefits eligibility criteria; receiving a
benefits selection from the employee; and presenting a second
selection of benefits to the employee based on the comparison and
the selection.
[0030] In the aspect of the invention, accessing the domain model
may be based on a target date. In the aspect of the invention, the
plurality of domain objects may be effective dated. In the aspect
of the invention, the attributes retrieved may be associated with a
domain object version that has an effective from date less than the
target date and an effective to date greater than the target date.
In the aspect, the attributes retrieved are retrieved from a domain
object version that includes the target date within an effective
date range of the object version.
[0031] In an aspect of the invention, methods and systems for
repairing employee benefits data in a benefits administration
management domain model in accordance with various embodiments of
the present invention are provided. The aspect may include
receiving a change related to an employee benefit; modifying a
domain object representing the employee benefit; calculating with a
processor an impact on portions of the domain model that include a
state of the employee benefit; and updating the domain model so
that the state of the employee benefit is adjusted based on the
impact.
[0032] In the aspect of the invention, the domain object may be an
effective dated domain object. In the aspect of the invention, the
state of the employee benefit may be associated with an effective
date of the effective dated domain object.
[0033] In the aspect of the invention, the state may be a future
state relative to a target date, a past state relative to a target
date, or the like.
[0034] In the aspect of the invention, the change related to an
employee benefit may be a change in rules, a change in employee
indicative data, or any other change. In the aspect of the
invention, employee indicative data may include one or more of an
employee residential address, an employee zip code, and a union
membership.
[0035] In the aspect of the invention, the change related to an
employee benefit may also be a newly declared event.
[0036] In the aspect of the invention, calculating the impact may
be based on the received change, on the received change and the
state, or on some other factor.
[0037] In the aspect of the invention, the state may be a pending
state of a domain object. In the aspect of the invention, the
pending state may be captured in a pending delegate.
[0038] In the aspect of the invention, the state may be associated
with an effective dated domain object. In the aspect of the
invention, updating may include recording updates in a domain
object version.
[0039] In the aspect of the invention, the domain model may
comprise effective dated domain objects.
[0040] In an aspect of the invention, methods and systems for
repairing employee benefits data in a benefits administration
management domain model in accordance with various embodiments of
the present invention are provided. The aspect may include
receiving a change related to an employee benefit; calculating with
a processor an impact on portions of the domain model that include
a first state of the employee benefit; calculating with a processor
an impact on portions of the domain model that include a second
state of the employee benefit; and updating the domain model so
that the employee benefit is adjusted based on the impact.
[0041] In the aspect of the invention, updating the domain model
may include modifying a domain object representing the first or
second state of the employee benefit.
[0042] In the aspect of the invention, the change related to an
employee benefit may be a change in rules, a change in employee
indicative data, or any other change. In the aspect of the
invention, employee indicative data may include one or more of an
employee residential address, an employee zip code, and a union
membership.
[0043] In the aspect of the invention, the change related to an
employee benefit may also be a newly declared event.
[0044] In the aspect of the invention, calculating the impact may
be based on the received change, on the received change and at
least one of the first state and the second state, or on some other
factor.
[0045] In the aspect of the invention, the state may be a pending
state of a domain object. In the aspect of the invention, the
pending state may be captured in a pending delegate.
[0046] In the aspect of the invention, the state may be associated
with an effective dated domain object. In the aspect of the
invention, updating may include recording updates in a domain
object version.
[0047] In the aspect of the invention, the domain model may
comprise effective dated domain objects.
[0048] In an aspect of the invention, methods and systems for
interacting with a benefits administration platform in accordance
with various embodiments of the present invention are provided. The
aspect may include transmitting benefits information from a server
to a remote computing facility over a network; presenting the
benefits information to a user in a user interface using the
computing facility; receiving a response to the benefits
information from the user using the computing facility;
transmitting the response to the server; computing changes to the
benefits information based on the response; and updating a
server-accessible domain model of the benefits based on the
computed changes. The aspect may further include transmitting the
changes to the computing facility.
[0049] In the aspect of the invention, transmitting the benefits
information from the server to the remote computing facility may
include retrieving the benefits information from the domain model.
In the aspect of the invention, retrieving the benefits information
may be based on a user identifier provided from the web
browser.
[0050] In the aspect of the invention, the user interface may run
using ADOBE FLASH technology, the user interface may be built using
ADOBE FLEX technology, and the user may be a benefits subscriber.
In the aspect of the invention, the benefits information may
include one or more of: employee profile data, beneficiary data;
dependent data; benefit election data; benefit-related event data;
employee health data; medical benefits; dental benefits; life
insurance benefits; flexible spending account data; and employer
paid benefits. In the aspect of the invention, the benefits
subscriber may be an employee. In the aspect of the invention, the
response may impact one or more of: employee profile data,
beneficiary data; dependent data; benefit election data;
benefit-related event data; employee health data; medical benefits;
dental benefits; life insurance benefits; flexible spending account
data; and employer paid benefits.
[0051] In the aspect of the invention, the user may be a benefits
administrator. In the aspect of the invention, the benefits
information may include one or more of: enrollment transaction
trends; new hire enrollment data; employee search; event search;
enrollment status; dependent age data; census data; benefit
election data; medical benefit data; billing data; event timeline
data; and employee attribute timeline data. In the aspect of the
invention, the response may impact one or more of: employee profile
data, beneficiary data; dependent data; benefit election data;
benefit-related event data; employee health data; medical benefits;
dental benefits; life insurance benefits; flexible spending account
data; and employer paid benefits.
[0052] In the aspect of the invention, the user interface may
display an events timeline.
[0053] These and other systems, methods, objects, features, and
advantages of the present invention will be apparent to those
skilled in the art from the following detailed description of the
preferred embodiment and the drawings. All documents mentioned
herein are hereby incorporated in their entirety by reference.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES
[0054] The invention and the following detailed description of
certain embodiments thereof may be understood by reference to the
following figures:
[0055] FIG. 1 depicts diverse elements of a human resource
management platform.
[0056] FIG. 2 depicts an architecture view of the platform.
[0057] FIG. 3 depicts smart synchronization aspects of the
platform.
[0058] FIG. 4 depicts effective dating aspects of the platform.
[0059] FIG. 5 depicts group manager facilities of the platform.
[0060] FIG. 6 depicts a data independence embodiment.
[0061] FIG. 7 depicts platform reporting flows.
[0062] FIG. 8 depicts a unified human resources management
platform.
[0063] FIG. 9A depicts an employee-centric view of the unified
platform of FIG. 9A.
[0064] FIG. 9B depicts an administrator-centric view of the unified
platform of FIG. 9A.
[0065] FIG. 10 depicts a welcome screen of the benefits
administration system.
[0066] FIG. 11 depicts an employee profile screen.
[0067] FIG. 12 depicts a beneficiary maintenance screen.
[0068] FIG. 13 depicts a dependent maintenance screen.
[0069] FIG. 14 depicts a screen for wellness centre.
[0070] FIG. 15 depicts a FSA manager screen.
[0071] FIG. 16 depicts a voluntary programs screen.
[0072] FIG. 17 depicts a screen for common forms.
[0073] FIG. 18 depicts a current benefits screen.
[0074] FIG. 19 depicts a screen for declaring a life event.
[0075] FIG. 20 depicts a screen with duly filed information for a
life event declaration.
[0076] FIG. 21 depicts a welcome screen for enrollment.
[0077] FIG. 22 depicts a screen for indicating tobacco usage
[0078] FIG. 23 depicts a screen for reviewing the current
enrollment.
[0079] FIG. 24 depicts a screen for reviewing dependent
information.
[0080] FIG. 25 depicts a screen for adding a dependent.
[0081] FIG. 26 depicts a screen illustrating input data
validation
[0082] FIG. 27 depicts a screen showing added dependents.
[0083] FIG. 28 depicts a beneficiary review screen.
[0084] FIG. 29 depicts a screen for adding beneficiary
information.
[0085] FIG. 30 depicts a screen for assigning an allocation to a
beneficiary.
[0086] FIG. 31 depicts a screen for making an election for one
benefit.
[0087] FIG. 32 depicts a screen for electing medical benefits.
[0088] FIG. 33 depicts a timeline change upon election of a
coverage level.
[0089] FIG. 34 depicts a selection page for supplemental life
insurance.
[0090] FIG. 35 depicts a pending change to supplemental life
insurance.
[0091] FIG. 36 depicts a flexible spending account election
screen.
[0092] FIG. 37 depicts an employer paid benefits page.
[0093] FIG. 38 depicts a review and confirm changes page.
[0094] FIG. 39 depicts a benefit confirmation screen
[0095] FIG. 40 depicts returning to the welcome screen with a new
pending life event listed for approval.
[0096] FIG. 41 depicts various tools available to the
administrator.
[0097] FIG. 42 depicts various tools available to the
administrator, and a screen for conducting an employee search.
[0098] FIGS. 43a, 43b, 43c, and 43d depict an administrator
evidence of insurability search.
[0099] FIG. 44 depicts an administrator screen for an event
search.
[0100] FIG. 45 depicts an administrator enrollment statistics
report.
[0101] FIG. 46 depicts an administrator new hire report.
[0102] FIG. 47 depicts an administrator dependent age out
report.
[0103] FIG. 48 depicts an administrator dependent age out report
filtered according to particular criteria.
[0104] FIG. 49 depicts the status of queued census reports.
[0105] FIG. 50 depicts a customization interface for creating an
administrator census report.
[0106] FIG. 51 depicts an administrator output file statistics
report.
[0107] FIG. 52 depicts an administrator output file count
report.
[0108] FIG. 53 depicts an administrator report for input file
search.
[0109] FIG. 54 depicts an administrator enrollment transaction
report.
[0110] FIG. 55 depicts an administrator enrollment transaction
report in form of a chart.
[0111] FIG. 56 depicts an administrator benefit election summary
report.
[0112] FIG. 57 depicts an administrator plan migration report.
[0113] FIG. 58 depicts an administrator interface for creating an
ad hoc report.
[0114] FIG. 59 depicts a screen for ad hoc report management by an
administrator.
[0115] FIG. 60 depicts an administrator access to historical
premium billing reports by month.
[0116] FIG. 61 depicts an audit screen of all transaction, events,
and elections for a subscriber.
[0117] FIG. 62 depicts election changes that occurred at a
particular event.
[0118] FIG. 63 depicts an audit timeline view
[0119] FIG. 64 depicts a screen for annual enrollment.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0120] A human resource management platform may include a
centralized domain model where application logic comes together in
one place; a deep and mature configuration model that provides
extensive configurability; a unique design for groups and
hierarchies that facilitates leveraging them for natural and
efficient rule distribution; smart synchronization features to
facilitate loading bulk data and recomputing ramifications of
changes detected in the data; data independence and pending world
features that allow the platform to maintain independent data sets
pertaining to the same core entity or organization concurrently
while allowing a wide range of data update options; an effective
dating framework that may facilitate accurately maintaining
chronological states of the platform and its associated data in the
past, present, and future at the same time; high-performance,
scalable, and enterprise-class support; and many other features and
capabilities as described herein.
[0121] The platform may include domain driven design features that
may be well suited to a scalable product family that can be readily
tailored to a variety of client needs. Business logic may be
centrally located in the domain model, which may form an
object-oriented backbone to the platform.
[0122] The platform may include a deep configuration model that may
provide rich model-based configuration capabilities that can be
prepared externally and loaded into the platform to handle a wide
range of requirements from clients. The configuration model may
include configuring values, structures, scripted functionality, and
the like.
[0123] The platform may provide a rich user experience through an
intuitive and interactive user interface that is centered on the
user's experience, using a combination of textual and graphical
means to present information relevant to the user's job.
[0124] The platform may be scalable to support any size population
and feature set from very small to very large. The platform may
support deployments of 400,000 users or more. Feature sets may be
expanded to meet requirements that fall outside the bounds of the
deep configuration model capabilities.
[0125] Applications in human resource management must have high
volume file processing capabilities. Information for which a client
is the system of record may be regularly loaded through full file
processing, and information derived within the platform 100 must be
sent to various parties in formats that they require. Therefore,
the platform may be open to integration with other systems and
facilities in areas such as specialized decision support tools,
supplying data feeds, receiving data, and the like. Integration may
be provided through front and back end integration points, flexible
input and output file mapping capabilities, and the like.
[0126] The platform 100 may support third party integration to
facilitate bringing together the best content and user experience
to solve human resource management challenges. The platform 100 may
present several mechanisms for integrating third parties into the
system, providing a seamless experience to the end user, including:
linking to remote content--a user interface can be easily tailored
to provide context-sensitive links to content provided by a client
or third party; accessing local content--certain content may be
accessed from within a firewall or through a server, such as for
security purposes. The user interface can be tailored with internal
content links to provide internal content; consuming web
services--the platform 100 contains web service integration support
that enables applications to consume web services from third
parties. In an example, users may be directed to third party
control, with connections initiated and results obtained through
web services; publishing web services--third party tools may also
use portions of application functionality provided by web services
that can be published by the platform 100 or by a provider of the
platform 100. In an example, publishing web services may be used
for real-time data synchronization by clients or for information
queries and updates by internal tools; data import and export--the
platform 100 may support batch loading of full updated files from
clients, and export of files formatted for specific recipients.
[0127] Because human capital management operation can be very
complex, with a variety of special cases, and seemingly ad hoc
rules that must be followed, users may be subjected to software in
this space that reflects that complexity in its user interfaces and
support requirements. In contrast, the platform is designed to
control substantially all of the complexity through a high degree
of automation for client feature development, production code
generation, specialized tools creation, and product build and
deployment processes.
[0128] Referring to FIG. 1 which depicts various elements that may
be associated with embodiments of the human resource management
platform 100, platform features 102 may include a domain model that
may include business logic, an effective dating framework, database
update or synchronization capabilities, smart synchronization
facilities for updating data and the domain model in the database
with enterprise business system data, deep configuration features,
group manager features, data independence functionality, workflows,
and the like. The platform 100 may also be associated with business
applications 104 such as performance driven compensation
applications, compensation planning applications that supports both
in-cycle (focal) and out-of-cycle planning, benefits applications
that can be used by employees, human resource administrators, and
third parties, employee and manager self service applications,
performance planning, appraisal, and feedback applications that
support input from employees, co-workers, and managers, and other
business applications as may be described herein or may be
envisioned or needed for effective use of the human resource
management platform. The platform 100 may be associated with a user
interface that may provide alert capabilities, access security, and
a wide variety of user interface screens, such as those associated
with each of the business applications 104. The platform 100 maybe
associated with various technologies 110 that may be used for
development, deployment, operation, maintenance, upgrade, and the
like. Platform technologies 110 may include open source software,
domain driven design, JBOSS HIBERNATE, ECLIPSE, JAVA, JMX, ADOBE
FLASH, ADOBE FLEX, TAPESTRY, JASPER, DOJO, SOAP, AJAX, XML, and the
like. The platform 100 may be associated with and support external
interfaces 112 such as business system data sources, external
application linking and integration, web services, input file
processing and compliance checking, change publication services,
reporting, and the like. The platform 100 may include or be
associated with one or more databases 114 that may provide
persistence of data and access to input data and derived data
including the domain model. The platform 100 may be associated with
users 118 that may include line managers, group managers, human
resource administrators, various other corporate roles, information
technology specialists, employees, third parties, and the like. The
platform 100 may be deployable in a wide variety of markets 120,
some of which may include large entities. Markets may include
aerospace and defense, banking, business services, capital goods,
chemicals, conglomerates, construction, consumer goods, diversified
financials, drugs and bio technologies, food, beverage, and tobacco
businesses, health care, hotel service, travel and leisure
services, insurance, materials, oil and gas production and
distribution, retailing, semiconductors, telecommunications,
transportation, utilities, and the like. The platform 100 may be
associated with and may beneficially support business services 122
such as planning, management, financial approval, payroll,
employee-related analysis, event processing, reporting
requirements, business system configuration, business logic
realization, secure employee data access, workflows, and the like.
The platform 100 may also be associated with deployment 124 that
may facilitate hosting, licensing, web browser integration, thin
client deployment, server-based deployment, virtual computing,
virtual data warehousing, and the like.
[0129] Referring to FIG. 2, a functionality view of the platform
100, the platform 100 may include a presentation layer 202, a
business logic layer 204, and a persistence layer 208. The
presentation layer 202 may facilitate user access through a
web-based interface that may be almost entirely implemented in
ADOBE FLEX, running in the user's web browser, and communicating to
a platform server through an SSL connection. The user may interact
with the platform 100 over a secure connection, and may be
authenticated via single sign-on to use the platform either through
a third party security portal or through a login screen associated
with the platform 100. Functionality and visibility to certain data
may be restricted from the user due to platform 100 authorization
rules. Administrators may get access to additional functionality
and visibility of additional data, which may include access to
workflow results, historical and auditing information. Other
portions of the platform may provide services to the presentation
layer 202 through which users access the services and functionality
of the platform 100. The presentation layer 202 may also include
HTML capabilities, provide support for a reporting mechanism (e.g.
Jasper reporting or other equivalent reporting mechanisms), provide
PDF formatted documents, and the like.
