Oracle HRMS FAQS

What are basic setups of oracle HRMS?

In oracle HRMS there are so many modules like Core HR, Payroll, Self Service HR, Oracle learning management, iRecruitment, Time and Labour, Compensation Work bench, Oracle Advanced Benefits, Performance Management System etc., Core HR and System Administrator are the Heart of Oracle HRMS.

All basic set ups will do in Core HR with the help of System Administrator.

In system administrator we will create all the Users and Responsibilities, Flex fields, Profile values etc., In core HR we will create Organizations, Locations, Jobs, Positions, Grades, Organization Hierarchy, position Hierarchy, We will create all the employees also. These are the Basic setups in HRMS.

What are the differences between 11i and R12 HRMS

Oracle 11i	Oracle 12
the Legal Entity, the Set of Books and the Operating Unit… all of these were defined using the Organizations form typically through the HRMS or Inventory responsibilities.	the Legal Entity, the Primary Ledger and Operating Unit are all defined using the the Accounting Setup Manager.
the Bank Accounts are defined at the Operating Unit level.	Bank Accounts are defined at Legal Entity Level which can be accessed by multiple Operating Units.
there are only 6 validation types viz. Dependent, Independent, None, Pair, Special and Table	there are 2 additional validation types called ‘Translatable Independent’ and ‘Translatable Dependent’
Reporting Currencies -MRC Reporting set	Reporting Currency of books
Database Version in 11i (11.5.9 & 11.5.10) was 9i Rel 2	Release 12 its 10g R2 (10.2.0.2)

What are 2 modes of date track in Oracle APPS?

There are two Date Track modes are as follow:

·         Update

·         Correction

Difference between correction/update

·         If you choose Update, Oracle HRMS changes the record as from your effective date, but preserves the previous information.

·         If you choose Correction, Oracle HRMS overrides the previous information with your new changes. The start and end dates of the snapshot you have corrected remain the same.

What is the use of Date Track?
1) It is used to maintain the record history by creating a new record when the date track mode is UPDATE and override on the existing record when the Data track mode is CORRECTION.
2) The value of the Data Track record depends on the date.
3) Tables ending with _F are date track tables.
4) To control data tracked rows, every Date Track table must include Effective_start_date & Effective_end_date.
5) The Effective_Start_Date indicates when the record inserted.
6) The Effective_End_Date indicates when the record updated or deleted.

Value Sets

Value Set is a collection of values. It validates the values entered by the user for a flex-field, report parameters or a concurrent.

Value Set as the name specifies refers to a set of values. Theses vales can be used to validate the values entered in a felx-field segment, concurrent program parameters and report parameters.

For Creating Value sets the user needs to navigate to a value set and specify the details of the value set.

The user needs to specify the name of the value set.

The main details that need to be entered are:

Name : The name of the value set

Type: The type of value set

Pop-List : When the number of items is between 1-10
List of Values : When the number of items is between 10-100
Long List of Values : When the number of items is more then 1000

Security: Security type can be applied to a value set

No Securtiy: No security is enabled for the value set
Hierarchical Security : Security rule applied to the parent is automatically applied to the child values
Non-Hierarchical Security : Security rule applied to the parent is not applied to the child values
Segment : Value entered for another parameter of the program is the default value

Format Type : Specifies the type of values that can be entered : Number/char/Date

Maximum size : Representes the Longest possible value

Precision : For numberical valu sets , the number of digits after decimal

Validation Type: Refers to the type of validation applied when values are entered for the fields associated with the value set

• None : The values enteres is not validated against any pre-defined set of values , the values is only validated against the format type specified.
• Independent : The value entered is validated against a pre-defined set of values
• Dependent : The value is validated against a set of values which depend on an indipendent value set .
• Table: The value entered is validated against against a list of values which are dependent on a table
• Special and Pair : The valu is validated against a set of values in another flex field
• Translatable Independent and dependent : The value is validated against a previously defined list of values.

Values sets are mainly used when specifying the list of data which can be entered as parameters when running a concurrent program.

Difference between Value Sets and Look Ups

Difference 1
Value sets can be attached to parameters of a concurrent program, whereas Lookups can't.

