Related topics

Open Enrollment Overview

Approve Enrollment

Enrollment Setup

Enrollment Exceptions Report

Updating enrollments

 After all enrollments are approved and the open enrollment period has ended and its status is Closed, you run the Update Open Enrollment to update enrollments to Sage HRMS. This process copies (overlays) the open enrollment benefit plans to the matching benefit plans in Sage HRMS and uses the plan year effective date as the benefit plan's new effective date. For this reason, you should run the update process just before the new plan year and after the last payroll of the old plan year.

You can only run this process once on an open enrollment period. After the period has been updated, its status is automatically changed to Updated.

Before you update open enrollment

  • You must have already approved all enrollments. (See Approve Enrollment for instructions.)
  • You must back up both HRMS Employee Self Service and Sage HRMS before you perform this process. This ensures that if errors occur while records are updating to HRMS Employee Self Service, both systems can be restored to their initial state before the update was started. Before you start the Update Open Enrollment process, you receive a message to remind you to do this.
  • You must make sure everyone is logged off from Sage HRMS and all employees are locked out of HRMS Employee Self Service during the entire time the update process is running. To lock employees out of HRMS Employee Self Service, select the Lock HRMS Employee Self Service check box on the Backup and Restore page (located in the Sage HRMS Connected Services menu).

To update open enrollment

  1. On the Administrator menu, select Benefit Updates > Update Open Enrollment.
  2. On the Update Open Enrollment page, select the Enrollment Period you want to start processing. All Closed periods are included in the list.

  3. Click Update.

    If you have already backed up Sage HRMS and locked and backed up HRMS Employee Self Service, click OK to continue.

    Otherwise, click Cancel, log off from HRMS Employee Self Service, and log on to Sage HRMS. Do an external backup of Sage HRMS, then select Employee Self Service > Backup and Restore from the Connected Services menu and lock and back up HRMS Employee Self Service. See Backup and Restore for detailed instructions.

  4. The system reminds you that this process is performed only one time and that any rejected or incomplete enrollments are not processed in the update. If you are not ready to update, click Cancel to stop the update. Otherwise, click OK to continue.

    Warning! While the process is running, do not close Internet Explorer or navigate to any other menu item, page, or window or else the process will stop after only partial completion. If the process is interrupted, you must restore the HRMS Employee Self Service and HRMS Employee Self Service databases and then rerun the process.

  5. The Update process starts validating employees. As the process runs, note the following:
    • If the process encounters errors or exceptions, it stops processing and displays a message at the top of the page to help you resolve the errors. Otherwise, it continues and displays status information to show its progress. See Enrollment Update Errors for information on exceptions.
    • If the process updates more than 50 employees, it updates the counts for total, processed, and remaining employees after every 50 employees are validated.
    • Enrollment transactions are written to HRMS Employee Self Service (and then deleted from HRMS Employee Self Service) after every 50 employees.
  6. When the process has successfully completed, a "Completed Successfully" message and a Done button display on the page. If the process is unsuccessful or stops without completing, you can restore both HRMS Employee Self Service and HRMS Employee Self Service to the original data and rerun the process.
  7. Click Done to return to the initial Update Open Enrollment page.
  8. Log on to Sage HRMS and run the Update Benefits process to update the employees' benefit plans with the newly calculated plan amounts. Linked payroll deductions are also updated with the new plan amounts (only when the Plan Year Effective Date is the same or later than the system date).

    Note: If a payroll deduction is linked to an expired benefit plan, the deduction's End Date is set to the same date the plan expired. For example, if the benefit plan expires on 3/31/2018, the linked payroll deduction also ends on 3/31/2018.

  9. When you are ready to permit access to HRMS Employee Self Service, open the Backup and Restore page from Sage HRMS, clear the Lock HRMS Employee Self Servicecheck box, enter a master or administrator logon, and click Save.

    Note: If a deduction in HRMS Employee Self Service is linked to an HR plan which was expired, the date that the plan expired is the End Date for that deduction. For example, if the HR plan expires on 3/31/2018, the linked payroll deduction also ends on 3/31/2018.

After you complete the process

Review the following information to understand what happens in HRMS Employee Self Service and HRMS Employee Self Service after enrollments are updated.

In Sage HRMS

  • The process updates all employees who are actively enrolled in the benefit plans selected for the open enrollment period, even if they did not participate in open enrollment.
  • The process sends all approved open enrollment records to employee and dependent/beneficiary tables in Sage HRMS.
  • If enrolled in a plan not previously enrolled in, the plan is added to the employee’s benefits.
  • Dependent and beneficiary records are added.
  • Plans previously enrolled in and still enrolled in will be updated for dependent/beneficiary additions/changes.
  • Plans previously enrolled in and not now enrolled in (as a result of waiver of coverage or choosing a different plan from a group where only one is allowed) are expired with an expiration date one day less than the new plan year begin date defined in the Open Enrollment period setup. The system maintains a history of the employee's previous enrollments.
  • The process updates the current benefit plans with the rates from the matching plans & rates from the open enrollment tables in HRMS Employee Self Service. Otherwise, if there were no changes to the current plan, no change is made to the plan.
  • Savings plans groups in Sage HRMS are updated as necessary to ensure that the update process does not invalidate or break a plan group.
  • If there were changes to a benefit plan, the Plan Year Effective Date is used to update the plan's Current Amounts Went Into Effect On date.
  • If there is a change to an employee's existing plan, the process updates the Latest Change to Amounts date to the Plan Year Effective Date.
  • The open enrollment tables associated with the open enrollment period are not deleted. However, you can delete them manually as appropriate.

In HRMS Employee Self Service

  • The process updates only those employee enrollment records that have an Approved status and marks them as Updated.
  • The process changes the open enrollment period's status to Updated.
  • The process retains (complete and incomplete) employee enrollment records for reporting purposes (until the administrator eventually deletes them).
  • If the employee waives coverage for a plan, the waive date in HRMS Employee Self Service will not be updated for the associated plan. However, the waive information will be retained in HRMS Employee Self Service.