Benefit Set Line Items define the recommended benefit amount, identify where to store a user’s desired benefit choice, calculate the estimated cost of a user’s benefit choice, set the service to authorize when the Authorization is complete, and set the budgeting limits for the benefit.
Appearance
The Appearance options for a Benefit Set Line Item are as follows:
Section – The area of the Services screen on which the line item will appear during the Authorization. It’s recommended, but not required, to use one section for one-time relocation benefits, one section for recurring on-assignment benefits, and one section for one-time repatriation benefits. The list of available sections is defined by the Cost Estimate Section Lookup Field and can be modified as desired.
Description – Used to identify the line item on configuration screens. Not shown to Authorization user. Must be unique within the Benefit Set.
Display Name - How the benefit will be identified to the user on the Services step of the Authorization. Multiple Line Items can have the same Display Name. This allows using situational rules to hide all but the single applicable version of a Line Item to the user.
Help Text – Defines the contents of the popup window available for each Benefit Set Line Item during the Authorization. Supports rich text.
Sequence – Defines the display order of Line Items within the same category.
Behavior
The Behavior options for a Benefit Set Line Item are as follows:
Benefit Type – <Core>, meaning the user will have no choices to make for the benefit amount; <Flexible>, meaning the user will have choices available; <Hidden>, meaning the Line Item is not visible to the user. Hidden line items can be beneficial for deprecating obsolete Line Items that can’t be deleted or for cascading a calculated Line Item cost into another Line Item’s cost calculation.
Service To Authorize – The Service that will be automatically authorized if the calculated benefit cost is greater than zero when the Authorization is completed. In addition to zero values, if the situational rules prevent the Line Item from displaying or the Line Item type is Hidden, then the selected service will not be authorized (unless authorized by another Line Item).
Note that this specific Core Flex configuration feature affects the Services page of the final Assignment. In addition to the Services page showing authorized services in the cases above, it will also show all Services from all Line Items that could be authorized as “Available”. This is so these services might be authorized after the Authorization is complete. Additionally, services that are marked “Available” on the Relocation Policy Definition page will also show as “Available” on the Assignment.
Recurrence – Determines how the benefit should be grouped for budgeting. <First Year Only> and <Last Year Only> benefits are grouped into one budget. <All Years> benefits are grouped in another budget and the benefit’s cost amount is appended with “/ yr” on the Services step of the Authorization. Note that this is only for estimated amounts. Partial year assignment benefits are estimated as their full per year amounts.
Is Situational Benefit – When checked, makes the showing of the benefit determined by data entered elsewhere in the system, most likely on employee and relocation steps of the Authorization. Refer to the Using Situational Rules section for configuring the conditions that determine the benefit availability.
Benefit Choices
On the Line Item Details page, click [Add Benefit Choice] to add a choice to the Line Item. This option is not available when Benefit Type is <Core>. Although not usual, multiple choices can be added to a single line item. Each Benefit Choice requires a field to be chosen that will store the user’s desired benefit amount. The Benefit Choice Field list contains all Money and Lookup fields from user tables configured to match the requirements in the Creating User Tables section. Options will change depending on whether a money or lookup field is chosen.
Amount Field
Amount Currency – The currency for the desired amount that the user must specify during the authorization. Making this currency different from the Benefit Set currency can allow the user to specify desired amounts in an easier-to-understand value while showing the total cost of the benefit in another currency such as the company currency. When this currency is different from the Benefit Set currency at the time of the Authorization, the alternative currency is clearly displayed to the user for the minimum, recommended, maximum and desired values. At Authorization time, exchange rate values must exist for the Benefit Set currency and the selected currency.
Fixed – Used for values that do not change between Authorizations. The currency chosen for this amount is never shown to the user during the Authorization; instead, this is used to avoid requiring currency conversion at time of configuration. An amount and currency can be specified here and it will be converted into the Amount Currency at the time the Authorization is started. Minimum, recommended and maximum currencies must all be equal. Note that the chosen currency must be either the Home or Host currency (determined at time of the Authorization) or Company or System currency. For example, it might be easiest for the Authorization user to always input a desired benefit amount for temporary housing in the host currency, therefore Amount Currency should be set to Host. However it might be easiest for the configuration user to input a maximum fixed amount in the company’s cost currency.
Calculated – Used for calculating the respective value at the time of the authorization based upon data in the system. After picking a calculation and saving, a button will appear next to the calculation that, when clicked, allows for specifying a User Report to be used in combination with the calculation. See the Calculation Input Mapping Section below for more information.
% Of Recommended – Specify the percent difference under or over the Recommended value. Minimum is limited to 0-100 and Maximum is limited to 100-1000.
Lookup Field
Lookup Value – This column lists the lookup group values. Order is determined by Classification Lookup Group Display Order.
Visible – Determines if the value is selectable as a user choice during the Authorization.
