Time And Labor: Some useful Info -- Part 1

Time And Labor:
As the name itself suggests, it captures the time consumed for each of the efforts. Based on hourly rate, the employee is paid through payroll.

There are two types of noting time in PS.
1. Punch time -- Captures Time IN and Time OUT. say Lunch 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm
2. Elapse time -- Captures time in periods. say 8 hours etc.

Base Benefits: Some Useful Info -- Part 1

Where do we set Age limit for Dependents in Benefits Module?

Let's consider a scenario where an Employee enrolls dependents into a plan ,say Health Care Plan.
And as per the insurance plan, only dependents upto 25 years are covered.


Setup HRMS --> Product Related --> Base Benefits --> Rates and Rules --> Dependent Rules Table.

Where do we setup to exclude disabled from Age limit for Dependents in Benefits Module?
Setup HRMS --> Product Related --> Base Benefits --> Rates and Rules --> Dependent Rules Table.

Core HR : Some useful info -- Part 1

Action Stat Table:
 We have come across tables such as ACTION_TBL (Action Setup Table) and ACTN_REASON_TBL (Action/Action Reason Combinations). There is one another table, ACTION_STAT_TBL where we can see the list of all possible Action that can be applied on a Job row.

Though it contains both the delivered/custom actions, we can distinguish them using the value stored in the SYSTEM_DATA_FLG.
Application Version: 9.1

Payroll Status field on Job Data:
As we know the importance of the payroll status filed, which is used by Payroll. The field behind the scenes used is JOB.EMPL_STATUS !!

Some known values for EMPL_STATUS
A - Active
L - Leave
P - Leave with Pay
S - Suspended
R - Retired
T - Terminated
etc..

Next question is what is the field used for HR Status? .....
It's nothing but HR_STATUS !!

Time and Labor Tables

TL_EMPL_DATA
Contains high level data of an employee like Workgroup, Taskgroup, Time Reporter Status.

TL_RPTD_TIME
Extracts employee time reported data.
Both the elapsed and punch type data is stored in this table.
TL_QUANTITY is field which stores the reported hours data.
DUR field contains Date value.

File Layout: Previewing Input Data

Some useful information related to previewing data in File Layouts.

1. Preview file data is available only for FIXED and CSV file layouts.
2. With an XML file, you cannot preview the data

The preview data appears only if you selected an import file, if the file format matches the format specified for the file layout definition, and if it contains a file record ID that matches the file record ID of the selected segment.

Source referred from PeopleTools 8.52

BI Publisher: Please close MS Word and try again

When you get below error while installing BI Publisher Desktop version make sure that all MS office related items like Outlook,MS Word etc are closed.
Then try installing again.
This would mostly resolve the issue.

Error: Please close MS Word and try again

Override Search Record

Why do you override a search record? What are the scenarios you come across to implement this option?

Ususally, component search records will do. They help us in getting the required data onto the search page.
Below are few such cases, where you would be using 'Override Search Record' option.

1. May be you come across a scenario where when you access component should have one
    search  record and when you access component through Component Interface another
    search record.

2. Also another case is, if you want to register the same component  to be available at two
    different places in PIA.
 

SQL to find the Navigation for a given Record Name

SELECT  A.PORTAL_URI_SEG2,
RTRIM(E.PORTAL_LABEL)
|| ' >> ' || RTRIM(D.PORTAL_LABEL)
|| ' >> ' || RTRIM(C.PORTAL_LABEL)
|| ' >> ' || RTRIM(B.PORTAL_LABEL)
|| ' >> ' || RTRIM(A.PORTAL_LABEL)
FROM PSPRSMDEFN A LEFT JOIN PSPRSMDEFN B ON B.PORTAL_NAME = A.PORTAL_NAME
AND B.PORTAL_OBJNAME = A.PORTAL_PRNTOBJNAME LEFT JOIN PSPRSMDEFN C
ON C.PORTAL_NAME = B.PORTAL_NAME AND C.PORTAL_OBJNAME = B.PORTAL_PRNTOBJNAME LEFT JOIN PSPRSMDEFN D
ON D.PORTAL_NAME = C.PORTAL_NAME AND D.PORTAL_OBJNAME = C.PORTAL_PRNTOBJNAME LEFT JOIN PSPRSMDEFN E
ON E.PORTAL_NAME = D.PORTAL_NAME AND E.PORTAL_OBJNAME = D.PORTAL_PRNTOBJNAME WHERE
A.PORTAL_URI_SEG2 IN (select PNLGRPNAME from PSPNLGROUP WHERE PNLNAME IN (select distinct pnlname from pspnlfield where recname = < RECORD_NAME > ));

What is a fringe benefit?

Fringe Benefit:
Fringe is nothing but an extra/ an edge over something etc.
These are usually paid by employers to the employee to retain the talent pool. Fringe Benefits is a supplemental to employee's salary. Like an Employer can offer Employer Paid Life Insurance to an employee.

Most of the cases , fringe benefits are non-taxable unless until they represent a fair market value.
So these benefits doesn't fall under Employee taxable income. That's the reason the premium deducted in the Pay comes under Pre-Tax.