[0130] The platform 100 may provide a business logic layer 204 that
generally can be understood to be a middle tier in the product
architecture where substantially all of the application logic is
disposed. A rich object model, which may be stored on a server,
interacts with the presentation layer 202, computes implications of
data input to the platform, and may store itself in a database that
may be part of a persistence layer 208. Configuration loaded into
the platform creates and modifies objects, and web services may be
published or consumed to provide a communication path with the
model to outside partners. Application components build on this
model, adding capabilities such as succession, performance,
compensation, benefits administration, and the like.
[0131] The platform 100 may provide a persistence layer 208 that
may be largely automated in the platform, with an object-relational
mapping strategy for synchronizing a database and an in-memory
model using database synchronization software such as JBoss
Hibernate. As described herein, the platform may include an
effective dating framework that may be automated with this layer.
The database that is accessed through the persistence layer 208 may
contain no business logic so that it can provide a fast storage and
query response for objects in the model. The persistence layer 208
may include denormalized representations of portions of the
database to support analytics, reporting, and the like. The
persistence layer 208 also implements some security aspects and
provides a basis for fast data loading and separation of data
sets.
[0132] The human resource management platform 100 may provide
facilities for updating the object model and database based on data
received from external business systems, such as financial,
organizational, legal, and the like. Generally, human resource
management systems rely on data captured and managed in external
business systems that may be used for strategic and operational
purposes by businesses. External data may include insurance,
benefit programs, and the like from third parties. The platform 100
provides smart synchronization facilities that enable bulk loading
of data from these systems on a regular basis while providing rules
driven, time efficient automatic updating of the data and model
content used by the platform 100. Smart synchronization may support
various computing environments, such as parallel processing or
distributed computing architectures to benefit updating data in
deployments of the platform in large organizations (e.g. utility
companies with more than one hundred thousand employees, large
numbers of transactions, and the like).
[0133] Referring to FIG. 3, which depicts a smart synchronization
facility 300 of the platform 100, bulk loading of data may benefit
the various business applications supported by the platform 100
such as performance driven compensation and benefits
administration. Smart synchronization 300 may provide capabilities
to bring the bulk data into the platform 100 rapidly and upload the
model/database quickly. Smart synchronization 300 also supports
data that is effective dated and may support receiving data in
industry standard formats (HRXML and other consortium formats).
Although data received and processed through smart synchronization
300 eventually results in a database update, changes are applied to
the object model and the updated object model elements are
persisted in the database through a bulk database update
process.
[0134] The smart synchronization facilities 300 may be designed as
a pipeline architecture with a series of transformations that
convert raw business data 302 into object data 308 using handlers
304. The object data 308 is validated for errors and the like (e.g.
raw data 302 contains 200 job descriptions, yet the current model
holds 10,000 job descriptions). The validated object data is then
reconciled 312 with the current model data 320 to determine
differences, such as changes in salary, new employees, new jobs,
organizational changes, and the like. The changes may be provided
to a recomputation engine 314 that recomputes all derived model
data, taking into consideration the changes provided by the
reconcile process 312. As the object data in the model is updated
through the recomputation process 314, it may be organized into
groups of like database transactions to improve the efficiency of
these updates. In an example, if an organization of 7,000 employees
is moved in an organizational hierarchy, the hierarchy link of each
of these employees may be grouped and forwarded to the database
update engine 318 to improve the efficiency of the update. When all
derived model data is recomputed through the recomputation engine
314 and the model data is persisted in the database through the
update facility 318, the object model and database now references
the updated model and database 322.
[0135] Portions of smart synchronization 300 may be implemented as
a pipeline to support operation on separate processors, servers,
and the like. This may be facilitated by the inherent separation of
employee data. While the types of data required for each employee
may be the same, the information is very unique and can be
processed independently. Similarly, although data and formulas for
processing data for a business application such as performance
driven compensation may be different when compared to processing
data for benefits administration, the main smart synchronization
steps and algorithms may be the same. Smart synchronization 300 may
be similar to and/or may be used to implement coverage repair in a
benefits administration business application. This is further
described in the benefits administration application
specification.
[0136] Smart synchronization 300 may also be embodied as a rules
engine that allows a company to decide how data in the platform 100
reacts to changes in the data that is sent into the platform 100 on
a regular basis such as from various other business systems.
[0137] Smart synchronization 300 may operate in parallel on any
plurality of instances of the current model 320 as may be required
with data independence described herein elsewhere.
[0138] Smart synchronization 300 also supports a full audit trail
of all changes made, which may be important for regulatory
compliance and other change verification processes.
[0139] Because smart synchronization 300 recomputes all derived
data, planned changes that are recorded in the platform 100 and are
not yet effective in the current model 320, but will be effective
at a future point in time, if a data item that impacts these
planned changes is received, the computations that affect the
planned change will automatically be executed. In an example, if a
manager has entered plans for merit increases for eight of her
employees and the external business data indicates that one of
these employees is to be transferred to another manager before the
merit increase is to be effective, smart synchronization 300 will
detect this employee change and compute the data necessary to
support the planned employee transfer and the planned merit
increases. Changes may include: moving an employee compensation
budget from the first manager to the second manager; ensuring that
any pending authorization workflows for the merit increase are
moved to the role responsible for authorizing merit increases for
the second manager; adjusting other aspects of the employee
compensation (e.g. bonus) based on the department rules of the
second manager, and the like. In this way, the updated model 322
reflects these planned changes so that each manager can see how the
planned changes will impact their departments in the future.
[0140] Recomputation of derived data may be required because all of
the budgets, guidelines, workflows, and the like may be configured
into the platform 100 but may not be inherent in the external
business systems. Therefore, any given change made outside the
platform 100 (ex: an employee is hired, transferred, fired, quits,
etc) and input to the platform 100 for synchronization has no way
of knowing what the downstream impact to other parts of the
platform 100 will be. This automatic recomputation allows managers
and administrators to focus on the business of the specific change
(dealing with an employee resignation) rather than the complexities
of the impact of the change to the platform 100.
[0141] Smart synchronization 300 may include separating external
business data 302 into separate files or categories of data, such
as data that relates to jobs, salary, employees, groups, workflow
approvers, and the like. Alternatively the data may already be
separated into individual files, such as a job file, an employee
file, and the like. Each file or category of data may be processed
separately, which may further improve the efficiency of the
synchronization process.
[0142] The reconcile process 312 may infer a deletion or a change
of an item based on a comparison of the raw business data 302 and
the current model 320. Using an example of a job description, the
reconciliation process 312 may compare each existing job with the
jobs in the job data input file; determine what is new, what has
changed, and what has been removed. In this example each job may be
assigned a unique identifier. If the unique identifier in the input
data 302 matches to a job in the current model 320, then
reconciliation 312 determines if the job data has changed by
comparing the input job data to the current model job data. If the
unique identifier in the input data 302 does not exist in the
current model 320, the input data job is flagged as a new job to be
added during the recomputation process 314. If one or more unique
job identifiers in the current model 320 is not found in the input
data, then these jobs in the current model 320 are tagged as to be
deleted. The job is not directly deleted because it may be used or
referenced elsewhere in the platform 100. Although the platform 100
does not receive a `delete job` action, smart synchronization 300
infers that an entry in the platform 100 that is not included in
the current job input file is to be removed. An item that is tagged
to be deleted may result in the recompute process 314 archiving the
job to ensure proper traceability for regulatory and governance
compliance.
[0143] The platform 100 is scalable to facilitate support of
entities with very high employee counts. Entities with upwards of
400,000 employees can be supported by the platform 100. Smart
synchronization 300 facilitates scalability through memory
management techniques that may include using caching and pagination
to perform the synchronization process on large model elements with
a reasonable amount of memory. Because of the widely diverse impact
of a change that relates to employee groups that are defined and/or
maintained within the platform through the group manager
functionality (described elsewhere herein), recomputation 314
requires very large amounts of data to be available for processing.
One memory management technique used includes keying input data
with a natural key (e.g. social security number for employee,
hierarchy key for a group, and the like). The natural key may be
used in conjunction with the individual object model element unique
identifier to cache relevant data so that the recomputation
processing 314 can be executed very efficiently.
[0144] Smart synchronization 300 includes an update facility 318
that persists the recomputed model data to produce the updated
model and database 322. As described herein, techniques to make
this update process efficient include, among other techniques,
grouping like database transactions together into a single update
request. Even if calculations are simple, due to the large quantity
of calculations and database changes required each time that smart
synchronization 300 is performed the data to be updated is ordered
to facilitate batching the update requests.
[0145] In an example, a database update tool, such as HIBERNATE may
be used because it supports efficient batching of requests. With
HIBERNATE, the platform 100 may accumulate a large number of
updates (e.g. 10,000) into a single request rather than issuing
10,000 individual requests. Batching is also used when data is read
out of the database for reconciliation 312 or recomputation 314 so
that fewer transaction requests must be processed during the smart
synchronization process 300.
[0146] Smart synchronization 300 may also include handlers 304 that
may operate in a pipeline or may themselves be composed of a
pipeline of data processing sections. The organization, order, and
features of the handlers 304 may be configured as part of a build
time configuration process. This handler 304 customization may
allow receiving data that is unique for a deployment of the
platform 100 (e.g. adding or handling a special job code). Although
handlers 304 are generally ordered to process data from the most
generic (e.g. jobs) to the more specific (e.g. groups), the order
of the handlers can be changed so that a group handler 304A may be
executed before or after a job handler 304B. Handlers 304 can
execute a wide variety of tasks, such as to copy data, check a
length of description, and the like. Configuring handlers 304 may
be performed with an interface coded using Java.
[0147] Effective dating is a strategy for managing data that
changes over time. Traditional data processing takes place in the
present, and results are stored from now until they are changed in
the future. With effective dating, you can set the effective date
to a date or date range, and read data as it was (or is projected
to be), or write data for the present, past or future. Most
effective dating designs fail due to poor performance or overly
complex logic, passing dates and date ranges throughout the code
and obscuring the business logic. The platform 100 includes a
sophisticated layer that separates dates from the application logic
and manages effective dates deep in the architecture outside of
application logic, keeping the logic itself simple. For certain
business applications supported by the platform 100, effective
dating is fundamental. For example, in benefits administration,
benefits eligibility, plan changes, coverage effective dates,
pending coverage and events all occur at various times, making it
difficult to keep track of the benefits and costs associated with
employees at any time. The platform 100 provides tools to create an
effective dated model implementation and persistence layer. This
unique capability provides a scriptable, simple point-in-time
programming model to developers, for customizations, and scripted
configuration. It also effective dates a configuration of the
platform 100 itself, so that changes in configuration can be
scheduled to take effect at some point in the future, or
retroactively in the past. Automation and layering may be
techniques that make this successful. The effective dating
framework also has a built-in capability referred to as pending
worlds which allows a type of long-lived transaction. Unlike a true
transaction, however, it is not totally isolated. Rather, it is a
branching strategy that allows write-through from the main
non-pending world. This allows live what-if scenarios that are
automatically updated when non-pending information is changed that
may affect the pending world. For example, in benefits
administration, if an employee declares a birth event, a new
pending world is created where the new dependent and any elections
are stored until the event is approved. If a subsequent plan
changes affects eligibility or changes rates, the benefits in both
the pending and non-pending worlds will be updated accordingly.
[0148] Referring now to FIG. 4, which depicts a simplified
embodiment of effective dating, effective dating 400 may enable
changes made to each domain object 404 to be associated with an
effective date 402 and with a generation 408. Tracking of changes
to domain objects may be supported with a two dimensional effective
dating mechanism. When placed on an X-Y chart, as shown in FIG. 4,
the X axis may represent an effective date time line and the Y axis
may represent generations of an object. Within each object
generation 408 (each `value` of Y), each
effective-date-differentiated version of the object is tracked
based on effective dates known when the object generation is saved
(e.g. when it is persisted in the persistence layer). The current
object generation (indicated by its Y value) includes the previous
object generation effective dated object versions, plus additional
changes introduced since the previous object generation was saved.
Once the current object generation is saved, any further changes
that impact the object will be applied to a new object generation
(indicated by a new Y value) that starts out as a clean copy of the
most recently saved object generation.
[0149] Each version of a domain object has an effective date that
may include an effective `from` date and an effective `to` date to
allow selective access of a version of the object based on this
effective date range.
[0150] FIG. 4 includes three object generations, generation 1
(408A), generation 2 (408B), and generation 3 (408C). In the
simplified example of FIG. 4, generation 1 includes one version of
the object 404 with effective dates 10/1/08 to all time. Generation
2 includes a copy 404A of the object 404 from generation 1 with
effective dates adjusted to Oct. 1, 2008 to Jun. 30, 2009 and a
second version 410 of the copy 404A that includes certain changes
and has effective dates Jul. 1, 2009 to all time. Generation 3
includes a copy of object version 404A, a copy 410A of object
version 410 with adjusted effective dates Jul. 1, 2009 to Oct. 3,
2009, and an updated version 412 of the object version 410A that
includes certain changes and an effective date of Nov. 1, 2009 to
all time.
[0151] In the example of FIG. 4, when the change in the number of
dependents from 2 to 3 is entered, the generation 1 object version
404 is saved and a copy 404A of the generation 1 object version is
allocated to generation 2. The effective `to` date of the object
version 404A is set based on the `from` effective date of the
number of dependents change. A copy 410 of object version 404A is
created in generation 2, the dependent changes are made to it and
it is effective dated so that there is no gap between the 404A
version and the 410 version of the object.
[0152] Once generation 2 is saved to the database, a subsequent
object change (in this example an address change) is applied to a
new generation (generation 3) of the object. Generation 3 starts as
a copy of generation 2 and includes object version 404A and a copy
410A of object version 410 with an adjusted effective `to` date
based on the effective date of the address change. The object
version 410A is copied to a new object version 412, the address
change is applied and the effective dates are set.
[0153] Although the example of FIG. 4 is a simplified example of
effective dating, the order of changes could be different and the
end result would be the same. If in the example the 408C change
occurred first (with an effective date of 11/1) and then in a next
generation the 408B change occurred (with an effective date of 7/1)
the changes would result in the same final generation because the
platform 100 allow updates to be applied in any effective dating
order.
[0154] Execution instances of a business application (e.g.
compensation quarterly planning) may be associated with a target
date that may represent the calendar date for which the business
application is being executed. In an example of how a target date
may be interpreted by an object to provide the data effective on
the target date, generation 3 of FIG. 4 represents an object being
queried. An instance of a business application associated with a
target date of Jun. 1, 2009 will access information from object
version 404A because Jun. 1, 2009 falls within the effective date
range Oct. 1, 2008 to Jun. 30, 2009 of version 404A. This includes
the user name, social security number, address of 123 Main St, and
dependent count of 2. A business application being executed with a
Sep. 1, 2009 target date will access object version 410A which
includes the user name, social security number, address of 123 Main
St, and dependent count of 3. An instance of a business application
being executed with a target date of Nov. 1, 2009 will access
version 412 which includes the user name, social security number,
address of 4 Eagle St, and dependent count of 3. This example is
specifically simplified to show how effective dating 400 may be
used by business applications in the platform 100. Note that all
this is operating on the latest generation--that is, updated with
the latest information and further including all values that were
in effect in any domain object version. Generally, only an
administrator inspecting auditing information and selected reports
may look at older domain object generations. However, the entire
platform 100 can operate with a target date set to any previous
date in such a way that the platform 100 would read from the
earlier generation that was available at that target date.
[0155] An objective of effective dating may be to support
point-in-time simplicity in the platform 100 that allows selecting
a target date similarly to setting a clock to a particular
date/time and getting access to only the information effective at
the set date/time. The business applications operate based on the
target date so that an applications programmer does not need to
create any logic to determine which entry to use; the underlying
platform provides the correct data. Effective dating 400 allows for
an application to identify a particular time and access to the data
is implemented by the platform below the business application/logic
layer, but above the database. Effective dating 400 may be
different from prior attempts that created separate database tables
for different times. The prior attempts generally do not perform
well on large databases, do not support bulk data loading, and do
not support using data caching for updates. One embodiment
indicates that a future state is kept in a separate table that is
copied to a currently active model shortly after midnight to bring
the current model to the current (no longer future) state. While
this may be effective, it may not meet the performance requirements
of large enterprise-class deployments. Other prior attempts at
effective dating included creating separate tables or change tables
and then pass dates throughout the business applications to try to
figure out what a state of an object was at a specific date. This
puts an onerous burden on a programmer and makes the application
code significantly more complex and brittle. These differences may
substantially improve the value and effectiveness of using
effective dating 400.
[0156] A benefits administration business application executing in
association with the platform 100 may use the effective dating
mechanism 400 described above to provide the `point-in-time`
simplicity within the application to deal with events in each
subscriber's life that affects benefits. Application logic in the
application may control the target time so that it becomes the
context that all objects implicitly reference to provide data from
the version that has an effective date that includes the target
time. The application controlled target time can be in the past,
present, or future.