Difference 2
Certain types of Lookups are maintainable by the users too, for example HR Users will maintain "Ethnic Minority" lookups. Value Sets are almost never maintained by end users, with the exception of GL Flexfield codes. Value sets are usually maintained by System Administrators.

Difference 3
Value sets can contain values that are a result of an SQL Statement.
Hence it is possible to make Value Set list of values dynamic.
On the contrary, Lookup Codes are Static list of values.

What are Look Ups
A LOOKUP is a specific list of values which can be set by a user. LOOKUPS have a 'type' and are either:

·         USER (where the user can add/amend/delete items)

·         EXTENSIBLE (where the user can add or amend his own items, but cannot change any of the 'seeded' values)

·         SYSTEM (where the user cannot do anything to the 'seeded' values)

LOOKUPs are used directly by forms in the system.

What are the minimum classifications to create a Business Group?

·         Business Group

·         GRE/Legal Entity

·         HR Organization

What are the Pre-Requisites for creating a Business Group?

·         Value Sets

·         Key Flexfields

·         Location

What is the use of HR Organization?
If we want to assign the employee information to a Business Group then we need to have HR Organization classification under a Business Group.

What is a Flex Field:

It is called as flexible fields, where in we don’t require writing a program or a code to enable a field.

There are two types of Flex fields

1)       Key flex field: It is used to capture the mandatory info about the org or an employee

2)       Descriptive Flex Field: It is used to capture the additional information about the org or an employee.

What are the difference between KFF and DFF

KFF	DFF
Used to Capture Mandatory Information	Used to capture additional information
Segments	Attributes
30	20
Free textfield	Open Brackets

Tell me the name of important Key Flex-Fields (KFFs) in Oracle HRMS?

·         Job KFF,

·         Grade KFF,

·         People Group KFF,

·         Position KFF,

·         Cost Allocation KFF,

·         Competence KFF

Mandatory flexfield’s for BG

There are around ten KFFs in Oracle HRMS; out of which six are mandatory for a successful Core-HR implementation. The mandatory KFFs are:

• Job
• Position
• Grade
• People Group
• Cost Allocation
• Competency

Apart from the mandatory ones, there are a few optional KFFs present in the Oracle HRMS. Like:

• Personal Analysis

• Collectively Agreed Grades Flex field
• Soft Coded Key Flex field
• Bank Details Key Flex Field
• Training Resources
• Item Contexts Flex Field.

Can a job has multiple positions?
Job is generic. Yes a job can have multiple positions.

What is the difference between a Job and a Position?
Job is general one, whereas Position is specific term to its role and responsibilities.

JOB:            MANAGER (generic term), SOFTWARE DEVELOPER

POSITION:  Finance Manager, HR Manager, Junior SOFTWARE ENGINEER, (this is position which is specific to the role to be played.

Positions are used to define employee roles within Oracle Human Resources.position is a specific occurrence of one job, fixed within one organization,Positions are independent of the employees

A position will need to be defined for every unique combination of:

·         Job

·         Organization

·         Reporting To Position Hierarchy

·         Valid Grades (Valid Grades to which incumbents are assigned)

·         Position Requirements (Required qualifications or valid experience)

·         Position Evaluation (Evaluation information and overall evaluation score for the Position)

·         Position Key Flex Field (Name Field components, such as Position Title, Position ID or other client defined keys)

·         Position Successor

·         Probation Periods (To define the length of the Probation Period for incumbents holding this position)

Advantages:

·         Position definition with no override attributes, ensures derivation from the position.  It is more accurate because the definition focuses on the position and is not affected by the employee in the position

·         Position attributes change less often than employee movement.  When the position attributes change, the system automatically updates incumbent records with the new value. 

Types of Positions

·         Pooled:  This approach is very good for organizations where groups of people are doing the same work (many employees assigned to one position), have the same reporting relationship (predominate in manufacturing and transportation industries).  This approach allows multiple people to occupy a single position that has the same attributes and reporting relationship.

·         Shared: This approach supports the ability to assign employees to several part-time positions.  This approach is becoming more common.  In some companies, an employee works part-time (20 hours) in one department and then part-time in another department.  In essence the company divides the employee and distributes the cost across the two departments.  The company benefits from only having to pay benefits to one person.