However, this depends on the  rules set by the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) in US.

Suppose if a coverage limit is set for Life Insurance and if an employers offers more coverage than the coverage limit set by the IRS then the extra perk becomes taxable.

Other examples of Fringe Benefits is like using company provided car, getting stocks etc.

When to go for Partial Position Management.

Good example when to go for Partial Position Mgmnt. Source: Peoplebooks

“If you use PeopleSoft Pension Administration, you track your pension payees—retirees, beneficiaries, and QDRO (qualified domestic relations order) alternate payees—using the same tables that you use to track your workers. You want to drive your retiree organization by person (or in this case, by payee), rather than by position, so that you don't have to establish a different position for each payee in the system. To drive your worker organization by position and your payee organization by person, use the partial position management option.”

By Default, in the installations page, it is set to partial.

What is Person Mgmnt?  We go with this option, if our business has requirement of creating more jobs more often.

What is Position Mgmnt? We go with this option, if our business already defined positions (usually static, say healthcare etc.)and want people filling these positions.

HR: Tax Location Code Error while hiring an Employee.

This error might confuse us because there are two location fields on the Job Data page.
One is one the Work Location Page and other one is on the Payroll tab.

Location on Work Location page does not determine the employee’s primary work state. It is determined by the Tax location entered in the Payroll tab.

Once we provide data in this field, we should be able to save the Job data for New Hire.

Benefits Terms

OASDI -- Old Age, Survivor and Disability Insurance
FICA  -- Federal Insurance Contributions Act
FMLA  -- Family and Medical Leave Act
COBRA -- The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
FLSA  -- Fair Labor Standards Act
FEGLI -- Federal Employee Group Life Insurance
ABBR -- Annual Benefits Base Rate
EIC     -- Earned Income Credit. Represented as $E

%FilePath_Absolute and %Filepath_Relative

These are the meta variables used generally with File Classes.
Both of the help us in defining the path of the file. One of them is Absolute and other one is Relative.

I will not go much details about the syntax of the functions which use these variables.

I believe most of you might have put this question to your self when encounterd with below variables like what is Absolute path and Relative path.

 %FilePath_Absolute: We define the actual path on the server.
                                    We can place file on any folder path in the server.

Ex:- PS_HOME/user/filename.txt

%Filepath_Relative: This uses the system defined path.
                                  Files can be placed in the sub-folders beneath this path.
                                  System Defined paths are like PS_FILEDIR/PS_SERVDIR etc.

Ex:- PS_FILEDIR/filename.txt

SQL to find Navigation for a Given Process.

-- SQL to find Navigation for a Given Process.

The below SQL lists all the Navigations where the process is attached.

SELECT  A.PORTAL_URI_SEG2,
RTRIM(E.PORTAL_LABEL)
|| ' >> ' || RTRIM(D.PORTAL_LABEL)
|| ' >> ' || RTRIM(C.PORTAL_LABEL)
|| ' >> ' || RTRIM(B.PORTAL_LABEL)
|| ' >> ' || RTRIM(A.PORTAL_LABEL)
FROM PSPRSMDEFN A LEFT JOIN PSPRSMDEFN B ON B.PORTAL_NAME = A.PORTAL_NAME
AND B.PORTAL_OBJNAME = A.PORTAL_PRNTOBJNAME LEFT JOIN PSPRSMDEFN C
ON C.PORTAL_NAME = B.PORTAL_NAME AND C.PORTAL_OBJNAME = B.PORTAL_PRNTOBJNAME LEFT JOIN PSPRSMDEFN D
ON D.PORTAL_NAME = C.PORTAL_NAME AND D.PORTAL_OBJNAME = C.PORTAL_PRNTOBJNAME LEFT JOIN PSPRSMDEFN E
ON E.PORTAL_NAME = D.PORTAL_NAME AND E.PORTAL_OBJNAME = D.PORTAL_PRNTOBJNAME WHERE
A.PORTAL_URI_SEG2 IN (SELECT PNLGRPNAME from PS_PRCSDEFNPNL P WHERE P.PRCSNAME = < PROCESS_NAME >);

Note: Substitue Process Name in the < PROCESS_NAME >.

How to find extended ASCII characters present in a string.

Lets take an example of ADDRESS record in PeopleSoft.
To identify extended ASCII character first we need to know the ASCII characters range.
ASCII characters range is from 0 - 255 and of them extended ASCII characters range is from 128 to 255.

Let's see the character value of ASCII code 229.

select chr(229) from dual;
Output: å

Below SQL will help us in getting the non-ASCII charactes.

SQL to execute:
select * from ps_addresses where regexp_like(address1,'['||chr(128)||'-'||chr(255)||']');

If we observe, chr function is used to identify the ascii character value and iphen  is used to get range (similar to BETWEEN and AND )

The above SQL will get all the rows that have extended ASCII characters present in address1 field.

Oracle Initialization Error

Oracle Initialization Error while logging to App Designer.
Check the TNS entries are correct or not.
Check the ORACLE_HOME/TNS_ADMIN and PATH variable is set to correct values or not.

Make changes if needed to these variables and test the login again.
This should resolve the issue.