When you have a large number of employees affected by the same personnel action, such as an annual pay adjustment, you may find it easier and more efficient to process a mass action.
You can process:
Mass Salary change actions, including standard pay or percent pay adjustments, locality adjustments
Mass pay table updates for special rate tables
The application processes step increases automatically for you, including Automatic Within Grade Increases (WGI) and Quality Step Increases (QSI). The default automatic WGI requires no response by the Personnel Office. The process searches for employees eligible for a WGI, generates RPAs for each employee entitled to the WGI, notifies the Personnel Office of the WGI approval, updates the employee records on the effective date, and generates Notification of Personnel Actions (NPAs).
See: Automatic Within Grade Increases (WGIs)
When you process a mass action, you can specify the selection criteria as well as the data that you wish to change. You can preview your results and continue to adjust the data until you are ready to execute the action.
The mass actions have two windows, a Preview and Final window. You can process a mass action entirely from the Final window, or work with the Preview and then the Final window. The windows are identical with the exception that the final window contains an Execute button for running the final process. You might use both windows in your agency for security reasons to limit the number of people who can run the final process.
The following sections provide a more detailed description of the mass action process.
The application supports secure user and cross-business group functionality. When you create a mass action, the application filters the Selection Criteria list for organizations, positions, and hierarchies. It also filters the information that you view and update in the Preview window and for the Final execution.
When you first save a mass action, the application stores the business group ID attached to your login's responsibility with the mass action record. The application then limits access to users whose business group login corresponds to the one saved with the mass action.
Note: The name you assign a mass action is unique. Once you save an action with that name, you cannot use it again in any business group.
There are two exceptions to these general guidelines. The HR: Cross Business group setting does not apply to Mass Realignments or Mass Transfers.
Mass Realignment: The application restricts the Selection Criteria and the results displayed in the Preview and Final windows to your login responsibility's business group.
Mass Transfers: Initially, you can view the entire list of unsaved Mass Transfer Outs when processing a Mass Transfer In across business groups. As soon as you save the Mass Transfer In action, the application stores the business group associated to your login responsibility. Only users with the same business group can then access that action.
Note: If you require access to all mass actions and to run related reports, use a non-secure responsibility.
See: Secure User Support for US Federal HR
You determine which employees are affected by a mass action by entering source eligibility criteria in the mass action window. The application then uses the eligibility criteria to retrieve employees from the database that should be included in the action.
In addition to defining source criteria, you also enter data that applies to all eligible employees, such as the target organization when you realign or transfer employees. Based on this criteria, the Preview window lists the employees who are eligible as of the effective date or the current date, if you have not yet entered an effective date. The application also lists vacant positions (realignments and transfers).
The target data that you enter in the mass action window applies to all selected employees; however, you can override the target data for an individual employee or position record. For example, in a realignment, you can change the target position details for an individual employee.
When you save the Preview, the application stores the criteria name and the employee's selection status on the Person Mass Action Extra Information (Mass Salary and Transfer In) or the Position Mass Action Extra Information (Realignment and Transfer Out).
After saving the criteria, you can review the criteria and its run results by performing a standard query or printing reports. If the Status field is Unprocessed or Error, you can continue to make necessary changes and save your results.
Note: If you need to process a group of employees separately, such as those employees who require different Legal Authority Codes, you can create a second Preview using different selection criteria, as explained in Deselecting Employees for Mass Actions .
You can use the folder tool to customize the view of the folder in which you're viewing the run results. Insert columns when you want to consider additional data elements to assist in evaluating employee eligibility.
For example, you might add a column for the last name in the Transfer In window to more easily locate the employees whose actions you want to process. Or on a Transfer Out, you might add a column to display Not to Exceed dates to identify temporary employees.
In addition, the product includes 20 columns that you can use for adding columns for agency data. You can change column titles using custom windows, and populate the columns with agency data using agency hooks.
Note: The application does not include this additional data in the RPA or in the Interface table for Mass Transfer Out actions.
From the Preview window, you can deselect employees you want to exclude from the mass action, and enter a reason for their elimination in the comments field.
You can only select an employee once for a specific mass action. If you create a new Preview using the same eligibility source criteria, the application automatically deselects the employees and lists the Criteria Name where you selected that person.
When processing mass actions, you can separate employees according to different target criteria. For example, if you are realigning employees from Department A to two target agencies, Agency C and Agency D, you can set up two sets of criteria. When you preview the list of eligible employees using Agency C's criteria, the application selects all the eligible employees from Department A. You can then deselect employees you want to exclude. When you view the list of eligible employees using Agency D's criteria, the application lists Department A's employees, and deselects those employees selected based on Agency C's criteria.
As a convenience, you can print reports showing selected or deselected employees until you execute the action.
The product includes predfined Remarks and Legal Authority Codes that you can choose from the list of values. You can also enter free-form Remarks.
The Remarks and Codes that you enter in the Legal Authority Codes and Remarks window apply to all employees selected for the mass action. You cannot change them for an individual employee.
You can run the final mass action from the Final mass action window or the Concurrent Manager.
In both cases, when the effective date is reached, the application:
Selects eligible employees
Creates RPAs
Enters the Approving Official's name, working title, and approval date
The Approving Official is the employee you entered in the Personnel Officer Identifiers window.
If the action is a Mass Transfer Out, generates the final Interface table
After successfully updating the mass action, the next time the Process Future Dated RPA concurrent manager process runs, the application updates the actions to the database with the appropriate information.
Note: The Process Future Action Dated RPA process updates all current, retroactive and future dated actions that have reached their effective date. The only exception is Mass Awards where the application immediately updates Mass Award actions that have a current or retroactive date.
The application changes the Status field on the mass action window to reflect the phase of the process. When you run the final process, the Status field changes from Unprocessed to Submitted. When the application updates the mass action to the database, the status changes to Processed.
If an error occurs during Preview or any stage of the final run process, the application changes the Status to Error and enters the error message text in the Process Errors Log.
See: Error Handling
Print reports to review the run results and to generate the appropriate Notifications.
Before you execute the mass action, you can print:
Preview report for a list of employees selected in the criteria
Deselection report for a list of employees deselected from the criteria
After the application updates the RPAs to the database, you can print the Notification of Personnel Action as a:
List form notice that includes all employees selected for the mass action (Listing of All) or only one employee (Listing for Employee)
Standard NPA (Notification of Personnel Action SF-50) for one employee