From Complex to Simple: How Web ADI made our jobs easier and more rewarding

Sylvia C. Gregory City of West Palm Beach Patricia Brosamer City of West Palm Beach Introduction
With multiple unions and different pay rules, making massive pay changes in ones organizations can be a daunting task. We know! This complex process was simplified by using Web ADI for HR. This paper covers key concepts and terminology to give an overview of how the City of West Palm Beach uses Web ADI. The paper explains how integrators and layouts play a role in manipulating data and how predefined HR integrators can be used to download and upload data using familiar desktop applications like MS Excel.

Overview
Web Applications Desktop Integrator (Web ADI) is a self-service Oracle module that replaces ADE (Application Desktop Exchange) a client based tool. The advantages of Web ADI are that it does not require client-side installation and integrates the flexibility of spreadsheets with Oracle applications. Web ADI helps users in performing data manipulation tasks using spreadsheets. You can perform copy and paste, drag and drop ranges of cells or even use formulas to calculate amounts. Fields and default values in the spreadsheet can be customized using Layouts according to the business needs thus simplifying the process. The inbuilt validation allows the users to verify data prior to uploading to Oracle HR. The illustration below shows how Web ADI works:

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Key Concepts
Understanding the following concepts will help you understand how Web ADI can download and uploading data between Oracle HR and your desktop application. Integrator An integrator defines the information needed to download and upload from a particular window or database view. Depending on whether you want to download for a report or mail merge purposes, or manipulate the data and upload it again, integrators can be set up by your system administrator. Layout A layout indicates the columns to be displayed in a spreadsheet or document. An integrator can have more than one layout for use in different situations, e.g., In HR People Details Integrator (which is available from the People window) one layout could contain Full Name and Telephone Extension to print a phone list; another contains addresses to print labels. A default layout is when only one layout is available for an integrator. If more than one layout is available for an integrator, the user will choose one when creating the document. Download This is process of transferring data from the Oracle HRMS application to your desktop (the original data remains in the application database). Upload This is the process of transferring the data from a spreadsheet on your desktop back to the Oracle HRMS application, thus overwriting the existing data in the application database. This process can take place only if Web ADI created the spreadsheet. Viewer Is a desktop application, such as a spreadsheet or word processing tool that is used to view the data downloaded from Oracle HRMS.

Salary Mass Updates

To process salary mass updates using Web ADI we will be using what is called a predefined integrator. A predefined integrator allows the user to either download data only or download and upload data. The HR Update Salary Proposals integrator is the predefined integrator used in the process and it allows you to download data, edit the data, and upload it again to the application. This integrator can be accessed through the Salary Management folder. The process is performed in three steps: Step 1 Design In this step the user determines the fields need for import/export and creates the document to be used. Step 2 Data Manipulation This step allows the user to manipulate data downloaded from Oracle HRMS by making the necessary and/or required changes. Step 3 Transfer and approve This allows the user to validate the salary changes in the spreadsheet prior to import to Oracle HR.

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Step 1 Design
This step allows the user to determine the fields needed for import/export. The step consists of: querying assignments, exporting data (launch Web ADI), selecting viewer, selecting layout, document creation and confirmation. Navigation path: US HR Manager People Salary Management Query Assignments: In the Salary Management Folder you will select the assignments you want to update. Depending on your needs you will query by: salary basis (always a required field), job classification, organization, last review date, etc.

Export data: Once the query is complete, you will be able to launch the Web ADI by using the Export button.

EXPORT BUTTON

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Select viewer: In this step you will select the desktop application that will be used to view the spreadsheet. In order for the spreadsheet to be uploaded into Oracle HRMS, the Reporting box needs to be unchecked.

Select default or custom layout: In this step you will select the layout to be used and that will determine the arrangement of the fields in the document.

Create document: This step allows the user to determine the parameters to be used to create the document. This process consists of document creation review, create document and confirmation. Document creation review: This is the time to make any changes before the document is created. If the information is correct and the parameters are the correct ones, then you can proceed with the process and create the document.

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When the document is created you will be prompted to either open or save file. You have to choose open file to enable macros.

Create Document A window will show up indicating that the document is being created. You should not close the window until the process is completed.

Confirmation Once the document is created and the process is complete, you will receive a confirmation. This will indicate the download is complete.

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When you close the window the spreadsheet that was created using your selected layout will show up on the screen. The spreadsheet will contain only the assignments you queried at the beginning of the design step.

Step 2 Data manipulation

In this step you will be able to review the spreadsheet created in the design step, make required changes and upload the data to Oracle HR. At this point it is recommended you save your spreadsheet, to prevent the loss of data when you close the spread sheet. Once you have saved the data you will be able to make changes to the Employee Salary Information. For Salary Mass Updates you will be required to make the following changes: Effective date of the change Reason Proposed salary Proposed reason Next review date

When a change is made to any field in the spreadsheet the row is flagged for upload.