[0157] Effective dating 400 may facilitate making a record of
events and changes over time. Effective dating 400 can also be used
to infer events. In an example, if a change in an employee's
address is detected in the raw input business data, an employee
move event that occurred effective with the date that the new
address was introduced to the platform 100 may be inferred from the
data change. Effective dating 400 may be applied to dates
themselves, providing a record of changes to dates. In an example,
correcting an employee hire date may create two hire dates for the
employee, one in effect up until the correction was made, and the
other in effect after the correction. Therefore, an accrual that is
dependent on an employee start date can be automatically corrected
when the system performs coverage repair based on the new hire
date. Coverage repair is a process used in the benefits
administration application for reconciling effective dated data
changes introduced into the system with business rules in effect
during that time. The configuration model that has all the rules of
the objects is also effective dated so we can access the rules
(model definition) with an effective date.
[0158] In an example of effective dating used in a benefits
administration management business application, an object may
include a current salary of an employee. The employee's manager may
enter a change to the employee salary with an effective `from` date
in the future (a planned salary change). This change may trigger an
automatic function that processes object versions and generations
as described above. Queries of the model that include a date
request that is before planned salary change `from` date will
reflect the current employee salary. Queries of the model that
include a date request that is on or after the future effective
date of the planned salary change will reflect the planned
salary.
[0159] Changes to an object (e.g. an employee changes his address)
may also affect all versions of the object with a future `from`
effective date. This ensures that when the version of the object
with the future `from` effective date is accessed, the data
provided from the object includes all changes made prior to the
`from` effective date that are still pertinent. Further in the
planned salary change example described above, after the manager
enters the planned salary change, the employee changes his
residential address. This change may result in creating a new
generation of the object that includes a new version of the object
that has a `from` effective date based on the date the employee
moves. This change will also result in updating the employee
residential address contained in the version of the object that
reflects the planned salary change. Therefore, when the planned
salary change object becomes effective, the updated employee
residential address will be present in the model.
[0160] Effective dating 400 may be based on an effective dating
framework that can be applied to any standard object model design.
A compile-time effective dating frame work tool may be used to
create an effective dated model from any object model such as
object oriented designs, classes, states, and the like. The
compile-time effective dating tool may be executed against a
client-specific adaptation of the domain model to make objects time
sensitive. Effective dating 400 as used within the platform 100
facilitates supporting time tracking at a low level that is
separate from the object model and therefore allowing applications
to retrieve database state data from different time spaces without
having to carry any time dependencies into the object API in the
application layer.
[0161] Effective dating 400 may also facilitate auditing. While
conventionally, auditing is based on keeping track of all changes
through some sort of audit table (e.g. tracking who made a change,
etc) to ensure meeting regulations, the effective dating 400
framework allows each object to manage its own history and allow a
view of the system at any point in time. Because all changes are
effective dated, the platform 100 offers many layers of state that
can be rolled back for auditing or any other purpose. Such complete
and independent auditing is not necessarily inherent in any other
domain model-based environment.
[0162] Data being imported or exported can be effective dated.
Exported data may include effective dates represented as portions
of a record for use by third parties such as insurance providers.
When data from external business systems is input, such as with
smart synchronization 300, if there is no date information
associated with records that can be used to generate the effective
date, the date of first synchronization of the data records may be
considered the effective date. Smart synchronization 300 may be
configured to recognize a date that is associated with an input
record that is to be used to generate an effective date for the
entry.
[0163] The platform may support managing employees within groups
and hierarchies to facilitate hierarchical management of
compensation, performance, benefits, and other human resource
related activities. Hierarchies may be applied to data structure,
creation, organization, and the like in performance and
compensation planning and management. The platform may facilitate
organizing employees into groups and/or hierarchies that may mirror
the reporting and functional groups and hierarchies of the entity.
The performance and/or compensation hierarchy may include aspects
of the functional hierarchy of a company, while including aspects
that are independent of the functional hierarchy. The performance
and/or compensation hierarchy may include adaptations or
modifications of functional hierarchies of an organization. In an
example, a functional hierarchy may identify directors as higher in
the hierarchy than senior managers. However, a compensation
hierarchy may place experienced senior managers and junior
directors at the same level in the hierarchy. In this way, senior
managers, who may be performing many director levels
responsibilities, may be evaluated for compensation similarly to
junior directors. An example of this is long-term incentive awards
which are usually awarded to managers only by senior directors or
executives. Alternatively, the compensation hierarchy may be
independent of a reporting or functional hierarchy. In an example,
all directors, independent of their reporting or functional
hierarchy in the business may share a common hierarchy level which
may be related in a compensation hierarchy to all senior managers
who share a different hierarchy level. An organization with
geographically diverse business units and even different languages
may find relating directors from a first region and senior managers
from a second region provides a more competitive compensation
offering. Organizing the compensation of a large business in a
compensation hierarchy may allow visibility to compensation factor
differences between different business units.
[0164] The human resources management platform 100 may also provide
group management facilities that allow for managing hierarchies
within the platform that may be different from organizational and
reporting hierarchies that may be represented in business system
data input to the platform. Matrix management may be represented in
the platform 100 so that an employee who has business-line
reporting to a first manager and is working on a project that is
under the management responsibility of a second manager, may be
grouped with the other project members under the second manager.
Although a business system view of this employee may show the
employee working directly for the first manager, a performance and
compensation view may be adjusted to show this employee in a group
managed by the second manager. Group management facilities provide
benefits to users of the platform 100 that include not needing to
create complex conversion software programs that adjust the
business group view to the matrix group view so that a compensation
planning system can accommodate matrix management.
[0165] Referring to FIG. 5, that depicts a functional view of group
manager facilities operating within the platform 100, enterprise
business system data 302 may include line management grouping or
hierarchies as shown. In the example of FIG. 5, a first line
manager manages five employees--A, B, C, D, and E. A second line
manager manages four employees--W, X, Y, and Z. In the example,
each employee is currently assigned to work on one of two projects,
project 1 and project 2. When this business system data 302 is
supplied to the platform 100, the group manager 502 may be
configured through configuration input 504 to detect each
employee's project assignment as a natural key for grouping. The
five employees of the first manager and the four employees of the
second manager may be grouped into two groups within the platform
100: group one 508 that may include employees A, C, E, and Y who
are associated with project 1; and group two 510 that may include
employees B, D, W, X, and Z who are associated with project 2.
Through this simplified example, an embodiment of the group manager
502 is used to organize employees into groups other than those
known and represented in the enterprise business system data
302.
[0166] Group manager 502 may be associated with smart
synchronization 300 in that the data that is processed through the
smart synchronization process may include grouping through group
manager 502. Group manager can be used to define a specific
hierarchy to control how the data being received from the external
business systems 302 impacts groups that are defined through group
manager 502. Group manager 502, when combined with smart
synchronization 300 may also facilitate avoiding the creation and
support of complex software that modifies data extracted from the
business system 302 so that certain changes in the data only impact
members of a work group. In an example, if a bonus program for
employees working on project 1 is changed, either the individual
managers have to maintain the data manually for each project 1
employee or special export software must be used adjust the bonus
for each employee working on project 1 as the data is transferred
from the business system to the platform 100. The group manager 502
significantly benefits human resource administrators and managers
so that data can be handled in groups that they define, rather than
wrangling with data in the business system to overcome its
limitations.
[0167] The group manager 502 allows for specific assignment of an
employee to a group. However, the group manger 502 also allows
criteria based employee and functional department grouping. Users
of the group manager 502 may identify certain criteria, such as
project assignment as a definition for group membership. In this
way, by identifying an attribute associated with employees (e.g.
employees with currently vested stock options, sales people,
non-exempt employees, and the like), a group of these employees may
be defined within the platform 100. Business applications, such as
a performance driven compensation application may use these
criteria defined groups to apply rules, perform processing and the
like. In an example, a bonus plan may be established for non-exempt
employees. By grouping employees by this criteria (non-exempt
status), the bonus plan can be automatically applied to only
non-exempt employees in all departments.
[0168] The platform 100 may support data independence techniques
that may allow independent update of parts of the model, such as
those parts that correspond to compensation or performance plans.
In an example, one planning session may require a freeze on the
reporting hierarchy while another planning session uses a
continuously updated hierarchy. Data independence may also
facilitate an alternate state of the whole model that allows
modeling, "what-if" scenarios, and the like.
[0169] Separate datasets, also referred to herein as shadow
datasets or shadow models may be created through the data
independence framework for specific application needs, such as
salary or benefits planning Each dataset may include rules that
control which objects or data elements may be updated as
information is provided to the platform from external business
systems. A shadow of the entire model may also be created. Each
data set starts with a copy of the current model, but may be
configured to stop receiving updates after some date, while the
current data set continues to always reflect the latest data
loads.
[0170] A performance-driven compensation application of the
platform 100 may access a current dataset. The current dataset
contains objects that reflect the latest information provided by
the external business systems. Because external business systems
provide data from a snapshot in time (e.g. "today") the current
dataset reflects that snapshot. The current dataset can be thought
of as simply a dataset that does not filter any changes resulting
from an update of data from the external business systems. The
current dataset may have no notion of what may have existed in the
dataset before an update and there is no notion of pending or
future changes.
[0171] Data independence may allow each dataset to be configured to
allow specific updates and to prevent (freeze out) others through
an update filter configuration feature. Because each data set is
updated based on its update filter configuration, some data sets
freeze all information, rejecting anything new, while others may
reject all updates, or accept only certain types of information
changes. Datasets can be configured with filters that only allow
the updates that the filters are configured to allow, while holding
all of the other data in the dataset frozen.
[0172] The current dataset may be a reference copy of the latest
data that may be stored elsewhere in the model, such as in other
datasets. Alternatively, the current data set may be a logical
representation of the model based on using the current date to
access an appropriate version of each object in the model based on
the effective dating mechanism described herein.
[0173] Referring to FIG. 6 which depicts how data independence may
be used advantageously by business applications of the platform
100, a shadow model may be established when data independence is
required for a particular purpose, such as compensation planning
FIG. 6 depicts the domain model on the left side and the data
independent shadow model on the right side of the figure. Three
instances of the domain model and the shadow model are shown:
instance A, B, and C. Instance A represents the domain and shadow
models when the shadow model is established to support a
compensation planning session. A change is introduced into the
platform that may impact the data in the domain model and in the
shadow model. The change introduced is a new address for an
employee. The result of processing this change is shown in instance
B of the domain model and the shadow model. In both the domain and
the shadow model the change may be implemented because this piece
of data is determined to not be relevant to the compensation
planning session. A second change is introduced. The second change
is a change of the department of the employee. Because this change
is relevant to the compensation planning session, it is implemented
in the domain model but it is frozen out of the shadow model so
that the compensation planning session can proceed without the
change causing undesirable results. The impact of the second change
is depicted in instance C in which the department change is made to
the domain model but not to the shadow model.
[0174] A user of the platform 100 may have reasons to want to have
different sets of data available to their employees and managers
for various business application tasks. A focal-based compensation
planning session may require data that is updated differently (or
not at all) than data for an off-cycle based compensation planning
session. Focal-based planning is done at a focal-point in time may
involve looking at data across a static population--the populate in
the organization at the time the focal-based plan is being
prepared). Off-cycle compensation planning is generally dominated
by making changes based on current manager input, so currently
updated data (rather than data frozen in time) may be required. To
support both of these needs, data independence facilitates
effectively stopping the updating of data for any group defined in
the platform 100. In one embodiment, data independence establishes
the shadow model by making a copy of domain model data that a
manager needs to run an application (e.g. comp planning) and
freezing out any subsequent changes to that copy of the data. By
freezing the data for the specific purpose, other uses (e.g.
off-cycle) or other focal-point activities can make and see data
changes made after data is frozen. At some point a user may want to
open up the frozen data and update or not update the data. However,
all changes made since the data was frozen may be implemented. The
manager who requested the data to be frozen may not be able to
choose which changes to allow.
[0175] The platform 100 may include pending state and pending world
features that may be useful to a benefits administration
application because today's decisions (e.g. an election of
benefits) may result in a pending state, which includes pending
approvals (e.g. changes are entered but are conditional and
therefore do not take effect until they are approved). A pending
state could also be a declaration of a new dependent, which may
require approval or simply an election which cannot take effect
until evidence of qualification is received. Because the changes
are conditional until approved, they are independent from the
`current state of the model` until the change is approved and
effective. Therefore, pending states can be created in the platform
so that the pending data is not used in activities before the
pending data is approved, such as sending data to the suppliers of
these benefits. Another purpose of the pending world is to maintain
a complete and up-to-date view of the model that would be in effect
if all the pending state were approved, as the user may expect it
to be once all the conditions are met.
[0176] Changes may be introduced while the pending state is still
outstanding. Subsequent changes that do not require approval may be
implemented during the interval of time between when the election
or change is entered and the approval is finalized. Therefore the
platform 100 supports updating both the current object and the
pending state so that changes that are not pended are made during
the pending event. To support pending events and a pending world of
pending events, an automated function may be executed during
compilation of the software to be deployed for a client
installation. This automated function may detect model classes that
require a pending event state and may configure these classes to
hold the pending event information when it is entered. In this way
the current domain model or the pending events can be accessed
based on a set of rules rather than requiring a pending identifier
to be accessed during run time or needing to switch between a
pending object and a current domain object.
[0177] In particular, each object may be associated with pending
events. An object may be configured to have a pending state that is
maintained in a pending delegate which is accessible through the
object based on an assertion of the pending state within a business
application. A pending delegate may be a copy of an object that
includes changes to elements of the object that are not yet
approved (i.e.: pending changes). In an example, when an employee
makes a first pending decision, a pending world is created for that
employee, and each object changed as a result of that pending
decision maintains those changes in its pending delegate. The
pending world is asserted by the application when functioning on
behalf of an employee who has pending state at that time. A pending
delegate is maintained in parallel with the object so that all
non-pending changes are implemented in the object and its pending
delegate. If and when a pending change is approved, the approved
change is applied to the object through the object change process
described in reference to the effective dating framework described
here, thus ensuring that all dependencies of the change are made
within the object and within the model. The information in the
pending delegate that has been approved is no longer pending, so if
there are no other pending changes in the pending delegate, the
pending delegate may be marked as deleted from that time forward.
If there are additional pending changes in the pending delegate,
the pending delegate remains alive until all pending changes are
either approved or denied, at which point that pending world can be
discarded. If the pending change is denied approval, it may be
removed from the pending delegate and may be archived for audit
purposes and the pending world discarded.
[0178] The changes recorded in the pending delegate are only
visible when an application specifically requests access to pending
delegate information. This may be done through changing a context
of the application that may be specific to an employee so that
pending information is returned from the object when the
application accesses the object. In an example, a business
application of the platform 100 may be serving multiple users at
the same time, so the pending state may be specific to a processing
thread associated with a user. This allows multiple threads to keep
separate pending state so that one user thread may have no pending
state and is shown only current information, and another user
thread accesses object data based on a pending world established by
pending state in that user thread.
[0179] A deployment of the platform 100 may be configured to
support a pending world by configuring actions and activities to
trigger the use of the pending state. With this global pending
context set, changes to an aspect of an object that has been
configured to handle pending events may result in the automatic
creation of a pending delegate. If the changes are directed at an
aspect that itself is configured to support a pending state, a
pending delegate of the object is created on demand by creating a
copy of the object and passing the change to be handled by the
delegate.
[0180] The pending state functionality may be implemented as part
of the effective dating framework where pending delegates and their
associations to non-pending objects are both fully effective dated
objects.
[0181] The platform 100 provides a very flexible solution to
managing deployed client data that supports both the down-market
and the complex enterprise market. The platform 100 supports
building the database schema as part of the client deployment build
process, such that a client's data is maintained in its own
database schema. This separation strategy satisfies many clients'
concerns about data separation from other clients, and allows the
flexibility to either co-locate the schema with others in the same
database instance, or dedicate an instance to the client. This
allows deploying more than one client's model and persistent data
within one physical or logical database without any risk of
exposing client information to other clients. Clients without
domain model customizations or build-time configuration can share
the application binaries, since runtime configuration results in
only data content changes and no change in application code or
database schema. This per-schema client strategy also allows
applying table-level or schema-level encryption on a client by
client basis so that encryption may be applied for a first client
and not for a second client within the same database that is
accessed by the same application binary.
[0182] Each client's data is maintained in a schema separate from
other clients' data. This has several benefits. Each schema has its
own access credentials, which prevents one client from accessing
the others data, and prevents an application from unintentionally
mixing data from two clients. This flexibility facilitates
co-locating client deployments on virtual or non-virtual
environments based on scale, performance metrics, usage patterns,
and the like. It helps to use the platform 100 to exploit the
characteristics of the low-touch down-market client while still
delivering on the strict requirements of the complex
enterprise-class client within the same platform 100
architecture.