·         Single Incumbent: This approach is usually used for positions, which are managerial or at least static.  This approach is usually needed for those positions, which will have spending authority levels, and defined succession planning.  This approach assumes on position per person

I want to Setup Additional Organizations, do I have to setup Multiorg?
No, you do not need to setup multiorg. You do not have to be multi-org to have multiple organizations only if you intend to have multiple sets of books.

What are the relationships I can define in a multi org environment?
You define the relationships among inventory organizations, operating units, legal entities, Business Groups, and sets of books tocreate a multilevel company structure:-
Business Groups separate major segments of a business. Each can have it's own set of books. Each Group will also have a structure of other organizations classifications assigned to it.
Legal Entities post to a Set of Books
Operating Units are part of a Legal Entity
Inventory Organizations are part of an Operating Unit
Inventory Organizations define and maintain items used by other manufacturing modules (Order Entry, Purchasing, MRP, etc.). They also collect and pass data to the Financials modules.

When my organization hierarchy changes, can I move an organization from one set of books or legal entity to another?
No, you should not try to move an organization from one set of books or legal entity to another because your data may not be valid for the new set of books or legal entity. Instead, you should disable the old organization and create a new organization for the appropriate set of books or legal entity. The new organization will contain your new data, and the disabled organization will act as an "old" or "history" entity that stores past transactions.

How can I setup a child org to be its own costing organization?
A. Steps:
· Change the attribute control for "default category set" to organization level
· Change the attribute control for "costing enabled" to organization level
· Change the attribute control for "inventory asset value" to organization control
Then you can make a child organization it's own costing organization by entering the organization name in the column labeled "Costing Organization"

How can I define organization restriction?
A. Use the Organization Access form (INVSDORA) to restrict the list of organizations displayed for each responsibility level.
Refer to Oracle Inventory User's Guide for steps and important notes.
*WARNING* If you populate any rows in this form, you MUST populate a row for EACH responsibility that you wish to have access to that Organization.

What responsibility do I need to use to setup organization?
Use the General Ledger responsibility to define the Set of Books
Use the Inventory Responsibility to define Organizations and other related information such as Inventory Key Flexfields, Locations, Workday calendar, other Organization Classifications, and other inventory information.

Q. What are the main profile options relating to Organization setup and
what are they used for?
A. · HR:User Type = HR User
This is necessary to allow the Inventory responsibility to complete the organization setup. Setting the profile to a value of 'User' as opposed to 'Payroll & User' will restrict the Inventory user from accessing any Payroll information if Oracle Payroll is installed.

HR: Business Group = {the users Business Group name}
This points the responsibility to the appropriate Business Group. When multiple Business Groups are defined, you must associate each responsibility with one and only one Business Group. A responsibility can not see organization data from more than one Business Group.

MO: Operating Unit = {the users Operating Unit name}
Used primarily in a multiorg environment. This points the responsibility to the appropriate Operating Unit. Set the site level to the desired default operating unit. If there is more than 1 Operating Unit Defined, this profile option must be set at the responsibility level for each responsibility.

If you do personalization at both FUNCTION level and Responsibility level, which personalization has higher precedence?
Responsibility level. Responsibility level will override FUNCTION level personalizations.

Why Job group?

Job groups allow you to (as you say) set up a different Key Flex for the job name.
This is useful for secondary jobs (like Fire Marshal etc.)
In addition (from Metalink note:225931.1)

A Job Group enables you to group jobs for specific purposes. You can:

* Specify job groups for project billing rates and for transfer price calculation purposes.
* Associate a Billing Job Group with each project for rate determination and invoice line formatting.

An HR Job Group is automatically seeded for each business group. All jobs defined in that business group are automatically in the HR job group. You can create additional job groups for project purposes, and associate any job within the same business group with the new job groups.

How many responsibilities can we set to a user?

We can set up many responsibilities a user

What is a responsibility?

