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Element Input Values

When you define an element, you must consider what information you want to record each time you make an entry of the element for an employee.

Typically, you would expect to record more than just the name of the element. For example, if you defined an element to record employee expenses, you might want to record the Type, as a code value, and the Claim Amount as a monetary value.

In Oracle HRMS you define these values as input values for the element. When you define an element, you can define up to 15 input values for it. You decide which values you want to record and what limits, or validation, to apply to those values.

Input values can be numbers, text, dates, times, hours, or monetary values. You also decide whether each input is required or optional when an entry of the element is made for an employee.

Processing Input Values

Input values are so called because they are the inputs to calculations performed by Oracle Payroll. In a payroll run, formulas process the input values and other database information to produce run results.

For example, if your enterprise makes overtime payments, you might write a formula to calculate the payment amounts for each assignment from inputs of the overtime rate and the hours worked for the period. The payroll run then processes each assignment and produces the overtime payment amounts as run results.

Run results are used for other purposes besides summing the amount of employee pay. In the overtime example, the run result information can also be used for costing purposes and to track the actual hours of overtime worked.

The Pay Value

Oracle Payroll makes special use of the pay value to represent the result of processing an element for employee pay. The pay value is the amount paid to the employee from that element after payroll processing. You must define a pay value as one of the inputs for the element if you want Oracle Payroll to process an element for pay. You can have only one pay value for each element and it must have the name 'Pay Value'.

You can enter a pay value directly as an input to the element. When you do so, no formula will fire during the payroll run to calculate any direct result for the element. Instead, the pay value you enter becomes the run result.

Validating Input Values

When you define inputs for an element, you also define the validation for each input value. The validation you define controls the values a user can enter. The options are to:

Using the formula option you can model complex business rules for validating entries. For example, for a bonus payment you might want to set a maximum bonus value that depends on length of service and current salary.

With Oracle's formula writing tool, Oracle FastFormula, you can include conditional logic to validate input values using different criteria for different employees.

See Also

Defining an Element's Input Values

Using Oracle FastFormula for Payroll Calculations

Using Oracle FastFormula for Validation

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