Minimum, Recommended, Maximum – Sets the respective value.
Exception Required – Causes the selected value to generate an exception when chosen by the Authorization user.
There is no system validation for Benefit Choice Minimum, Recommended, Maximum, and Exception options amounts. If configured incorrectly, a recommended amount could be not visible to the user or a maximum can be made to be lower than a minimum. It is the configuring user’s responsibility to verify that amounts make sense.
Cost
Cost Calculation / Business Rule - Company Calculation required to calculate the cost of a desired benefit choice. Cost calculations must define both amounts and currency. This can be done using Business Rule or using a User Report to define the currency.
Calculation Input Mapping (Optional)
Use this table to define inputs to the selected calculation.
User Report for Input Values - Select a User Report to generate and define inputs to the calculation. The column name in the User Report must match either the Name or Caption of the input (both are supported).
Get Value From (Line Item) - Specify a Line Item’s cost that will be used as input. The selected Line Item must be sequentially above the Line Item being configured. Minimum, Recommended, and Maximum amounts cannot use other Line Item costs as input.
Input Value To (Calculation Input) - Specify the calculation input parameter that is populated by the selected Line Item’s calculated cost.
Creating Situational Rules
This section is displayed when Is Situational Benefit is checked. Add a new rule condition by clicking the [Add Condition(s)] button. The following fields are available for configuration:
Delete – Check and save the rule to delete the condition.
Sequence – Used to sort the rule order for ease of use. Logical condition (and, or) ultimately determines execution order.
Parenthesis – Use parenthesis to create logical groupings for more complex condition combinations.
Field – The field in the system that will contain the first comparison value. Displays a comprehensive list of fields throughout the system including Authorization stage fields, Company fields, custom fields in both the previous locations, and User Table fields. Assignment fields are available, but will not function for Core Flex workflows.
Comparison – The comparison operator for the condition equation.
Compare To – Only shown for certain Comparison Defines the second comparison value. Select Value to specify a known value (e.g. “Job Grade Field Is Greater Than 8”). Select Field to show another field selector to compare to another field in the system (e.g. “From Country Field Is Not Equal To To Country Field”). To change from Value to Field or vice versa, clear the Compare To field value and save the rule.
And/Or – Used to combine multiple condition lines to form complex rules. Follows standard Boolean logic conventions. If a value is not specified, the join is construed as “And”. I.e., if no And/Or values are selected, all conditions in a rule must be true for the benefit to show.
When the Services step is shown during an Authorization using a Core Flex policy, all situation rules are executed. When a Benefit Set Line Item’s situation rules evaluate to true, that benefit is presented to the user. If the overall combination of conditions does not evaluate to true, the benefit is not available to the user. Line Items that are not shown due to situational logic conditions will not have any costs calculated and therefore will not cascade any values to other line items.
General Considerations for Line Item Configuration
A recommended setup of combining User Reports and Calculations is to perform complicated calculations in a User Report, and then use the result as an input to a simple pass-through spreadsheet calculation. This setup allows an entire Benefit Set to only need 4 pass-through calculations: one each for minimum, maximum, recommended, and cost. This also allows for the creation of a single User Report to calculate the minimum, maximum, recommended, and cost for each Line Item. Another, often similar User Report using Assignment data is always required for generating documents as part of the Assignment Package step.
When cascading the cost of a Line Item to another Line Item, only the amount (not the currency) is passed; therefore, the User Report must be setup to account for potential currency differences between Line Items. Unless currencies are guaranteed to be the same between cascading Line Items, the User Report must be setup to retrieve the correct currency.
Generally, User Reports used for Cost Calculations of Benefit Set Line Items should reference fields in Authorization level User Tables (and other Authorization Stage tables) and should not be confused with User Reports that enable Cost Calculations for Cost Estimates that reference Assignment level data. It’s common for User Reports that back Benefit Set Line Item cost calculations to be similar to the User Reports that back Cost Estimate Line Item cost calculations with the main difference being the location of the data they use.
Care should be taken to properly configure User Reports and cost calculations to appropriately produce “0” results as opposed to “NULL” results. A NULL calculation result will appear as a blank value on the Services page and could be confusing to the user or generate inaccurate exceptions, whereas a “0” displays correctly as a cost of “0” and generates exceptions accurately.
For Benefit Set Line Item cost calculations, no forms of calculation defaulting are supported, including the use of “Magic Values” and “Auto-Fill”.
Example of a fully configured Benefit Set Line Item:
Things to Note about using Business Rules
Benefit Sets inputs are supported with the Variable Input option configured in the Business Rules configuration
Single-Context Authorization and Multi-Context Business Rules are now supported in the Benefit Sets Calculations. To use a Business Rule for Benefit Sets (to calculate the cost of a desired choice or the choice calculation) ensure that the 'Authorization' context is selected from the Contexts field under the Details section of the business rule.