In an Oracle environment, a responsibility is a defined user right, similar to the word privilege in some other settings. Responsibilities are generally set by the system administrator, and typically specify: what applications a user may access; what transactions a user may perform; and what data the user may perform the transaction on. In her book Oracle E-Business Suite 11i: Implementing core financial applications, Susan Foster explains: "For example, the accounting manager may have full access to Oracle General Ledger, while the accounting clerk may only have access to the Oracle General Ledger journal entry transactions."

What is a Menu?

A menu is a hierarchical arrangement of application functions (forms) that displays in the Navigate window. Menus can also point to non-form functions (subfunctions) that do not display in the Navigate window, but that define the range of application functionality available for a responsibility. Each responsibility is associated with a menu.

What is Function?

A function is a part of an application’s functionality that is registered under a unique name for the purpose of assigning it to, or excluding it from, a responsibility.

What are the Function Types?
There are two types of functions:
a] Form (Form Function)

•   A form function (form) invokes an Oracle Forms form.
•   Form functions appear in the Navigate window and can be navigated to.

b] Subfunction (Non–Form Function)

• A non–form function (subfunction) is a securable subset of a form’s functionality: in other words, a function executed from within a form.
• Subfunctions are frequently associated with buttons or other graphical elements on forms.

Forms vs. Subfunctions?

• Forms appear in the Navigate window and can be navigated to. Subfunctions do not appear in the Navigate window and cannot be navigated to.
• Forms can exist on their own. Subfunctions can only be called by logic embodied within a form; they cannot exist on their own.
• A form as a whole, including all of its program logic, is always designated as a function. Subsets of a form’s program logic can optionally be designated as subfunctions if there is a need to secure those subsets.

Advantages of Form Functions

If you want to open the Form in different modes without creating the copies, we can create a Form Function and pass the parameters based on the requirement. The parameter, which is passed in the form function, must be already defined in the form while designing the Form. A menu can be assigned to more than one Responsibility. If you want to restrict some of the Forms from a particular responsibility, we can include Form Function of those Forms in Menu Exclusions of the Responsibility.

What are the standard function types?

• FORM                            — Oracle Applications form functions are registered with a type of FORM.                               
• SUBFUNCTION             — Subfunctions are added to menus
• JSP                                  — JSP functions
• WWW                            —  PL/SQL functions
• WWK                              — PL/SQL functions that open a new window
• WWR or WWL              — used for some products in the Oracle Self–Service Web Applications
• WWJ                               — OA Framework JSP portlet
• SERVLET                         — Servlet functions
• DBPORTLET                   — Database provider portlet
• WEBPORTLET               — Web provider portlet

System Person Profile

Person Type is a very powerful functionality through which we can identify and group the persons we have in our system. First of all, what are the different types of persons we store in our system? Many actually; we store the Employees, applicants, contingent workers, Ex-Employees, Contacts and beneficiaries of the Employees etc. Now, we should have some way to identify these different groups. Although we can identify an Ex-employee as someone who used to work with the firm, and does not work anymore, it becomes a tedious task to do the same number of checks every time, isn’t it? So what’s better? A Single attribute that can tell us, on this person is an Ex-Employee. How nice would that be, that when a person is currently working the attribute should say “Employee”, and soon after the termination happens, the attribute should automatically change to “Ex-Employee”. Wouldn’t that be awesome? This functionality is there. The attributes are nothing but “Person Types”. Let’s see how to use it.

Oracle application comes with a seeded set of Person types that can be used to identify the population. However we can further add new person types as and when we require them. Like we can have Fixed-Term employee as a person type, which is different than Employee. We can have Retirees different than Ex-Employees etc. the one that are seeded are called the system person types; and the one that the user creates is called the user person type. There are eight system person types in R12. And we can create as many user person types as we want based on the requirement. Let’s see how to.

Responsibility:  Super HRMS Manager

Navigation: Other Definition -> Person Types

User Name	The name of the Person Type; choose a meaningful name.
System Name	The seeded Person type, of which we are creating a sub class; choose a most appropriate type from here.
Active	To say if the Person type is active as of today.
Default	Each System Person Type will have one and only one default User Person Type. So when the system finds a person to be falling in the System Person type criteria, it will change it to the Default one.

Did the Default flag make confusion? Ok let’s try this. We have three types of Employees in our system, and we want to make different person types for each of them.