[0183] The platform may provide reporting facilities. The reporting
facilities may be accessible from each of a performance
application, compensation application, benefits application, and
any other application, user interface, administrative interface, or
data interface associated with the platform. Reporting facilities
may provide reports of information stored in one or more databases
and domain models associated with the applications. Reports
supported by the reporting facilities may include ad-hoc, standard,
custom, and other reports such as customized, template based,
automatic, interactive, scheduled, and the like. The reporting
facilities may also interact with the domain model and one or more
databases of the platform to generate one or more denormalized
databases (e.g. reporting database) for facilitating reporting,
such as customized reporting. A denormalized database may include
domain model information, database data, computed data, referenced
data, indirect data, consolidated data, third party data, formatted
data, variable data, report templates, and other data or
calculations that allow a user to report information based on the
user's preferences. A denormalized database may be a compilation of
information from one or more databases of the platform, one or more
domain models of the platform, data gathered from sources external
to the platform, user defined computed data, default computed data,
and the like. The denormalized database may be updated
periodically, such as each day, thereby providing a timely snapshot
of information relevant to a user's reporting preferences. In
addition to periodic updates, information in the denormalized
database may be updated as needed, such as when information
affecting a report is changed in the domain model or database.
Providing a denormalized database may also improve report response
time because report requests may not have to access either the
domain model or the full database. Providing a denormalized
database may also allow the use of industry standard or publicly
available reporting software and techniques for reporting off of
the denormalized database. A denormalized database may be organized
to further optimize report response time such as by arranging most
frequently accessed data to be readily available. A denormalized
database may also be organized to allow a user to retrieve
information, such as in a report, in ways that coordinate with
their business processes, workflows, or preferences.
[0184] The custom reporting facilities may take advantage of the
denormalized database and allow a user to report information out of
the platform in ways that the user would normally want to get data.
With custom reporting, the user may match reports to existing or
predefined formats in which a user's current business process
generates data. In an example, a user may already have various data
in customized Access or Excel tables that, when viewed, present
their data in a specific format or matching a preferred
organization of the data. A custom report may be configured to
deliver the required information to be viewed like the Access or
Excel tables.
[0185] The ad-hoc reporting facilities and standard reporting
facilities may query the domain model for data to satisfy a report
request. By accessing the domain model, instead of the database,
ad-hoc and standard reporting may reduce the transactional loading
of the database, thereby improving overall platform performance.
Reports based on the domain model may still query the database.
However, they may benefit from using a single implementation of
logic in the objects (e.g. business layer), rather than requiring
implementing reporting logic on top of raw data and risking
conflicts or taking on maintenance problems of duplicated logic.
Alternatively, ad-hoc and standard reporting facilities may query
the denormalized database. Any type of reporting facility may
access any of the domain model, databases, and denormalized
database as needed or specified to retrieve data to satisfy report
requests.
[0186] The platform may simultaneously support ad-hoc, standard,
and custom reporting so that a user may select one or more types of
reporting on demand. Custom reporting may be based on templates
that may also be used to organize or identify data to be retrieved,
calculated, consolidated and the like into the denormalized
database. By identifying the data requirements of the denormalized
database based on the reports to be generated from it, the
denormalized database may be automatically adjusted based on a
custom report template each time the denormalized database is
updated. In an example, a user may provide a spreadsheet file that
contains the data in the format requested for a custom report. The
user may reference the spreadsheet file when configuring a custom
report through the platform. The platform may analyze the
spreadsheet, such as the formulas, formats, data values, data
names, macros, and the like to generate a custom report template to
replace the spreadsheet report. At the next update of the
denormalized database, such as a based on a user request, the
platform may access the domain model and the database to retrieve
relevant data, perform calculations as needed to deliver data that
matches the spreadsheet data into the denormalized database.
[0187] Referring to FIG. 7 which depicts an exemplary report that
has been generated from an updated denormalized database, exemplary
data that may be recorded in a denormalized database is shown. The
denormalized database 712 may be updated through update process
708. The update process 708 may reference custom report template
718 to determine aspects of data to be included in the denormalized
database 712 update. Updating may include performing calculations,
consolidation, extrapolation, sorting, and other operations on data
such as data from the domain model 702 or the transactional
database 704. Updating may also include copying data from any of
the data sources. Updating may include modifying one or more
preexisting entries in the denormalized database 712 so that data
associated with a preexisting entry reflects data provided by the
update process 708. Updating the denormalized database 712 may also
include replacing entries, creating new entries, deleting entries,
replacing a portion or the entire denormalized database 712,
creating an alternate to an existing denormalized database 712, and
the like. Updating portions of the denormalized database 712 may
include incremental updates to one or more entries. In an example
of incremental updating, the update process 708 may compare data
from a preexisting entry in the denormalized database 712 to
updated data for the preexisting entry and apply the updated data
based on the results of the comparison. If the updated data is
different than the preexisting data, the update process 708 may
replace the preexisting entry data with the updated data. If the
comparison result indicates the updated data is not different, then
the preexisting entry data may not be replaced with the updated
data.
[0188] The denormalized database 712 may include a date/time field
that may indicate the date and/or time of the most recent update.
The date/time field may apply to the entire denormalized database
712, a portion of the denormalized database 712, or individual
entries in the denormalized database 712. The date/time field may
be used by the update process 708 to determine which preexisting
entries in the denormalized database 712 to update. Data provided
to the update process 708 may include a similar date/time field to
indicate the most recent change to the data. The update process 708
may compare the date/time of the most recent change of the source
data with the date/time of the most recent update of the
preexisting data to determine which data to update. In an example
use of date/time fields associated with updating the denormalized
database 712, a preexisting entry in the denormalized database 712
may have most recently been updated yesterday and its associated
source data may have been most recently changed today. The update
process 708 may determine that the source data has changed more
recently than the preexisting data has been updated and, as a
result replace the preexisting data with the updated data. The
update process 708 may query the domain model 702 and/or the
transaction database 704 so that only data changed more recently
than the most recent update of the denormalized database 712 is
provided. In this way, the update process 708 may utilize the query
capabilities of the platform when updating the denormalized
database 712.
[0189] The template 718 may identify aspects of data associated
with a custom report 714. The update process 708 may reference the
template 718 when requesting or obtaining data for reporting. The
template 718 may include one or more data fields that may identify
an entry or entries in the domain model 702 and/or the
transactional database 704. The data fields may include employee
name, employee salary, compensation cycle, and the like. A template
may identify data that does not exist in any data source and
therefore may have to be produced; such as by update process 708.
Denormalized database 712 data that has to be produced may
alternatively be produced by one more applications, such as a
compensation application and stored in the domain model 702, the
transaction database 704 or another data storage that may be
accessed by update process 708. Data that may be produced may
include various computations, calculations, and other combinations
or processing of source data. In an example of produced data,
current employee quartile may be calculated from current employee
compensation package, and compensation quartiles. In the example,
if the employee compensation package is $134,266 and the third
quartile covers a compensation range of $120,000 to $150,000, the
employee compensation quartile would be computed to be the third
quartile. This computed data may be stored in the denormalized
database 712 so that it could be reported by the custom report
facility 710 and presented to a user, such as the example custom
report 714 of FIG. 7.
[0190] The platform may support various templates. Templates that
may be used by the update process 708 may include spreadsheet work
files or work books from applications such as Microsoft Excel,
Microsoft Works, and the like. Template formats supported may
include xml files, custom report format files, existing
compensation, performance, and benefits report generation format
files, and the like. A template may identify specific data entries,
data entry types, data groups, data sources, various other aspects
of data, and the like.
[0191] A plurality of templates 718 may be associated with a custom
reporting facility 710 to support generating various custom
reports. Each template may identify data to be included in an
update of the denormalized database 712. The update process 708 may
combine templates so that data that is common to more than one
template 718 may be retrieved from the domain model 702 and/or the
transactional database 804 once. The common data may be stored in
the denormalized database 712 in more than one location so as to
facilitate generating custom reports 714. Alternatively, data
commonly identified in more than one template 718 may be stored as
a single entry in the denormalized database 712.
[0192] The platform may support ad-hoc reporting that may be used
to easily create reports. Ad-hoc reporting may directly access the
domain model, the transactional database, or may report from the
denormalized database. Ad-hoc reporting may facilitate a user
creating a set of report preferences that may be used in a query of
the model to filter or select preexisting model objects for
reporting. Ad-hoc reporting may be template based, menu based, code
based, and the like. A query language such as SQL may be used in an
ad-hoc reporting facility. The platform may support creating a user
specific ad-hoc profile, storing the user-specific profile,
exporting report data to third party software such as Microsoft
Excel, generating ad-hoc reports in HTML, PDF, and other display
formats.
[0193] The platform may support standard reporting. Standard
reporting may support predefined reports. Standard reporting may be
template-based to facilitate deployment and integration. Ad-hoc and
standard reporting may report off of the domain model rather than
the transactional database.
[0194] Referring to FIG. 8, compensation, performance, and benefits
applications may be combined in one product that may provide a
uniquely employee-centric human resource management platform--a
comprehensive human capital management (HCM) platform 800. This may
include pulling the entire benefits administration application into
the performance-driven compensation application to produce a HCM
platform 800 that provides capabilities beyond a straightforward
combination of applications because various user roles will have
the ability to do a rainbow of activities within the HCM 800 based
on the services that are deployed. A user role may encompass a
benefits client role, a compensation client role and a
performance/succession client role as an employee, hr manager,
administrator, benefits manager, and the like.
[0195] The HCM 800 may be configured to take advantage of group
manager hierarchy features to consolidate rules within the combined
business applications and to leverage the sophisticated
capabilities of security, data independence, data isolation, and
the like to ensure each user role has proper visibility to relevant
data while excluding access to non-relevant or sensitive user data.
This concept of visibility may be moved to a lower level or to an
application specific level in the HCM 800. The HCM may be embodied
as an integrated management suite that may be accessible through a
single user interface screen.
[0196] Referring to FIG. 9A a user-centric overall offering may
depict an overall offering employee view 902 of services available
through the HCM 800. These services may pertain to health (`My
Health` 904), finance (`My Wealth` 908), workflow (`My Work` 910),
career development (`My Career` 912), and some other types of
services relevant to the employee. The overall offering employee
view 902 may be designed in order to provide at least a visual
segregation of these services.
[0197] The `My Health` 904 service may provide the employee with
applications related to health services such as support for health
decisions, options and choices regarding health care providers,
administration service for health benefits, health risk assessments
available, events and promotions, and some other services. For
example, through `My Health` 904 service, the employee may be able
to obtain information related to a free eye check up camp organized
by a health agency. In an embodiment of the present invention, such
events and promotions may be organized in coordination with the
employer of the employee.
[0198] The entities that may be interfacing with this service of
the HCM platform 800 may include content providers that may
supplement the information and content related to health services
and benefits; decision support parties that may assist with the
decision oriented activities (e.g., choice of health care
provider); and other third parties. For example, health care events
may be hosted by other third parties such as hospitals, NGOs,
cultural organizations (Rotary Clubs, Red Cross, among others), and
some other third parties.
[0199] In accordance with an embodiment of the invention, the other
third parties may also be involved with solution integration.
[0200] The `My Wealth` 908 service may provide the employee with
applications related to financial services such as deposit account
(e.g., facilities, statements), beneficiary and compensation
benefits (e.g., bonus, overtime payments), life insurance (e.g.,
premiums), disability compensations, payroll statements, and some
other types of financial services. For example, through `My Wealth`
908 service, the employee may be able to access the monthly
statement regarding the compensation and benefits accrued or the
employee may be able to directly submit premium payments for
medical or life insurance through this service.
[0201] Payroll department, Human Resource Information System
(HRIS), and third parties such as insurance companies are the
entities that may interact through this service.
[0202] Similarly, the `My Work` 910 service may be responsible for
providing a collection of workflow oriented applications and
services to the employee. These applications and services may
include but may not be limited to goals and evaluations,
compensation and salary plans, dashboards and workbox, feedback,
and some other applications and services. For example, the employee
may be able to view various salary options provided by the company,
such as fixed or variable component of the salary, and may be able
to customize the salary structure according to the needs. In
another example, dashboards and workbox applications may facilitate
better management of workflow and productivity. In addition, these
dashboards may provide effective visualization or presentation
options (e.g., providing a graph or chart to track the progress of
ongoing projects). Feedback, appraisals, evaluations, and
recommendations may also be submitted and viewed by the employees
through this service.
[0203] In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention,
the `My Work` 910 service may also include best practices and
market data related to workflow. For example, this service may
complement other services that may help the overall workflow (e.g.,
time-tracker services).
[0204] Likewise, the `My Career` 912 service may be focused on the
career development aspects of the employee. This service may
include various applications related to career development and
planning, succession or promotion planning, competencies
(specialized or generic), and some other types of applications. For
example, the employee may be provided with some additional training
and certification courses for enhancement of skill set.
[0205] The `My Career` 912 service may involve other entities such
as consulting services, learning management service providers, ATS,
and some other options for supporting career oriented needs of the
employee.
[0206] In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a
third party solution integration facility 914 may be provided to
unify various services (related to employee's health, wealth, work,
and career) of the HCM platform 800.
[0207] The overall offering employee view 902 benefits the overall
human resource management process by providing an active and
effective environment for employee engagement in various human
resource activities, rewards for both the employer and the employee
in terms of work, productivity, and benefits; a transparent
solution for driving pay-for-performance, and a consumer-driven
human resource.
[0208] FIG. 9B depicts an overall offering administrator view 918
for human resource (HR) administrative and executive team. The
administrator view 918 may include services pertaining to health
(`Corporate Health` 920), finance (`Corporate Wealth` 922),
workflow (`Corporate Work` 924), career development (`Corporate
Career` 928), and some other types of services (i.e., for all the
employees). The applications in these services may help the HR
administrative and executive team assess various trends and
indicators pertaining to employees' health, finance, workflow, and
career.
[0209] The `Corporate Health` 920 may include applications related
to health and wellness rewards and benefits, tool utilization and
employee engagement (indicators and trends), health plan migration
summaries and other documentations. For example, a dashboard may be
provided in `Corporate Health` 920 that tracks the number of sick
leaves availed by the employees. In addition, such a dashboard may
provide facilities for rewarding employees who have not taken any
sick leave in a given period. The rewards may be monetary, gifts,
vouchers, coupons, certifications, and some other types of
rewards.
[0210] The other service in the corporate interface screen 918 may
include the `Corporate Wealth` 922. This service may include
applications such as dashboards for audit trails, pre-tax plan
counts (e.g., Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) savings
estimator), voluntary plan participation, aggregated compensation
statements, dependent audit dashboards, and some other types of
applications.
[0211] Similarly, the `Corporate Work` 924 service may encompass
workflow activities with regard to the entire organization. Some of
the applications in this service may be employee performance
trends, company plans and budget compliance indicators, goal
achievement progress indicators, and some others. For example, the
`Corporate Work` 924 service may provide the invoice status of all
projects. In another scenario, sales per employee ratios or
workforce productivity ratios may be provided by this service for
assessing the overall productivity of the organization.
[0212] Yet another service, `Corporate Career` 928 may include a
compilation of every employee's Key Performance Areas (KPAs),
corporate goal libraries or repositories, a dashboard for reviewing
performance appraisals/evaluations and Key Performance Indicators
(KPIs), internal fill rates, competency aggregations,
organization's standards, codes of conduct, and some other
applications and functionalities. For example, a brief overview
(requirements, procedure, preparations, guidelines, etc.) regarding
the hiring process may be provided by `Corporate Career` 928.
[0213] In accordance with another embodiment, various aspects of
corporate career such as `Corporate Social Responsibility` or
`Employee Initiatives` may also be provided by this service.
[0214] Configuration is a means by which a system's look or
behavior can be changed to meet client requirements without
programming. Configuration in the platform 100 includes model-based
aspects, primarily through an XML file that includes structures,
data, parameterized strategies, and scripting to tailor the
platform's look and feel and behavior. The platform 100 may support
build-time configuration that may be applied before the platform
100 is deployed to produce a targeted solution. Build-time
configuration may provide a way that the platform 100 can maintain
speed and scalability by having the configuration compiled into the
platform 100 rather than manipulated as data at runtime. Most
configurations of the platform 100, however, are runtime
configuration, which can be loaded into a running platform 100
without taking it down and rebuilding it. Some types of effective
dated configuration may be loaded while the platform 100 is
running, without affecting current users.
[0215] The platform 100 offers several means for configuring
applications including offline configuration tools, online
configuration tools, user interface configuration, and the like.
Offline configuration may be supported through configuration files
that are loaded as XML files and may be created by configuration
programs, filed, and the like that may be associated with the
platform 100. These tools may enable business analysts to create
the configurations through intuitive user interfaces, and export
them into XML files. The files may be used in build-time
configuration or used in run-time configuration and loaded into a
running system. These tools are especially beneficial if the
configuration model is complex or effective dated. Online
configuration may partitioned so that a subset of runtime
configuration may be available only to authorized users through
application functionality, such as: administrator functionality
that facilitates changing the details of a dimensional guideline
rule, adjusting bonus calculations or updating performance ratings;
role management that may facilitate defining roles and managing
assignments to individuals and groups; group management that may
facilitate maintaining reporting hierarchies, budget groups and
other group and hierarchical organizations of employees; and the
like. Configuration capabilities of the platform may include user
interface configuration. The platform may support several
configuration points in the user interface, such as:
internationalization that may be supported through configurable
resource files, for locale-specific text, formats, and content;
application configuration files that may be loaded into the
presentation tier to configure application flow; cascading style
sheets that may be used to tailor the look and feel of the user
interface; and the like.
