Compensatory Type Absence Plan
In this article, we will provide a detailed, step-by-step guide on how to configure a Compensatory type absence plan, which is a type of absence management plan that allows employees to receive compensatory time off if they work additional hours beyond their regular scheduled shift hours.
We will discuss all concepts related to compensatory absence plans, including how they differ from other types of absence plans, how to set up eligibility criteria, how to calculate and manage compensatory time off accrual, and how to track and manage employee compensatory time off balances.
Additionally, we will explore how the Compensatory type absence plan is linked with Oracle Time and Labor (OTL) to automate the allocation of compensatory time off to employees who have worked additional hours. We will cover how to configure the integration between the Compensatory type absence plan and OTL, how to set up rules for determining when compensatory time off should be awarded, and how to ensure accurate tracking of compensatory time off balances within the system.
If you are entirely new to absence management we recommend you to first go through this article Fusion Absence Management : Explained with examples which talks about configuring a simple accrual plan step by step in details. We will reuse some of the concepts from this article.
Steps to Configure Compensatory Plan
To configure a compensatory plan navigate to My Client Groups » Absences » Absence Plans (You can also search directly for the task Absence Plans)
On the Absence Plans page, click on on the +Create button and enter details as follows on the Create Absence Plan pop-up window.
- Effective As-of Date : 1/1/1951
- Legislation : <Legislation you are working on, for example : United States>
- Plan Type : Compensatory
Click on Continue button.
You will land on Create Absence Plan page. On this page, click on the Plan Attributes tab, usually this is already selected. In the General Attributes section enter details as follows
- Plan : AP Compensatory Time Off
- Description : AP Compensatory Time Off plan for US Legal entity.
- Plan OUM : <You don’t need to select any value, as you will notice that the value is defaulted to Hours. This is because a compensatory plan is usually configured to link with OTL, which is only possible if the absence plan’s OUM is of the Hours type. This could be one of your interview questions>
- Legislative Data Group : <Select your LDG, for example : Legislative Data Group>
- Status : Active
- Earned Time Expiration Rule : <Select value Acquisition date, there are other options available, please read next paragraph to understand the importance of these values>
- Expiration Limit : 3
- Expiration Period UOM : Months
- On Expiration : Expire in full
Expiration Rule for Compensatory Plan
When you configure a compensatory plan, you have to choose how long the earned compensatory time is valid for. There are four options to choose from:
- Acquisition date – Compensatory time expires after a certain amount of time from when it was earned. For example, if you earned compensatory time on 15th December and the expiration time is set to six months, it will expire on 15th June.
- End of acquisition pay period – Compensatory time expires after a certain amount of time from the end of the pay period it was earned in. For example, if you earned compensatory time on 15th December and the pay period ends on 31st, and the expiration time is set to six months, it will expire on 30th June.
- End of acquisition week – Compensatory time expires after a certain amount of time from the end of the week it was earned in. For example, if you earned compensatory time on 15th December and the week ends on 20th December, and the expiration time is set to six months, it will expire on 20th June.
- No expiration – The compensatory time earned does not expire.
If you choose any option other than No Expiration, you’ll also have the option to decide whether the earned time will expire after the specified time or whether you’ll pay the amount to the employees.
Once you enter all required details your page will look like this
When you configure an accrual type absence plan you notice two additional sections Plan Term and Balance Display in the Plan Attributes tab but these two sections are not available for compensatory type absence plan.
Click on the Participation tab, if you scroll below you will notice Eligibility section, where you can attach eligibility profile to define who all will be eligible for this compensatory plan. For this article we are not assigning any eligibility profile, which means every one from that LDG would be eligible for the plan.
Click on the Plan Rule tab, this tab is very much similar to Accruals tab available for accrual plan but with limited options. On this tab you can define following settings, these are known fields and already discussed in this article.
- Vesting Rule
- Payment Percentage
- Balance Frequency Source
- Ceiling Rule
- Allow Negative Balance
Under the Plan Limits sections enter details as follows
- Ceiling Rule : Flat Amount
- Ceiling : 40 Hours
- Ceiling Proration Rule : None
- Allow negative balance : No
Do you know what is the difference between waiting period and vesting rule?
Click on the Entries and Balances tab. Normally, the balance (entitlement) for a compensatory absence plan comes from Oracle Time and Labor (OTL). However, some organizations may not have OTL implemented or may allow their administrators and managers to manually allocate or adjust compensatory time off hours for their workers. In this case, you can enable manual adjustment through the Entries and Balances tab.
For Manual Adjustment section, enter details as follows
- Enable for administrator : Yes
- Enable for manager : Yes
- Reasons : All
For Expiration Date Updates section enter details as follows
- Enable for administrator : Yes
- Enable for manager : No
- Reasons : All
Click on Additional Details tab. This is a homework for you to figure out use of this tab. To give you a hint, it was introduced in 22B quarterly patch. No action is required on this tab.
Finally, click on the Save and Close button, and your compensatory plan configuration will be complete.
Configure Absence Type for Compensatory Plan
Navigate to My Client Groups » Absences » Absence Type
On the Absence Types page, click on +Create button and enter details as follows on the Create Absence Type pop-up window
- Effective As-of Date : 1/1/1951
- Legislation : <Your legislation, for example : United States>
- Pattern : Generic absence
Click on Continue button.
Click on the Type Attributes tab, and enter following details in the General Attribute section.