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Upload the information using Oracle menu Upload When you make all the necessary changes, you will be ready to upload the data to Oracle HR. To do this you need to select Upload from Oracle Menu in Excel. The data that will be uploaded is validated before the upload is done. The user needs to make sure the values are entered in all required field. In any required field is not changed or updated the upload will not be successful and an error message will appear in the Message column for the record with the invalid or incorrect data.

Upload parameters By default only flagged rows are selected for upload, but the user can change that by selecting to upload all rows in spreadsheet or to upload flagged rows (rows with changes). After selecting what rows to upload you will be required to click the Upload button at the bottom of the window.

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If there are no errors you will receive Confirmation that the upload was completed successfully and you will be required to close the window.

Error If there any of records have an error, the upload will not work. No records will be updated until the error is fixed. If this happens you will be have to return to the spreadsheet and correct the information and retry the upload again.

Step 3: Transfer and Approve

This process will require that you re-query the data that will be selected for approval. You will be required to use the same Navigation path you used on the design step. In this step you will query data using the change date field as the parameter for the assignments to be selected. Query criteria for approval You will use the same navigation path you used in the design step to query the data. US HR Manager People Salary Management

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Notice you will have to select a Query Folder, in this example we are selecting Salary Query Folder.

You will use the New change date column as your parameter to select the records to be query for approval. Notice that the salary basis column is a required field.

Example: New change date: 23-Apr-2006 The query will bring all records with a New change date equivalent to April 23, 2006.

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Select records for approval You will be able to approve the records by using either one of the following ways: Consecutive rows o To approve records in a consecutive row you will use the Shift Key for selection. You will select the first record for approval and will go to the end of the document to select the last record while pressing the Shift Key. You will notice all selected records will be highlighted.

Non-consecutive rows o To approve records in non-consecutive rows you will use the Control Key for selection. You will select the first records you want to approve and while holding the Control Key you will keep selecting records until you complete the process. Notice that only the records selected for approval are highlighted.

Approve salary changes After you complete the process of selecting the records for approval, you will click on the Approve button at the end of the window. This automatically approves all records in Oracle HR.

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Benefits of using Web ADI for Salary Mass Updates

As mentioned in the introduction of this paper, handling mass salary updates for more than 1000 employees can be a very complex task. Oracle Web ADI changed that by allowing us to download the data and modifying it with the required information. We were able to create a spreadsheet for approximately 700 employees affected by retroactive payments. The spreadsheet was sorted by employees who were receiving different salary increases such as: adjustments to minimums, across the board salary changes and merit increases. The result was the ability to cut down the processing time by 70%, ability to process employees each one of them with a different salary reason in one batch and the also the flexibility of being able to review the data and make changes before the changes were approved, eliminating the need to delete records manually and re-entering them. During the process we faced some obstacles, but we were able to overcome them. Some of these were: Next review date This field will not update automatically when the information is uploaded into Oracle HR. We find out that the field called Last Review Date in the downloaded data was actually the Next review date. This was fixed by copying and pasting from one column to the other. Salary reasons The system will not allow the standard definitions for the salary reasons to be used to update the Salary Reason column in the spreadsheet before upload, the system will only use codes. The MIS Department provided us with the list of salary reasons and its corresponding codes.

Tips
We will like to share you with you some tips that will help you during the process: Always saved your spreadsheet before you start making any changes to the data. This will help you to have an original copy of the downloaded data in the event you make a mistake. Test the process with a small group before you change the data in production. This will help verify the information is accurate and will prevent you from having to manually delete/update hundreds of records after approving them.

Conclusion
Definitely Oracle Web ADI simplified our lives and made the complex task of updating the salaries of 1,000s of employees a very easy one. We know there are many other things that we can do with Oracle Web ADI and we will be researching and testing them, always in the quest of providing an effective and efficient service to our customers (employees). We hope that this paper will help you go through the process and the next time you find yourself with the daunting task of updating the salaries of your employees, you will be able to do it without complications and in an easier way.

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Resources
Web ADI Patches, Pre-Requisites and How it Replaces ADE Metalink Doc 233012.1 Oracle HRMS ADI FAQ Metalink Doc 240142.1*, 115702.1 * Contains servlets that you can download and view Web ADI for Oracle HRMS Implementation & Configuration Information Metalink Doc 228527. 1 Latest Web ADI Patches Metalink Doc 257808.1 Salary Administration Setup and Usage Metalink Doc 201235.1 Unable To Use ADI To Export Data in HRMS Metalink Doc 244827.1

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