[0216] The human resource management platform 100 may include data
access components or elements for insulating applications and
services from the details of data transformation and mapping. Data
access components may include features that facilitate persistence
of data, such as single domain objects such as a "noun" or a
"component". Persistence of data attributes such as mapping of data
formats may also be provided by the data access components. Data
access components may also provide services for the human resource
management platform 100 such as creating, reading, updating, and
deleting data. Aspects of the human resource management platform
100 that may use data access components include, without
limitation, internal applications, business services, external
applications, and the like. Data access components may be
implemented by building XML documents from SQL/JDBC results
sets.
[0217] The human resource management platform 100 may include a
plurality of data access components wherein each component may
provide data access services as herein described for different data
sources. For example, a data source such as a third party employee
insurance database may require a different set of data access
functions than an internal employee vacation accounting database.
Reading a record from the external insurance database may include
mapping data such as employee insurance member ID so that automatic
premium payments may be properly credited by the human resource
management platform 100.
[0218] As changes are made to data sources, an associated data
access component may, or may not, need to change to support the
changed data source. In an example, a data source that is changed
to include security features associated with a user interface of
the data source, may not impact the data access component for that
data source. Whereas, a data source that changed field names or
definitions may impact a data access component, requiring a new
mapping between the data source and the human resource management
platform 100 functions or business services accessing the data
source. Data access components may combine, dissect, generate, and
persist XML documents to facilitate business functions and services
performing tasks.
[0219] The user interface gives end users information they need to
make decisions, and those decisions ultimately result in changes
persisted in the database. This section describes Workscape
Technology Platform capabilities that enable our application suite
to maintain and store data accurately and efficiently.
[0220] The platform 100 may include an object model and may
implement object-relational mapping. Application logic may be
centered in a business logic layer 204 on a server, such as in an
object model implemented in Java. Generally, a good object design
combines state and behavior. In the platform 100, the behavior may
be embodied in business logic and encapsulated in object methods.
When changes to data associated with the model are committed, the
object state is translated to the database in an automated fashion,
such as by using JBoss Hibernate, an object-relational mapping
tool. Hibernate is an example of a tool that can be adapted to
successfully manage large amounts of data, such as by revising code
to enhance the tool.
[0221] Transactions with the model and database may be most
effective if they are controlled outside the business logic layer
204. In the platform 100, transactions are initiated before
application logic is invoked and the application logic signals
synchronization points to the persistent database 114 so that the
actual transaction management is performed by the underlying
persistence layer 208, adding security and robustness to the
platform 100.
[0222] The platform 100 provides support for enterprise level and
down market small size client deployments. Features of the platform
100 may minimize effort for deploying to low-complexity clients,
such as alternative data input, no customization, limited
configurability, deployment options, and the like. Alternate data
input may include input via spreadsheets so that clients with
limited volume and complexity may be able to provide their data
through spreadsheets that may be supplied with the platform 100.
The spreadsheet may have embedded functionality that automates the
transformation and loading of information, giving the customer more
control and limiting deployment or startup effort. Because
customizations take time and expertise they add to implementation
costs. When client requirements fall within the range of
configurability of the platform 100 (e.g. within run-time
configurability), the platform 100 can be quickly configured and
programming may not be required. Further, when client requirements
can fit within a limited set of configurable options, the time to
configure the system is reduced, and some configuration
responsibility may be transferred to the client. Testing time may
also be drastically reduced. As described above, the platform 100
may store each client data in its own schema, which facilitates
easier deployment through a template approach for configuration,
installation, and use, and template use for supporting third party
data configuration ERPS, such as SAP, and the like.
[0223] The deployment of the platform 100 may involve a single
package of files and several scripts to complete integration with a
client environment. One or more business applications can run on a
computing resource, such as a virtualized resource, with one or
more clients being served by the applications. A database server
can host multiple client deployments per database instance or place
clients in a separate database instance. The platform may support
deploying all components of the platform 100 on dedicated hardware,
or packaged into an appliance for remote hosting within a firewall
protected network. Deployment may also support deploying different
portions of the platform (presentation layer, business application
layer, model layer, and data persistence layer, for example) to be
executed on different systems to facilitate distributed processing
environments.
[0224] The human resource management platform 100 may include a
user interface that may be accessed through a web browser of a
computer such as a networked computer facility. The user interface
may include various screens for facilitating a user interacting
with the platform 100. In addition to the various screens as herein
described for interacting with applications, and the like, the user
interface may also facilitating issuing alerts to users. Alerts may
be issued based on a range of criteria that is described elsewhere
herein. An alert issued through the user interface may include a
configurable visual indication on a computer display such as a
pop-up window, or other visual notification. The alert may include
a configurable audible aspect as well that may play through a
speaker system of the computer through which the user interface is
accessed. Alerts may be context specific so that an alert issued
through the user interface may be based at least in part on the
current activity of the user. In an example, a visual alert of a
violation of a budget guideline may be presented to the user while
the user is modifying budgets. Alerts may also be included in
real-time decision support features of the human resource
management platform 100.
[0225] The user interface, or one or more portions of the user
interface, may be based on computer programming technology
including without limitation DHTML, ADOBE FLEX, AJAX, JAVA,
JAVASCRIPT, ADOBE FLASH, a combination thereof, or a combination of
one or more thereof and other computer programming languages,
constructs, technology, images, graphics, menus, and the like.
[0226] Alerts presented through the user interface may guide the
user in such a way that the user can take appropriate action by
interacting with the alert. In an example, a user may be changing a
budget allocation that impacts another user's budget. An alert
indicating that the other user's budget is impacted may be issued
to the user and may provide a one-click action button to notify the
other user of the budget impact. The alert may also provide a
one-click action button to escalate the alert to other users, such
as those higher in the user's reporting hierarchy.
[0227] The Workscape Technology Platform provides a robust security
model that combines an adaptable authentication mechanism with
role-based authorization. The platform provides standard
integration points for connecting it into the client's SSO of
choice. For clients who do not wish to integrate into an
authentication service, the platform supplies an alternate username
and password authentication model, with configurable password
generation and management. Authorization is controlled by
configuration of roles and permissions, and associating roles with
individuals or groups of individuals. Permissions are keys that
unlock product functionality, and open access to certain type of
information to those who hold the permission. Roles can be created
and configured that bundle together sets of these permissions, and
then the roles can be assigned to individual users or assigned
automatically to those who meet certain criteria. The platform
automatically resolves the permissions granted to a user when the
user logs in, and enforces the data visibility and functionality
restrictions at a very low level, below where configuration or
business logic operates. Permissions are used to control visibility
to data at a low level in the architecture. Queries into the
database are filtered at a low level, to avoid pulling information
into the system that the user is not authorized to access.
[0228] Authorized users are recognized when they log in and are
presented with additional administration functions based on their
roles. Administrators may have access to functionality, or
read-only access to certain employee data, or full rights to act as
certain employees. Certain administrators may also be able to
affect runtime configuration parameters of the application,
changing its behavior in real time. The human resource management
platform 100 may include information that is confidential and
personal about employees, employers, corporate or business plans,
and the like. To facilitate providing appropriate protection of
such confidential and personal information, the user interface of
the human resource management platform may include security
services. Security services such as unique user names, user login
names, secret passwords, authority access levels, and the like may
be embodied in the human resource management platform 100. The user
interface may include initial login validation through a secure
access method such as requiring a potential user to enter a user
name and associated secret password. This first level of security
may be configurable through one or more services such as
UpdateUser, ProcessLogin, and CancelLogin. An authorized
administrator may access one or more of these services to establish
and manage user accounts for the purposes of securing the human
resource management platform 100 login processes. Alternatively,
one or more of these services may be automated and may be invoked
by a user interacting with the human resource management platform
100 through a login screen of the user interface. In an example, an
administrator may invoke the UpdateUser service to change a user
password, such as in response to a request from the user. In
another example, a user may successfully login to the human
resource management platform 100 with a valid username and password
and manually invoke the UpdateUser service to change an aspect of
the user's account (e.g. password). A user manually invoking
UpdateUser may be considered a self-service aspect of the human
resource management platform 100. Services such as ProcessLogin and
CancelLogin may be invoked automatically. In an example, a user
selecting a `login` type button on a login screen of the user
interface may automatically invoke the ProcessLogin service to
perform user credential validation. If the credential validation
fails, CancelLogin may be automatically invoked. Manual use of
these services may support an administrator creating login
credentials for a user account (ProcessLogin) or removing a user
(CancelLogin).
[0229] The human resource management platform 100 may include
publication change services to facilitate publishing changes to
data or data elements. Changes to data, such as databases of the
human resource management platform 100 that are made by both
internal and external applications may be published. In an example,
an internal application that makes a change to employee email
contact information may publish that information so that
subscribers to the publication change service may receive the
updated employee email contact information. Similarly, an external
application, such as a third party health insurance application,
may publish information about changes to employee status (e.g.
change in coverage selected, change in coverage status) and the
like. Publication change services may also provide queue management
for subscribers to the service so that a higher priority
publication may be pushed higher in a queue of a subscriber than a
lower priority publication. In this way, urgent changes or changes
that may be required to fully support subsequent changes may be
processed before less urgent or dependent changes. Internet
publication and change notification methods such as RSS may be
supported by the publication change services of the human resource
management platform 100.
[0230] The human resource management platform 100 may use a
publication change service to manage subscription to third party or
external applications to facilitate receiving information. The
business functions and other element of the human resource
management platform 100 may use the publication change services to
facilitate timely updating any externally supplied data used by the
business functions. Such inbound data may be published to the human
resource management platform 100 with certain policies and
attributes determined by the source system of the data. The
publication change services may process the attributes to ensure
compliance with the policies is maintained as data is published
within the human resource management platform 100. Publication
methods such as RSS may be included in the publication change
services inbound capabilities.
[0231] Publication change services may work cooperatively with
other elements of the human resource management platform 100 so
that the publication change service may receive a confirmation of
receipt from the other elements. Alternatively, the publication
change service may issue announcements or push changes to
subscribers without accepting or requiring a confirmation of
receipt.
[0232] The publication change services may monitor a data
repository or some portion of a data repository so that any changes
made to the data repository can be published. Monitoring may be
based on events--such as changes, on a schedule--such as each hour,
on a request--such as a business function initiated subscription
request, and the like. Although the publication change services may
monitor a data repository to detect changes to the repository, the
publication change service may be configured to only publish
certain data elements or classes of elements. In an example, a data
repository that contains employee confidential and non-confidential
information may be monitored, yet only changes to the
non-confidential information may be published when a change is
detected. The human resource management platform 100 may support
data in a data repository that can be published without using the
full capabilities of the publication change services. In an
example, data in XML file format in a data repository may be
published to applications of the human resource management platform
100 that use XML formatted data simply by transferring the XML
formatted data to the applications.
[0233] Elements of the human resource management platform 100, such
as internal applications, business services, business functions,
data access components, platform services, publication change
services, and the like may use XML or JAVA to communicate. XML
Schema such as OAGIS 8.0 and HR-XML standards may be employed in
communications. Communications may also be accomplished by forming,
exchanging, and decoding Business Object Documents that may
themselves be encoded in XML. A business object document of the
human resource management platform 100 may include an application
area (e.g. for identifying a sender) and a data area (e.g. for
defining a business operation).
[0234] A business object document may include an XML verb--such as
add, delete, lookup, and the like, and a noun--such as a data
value, data field, and the like. A business function or service
receiving the business object document may use the data referenced
in the noun to perform the function described by the verb. In an
example, an UpdateDependents verb with a Dependent noun may add the
name of the dependent to the employee's list of dependents. The
business service or function that performed the UpdateDependents
may provide a business object document response that includes
information such as date of update, status of the update, flags or
messages returned by the business service, and the like. The
business object document communication flow may include
request-response XML verb pairs that define a service method. In an
example, a lookupDependents business service method accepts an XML
document conforming to the LookupDependents schema and responds
with an XML document conforming to the ShowDependents schema.
Communicating through business object documents also facilitate
making changes to functions, services, and applications, such as
program or algorithm changes, without having to change aspects of
the communication or the interfaces to the human resource
management platform 100 elements.
[0235] Business object documents may be used in communication
between the human resource management platform 100 and external
services, applications, users, devices, and the like. To provide
security, and maintain compatibility with industry standard
messaging and communication systems, a business object document may
be wrapped in an envelope such as is used in web service requests
defined by S O A P. Security, error checking, and the like may be
supported by through the enveloping process, thereby allowing the
human resource management platform 100 elements to focus on the
content of the business object document.
[0236] The human resource management platform 100 may also include
business services to provide service to applications. Business
services may include managerial services for managing proxies and
authority delegation, payroll services for processing employee
related pay, compensation services for planning and managing
compensation plans and programs, benefits services for beneficiary
and dependent management, communication services for handling
corporate communications, corporate services for corporate wide
data such as job descriptions and directories, worklist services
for individuals to access work items, self-service services for
employees to access and maintain information, security services for
managing users and access, budgeting services for administering and
monitoring budgets, reporting services, integration services for
providing transfer management, hierarchy services for establishing
and maintaining employee hierarchies, process services for defining
and monitoring business processes, and performance management
services for facilitating performance rating and goals
management.
[0237] The platform may support off-cycle changes to any aspect of
compensation, performance, and benefits. Off-cycle changes may be
integrated with focal transactions so that a user, such as a
manager, may access and maintain both off-cycle and focal
transactions through a single user interface. Such integration may
facilitate giving a manager the ability to plan all compensation
changes for an entire compensation cycle (e.g. one calendar year)
through a single interface. The same interface may be used
throughout the year for off-cycle changes and maintenance, such as
for approving a compensation plan and for acting on the approved
plan. The single user interface for focal and off-cycle changes may
also be facilitated by budget sharing, application logic and rule
sharing, and the like. In an example, an employee may achieve a
performance goal that has associated with it a compensation
increase. The employee achieves the performance goal in May and the
next on-cycle compensation adjustment is December, so the
employee's manager initiates an off-cycle change. The manager may
use the single interface herein described to perform all the
necessary steps to execute the off-cycle adjustment. In this
example, because the compensation adjustment is included in the
compensation plan since it was tied to a performance goal, the
manager may review and approve the change to the employee's
compensation plan through the single interface. The manager may,
within the same interface establish any new compensation plans,
such as any changes that may be approved at the end of the current
compensation cycle. A single interface for focal and off-cycle
compensation, performance, or benefits changes and maintenance
eliminates needing to learn separate interfaces for off-cycle and
on-cycle compensation planning and maintenance activity. The single
interface also allows automatic coordinated access to plans and
budgets, rather than using a disconnected off-cycle system, such as
separate spreadsheets. Such disconnected or off-line methods prove
impractical and error prone when applied to organizations with a
large number of employees.
[0238] The human resource management platform 100 may include
applications targeted to solve a variety of human resource and
benefits administration problems. Applications of the human
resource management platform 100 may include business applications
such as benefits administration. A benefits administration
application may provide a comprehensive benefits administration
solution that facilitates handling a wide variety of benefits
plans, programs, events, changes relating to plans and employees,
very large employee populations, cross company integration, third
party integration and the like. By joining a benefits
administration application with a scalable human resource
management platform, a benefits administration solution may
facilitate extending best-in-class benefit programs throughout a
multi-national organization. Applications of the human resource
management platform 100 may be implemented based on various
technologies to provide easy integration. In an example,
applications may be written in the Java programming language, and
they may be built using domain-driven design principles with a
web-based rich client interface using ADOBE FLEX technology.
[0239] A benefits administration application may provide a variety
of features to achieve benefits integration in an organization. A
user interface of the application may include presenting all
relevant information, feature selection, notifications, and user
information on one computer display screen, or a linked group of
screens. Such a user interface may facilitate operation and
training to operate the application, while preserving time
efficiency during use or maintenance.
[0240] The human resource management platform 100 may facilitate
automated benefits review workflows through the use of online
benefit review forms. The online benefit review forms may be
integrated with the other aspects of the human resource management
platform 100 such as employee management, benefits provider
management, corporate objectives, and the like to facilitate use
and data consistency throughout all the aspects of human resource
management supported by the human resource management platform 100.
Online benefit review forms may include configurable benefit review
forms that support the best practices of the corporation. Aspects
of the forms may be configurable specifically to ensure best
practices are observed, while other aspects of the form may be
configurable to support individual manager or employee needs.
[0241] The human resource management platform 100 may also support
online benefit review form creation and management. The human
resource management platform 100 may also support template based
creation of online benefit review forms. In an example, a template
may identify specific configurable areas of a benefit review form
that may be specified by a facilitator of the human resource
management platform 100. These areas may include corporate best
practices, industry or government standard review criteria,
employee based information from other aspects of the human resource
management platform 100, and the like. The template may also
include user configurable areas that may be configured by a manager
and/or an employee to support aspects of benefit review not covered
elsewhere in the form. In an example, a benefits provider portion
of a benefit review form may be identified in a template as
restricted from manager or employee changes because the information
would be imported from the benefits provider management portion of
the human resource management platform 100.
