In an Organization, the attributes of most business objects are likely to change over time. For example, grade rates may increase or a location's address may change. For some types of objects, such as payrolls, assignments, and organizations, a history of changes is maintained. Professional users can retrieve and edit the version of an object that was current on a specified date. Such objects are referred to as date-effective objects.
HCM Date-Effective Objects
Many Human Capital Management (HCM) objects are date-effective. The list of HCM date-effective objects includes but is not limited to: assignments, benefits plans and plan types, element definitions, eligibility profiles, employment terms, grades, grade rates, grade ladders, jobs, job families, locations, organizations, payrolls, personal payment methods, and positions. The following objects related to person records are also date-effective: contact relationships, disabilities, gender, marital status, person name, person addresses, visas, and work permits.
Date-effective objects are made up of one or more physical or change records, each of which has an effective start date and may have an effective end date. Only one physical record is current and available for transactions and others are past or take effect in the future.
The following scenario shows the changes made to a single attribute (department manager) in a department business object. Each row represents a single physical record. (Note that the physical record number does not appear in the record.)
Effective end dates are required for all but the most recent physical record in the object history. They are added automatically whenever you update a date-effective object: the effective end date of a physical record is the day before the effective start date of the next physical record in the sequence.
You can explicitly enter an effective end date for some date-effective objects. For example, when you terminate an assignment, a final effective end date is added to the assignment history. Alternatively, the End Date action may be available. When you explicitly enter an effective end date for a date-effective object, it ceases to be available to transactions after that date, although the object's history is retrievable.Some date-effective objects, such as grades and jobs, have both effective dates and status values. When the status of such objects is set to inactive, they are unavailable to transactions, even though their effective dates may indicate that they are current. Setting the status to inactive is a way of temporarily or permanently removing objects that would otherwise be available. If you cannot enter an effective end date for an object, changing its status allows you to achieve the same effect.
Future-Dated Changes
For date-effective objects, you can enter changes to take effect on a specified future date. For example, the following promotion for a person is entered on 25 October, 2011 to take effect on 18 January, 2012.
In this example, physical record 2 becomes the current record on 18 January, 2012. From 14 October, 2010 until 17 January, 2012 physical record 1 is the current record and is available to transactions by default. Only those users with access to the object history can see physical record 2 before it takes effect. When future-dated changes exist, additional actions may be limited. For example, if you attempt to end this worker's assignment before the promotion takes effect, you may have to delete the promotion before terminating the assignment.
Multiple Updates per Day
For most date-effective objects, only one physical record exists per day, which means that only the latest update to each attribute in any one day is maintained in the object history. For example, if you update the phone number of a location three times in one day, only the last update is visible in the physical record for that date; the previous two updates are overwritten. However, for some objects, such as assignments, more than one update per day is maintained by creating a physical record for each update. Such objects include an effective sequence number in each physical record to show the order in which updates made to an object on a single day were applied. Such changes are cumulative, and the physical record with the highest effective sequence number is available to transactions for that date.
For example, the following table shows multiple updates made to a person's assignment working hours and job on 14 October, 2010 and 30 April, 2012.
Correcting Date-Effective Objects
You can correct most attributes of date-effective objects, regardless of whether they occur in current, past, or future physical records. If you correct the effective start date of the first physical record in an object, the new date must be earlier than the current effective start date. For records other than the first physical record, the new date must be between the record's current effective start and end dates.
Correcting a Current Error
On 11 March, 2011 you create a location definition for a branch office. On 21 March, 2011 you learn that you entered the location phone number incorrectly. To correct this error, you search for the location definition, which has only one physical record, and select the Correct action. Before the correction, the object history is as follows.
After correction, the object history is as follows.
Because this is a correction operation, no history of the change is maintained.
Correcting a Past Error
On 10 May, 2009 you set a worker's job to Senior Administrator. On 20 January, 2011 you learn that the worker's job should have been Project Leader therefore, you need to correct this information. Before correction, relevant parts of the assignment history are as follows.
To change the worker's job from Senior Administrator to Project Leader, you need to correct physical records 2 and 3. To retrieve physical record 2, you can set the effective as-of date in the person search to any date between 10 May, 2010 and 17 August, 2010 and select the assignment from the search results. Alternatively, you can select physical record 2 from the assignment history. Having retrieved the physical record, you make the correction. You then retrieve physical record 3 and make the same correction. After correction, the assignment history is as follows.