So what we should do is, go to the Person Types Screen and add three records with the System name as “Employee”. One for each type of user name “Night Shift Staff”, “Mid-Shift Staff” and “General Shift Staff”. Now, we can make any one of these three as Default; for example let’s set “General Shift Staff” as default. Now whenever there is a hire, the system will identify, oh, it’s an Employee, then what is the Default Person Type? Oh, it’s “General Shift Staff”. So it will make the person type of new hire as “General Shift Staff”. But if later he changes his shifts, we can just go and add a new person type usage in his record and make him a “Night Shift Staff” from “General Shift Staff” manually. Simple, isn’t it?

But how do we change it manually? Let’s see.

Responsibility:  Super HRMS Manager

Navigation: Fast Path -> Person Type Usages

Steps:

• ·         Query for the employee
• ·         Add a new Person Type usage / End date the old one

What are the system person types available?

·         Oracle HRMS comes with a set of person types recognized by the application, and identified by a system name. For each, there is a predefined user name. You can change the predefined name and you can enter other user names.

User Name	System Name	Default
Employee	Employee	Yes
Applicant	Applicant	Yes
Contingent Worker	Contingent Worker	Yes
Ex-employee	Ex-employee	Yes
Ex-applicant	Ex-applicant	Yes
Ex-contingent Worker	Ex-contingent Worker	Yes
Contact	External	Yes
External	External	No

What is People Group?

·         It is a Flexible area for holding user-defined assignment data.

·         Data can be used for Grouping sets of assignment together.

·         People group can be used for Element eligibility.

·         This information is used by the Payroll Run.

·         The data will be held in PAY_PEOPLE_GROUPS.

·         GROUP_NAME field holds the concatenation of Segment data.

What is the KFF structure for SIT?
Personal Analysis Flexfields.

What is the DFF structure for EIT?

·         Extra Person Information

·         Assignment Extra Information

·         Extra Location Information

·         Extra Position Information

·         Extra Job Information

·         Organization Developer DF

What are the difference between extra information type (EIT) and special information type (SIT)?

EIT and SIT Both are provided by Oracle to Capture Extra Information. Basic differences would be EIT is similar like a DFF and also defined using DFF Definition Screen. SIT is KFF and defined using Personal Analysis KFF Definition screen.

SIT generally used at Person Level, EIT can be defined at PERSON, ASSIGNMENT, CONTACT, ELEMENT, LOCATION and JOB LEVEL.

There are 2 columns date_to and date_from in SIT while no such columns are there in EIT.

Special Information Types (SIT)	Extra Information Types (EIT)
SITs are created from Personal Analysis flexfield, a type of Key Flexfield and are visible across the Business Group	EITs are a type of Descriptive Key Flexfield; can be restricted to specific Responsibility
SITs are primarily attached to People related data; can also be used with Jobs, Assignment & Locations	EIT's can be attached to People, Assignment, Job, Position, Location and Organization (via a classification)
SIT form has a start date and end date associated with the SIT row.	EIT forms do not have start and end dates. If you want to create dated information, then you would have to use two of the EIT flexfield attributes to store this information.
Sometimes, SIT can cause performance issues (though very minor)	EIT’s can be used at Person, Assignment, Job, Location level etc. related issues (like Bonus, Incentive info etc.) may be created in EIT
SITs have limited security restrictions, thus making them unsuitable for storing sensitive data	EITs don’t have any performance issue
The Business thumb rule to be adopted while deciding to go for an SIT is dictated by the nature of the data that is to be stored. Generally individual (personal) data that is not very sensitive can be stored using SIT	EITs can be tied to a responsibility so that the appropriate population can also access the EITS. Since EITs are a type of DFF’s it can be migrated across instances using a tool like Kintana which is not possible with Key Flexfields, to which SITs belong.

How to enable EIT?
Switch Responsibility to ‘Human Resources, Vision Enterprises’
Double click on ‘Security’
Click on ‘Information Types’
Create your own ‘Information Types’ under your ‘Responsibility Name’.

How to enable SIT?
Switch Responsibility to ‘Human Resources, Vision Enterprises’
Double click on ‘Other Definitions’
Click on ‘Special Information Types’