[0242] Online benefit review forms may facilitate harmonizing
benefits review across departments, business units, geographies,
subsidiaries, languages, and international laws, while offering the
flexibility to support a wide variety of management styles,
employee input, benefits administration plans, and the like.
[0243] A benefits administration application may include reporting
facilities. Reporting may include standard reports and ad hoc
reporting capabilities to support a wide range of reporting
requirements. Reporting and analytics that may be integrated with
the benefits administration application within the human resource
management platform 100 may facilitate easy access to actionable
data and analysis results. In an example, an analysis of benefits,
such as a coverage analysis, may be included in the benefits
administration application so that the coverage analysis may be
reported per employee, per group, and the like.
[0244] The human resource management platform 100 may include audit
features such as audit trails. Audit features may be associated
with the benefits administration application. Audit features may
support establishing audit monitoring tools to facilitate automated
auditing of transactions associated with the platform. Automated
auditing may facilitate compliance with accounting and other
standards such as Sarbanes Oxley, OSHA, Fair Labor Standards Act,
Minimum Wage Standards, and the like. Auditing may include
confirming an effective benefits function has been established, all
employee data in the system is accurate and appropriate to the
personal issues of the employee, confidentiality of personnel data
is maintained, benefits data is completely and accurately
accumulated in underlying financial records in the proper
accounting periods, reimbursements and other payments to employees
(e.g. basic payments, tax adjusted payments, and the like) are
properly calculated and authorized, tax legislation is being
followed (national and local legislation) including entry
verification, benefits costs are in line with budgeting objectives,
and the like. Audit trails may facilitate recovery of entries,
downloads, and changes in data associated with the platform 100.
Feedback logs may be associated with the benefits administration
application so that any form of feedback such as employee feedback,
auditor feedback, visitor feedback, manager feedback, vendor
feedback, provider feedback, and the like may be recorded. Feedback
logs may periodically be reviewed by management, an administrator
of the benefits administration application, or other participant in
the platform 100. The review of feedback logs may be automated by a
computer system performing keyword matching of feedback logs
against a list of critical keywords or phrases. This may allow a
feedback log entry that meets a criterion associated with keyword
and keyphrase matching may automatically be presented to an
administrator, management, or other appropriate participant in the
platform 100. In this way, although all feedback logs may be
recorded and permanently stored, those meeting an escalation
criterion are sure to receive a human review by the appropriate
person.
[0245] The benefits administration application may facilitate
configuration of benefit programs. Benefit programs may be
configured by a participant of the human resource management
platform 100 such as a client. Benefit program configuration may
include configuring benefit plans, future accounting periods (e.g.
upcoming year benefit target plans), and the like. Configuration
options associated with the benefits administration application may
accommodate complex benefit plans, such as plans that incorporate
automated benefits adjustments, and the like.
[0246] The human resource management platform 100 may be associated
with input compliance verification facilities. Compliance of input
may be valuable and useful to a benefits administration application
by providing spelling checking, legal language checking, and the
like. Compliance of input verification may include verifying input
meets corporate and legal standards (e.g. minimum wage standards),
and the like. Spelling checking may facilitate reducing mistakes in
data records such as employee names. In an example, an employee
name being input may be compared to all valid employee names and
the input may be flagged for further verification if it does not
match any of the valid employee names. This may also be useful to
help distinguish between similar employee names, such as employees
Robert Smith from Bobby Smith when the name Bob Smith is entered.
Legal language check may facilitate ensuring that benefits or other
requirements on which benefits may be based does not violate any
regulations, contracts, and the like
[0247] Benefits modeling may be associated with the human resource
management platform 100 such as through a benefits administration
application. Modeling benefits may be useful and beneficial to
employee retention planning by providing a visible or tangible
benefit to achieving a level of employee retention included in the
modeling. The benefits administration application may allow
employees to interact with the platform 100 to model various
benefits alternatives based on aspects of benefits such as
coverage, costs, providers, geographic coverage limitations,
optional coverage, and the like. In an example, an employee who is
interested in purchasing additional life insurance coverage may
view the costs, eligibility conditions, limits, and other
requirements of the coverage through the platform. The employee can
further model steps for achieving various aspects of the
requirements, such as taking and passing a physical exam or other
medical assessment. In this way, the employee may determine that
passing the physical exam is highest priority for eligibility.
[0248] Conventionally, benefits programs have been administered on
a plan-year basis that shoehorns all employees into one planning
and election cycle that is based on a calendar date rather than on
natural dates related to employee needs for benefits. A plan-year
based benefits program may limit changes an employee can make
during the plan-year. This generally results in limited options
being available to the employee other than during an open
enrollment period prior to the start of a new plan-year. The
benefits administration management business application of the
platform 100 provides support for coverage periods that are
distinct from but knowledgeable of plan-year programs. A coverage
period may include any timeframe during which no changes are made
to an employee-specific benefits program. Therefore, each coverage
period can be individually managed. This reduces the complexity of
real world changes that occur outside of a plan-year enrollment
period. In a coverage period example, an employee who has a baby
and changes health plan options from an employee plus spouse plan
to a family plan would enter an event that would signify the end of
one coverage period and the start of another coverage period. The
one coverage period would be characterized by the employee plus
spouse plan and the other coverage period would be characterized by
the family plan. A change that causes one coverage period to end
and a new one to start may be employee generated, company
generated, provider generated, a combination of the two, and the
like. In another coverage period example, a company may configure
benefits premiums to be adjusted annually due to health insurance
provider requirements. The date on which the premiums are adjusted
would signify the start of a new coverage period for all affected
employees.
[0249] The platform may facilitate support for benefits coverage
periods through the effective dating framework described herein.
When effective dating is applied in conjunction with coverage
periods, benefits selections can be planned for a future coverage
period while the current coverage period may be maintained within
the same model/database. The effective dating framework advantages
for a benefits administration management business application may
be described through an example. In the example, a company using
the platform 100 has defined a new coverage period to start January
first. Therefore, in November, employees make benefit elections to
be effective when the new coverage period starts. When the
elections are made, the platform automatically calculates all the
coverage changes through the remainder of the year under the
current year rules, and propagates the changes into the next year,
correcting or adjusting based on next year rules, and stores all
the results in the effective dated model. To provide benefits
information for the current coverage period, the platform 100 may
set a target effective date to "today" and perform a query of the
model based on this target date. To provide benefits information
for the new coverage period, the platform may set a target
effective date to "January" and perform a query of the model based
on this target date.
[0250] To provide a an accurate view of the benefits information
for the new coverage period starting in January, the benefits
administration application may set the target effective date to
some time in January so that queries of the model will return
information that is based on the benefits elected for the new
coverage period. This may allow sending extracts of data to a
carrier that the carrier can use for planning of the new coverage
period elections. To the extent that premiums are charged for a
future coverage period, data extracts based on the future effective
date will allow billing in advance of the new coverage period. For
each employee who requires no changes in current or future coverage
period benefits an itemized breakdown of anticipated billing for
the new coverage period can be provided. A billing cycle generally
has anticipation component (e.g. elections for the new coverage
period) and a correction component (e.g. for changes made since the
last billing period). While the correction component can be
determined based on the current situation when a bill is prepared,
the anticipation component must be determined by looking forward
and calculating the bill based on the new time period selected
through effective dating.
[0251] A benefits plan may itself be effective dated. Changes to a
plan can be treated like any other benefits-related event and
therefore can be effective dated. An election period that precedes
a change in the plan may be associated with an effective dated
event that can be derived from the effective date of the plan
change. By configuring changes to the plan and enrollment periods
as effective dated events, the administrator is given visibility to
the actions related to the plan change. With the application of
effective dating, mid-coverage year updates are more easily
managed, tracked, and integrated. Precision is also significantly
improved because all of the information is maintained for all time
in the model and can be retrieved based on setting a target
effective date for queries to the model.
[0252] The benefits administration management business application
may perform coverage repair to ensure that changes that may impact
coverage are properly applied to all object versions and
generations. In an example of coverage repair, if an employee
declares an event in December, and the employee has new benefits
starting in January, the application adjusts the target date to the
date of the December event and computes all benefit impacts based
on rules in effect at that time. The application then switches the
target date to January when the new benefits (and their associated
rules) take effect, and computes any necessary changes that
propagate into the new plan year based on January benefits rules
and updates the future effective dated object version accordingly.
In this way, the impact of an event that spans a current and future
coverage periods is properly accounted for and coverage is
repaired.
[0253] The benefits administration management business application
may support decision-tree-based benefits eligibility selection.
Benefits eligibility selection may be based on a hierarchical
decision tree structure that supports differentiated benefits
within a corporate wide benefits plan. Unlike flattened plans that
do not properly account for dependencies between selections,
decision-tree-based eligibility provided by the platform 100 allows
selection of various benefits and benefit plans through a
structured process based on a decision tree.
[0254] Eligibility at each level of the tree may be based on a
variety of factors that can be determined within the context of
selections (decisions) already made by the employee. The
application may use factors such as employee status (exempt,
non-exempt, union-represented), employee business unit, employee
family criteria (single, married, married plus children), and the
like to determine which selections to offer at each decision point
in the tree. In an example, union employees may have certain
benefit options by virtue of a collective bargaining agreement and
may not be eligible for other benefits; company officers may be
eligible for certain options that are not available to employees
who are not company officers. Based on these and other factors,
options will be presented to an employee making benefits
selections.
[0255] The benefits administration business application may include
a user interface that presents election choices based on decision
tree that is adapted based on the current user credentials and the
decisions made by the user. This approach does not limit the number
of decision points, options to present at each decision point, or
factors to consider in determining eligibility. The user may make
an initial election and this initial election may satisfy a
prerequisite for offering the user additional benefit
elections.
[0256] The user interface of the benefits administration business
application may provide time-based graphical representations of
data collection that allows a user to view how benefits related
information changes over time. Because benefits information changes
over time, a time-based graphical user interface may make
understanding the information more intuitive and understandable to
the occasional user. Most employee users of the benefits
administration application are infrequent users because interaction
with benefits for administration or management purposes primarily
occurs after an event-based change (birth, death, transfer, etc.).
Therefore the information presented in the user interface is
configured for rapid understanding.
[0257] The user interface may represent benefits in the form of a
timeline that may depict coverage over time and how it changes. As
new plan year approaches, a timeline view of the enrollment periods
and deadlines for entering changes may be much more impactful and
beneficial to a user than a list of dates. In addition, the
benefits administration application can provide alerts
(notification) to a user regarding upcoming deadlines or due dates.
The alerts may be configured so that they can be generated at
specific times or relative to an event date.
[0258] Data entry in the user interface may also include real time
input validation so if the employee has entered incorrect or
questionable information, feedback may be displayed immediately to
the user so that the entry can be corrected while the user is still
working on entries rather than after a complete screen is loaded
and a `next` button is clicked. Data entry may also be automated so
that information that is known to the application can be preloaded
into data fields to reduce the time required for data entry and to
reduce errors associated with data entry.
[0259] The benefits administration business application includes an
administrator user interface that may provide every-day users with
ready access to most often used features, such as employee search,
acting on behalf of the employee, coverage review, dependent data,
past activity, and the like. Data may be presented in a timeline
view that simplifies understanding of events, changes, and the like
that may impact benefits. The timeline view, when combined with
effective dating may show user activity for any period of time,
such as an enrollment period that occurred prior to a new coverage
period. The administrator user interface may answer questions
visually by allowing the user to specify an event (a specific
employee move), event type (dependent change for an employee,
enrollment period), date (last day of an enrollment period), and
displaying all pertinent benefits information in proximity to the
specified event or date. In an example, a timeline view of an
enrollment period may depict the enrollment period and may show
specific points of user interaction with the benefits
administration and management business application. Details of the
points of user interaction may be viewed by selecting one or more
of the points. Details may include user login activity, user
benefits review activity (e.g. which benefits were reviewed, which
were elected, and the like), and user changes.
[0260] The administrator user interface may also facilitate
requesting and presenting plan migration or benefit enrolment
reports that may show aggregated changes in plan selection or
enrollment. These reports may show trends associated with plan
membership, benefits options selections, and the like that may help
in planning for offerings of benefit options in future coverage
periods. In an example, after a merger of two companies, employee
migration within the offered benefits may indicate that one or more
plans or options are preferred over another.
[0261] The user interface of the benefits administration
application may be configured to present benefits information,
receive user input, and direct the user input to the functional
modules of the platform, resulting in one or more updates of the
information presented in the user interface.
[0262] The benefits administration application user interface for
inputting and presenting benefits related information may be
configured with additional support screens for presenting
information associated with benefits planning and/or management.
The support screens may present information used to derive the data
elsewhere, such as formulas, rules, guidelines, sources of
information, pending information, and the like. The support screens
may also facilitate inputting information that may be used
elsewhere in the benefits administration application, such as an
employee's social security number, or an employee's educational
degree, and the like. This information may facilitate identifying
the employee who is the subject of the benefits planning activity.
Information such as the number of employees having similar job
functions, their average benefits cost, and the like are other
examples of support screen information.
[0263] The present invention relates to an enrollment and
management system for eligibility-based human resource benefits
administration that may be used by an employee in a self-service
operation. A human resource management system may enable employees
to view and perform functions related to benefits administration
through a user interface featuring usability and presentation
features to facilitate the employee's experience. The user
interface may be used to access, modify, and review employee
benefits. Data feeding into the human resource management system
may be accessed from a database. The database may be a data access
persistence database. The benefits administration application may
be capable of organizing and displaying time-sensitive changes. For
example, employees may be able to examine benefits eligibility and
coverage data as well as other human resource attributes at any
point in time, either forward or back in time, instead of only at a
single point in time or the current point in time. The benefits
administration application may access data for any effective date
and obtain an accurate view of what the employee was eligible for
during that period and what elections the employee had made during
that period. The benefits administration application may include a
data integration processing component that may receive data from
the employer and other sources that may be relevant to functions in
benefits administration. Data may be effective-dated at various
levels of aggregation, and the component may reconcile these data
with existing data to maintain benefits coverage consistent with
the merged data over time. Data relating to employees, dependents,
beneficiaries, benefits eligibility, event processing rules,
current enrollments, payroll contributions, and the like may
entered into the system through the user interface. The data
integration processing may also enable creating and formatting data
to send to other parties, such as employers, carriers, COBRA
processors, and the like.
[0264] Referring to FIG. 10, a welcome screen of the benefits
administration application may comprise notices relating to
benefits coverage, such as a notification of open enrollment, with
an option to take action relating to the notice. The welcome screen
may comprise a timeline for various benefits actions to be taken,
reviewed, cancelled, that are pending, and the like. Certain
qualifying life events may present the opportunity to modify a
benefits enrollment or coverage status. From the welcome screen, an
employee may have the option of declaring a life event or perform
enrollment activities related to a previously declared event. Other
options accessible through the welcome screen may comprise access
to current benefits, employee profile, beneficiary management,
dependent management, wellness center voluntary programs such as
voluntary insurance and discount programs, common forms, summary
plan descriptions, carrier information, and frequently asked
questions and the like. Throughout the application, instructions
may appear on the screen being accessed. The instruction screens
may be editable, personalized, configurable, and the like.
[0265] Clicking on the `employee profile` may display a screen
displaying the profile associated with a user login as shown in
FIG. 11. The profile may include information such as name, address,
phone number, email address, job title, location, union, gender,
payroll frequency, hiring data, identification (ID) of the user,
present status of the user, department ID, division ID,
participation group and the like.
[0266] Clicking on the `beneficiary management` link may display
the beneficiary maintenance information on the screen as shown in
FIG. 12. The beneficiary information presented on the screen may be
edited/updated using an action button that may allow update of the
existing beneficiary information. Further, the allocation
percentage for each beneficiary benefit may be defined for each
beneficiary by entering an appropriate number. For example, the
beneficiary information may be selected for a basic life insurance,
accidental death & dismemberment insurance, supplemental life
insurance, business travel & accident insurance, 401k and the
like.
[0267] The screen may include a drop-down menu for adding a
beneficiary and/or selecting a beneficiary type such as a person,
trust, estate, charity and the like. Clicking the `Add
Beneficiary/Allocation` button may result in a new screen having a
form for entering data corresponding to the beneficiary. The data
may include name, federal tax ID, establishment date, country,
address line 1, address 2, city, state, zip code, email, and the
like. The data can be submitted by clicking on the submit
button.
[0268] The `dependent management` link, when clicked displays a new
screen as shown in FIG. 13. This screen displays dependence
maintenance data that includes the particulars of the dependents
associated with the user. For example, the dependent maintenance
data may include name, relationship, birth date, medical, dental
and some other type of data. An Action tab on the dependent
maintenance screen allows editing of dependent maintenance data,
when required.
[0269] The welcome screen includes a link to a `wellness center`
having links to information about health. Clicking on this link
results in another screen as shown in FIG. 14. The screen displays
a number of links related to health improvement. For example, the
display screen may include links to other screens such as Healthy
You, Healthy Risk Assessment, Coverage Adviser, and the like which
may present other screens displaying information about health and
other health related articles.
[0270] Clicking on the `FSA manager` link may display a list of
additional links on the screen that may include the FSA manager,
FSA saving calculator, debit cards and the like as shown in FIG.