Before you made the correction, the worker's job was Senior Administrator from 10 May, 2010 until 19 October, 2010; after correction, the worker's job is Project Leader for the same period, which spans two physical records in the assignment history and therefore requires two correction operations. Each correction operation applies to a single physical record.
Updating Date-Effective Objects
When you update a date-effective object, you insert a new physical record in the object's history. In most cases, the new record follows the current physical record; however, you can also insert a record between two existing records.
Updating the Current Physical Record
The name of the sales headquarters location is changing today, 1 October, 2011 from Sales Headquarters to Sales Headquarters - US. You update the location definition to capture this change, and leave the effective start date as today's date. The following table shows the physical records of the location definition after the update.
A new physical record is inserted automatically in the object's definition following the current physical record. The effective end date of the first physical record is set automatically to the day before the effective start date of the new physical record.
Entering Future-Dated Changes
You created the definition of grade EC3 on 17 June, 2009. The ceiling step for grade EC3 is changing from step 3 to step 4 on 1 January, 2012. When you update the definition of grade EC3 on 30 November, 2011 to change its ceiling step, you enter an effective start date of 1 January, 2012. This change creates a new physical record in the grade definition, as shown in the following table.
Between 17 June, 2009 and 31 December, 2011, physical record 1 is in effect. From 1 January, 2012 physical record 2 is in effect.
Updating an Object's History
UK employee Jackson Smith was divorced on 12 May, 2011. The record of his marital status is as follows.
After you update Jackson's marital status, you learn that he was legally separated from 10 December, 2010 until his divorce. To capture this period of legal separation, you update Jackson's marital status record and enter an effective start date of 10 December, 2010. After this update, Jackson's marital status record is as follows.
By setting the effective start date to 10 December, 2010, you insert the record of Jackson's legal separation between existing physical records 1 and 2. The effective end date of:
Physical record 1 is set automatically to the day before the effective start date of the inserted record
The inserted record is set automatically to the day before the effective start date of the following record, physical record 3
Applying Historical Updates to Later Records
Jennifer Watts has one assignment, as follows:
You granted Jennifer a retrospective promotion to grade A2 from 1 July, 2010. To make this change in her assignment history, you: Update her assignment, enter an effective start date of 1 July, 2010, and enter grade A2. This update creates a new physical record between existing physical records 1 and 2. It also sets the effective end date of physical record 1 to 30 June, 2010 and the effective end date of the inserted record to 17 September, 2010. Correct existing physical record 2, and change the grade from A1 to A2. After you make these changes, Jennifer's assignment history is as follows:
Effective Sequencing
Some date-effective objects, such as assignments, maintain a history of updates made on a single day by creating a physical record for each update.
Physical records with the same effective start date have effective sequence numbers. This topic provides examples of effective sequencing in assignment histories.
Changing the Assignment Working Hours
You create an assignment for a worker on 28 June, 2011. Later that day, you update the working hours for the assignment; this change is not a correction of the original information but new information for which you want to retain a history. After you update the assignment, the assignment history is as follows.
On 12 December, 2011, you update the assignment working hours again. After the update, the assignment history is as follows.
Changing the Assignment Manager
You update a worker's assignment twice on 14 March, 2010. The first time, you change the assignment manager from S. Taylor to J. Miles; the second time, you change the grade from C14 to C15 and the assignment manager from J. Miles to M. Singh.Effective sequencing applies to all assignment attributes, except assignment manager and work measures. Because effective sequencing applies to grades but not assignment managers, the assignment history is as follows after you make both updates
Changes to assignment managers (and also work measures) are treated as corrections rather than updates, and only the last change made on any particular day is maintained in the object history. In this example, the change of manager from S. Taylor to J. Miles is overwritten by the subsequent change to M. Singh.You can insert a new physical record in this assignment history if you select the previous physical record before making the update. For example, you could select physical record 2 in this assignment history and insert a record following it. The new record has effective sequence number 2 on 14 March,
2010, and the existing effective sequence number 2 becomes number 3.
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