Custom Assignment Sets

A very useful feature provided by Oracle HRMS is the ability to create custom assignment sets, though this feature is not fully illustrated with good examples anywhere. I will show in this post the use of custom assignment sets, how to create and maintain them.

The custom assignment sets can be used to create an assignment set based on some criteria. It’s different from creating an assignment set manually wherein the user has to type the employee name or number to include or exclude the employees. Suppose, we need to process a supplementary payroll run for Accounts Department and there are around 200 employees in this department. Without custom assignment sets, the user will have to create an assignment set, manually enter these employee numbers and process the payroll.

To automate this process, we can use assignment sets. This will create assignment sets based on some criteria like organization, location, assignment category etc. To create an assignment set, we need to broadly follow the following steps based on requirements.

1. Navigate to [HR Responsibility] > Payroll > Assignment Set

2. Type a name for the assignment set and select the payroll for which this assignment set is applicable and save the changes.

3. Click on Criteria Button to enter the criteria.

In this example I am creating an assignment set where the employees whose organization is “Accounts Payable Department” will be included in this assignment set. Save the changes and close.

4. Click on Generate button to generate this run set.

5. Now this assignment set can be used, whenever we submit the payroll and the employees who meet the above criteria will be included in the payroll run or in any process which includes the assignment set.

6. We can verify whether the assignment set is correct or not by the following:

Here the total number of assignments generated is 12. Now if the number of employees in the Accounts payable Department are 12, the assignment set has generated correctly.

We can view the number of employees in a department by using the navigation:

{HRMS Responsibility] > View > Lists > Workforce By Organization

7. The custom assignment sets can be used to generate assignment set for employees:

•  Who are working in a particular department
• Who are working in a particular location
• Who are receiving a particular allowance
• Who have a particular salary basis

These are few examples and there are many more conditions we can build.

Note: In case we want to exclude any employee from this assignment set, we can exclude. But we should not create a combination of Include and Exclude assignment set.

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Element Sets

Element sets are used in Oracle Payroll for payroll processing, security definition etc. In this post, I will show how we can use element sets to restrict users to only a certain number of payroll elements.

The business has asked for an enhancement wherein the super users will have full access to the element entries form, but time keepers will have restrictions where they can only view, update, delete only the “Overtime Allowance” element. If we normal users the access to “People – Enter & Maintain” form, they will have full access to the HR data which is not acceptable.

In order to meet this requirement, we will use element sets and build these restrictions.

The steps involved in this are:

1. From the HRMS Responsibility, navigate to Element Set as shown below:

2. Give an element set name and select the type as “Customization Set”

3. Select the required elements by clicking on the “Include Element” button.

4. Save the changes.

5. Now we will define a custom element entry form which will be restricted to only the elements we have selected above. The navigation for this is:

6. Select the form to be customize, define the custom form name etc in this form.

7. As we are customizing the element entry form, select the same from the LOV.

8. As we want the user to only access the element we have defined in an element set above, we are restricting by Element set. So we need to select “Restrict By Element Set” as shown below:

9. Give the name of the element set which we have created above in the “Value” field.

10. The restrictions are built into the custom form. Now we have to create and form function and attach the same to a menu and this menu will be attached to the HR responsibility of the users. The navigation for the same is :

11. Give the function name and user function name in the in the description tab.

12. Select the type as “Form” in the properties tab.

13. In the “Form” tab, select the form name as “Element Entry” and in the parameters field type HR_CUSTOMIZATION="NEW_CUSTOM_OVERTIME_ENTRY_FORM"

Where “NEW_CUSTOM_OVERTIME_ENTRY_FORM" is the custom form we have created above.

14. And this function in whatever menu you want. As an example, I have added this to a custom menu and the same will be attached to the responsibility of the user.

15. The users will now have access to only the “Overtime Allowance” entry!

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Anatomy of a Fast Formula

The fast formulas are important in calculating earnings for an employee. Though the number of keywords are very few in Oracle Payroll, depending upon the business requirements, these formulas can very lengthy and complex. The best way to understand these formulas is to start by writing small formulas.

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Defining a new Payroll element

Payroll elements are the building blocks of the Oracle Payroll. We can define different types of elements like earnings, deductions, information etc each having its own importance.

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Oracle Payroll Balances and their importance

Oracle Payroll balances are very important for payroll calculations. We can say that there is no payroll without balances. There are many things which goes into defining a balance like element feeds, dimensions, classifications etc.

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SO(M)E experiences about SOE

Oracle HRMS provides a functionality called SOE where employees will be able to see their SOE or statement of Earnings. This is a natural function expected from any payroll system and Oracle Payroll is no different. But for many configuring the SOE functionality is a difficult task. I came to know about this when I posted something on Oracle Forums and nearly 409 people viewed this post in 1 month. This is big number. So I thought I should write something about SOE.

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