15. The FSA manager may initiate another screen that shows account
information such as account name, status balance and the like.
Likewise, the FSA manager may list recent claims activity such as
claim ID, vendor/provider, date of service claim, amount paid,
amount status and the like. Similarly clicking on the FSA register
may display screens corresponding to the FSA register. Clicking on
the debit card link may provide information associated with the use
of credit card for health payments.
[0271] The welcome screen may include a `voluntary programs` link
and clicking on this link may display information related to
voluntary programs and discounts as shown in FIG. 16. The screen
may list the available voluntary programs and the discount schemes
available to the user. For example, VIP pet insurance, 1-800
flowers, auto discounts and some other type of information.
[0272] Referring to FIG. 17, a user clicking on `common forms` may
access a screen view of common forms available to the employee with
links to directly download a form to the user's computer. For
example, the forms may relate to 401K fast facts, a dental implants
brochure, an insurance carrier summary, an insurance carrier
rollover maximum, a disabled dependent affidavit, a domestic
partner affidavit, an election waiver form, evidence of
insurability, health insurance responsibility disclosure form, and
the like.
[0273] Referring to FIG. 18, clicking on `current benefits` may
access a screen view of the employee's current benefits. Current
benefits may include employee paid pre-tax benefits, employee paid
post-tax benefits, employer paid benefits, and the like. For each
benefit, option or coverage level, effective start date, cost,
pre-tax cost, post-tax cost, and the like may be listed. In
addition, a print button may be provided to facilitate the printing
of status of current benefits on a paper.
[0274] Referring to FIG. 19, which depicts a screen for declaring a
life event, from the welcome screen (e.g. as shown in FIG. 10), a
life event may be declared. Qualifying life events may include the
birth of a child, adoption, divorce, marriage, loss of other
coverage, death of a dependent, and the like. The life event may be
chosen from a drop-down menu, and the like.
[0275] In FIG. 20, an event date is entered or chosen from a date
picker corresponding to when the qualifying life event occurred.
Notifications may be provided as to what actions may be taken and
what is required from the employee in light of the qualifying life
event. In an embodiment, the employee may be able to add a newborn
child to existing medical insurance coverage, modify beneficiary
information, increase flexible spending or health care
reimbursement withholding, and the like. In an embodiment, a
timetable or deadline for changes may be given. In an embodiment,
declaring a life event may require providing supporting
documentation. For example, declaring a birth may require
submission of a copy of the birth certificate. Once the life event
has been declared, the employee may enroll the new dependent. In an
embodiment, the employee may be brought to an enrollment preview
screen, such as in FIG. 21.
[0276] FIG. 22 illustrates a first screen of an enrollment process.
The screen displays an option button to confirm the consumption of
tobacco by the user in the last 30 days. The user may click on
either `Yes` or `No` option for proceeding to the next step of
enrollment.
[0277] FIG. 23 depicts an enrollment screen for the benefits
administration application that is part of the enrollment process
started in FIG. 22. In this embodiment, enrollment may proceed in
four steps as described here and above. Each step may be clearly
laid out and described with its own phrase. In this example, Step 1
of enrollment involves confirmation from a user about the
consumption of tobacco in last 30 days, Step 2 involves reviewing
information of the current election, Step 3 involves making
elections, and Step 4 involves review and confirmation of
elections. Reviewing information may include reviewing current
elections, reviewing dependents, reviewing beneficiaries, and the
like. For example, when reviewing dependents in FIG. 24, a listing
may show all current dependents with their name, relationship to
the employee, birth date, dependent coverage, and the like. The
employee may review the current election as shown in FIG. 23.
Further, the employee may have the option of editing dependent
information, removing a dependent, adding a dependent, and the
like. Selecting the option to add a dependent may access a screen
for adding dependent information, as in FIG. 25.
[0278] Dependent information added may include name, birth date,
social security number, gender, relationship to the employee,
student status, disability status, address, and the like. The
address field may be auto-filled with the employer's address to
save time in adding the dependent. The dependent information form,
as well as all forms within the benefits administration
application, may feature instant validation. Instead of having to
submit the form in order to determine if any errors have been made
in data entry, an auto-validation feature provides an indication
that an error has been made by providing a signal at the field
containing the error. For example, a social security number missing
the ninth digit may cause the field to be highlighted. In another
example, if the gender is indicated as male but the relationship
selected is daughter, one or both of the fields may be highlighted
or otherwise signaled as containing an error. Alternatively, a
selection of "daughter" may invalidate the gender option "male" so
that it is not selectable. Validation rules may govern
form-checking and error alerts. A callout box for describing the
validation error, as shown in FIG. 26, as well as a method for
correcting the error may accompany the signal provided at the
field.
[0279] Referring to FIG. 27, once dependent information has been
successfully input, a review your dependents screen may be shown.
In this example, a new dependent has been added but neither
dependent has medical or dental coverage. This screen may provide
the option to review beneficiaries.
[0280] Selecting to review beneficiaries may access the
beneficiaries' page of the enrollment step, as in FIG. 28.
Beneficiaries may be added for benefits such as basic life
insurance, accidental death and dismemberment insurance,
supplemental life insurance, disability insurance, business travel
and accident insurance, 401K, and the like. Beneficiaries may be a
person, trust, estate, charity, foundation, university, and the
like. Any current beneficiaries may be viewed in the listing of
beneficiaries, which may include beneficiary name, birth date,
social security number, beneficiary type, beneficiary allocation,
and the like. To add a beneficiary, the beneficiary type may be
selected and beneficiary information may be added, as in FIG. 29.
Certain beneficiary information, such as address, may be supplied
without need to re-enter. Alternatively, beneficiaries may be
selected from among the dependent pool. Referring now to FIG. 30,
once the beneficiary has been added, a beneficiary type and an
allocation may be assigned to the beneficiary or beneficiaries. The
beneficiary type may be primary or secondary, and allocation may be
anything from zero to 100%. Total allocation for all beneficiaries
must not exceed 100%. If the allocation does exceed 100%, the
auto-validation feature will highlight the allocation field
alerting the employee that a correction should be made.
[0281] Referring to FIG. 31, the third step of the enrollment
process may be making benefits elections. Elections may be made for
medical coverage, dental coverage, vision coverage, supplemental
life insurance, dependent life insurance, flexible spending
accounts, employer paid benefits, and the like. In an embodiment,
the employee may choose coverage from eligible possibilities.
[0282] Selecting medical coverage may access a medical coverage
elections screen, as in FIG. 32. Elections may be
eligibility-based. For example, the employee may choose to waive
coverage or they may choose from at least one option for medical
insurance. The costs for the medical insurance plans may be
displayed to the employee for various coverage types, such as
employee only, employee plus one, family plan, and the like. When
the employee selects a plan and coverage type, an alert may
indicate which dependents would be eligible for coverage under the
selection. For example, an outline box may appear around the
eligible dependents. The employee may then select which dependents
to include in the elected coverage. Selecting dental and vision
coverage may proceed in a similar fashion. In the example of FIG.
32, the employee medical timeline 3202 shows medical coverage
starting Jan. 1, 2009.
[0283] Referring now to FIG. 33, a timeline may show a change upon
election of coverage. In this example, the timeline 3302 shows the
employee changed coverage on the election date of Jan. 1, 2010. The
timeline may provide a way to navigate benefits over a period of
time prior to the current time period or after the current time
period. For example, selecting the portion of the timeline prior to
the current time period may change the display to show what the
benefits elections were during the time period selected.
[0284] Referring to FIG. 34, a selection page for supplemental life
insurance is shown. Options for supplemental life insurance may be
selected by the employee, such as waived, one times the salary,
twice the salary, a specific dollar figure, and the like. The cost
for each option may be indicated along with any requirements, such
as submission of an accompanying evidence of insurability form.
Referring to FIG. 35, the timeline depicts a pending change to the
supplemental life insurance election. A notification alerts the
employee that coverage may be pending awaiting submission of the
evidence of insurability form.
[0285] Referring to FIG. 36, a flexible spending accounts selection
screen is shown. Tools, such as a link to the carrier website may
be present on the screen. Flexible spending accounts may include a
healthcare spending account, a dependent care spending account, and
the like. Each kind of account may have its own coverage timeline.
For each account, minimum allowed amounts, maximum allowed amounts,
current year contribution, past year contribution, and future year
contribution may be shown. The employee may modify the future year
contribution.
[0286] FIG. 37 depicts a view of an employer paid benefits page
showing benefits and any associated options. Employer paid benefits
may include short-term disability, long-term disability, basic life
insurance, accidental death & dismemberment insurance,
supplemental life insurance, business travel and accident
insurance, 401K, employee assistance program, tuition benefits, and
the like. The associated options shown on the employer paid
benefits page may include the level of coverage, and the like.
[0287] Referring to FIG. 38, the fourth step of the enrollment
process may be reviewing and confirming elected benefits. The
timeline may depict benefit elections per event, such as a life
event, an open enrollment event, and the like. The section of the
timeline that is filled in may represent the time in which the
elections below will be in effect. The user may click on any other
portion of the time line, and the data below may be adjusted to
display the benefits in effect at that time. This may give
employees an opportunity to make comparisons and make better
decisions about their benefits elections. Elections may be shown
along with coverage level, effective start date, cost, applicable
dependents or beneficiaries, and the like. The benefits may be
categorized by employee pre-tax paid benefits, employee post-tax
paid benefits, employer paid benefits, and the like. The total cost
for all benefits may be shown as well as a breakdown of post-tax
and pre-tax costs. Any pending requirements, such as requirement
for submission of a form to support an election, may be indicated
on the review page. An option for confirming the elections may be
selected by the employee who may access a confirmation screen, as
in FIG. 39. The confirmation screen displays a signal of successful
submission of elections and may provide options for printing the
elections, returning to the welcome screen, logging out, and the
like. The employee may be notified of any pending requirements,
such as requirement for submission of a form to support an
election. In an embodiment, the forms may be downloaded from the
confirmation screen.
[0288] Referring to FIG. 40, if the employee selects returning to
the welcome screen, the new pending life event that was submitted
for approval may be shown. The employee may have the opportunity to
make changes to the life event and any accompany elections and
changes. The ability to make changes may be limited by applicable
rules, which may be configured or built into the benefits
administration application.
[0289] Referring to FIG. 41, an administrator logging in to the
benefits administration application may have additional
administrative tools accessible from the welcome screen. For
example, administrative tools may include searches such as employee
search, EOI search, event search; reports section that may include
generation of reports for new hire employees reporting, dependent
age out reporting, census reporting, output file statistics
reporting, output file count reporting, enrollment statistics
reporting, enrollment transaction reporting, input file statistics
reporting, benefit election summary reporting, enrollment
statistics reporting, plan migration reporting and the like. In
addition, the welcome screen may include buttons for creating
custom reports, manage reports and the like. Additional links for
premium reporting, resources such as COBRA administration may also
be provided on the welcome screen. Furthermore, other options
accessible through the welcome screen may comprise access to
current benefits, employee profile, beneficiary management,
dependent management, wellness centre access to voluntary programs
such as voluntary insurance and discount programs, common forms,
summary plan descriptions carrier information, and frequently asked
questions, and the like as described earlier.
[0290] Referring to FIG. 42, clicking on the employee search link
may initiate a form for entering details of an employee to be
searched. The search form may include first name, last name, SSN,
employee id, and the like. A search button may be provided for
initiating the search after entering the required criteria for
search. The display screen may provide a plurality of text boxes;
one for performing quick search and the other for performing
advanced search.
[0291] Referring to FIG. 43a, selecting the EOI search option may
bring the administrator to an EOI search screen. The administrator
may search by name, social security number, employee ID, status,
benefit, event, start dates, end dates, date range, and the like.
Similarly, selecting the employee search option may bring the
administrator to an employee search screen. The administrator may
search by name, social security number, employee ID, and the like.
Once an employee is identified, the administrator may approve or
reject events or require additional evidence or information. A
pending change approval of the elected benefits may search from the
EOI screen as shown in FIG. 43b. In addition, the administrator may
initiate an advanced search for listing all the employees that may
have a pending approval as shown in FIG. 43c. In embodiments, a
date range may be selected from the calendar to restrict the EOI
search based on a date range. For example, the administrator may
enter a date range from Oct. 10, 2008 to Oct. 20, 2008. The date
range may be entered by selecting this date range from the calendar
that may be provided on the screen as shown in FIG. 43d.
[0292] An event search for searching a particular event may be
initiated by the administrator as shown in FIG. 44. For example,
the search form may allow the administrator to enter data
corresponding to a particular employee for searching a particular
event associated with the user. The search form may include fields
such as first name, last name, social security number, employee ID,
status, event having an event occurrence dates, event declaration
dates and the like. A search button and a cancel button may be
provided for either executing the search or canceling the
search.
[0293] Referring to FIG. 45, an administrator enrollment statistics
report may include benefit type, the benefit, data range, option,
event, the coverage level, how many employees elected the benefit,
employee status, department, division how many employees were
eligible, the elected percent, and the like. The enrollment
statistics interface may facilitate
filtering/restricting/customizing the search based on one or more
of the following criteria including a range, a benefit, an option,
a coverage level, an event, an employee status, a department, a
division and the like.
[0294] Referring to FIG. 46, an administrator new hire report may
include employee ID, name, date of hire, days remaining, election
start date, election end date, last election date, location,
department, division, company, division, union, cost center email
address and the like. In addition, the new hire report may be
filtered/restricted/limited according to one or more of a hire
date, a location, a department, a company, a division, a union, a
cost center and the like. A link for changing parameters may
present a form for customization/filtering/restricting of report
according to one or more of the above parameters.
[0295] Referring to FIG. 47, a dependent age out report may be
initiated by an administrator that may include attributes such as
sub full name, ID, department full name, age, birth date, benefit
option, age outage, location union, email and the like. The
dependent age out report may also include a link for changing
parameters of the report for customization/filtering/restricting
the dependent age out report according to one or more parameters
such as group type, ID, benefit option, location, department,
company, division, union, cost center and the like as shown in FIG.
48. In addition, each of the report may be report columns may be
sorted according to one or more columns each report may be resorted
by one or more columns by clicking on the column headers or by
selecting a "sort/filter` feature located in each column
header.
[0296] The welcome page may include a link to a census report and
clicking on this may display a screen as shown in the FIG. 49. The
report may enable an administrator to view a snapshot of benefit
enrollment data for the full or partial benefits eligible
population. The report may include a name, a run date, a completed
date, a status, an action and the like. Additionally, the report
may also include a change parameter link that may initiate a web
form for changing/filtering the census report based on parameters
such as report date, location, department, company division, union,
cost center and the like as shown in FIG. 50.
[0297] Referring to FIG. 51, out file statistics report may be
provided to the administrator to assess the number of statements,
or other output files generated within a given date range. The
report may include a statement type, a name, an employee SSN, an
employee ID, a lot name, an event name, a counter run date and the
like. As described earlier the report interface may include a
change parameter link for filtering/customizing/modifying the
report based on one or more parameters such as a statement date
range, a statement type, a first name, a last name, an employee ID,
an employee SSN and the like.
[0298] Referring to FIG. 52, the output file count report may
enable the administrator to see the output file reporting
statistics that may comprise of a statement type, a run date, a lot
count and the like. Furthermore, as described earlier, the output
file reporting may be customized on one or more parameters such as
statement type, statement date range and the like.
[0299] FIG. 53 depicts a screen for input statistics report
generated by the administrator. The input statistics report may
include an input file type, a start time, an end time and the
like.
[0300] Referring to FIG. 54, the administrator may be able to
generate a report for type of enrollment in an enrollment
transaction report. For example, user may be logged by Web, by HR
admin, enrolled by web, or enrolled by via HR admin or CSR. The
report may include statistics in form of data 5402 and/or in form
of chart 5404. The attributes of report may include not enrolled,
enrolled, enrolled by web, enrolled by HR/CSR and the like. The
chart display may include line charts as shown in FIG. 55.
[0301] FIG. 56 illustrates a screen for displaying benefit election
summary report produced by the administrator for various types of
elections including medical, dental, supplemental life and the
like. The benefit election summary report may filtered/restricted
on one or more attribute including date range, benefit, option,
coverage level, event, employee status, department, division and
the like.
[0302] Referring to FIG. 57, the plan migration report may be
generated by the administrator to see the changes made by employees
in various insurance plans, medical plans, dental plans and the
like. The plan migration report may include a changed from, a
changed to, employees who changes, a percentage of total changes
and the like. For example, the employee may change from a buy up
plan to buy up option plan, which change in plan may be provided in
the plan migration report.
[0303] Referring to FIG. 58, the administrator may create a custom
report as per requirement. The custom report may be created from
subscriber attributes, employee attributes, dependent attributes,
employee benefit attributes, work life events, dependent benefit
attributes, dependent age-out attributes and the like. Furthermore,
each attribute may include a plurality of parameters as described
above in this application. It may be noted that one or more
parameters may be selected from each of the subscriber attributes,
employee attributes, dependent attributes, employee benefit
attributes, work life events, dependent benefit attributes,
dependent age-out attributes and the like and may be added to
textbox 5802. In addition, another textbox 5804 to configure
parameters may allow the selected parameters to be dragged here for
including in the report. Another Textbox report name may be
provided for entering the name of the custom report.
