The Open Enrollment (OE) business process requires proper setup and configuration of benefits plans, rules and rates. Much of this will already be in place if you are already using the Benefits module; however, there are new forms and new fields in existing forms to support this process. The setup requirements are discussed in the next section.

On a periodic or ad hoc basis, Benefit Administrators will initiate Open Enrollment for selected employees and plans for a specified period of time. For Mass enrollments this will be done through a process called UBOE. Open Enrollments for ad hoc purposes are manually created in the IBOE. For life or work events, the Open Enrollments are created in the IBEV, or they may be triggered by workflow when HR changes are entered in the systerm. At the time the Open Enrollment is initiated, employees who are involved will be notified by email through workflow and will be instructed to make their election choices. In Self Service WEBOEE, is available for employees to view their elections. Before the employee begins, they are instructed to make sure their demographic and dependent information is up-to-date.

Employee elections may be done in a single web session or over a period of time in several web sessions. When employees have completed their elections, they must submit all of their elections for approval. Upon submission, the Benefit Administrator is notified by a workflow email that the elections have been done and are awaiting approval.

An employee must identify when there has been a life and/or work event that affects their benefit plans. Once the Benefit Administrator has reviewed their situation, the employee will be requested to make their elections related to their life and work event before making any mass Open Enrollment elections. Event types are defined on IBET; this is also where the Administrator will associate plans to an event. Employee life and work events can be recorded on WEBEV. Benefit Administrators can also record these events in IBEV. Life or Work events may be automatically created by workflow triggers when certain changes are entered in the system. These triggers would then create the life work event and thus the open enrollment, as long as the Allow Auto Open Enrollment toggle is checked ON for the Life Work event in IBEV.

If an employee records a life or work event during an Open Enrollment period, it will be up to the Benefit Administrator to review the situation and determine which Open Enrollment period the employee should be making their elections in. The dates of the Open Enrollment period may need to be adjusted accordingly.

Occasionally, Benefit Administrators will want to open up enrollments for selected employees and plans for special reasons. Employees will be requested to make elections related to these ad hoc Open Enrollments before making any mass Open Enrollment elections.

When a Benefit Administrator receives notification that an employee has submitted their elections, the employee’s Open Enrollment will go through a review and approval process that may involve multiple approvers. Elections may be processed as soon as they are submitted. Benefit Administrators do not have to wait until the Open Enrollment period is closed.

Following submission, if changes are needed, the Benefit Administrators may send the elections back to the employee with notes. When everything is acceptable, the employee’s Open Enrollment will be approved. Once approved, the employee’s Open Enrollment can be processed manually in IBPOE or in a batch process called UBPOE. Once processed, elections will be turned into enrollments in IBEN effective on the coverage date defined for the Open Enrollment Period or the date derived from the elected coverage’s benefit component rules, which ever is greater. Employees may be notified by workflow when their elections have been approved and processed.

If an employee declines any of their elections, the declined elections will be handled as follows:

• If an employee declines an election they are already enrolled in and the Track Decline toggle is ON for the plan in IBPN, the IBEN enrollment record will be updated with a status of 'Decline'.
• If an employee declines an election they are already enrolled in and the Track Decline toggle is OFF for the plan in IBPN, the IBEN enrollment record will be updated with a status of 'Decline.
• If an employee declines an election they are not currently enrolled in and the Track Decline toggle is ON for the plan in IBPN, an enrollment record will be created in IBEN with a status of 'Decline'.
• If an employee declines an election they are not currently enrolled in and the Track Decline toggle is OFF for the plan in IBPN, an enrollment record will not be created in IBEN.
• If an employee declines an entire plan election set, the decline is not tracked due to the complicated nature of plan election sets.

On the proper effective date, Payroll will pick up the new enrollments for processing.

The following pages outline the process flow for each type of open enrollment process:

• Mass Open Enrollment Process Flow

• Life and Work Event Open Enrollment Process Flow

• Ad Hoc Open Enrollment Process Flow

The following diagram gives a high level view of the Open Enrollment process.

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