- Name : AP Compensatory Time Off
- Legislative Data Group : <your LDG, for example : US Legislative Data Group>
- Status : Active
Accept all other default setting, in the Duration Rules section, enter details as follows
- Schedule Hierarchy Start Point : Published schedule
Scroll below to Absence Record Maintenance section and enter details as follows
- Enable employee updates : Yes
- Enable manager updates : Yes
- Enable administrative updates : Yes
- Enable for time card entry : Editable on time card
Click on Plans and Reasons tab, in the Absence Plans section, click on the Select and Add button. On the Select and Add Plan to Type pop-up window enter details as follows and click on Ok button.
- Plan : AP Compensatory Time Off
- Status : Active
- Priority : 1
Finally, click on the Save and Close button, and your compensatory absence type configuration will be complete.
Enroll Workers to Compensatory Absence Plan
We have successfully configured our absence plan and type, we need to now enroll employees to the absence plan. To enroll all eligible employees to the absence plan, you can run the process Update Accrual Plan Enrollments, which will enroll all eligible employees based on the eligibility profile, or you can also manually enroll any single employee to the compensatory plan.
Once employees are enrolled to the plan you must also run the process Calculate Accruals and Balances regularly to reflect the latest accrual balance.
Let’s assume you have either run the mentioned process or manually enrolled an employee to the compensatory plan AP Compensatory Time Off.
Adjust Compensatory Time And Expiration Date (HR)
To allocate or adjust compensatory balance of any employee navigate to My Client Groups » Absences » Absence Record » search for employee who is enrolled to the plan
On the Manage Absences and Entitlements page scroll below to Plan Participation section. Locate you compensatory plan name AP Compensatory Time Off, you will notice that current balance is 0. Click on the plan name to allocate compensatory off.
On the right hand side you will notice a double arrow icon », click on that to open Action menu. From the action menu select Add Manual Adjustment, which will open a pop-up window. Enter details as follows
- Amount : 32
- Transaction Date : <Select first day of the current month.>
- Expiration Date : <Don’t enter any value, it will be calculated automatically based on the plan configuration, which is set to 3 months.>
- Manual Adjustment Reason : <Select any value from the LOV>
Click on Submit button.
You will notice that Expiration Date is set to three months after the plan Transaction Date. Lets say you want to give this employee two additional months to consume the compensatory time. For that row, click on the Edit button, which will open a pop-up window Edit Manual Adjustment. Enter details as follows
- Expiration Date Override : <select new date which is two months later than current expiry date>
- Expiration Date Override Reason : <Select reason from the list.>
Click on Submit button.
You will see the new expiration date under the column Expiration Date Override.
Click on the Back arrow button to come back to Manage Absences and Entitlements page.
Scroll up to Existing Absences section, click on the +Add button. On the Absence Administration page, click on the Absence Type filed and select value AP Compensatory Time Off. Enter absence for a single day, note down the duration calculated by system (as per the screenshot below it is 9 hours), and then click on the Submit button.
As the absence request is submitted from HR login, it would not require any approval (your pod may have different approval configured, if so, get this request approved). Scroll below to Plan Participation section again and you will notice that Balance against the compensatory plan is reduced from earlier 32 hours.
Click on the plan name again to see these details.
Now we have demonstrated how Compensatory plan is configured and used by an administrator to update the balance and expiry date.
Adjust Compensatory Time (Line Manager)
Line managers can also performs actions similar to HR provided they have been given access. In our plan configuration we allowed managers to update the compensatory time off balance but they cant update the expiration date.
To see how it works, login as a manager and navigate to My Team » Quick Actions » Show More » Absence Balance » Search for the employee
On the Absence Balance page, locate the plan name AP Compensatory Time Off and notice the balance against the plan name. Click on the plan name, which will open the Plan Balance page.
On this screen you can either click on the +Add button to allocate new compensatory time off or can click on Edit icon against the adjustment done earlier. In both the cases (as per the plan configuration) manager can only update/allocate Compensatory Time but can’t update the Expiration Date as that field will be grayed out for manager.
Click on the first +Add button and enter details as follows
- Compensatory Time : < Enter a value that will cause both the current and new balance to exceed 40, which is our ceiling value. >
- Earned Date : <Yesterday’s date >
- Manual Adjustment Reason : <Any value from the list>
Click on Submit button and see what happens, you will notice an error message “The compensatory time transaction can’t be processed because it exceeds the balance limit for the maximum amount of compensatory time allowed.”
Enter any other value which will not exceed to ceiling value 40 and system will accept it.
Compensatory Plan Integration with OTL
We have covered the manual allocation of compensatory time off by administrators and line managers, but it is also possible to automate this process through integration with OTL. This eliminates the need for HR or line managers to manually allocate compensatory time off. When a worker scheduled to work 8 hours in a day works beyond their shift hours, the excess hours are automatically added to the compensatory plan we configured in this article, which is clearly explain in this article » Configure Compensatory Time Off With Oracle Time and Labor
Compensatory Plan Questions and Clarifications
I am sure you may have several questions in your mind after reading this article, and I truly appreciate your curiosity. However, I have received complaints in the past that I do not promptly reply to your questions. To overcome this problem, we are collaborating with the hcmfolks platform, which is a community of Oracle HCM experts.
If you have any questions or clarifications regarding this article, please feel free to post them on the hcmfolks.com forum. There, experts and learners are eager to help each other out, and you will likely receive prompt and helpful responses. The forum is a great resource for getting answers to questions related to Oracle HCM, and I highly recommend it.