[0304] Referring to FIG. 59, a manage report link may allow the
administrator to manage the available reports. The available report
may be listed by name or any other parameter. Further, a create
report button may be provided for creating a new customized
report.
[0305] Referring to FIG. 60, premium billing report may be
generated by the administrator. The premium billing reports may be
arranged in the folder. For example, folder may be arranged
year-wise, and within the year further broken down, such as by
month.
[0306] Referring to FIG. 61, an audit screen of all business
transaction and event elections may comprise events, changes as of
today, and the like. The human resource management system enables
an administrator to view an employee's data and coverage changes
over time, focusing in on certain types of information and the
events that introduced changes.
[0307] FIG. 62 depicts election changes that occurred in
association with a particular event. Details of sessions and
submissions are displayed when the same is selected from the event
timeline.
[0308] FIG. 63 depicts a coverage timeline view showing selected
coverage changes over time for an individual event. In the timeline
may be presented, such basic life, dental, medical, supplemental
life, and the like.
[0309] Referring to FIG. 64, an annual enrollment screen may
provide the listing of the dependents. The listing may include the
name, relationship, birth date, and the like. In addition, the
listing may include different types of benefits such as medical,
dental, and the like.
[0310] It should be understood that any action or function
described herein may be performed by an employee in a self-service
operation, by an administrator, by a third party, and the like,
unless otherwise indicated.
[0311] The benefits application user interface may facilitate
planning and/or managing benefits for a single employee or a
plurality of employees. The plurality of employees may be related
through one or more of the following, without limitation--employee
attributes, such as title, aspects of coverage, department,
location, business unit or division, responsibilities, years of
service, manager, services received, employee employment status,
and the like. An employee employment status may include, without
limitation, one or more of full-time, part time, hourly, exempt,
permanent, temporary, direct, contract, and other characterizations
of status such as active, inactive, retired, and the like.
[0312] The user interface, or one or more portions of the user
interface, may be based on computer programming technology
including without limitation JAVA, JAVASCRIPT, ADOBE FLASH, ADOBE
FLEX a combination thereof, or a combination of one or more thereof
and other computer programming languages, constructs, technology,
images, graphics, menus, and the like.
[0313] The human resource management platform 100 may provide
facilities for integrating information from a variety of sources
including enterprise business systems, such as planning, budgeting,
accounting, organization management, and the like. Information may
be provided to the human resource management platform 100 to update
the relevant data in the human resource management platform 100. In
an embodiment of the invention, information from external business
and other systems may be integrated on a regular basis, such as
each day. Facilities for integrating this information may provide
synchronization capabilities that may allow a user/enterprise to
detect changes in information received for integration and to
decide how the data in the platform reacts to the detected changes
in the information.
[0314] The benefits administration business application may
facilitate supporting "what-if" scenario assessment. In the
benefits space pending data may be applicable because decisions
that are made today may require approval before the change can be
effective. Therefore, such decisions result in a pending approval
state, such as a pending event. Pending events may be incorporated
into a future view of the model (e.g. by setting a future target
effective date for the application). However, the changes are
separate from the `current state` until they are approved so that
they are not used in activities that access data (past, present, or
future) before the state is approved such as sending current data
to the suppliers of these benefits. In an example of this
combination of effective dating and a pending event for a benefits
administration application, an employee may elect to increase life
insurance coverage on a first date. However, the election must be
approved so the date that the election is made becomes a pending
effective date for the election. Until the change is approved, the
current coverage is unchanged and the premiums deducted from the
employee's paycheck are unchanged. Once the change is approved, the
coverage effective date may be any of the earlier election date,
the approval date, or a future date such as the beginning of the
next billing cycle or the next calendar month. The higher coverage
effective date may be determined based on business logic associated
with the change. If the higher coverage effective date is a future
date, the higher coverage is associated with the future effective
date so that when the calendar date passes the coverage effective
date, the coverage is effective. Alternatively, the target
effective date can be changed to be after the future effective date
of the higher coverage so that premium deductions can be adjusted
for an upcoming payroll cycle that matches to the future effective
date of the higher coverage.
[0315] In an example, benefits data integration using the data
synchronization facilities described herein may be part of
regularly run process in which the platform 100 receives a stream
of updated data. To facilitate proper and effective integration of
externally provided data, a set of input data may be a complete set
of data, or a partial set with optional effective dating for
various parts of the data. The input file process merges the input
data into the persisted, effective dated domain model after
performing coverage repair to ensure data integrity and consistency
with the benefits administration and platform business rules. The
input file process performs a reconciliation process to determine
the changes in the received data. The reconciliation process may
include comparing received data to data existing in the platform to
infer the occurrence of benefits events.
[0316] Even pending benefits approval notification/authorization,
which may be part of an approval workflow, has to be tracked and
modified based on changes detected in the input data so that the
impact of these detected changes is properly managed. Changes
received in input files or user interaction on a web-based
application may impact benefits or give opportunity to make new
elections. In some cases eligibility can be affected such as if an
employee changes from one business unit in a corporation to another
business unit that has different benefits or rules. The coverage
repair facilities of the platform 100 may automatically process
these changes.
[0317] The coverage repair capabilities of the platform 100 may be
associated with a benefits administration management business
application. Coverage repair as described herein may facilitate
recalculating decisions associated with benefit elections that have
a future effective date when changes introduced into the platform
100 impact the future elections. In an example, in November an
employee elects benefits to be effective in January. These benefits
may be coded with an effective date in January so the current
coverage period is not impacted by these benefits elections. In
December the employee adds a family member to his current benefit
plan after the birth of a child. Although the elections made in
November that will be effective in January do not include the
additional family member, when data including the additional family
member is received by the platform, the coverage repair facilities
of the platform, in conjunction with the business rules and
dependency logic of the benefits administration business
application may automatically recalculate the coverage for the new
coverage period (that starts in January) based on the additional
family member. This recalculation may result in the benefit
election being automatically changed to include the additional
dependent so that the benefits provided in the new coverage period
in January will include the additional dependent.
[0318] In a variation of the above example, in December an employee
moves to a different state that requires a different health care
provider. When input file processing receives the new employee
address, it recognizes this as a move event, and coverage repair
makes any necessary adjustments to coverage from the date of the
move up to the new plan year under the current plan rules, and then
makes corrections or adjustments based on that new address into the
new plan year under its rules. As a result, the employee's earlier
election of a health care provider is repaired, or kept conformant
to the rules, even if that required a switch of benefits providers
based on service areas. Coverage repair will determine what
business logic and/or update rules apply to an address change and
apply those rules to the election decision. The result may be that
a default benefit option is elected. Alternatively, the benefit
option to which the employee has switched in the current period as
a result of the move may become the default benefit option for the
new coverage period.
[0319] The methods and systems described herein may be deployed in
part or in whole through a machine that executes computer software,
program codes, and/or instructions on a processor. The processor
may be part of a server, client, network infrastructure, mobile
computing platform, stationary computing platform, or other
computing platform. A processor may be any kind of computational or
processing device capable of executing program instructions, codes,
binary instructions and the like. The processor may be or include a
signal processor, digital processor, embedded processor,
microprocessor or any variant such as a co-processor (math
co-processor, graphic co-processor, communication co-processor and
the like) and the like that may directly or indirectly facilitate
execution of program code or program instructions stored thereon.
In addition, the processor may enable execution of multiple
programs, threads, and codes. The threads may be executed
simultaneously to enhance the performance of the processor and to
facilitate simultaneous operations of the application. By way of
implementation, methods, program codes, program instructions and
the like described herein may be implemented in one or more thread.
The thread may spawn other threads that may have assigned
priorities associated with them; the processor may execute these
threads based on priority or any other order based on instructions
provided in the program code. The processor may include memory that
stores methods, codes, instructions and programs as described
herein and elsewhere. The processor may access a storage medium
through an interface that may store methods, codes, and
instructions as described herein and elsewhere. The storage medium
associated with the processor for storing methods, programs, codes,
program instructions or other type of instructions capable of being
executed by the computing or processing device may include but may
not be limited to one or more of a CD-ROM, DVD, memory, hard disk,
flash drive, RAM, ROM, cache and the like.
[0320] A processor may include one or more cores that may enhance
speed and performance of a multiprocessor. In embodiments, the
process may be a dual core processor, quad core processors, other
chip-level multiprocessor and the like that combine two or more
independent cores (called a die).
[0321] The methods and systems described herein may be deployed in
part or in whole through a machine that executes computer software
on a server, client, firewall, gateway, hub, router, or other such
computer and/or networking hardware. The software program may be
associated with a server that may include a file server, print
server, domain server, internet server, intranet server and other
variants such as secondary server, host server, distributed server
and the like. The server may include one or more of memories,
processors, computer readable media, storage media, ports (physical
and virtual), communication devices, and interfaces capable of
accessing other servers, clients, machines, and devices through a
wired or a wireless medium, and the like. The methods, programs or
codes as described herein and elsewhere may be executed by the
server. In addition, other devices required for execution of
methods as described in this application may be considered as a
part of the infrastructure associated with the server.
[0322] The server may provide an interface to other devices
including, without limitation, clients, other servers, printers,
database servers, print servers, file servers, communication
servers, distributed servers and the like. Additionally, this
coupling and/or connection may facilitate remote execution of
program across the network. The networking of some or all of these
devices may facilitate parallel processing of a program or method
at one or more location without deviating from the scope of the
invention. In addition, any of the devices attached to the server
through an interface may include at least one storage medium
capable of storing methods, programs, code and/or instructions. A
central repository may provide program instructions to be executed
on different devices. In this implementation, the remote repository
may act as a storage medium for program code, instructions, and
programs.
[0323] The software program may be associated with a client that
may include a file client, print client, domain client, internet
client, intranet client and other variants such as secondary
client, host client, distributed client and the like. The client
may include one or more of memories, processors, computer readable
media, storage media, ports (physical and virtual), communication
devices, and interfaces capable of accessing other clients,
servers, machines, and devices through a wired or a wireless
medium, and the like. The methods, programs or codes as described
herein and elsewhere may be executed by the client. In addition,
other devices required for execution of methods as described in
this application may be considered as a part of the infrastructure
associated with the client.
[0324] The client may provide an interface to other devices
including, without limitation, servers, other clients, printers,
database servers, print servers, file servers, communication
servers, distributed servers and the like. Additionally, this
coupling and/or connection may facilitate remote execution of
program across the network. The networking of some or all of these
devices may facilitate parallel processing of a program or method
at one or more location without deviating from the scope of the
invention. In addition, any of the devices attached to the client
through an interface may include at least one storage medium
capable of storing methods, programs, applications, code and/or
instructions. A central repository may provide program instructions
to be executed on different devices. In this implementation, the
remote repository may act as a storage medium for program code,
instructions, and programs.
[0325] The methods and systems described herein may be deployed in
part or in whole through network infrastructures. The network
infrastructure may include elements such as computing devices,
servers, routers, hubs, firewalls, clients, personal computers,
communication devices, routing devices and other active and passive
devices, modules and/or components as known in the art. The
computing and/or non-computing device(s) associated with the
network infrastructure may include, apart from other components, a
storage medium such as flash memory, buffer, stack, RAM, ROM and
the like. The processes, methods, program codes, instructions
described herein and elsewhere may be executed by one or more of
the network infrastructural elements.
[0326] The methods, program codes, and instructions described
herein and elsewhere may be implemented on a cellular network
having multiple cells. The cellular network may either be frequency
division multiple access (FDMA) network or code division multiple
access (CDMA) network. The cellular network may include mobile
devices, cell sites, base stations, repeaters, antennas, towers,
and the like. The cell network may be a GSM, GPRS, 3G, EVDO, mesh,
or other networks types.
[0327] The methods, programs codes, and instructions described
herein and elsewhere may be implemented on or through mobile
devices. The mobile devices may include navigation devices, cell
phones, mobile phones, mobile personal digital assistants, laptops,
palmtops, netbooks, pagers, electronic books readers, music players
and the like. These devices may include, apart from other
components, a storage medium such as a flash memory, buffer, RAM,
ROM and one or more computing devices. The computing devices
associated with mobile devices may be enabled to execute program
codes, methods, and instructions stored thereon. Alternatively, the
mobile devices may be configured to execute instructions in
collaboration with other devices. The mobile devices may
communicate with base stations interfaced with servers and
configured to execute program codes. The mobile devices may
communicate on a peer to peer network, mesh network, or other
communications network. The program code may be stored on the
storage medium associated with the server and executed by a
computing device embedded within the server. The base station may
include a computing device and a storage medium. The storage device
may store program codes and instructions executed by the computing
devices associated with the base station.
[0328] The computer software, program codes, and/or instructions
may be stored and/or accessed on machine readable media that may
include: computer components, devices, and recording media that
retain digital data used for computing for some interval of time;
semiconductor storage known as random access memory (RAM); mass
storage typically for more permanent storage, such as optical
discs, forms of magnetic storage like hard disks, tapes, drums,
cards and other types; processor registers, cache memory, volatile
memory, non-volatile memory; optical storage such as CD, DVD;
removable media such as flash memory (e.g. USB sticks or keys),
floppy disks, magnetic tape, paper tape, punch cards, standalone
RAM disks, Zip drives, removable mass storage, off-line, and the
like; other computer memory such as dynamic memory, static memory,
read/write storage, mutable storage, read only, random access,
sequential access, location addressable, file addressable, content
addressable, network attached storage, storage area network, bar
codes, magnetic ink, and the like.
[0329] The methods and systems described herein may transform
physical and/or or intangible items from one state to another. The
methods and systems described herein may also transform data
representing physical and/or intangible items from one state to
another.
[0330] The elements described and depicted herein, including in
flow charts and block diagrams throughout the figures, imply
logical boundaries between the elements. However, according to
software or hardware engineering practices, the depicted elements
and the functions thereof may be implemented on machines through
computer executable media having a processor capable of executing
program instructions stored thereon as a monolithic software
structure, as standalone software modules, or as modules that
employ external routines, code, services, and so forth, or any
combination of these, and all such implementations may be within
the scope of the present disclosure. Examples of such machines may
include, but may not be limited to, personal digital assistants,
laptops, personal computers, mobile phones, other handheld
computing devices, medical equipment, wired or wireless
communication devices, transducers, chips, calculators, satellites,
tablet PCs, electronic books, gadgets, electronic devices, devices
having artificial intelligence, computing devices, networking
equipments, servers, routers and the like. Furthermore, the
elements depicted in the flow chart and block diagrams or any other
logical component may be implemented on a machine capable of
executing program instructions. Thus, while the foregoing drawings
and descriptions set forth functional aspects of the disclosed
systems, no particular arrangement of software for implementing
these functional aspects should be inferred from these descriptions
unless explicitly stated or otherwise clear from the context.
Similarly, it will be appreciated that the various steps identified
and described above may be varied, and that the order of steps may
be adapted to particular applications of the techniques disclosed
herein. All such variations and modifications are intended to fall
within the scope of this disclosure. As such, the depiction and/or
description of an order for various steps should not be understood
to require a particular order of execution for those steps, unless
required by a particular application, or explicitly stated or
otherwise clear from the context.
[0331] The methods and/or processes described above, and steps
thereof, may be realized in hardware, software or any combination
of hardware and software suitable for a particular application. The
hardware may include a general purpose computer and/or dedicated
computing device or specific computing device or particular aspect
or component of a specific computing device. The processes may be
realized in one or more microprocessors, microcontrollers, embedded
microcontrollers, programmable digital signal processors or other
programmable device, along with internal and/or external memory.
The processes may also, or instead, be embodied in an application
specific integrated circuit, a programmable gate array,
programmable array logic, or any other device or combination of
devices that may be configured to process electronic signals. It
will further be appreciated that one or more of the processes may
be realized as a computer executable code capable of being executed
on a machine readable medium.
[0332] The computer executable code may be created using a
structured programming language such as C, an object oriented
programming language such as C++, or any other high-level or
low-level programming language (including assembly languages,
hardware description languages, and database programming languages
and technologies) that may be stored, compiled or interpreted to
run on one of the above devices, as well as heterogeneous
combinations of processors, processor architectures, or
combinations of different hardware and software, or any other
machine capable of executing program instructions.
[0333] Thus, in one aspect, each method described above and
combinations thereof may be embodied in computer executable code
that, when executing on one or more computing devices, performs the
steps thereof. In another aspect, the methods may be embodied in
systems that perform the steps thereof, and may be distributed
across devices in a number of ways, or all of the functionality may
be integrated into a dedicated, standalone device or other
hardware. In another aspect, the means for performing the steps
associated with the processes described above may include any of
the hardware and/or software described above. All such permutations
and combinations are intended to fall within the scope of the
present disclosure.
[0334] While the invention has been disclosed in connection with
the preferred embodiments shown and described in detail, various
modifications and improvements thereon will become readily apparent
to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the spirit and scope of
the present invention is not to be limited by the foregoing
examples, but is to be understood in the broadest sense allowable
by law.
[0335] All documents referenced herein are hereby incorporated by
reference.
* * * * *