What Happens When I Add Benefits Using Automation Rules?

The Benefits Administration application uses Add Rules to calculate each employee's eligibility date and, if appropriate, to enroll employees in a plan or flex plan. Employees are enrolled in default benefit plans only in the following situations:

  • The employee is added to an employee group used for eligibility criteria when you defined the plan

  • The employee's benefit postal code changes to match one in the plan's postal code table

    Note: You can use Add Rules for new hires.

If an add rule exists for the personnel action, the application calculates the start date for a benefit using the From Date, Months, Days, Hours, Pay Class, and Entry Type information defined in the add rules. If no add rule exists, the application lists, but does not enroll, employees who have become eligible to enroll in the benefit.

The Benefits Administration application uses the benefit process orders defined to determine the order in which an employee is enrolled in benefit plans.

Benefits are added for default plans based on the rules defined for each plan. Those rules are:

Rules Description
Always default An employee is enrolled in the plan if he or she is eligible
By plan type An employee is enrolled in the plan if the employee has no other benefits of this type (for example, no other health plan)
By plan category An employee is enrolled in the plan if the employee has no other benefits from this category (for example, no other medical health plan)
Do not default An employee is not enrolled in the plan but is listed as being eligible for the plan

For flex benefits, if an employee is added to the employee group used for a flex plan's eligibility, the application

  • Adds a flex credit record for the employee based on the employee's new employee group

    -and-

  • Adds default benefits under the flex plan for the employee

What are Benefit Automation Rules?