Where a scheme has been taken over from another administrator, the new administrator will need to record certain values and balances in respect of existing members (take-on data). This conversion tool facilitates the bulk upload of data (per member as well as per multiple schemes).
Note:
The conversion process uses the member's name, initials, date of birth and identification number to determine whether the details exist on the system, and it is therefore very important that this is consistent across all the files.
The tool caters for the following types of data:
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Addresses |
Details of members' addresses and contact details. |
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Annuity Payment |
Details of members' annuities, deductions, payments, tax and required documentation. |
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Bank Accounts |
Details of members' banks and bank accounts. |
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Bank Branches |
Details of members' bank branches. |
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Beneficiaries |
Details of a member's nominated beneficiaries. |
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Contribution History |
Details of members' contribution history. |
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Documents |
Full documents or reference to documents for a member. |
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Hours History |
Details of the hours and additional hours worked by a member. |
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Liabilities |
Details of members' liabilities as at the date of launching the scheme on the system. |
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Medical Aid Rates |
Details for uploading medical aid rates. |
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Membership Details |
Initial member data for annuity-only schemes. |
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Member Financial |
Members' monetary values and units held as at the date of conversion to the system. This data must be loaded before the first unitisation takes place. |
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Member Investment Splits |
Details of how the members' contributions should be split into the various investment options. This data must be loaded before the first unitisation takes place. |
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Monthly Earnings History |
Details of the monthly earnings of a member. |
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Notes |
Free form notes attached to the members' records. |
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Payroll |
Basic membership and personal details typically held on payrolls and HR systems. Data can be per individual pay centre or multiple pay centres across schemes |
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Pensionable Service Dates |
The date from which members' retirement benefits are calculated. |
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Salary History |
History of relevant salaries. |
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Shift History |
Details of shift and phased down shift allowances for members. |
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Member Values |
Member transfer details, service details and pensionable service dates. |
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Unit Prices |
Details for uploading unit prices. |
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Bulk Journals |
Different journals that have no relation to each other can be loaded, or many journals can be loaded for one membership. Once loaded, they can be authorized in bulk. |
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Bulk Switches |
Uploading of a file for the bulk switching of members' investments. |
This tool also provides a facility to load and delete certain types of documents on the web server.
This facility provides for multiple and simultaneous loads of certain scheme member financial data to the system. The file contains predefined masks.
Note:
Masking is the process whereby the content of the uploaded file is defined (e.g. start and end positions of each field, etc.) in order for the conversion utility to be able to interpret it correctly.
The data remains in the staging area, and once the memberships have been checked and loaded to the core system, the data will automatically be loaded.
All the masks per scheme are loaded in one file, and no manual intervention is needed to load the files per scheme at different stages of the process. If an error occurs in any of the processes, the process will be retried twice. If it is still in error after the third attempt, the flow will get an error status and will not execute. The administrator can, however, override the error status and force the process to continue.
Note:
A payroll load should not be put into the same file as any other types (e.g. Member Financial), for the same scheme.
The various types of data (whether in separate files or combined into one file) can be loaded in any sequence, but the load can only take place after the first data cycle.
Where records have rejected, the user is able to make the necessary amendments, and validation will continue. If the data is changed, an image is kept in the database, and an online view into this table will be available at a later stage.
If multiple records are found in the same file for the same member, the existing record will be updated with the new data.
Note:
Alignment of records in the files must be consistent, i.e. all records must either be left aligned or right aligned, but not a combination of both. Although this doesn't necessarily apply to all the record layouts, it is advisable that this practice be adopted so as to avoid any future problems.
The conversion tool provides the following:
- creation of hash totals per file
- error reports
- facility to view the contents of the file loaded
- facility to track the load status of the file
- staging area for data required by the system, but not existing in the payroll component.
A conversion monitor, accessed from the system web site, is the user interface from which all user activities are performed.
The following annexures are included for reference:
- Annexure A: flow diagram of the conversion process
- Annexure B: flow diagram of the file poll process
Once a batch job is in progress, the progress of the batch job can be monitored in the Error Log Report.
After the batch job has completed, the Error Log Report should be checked for any errors. Once the batch job has completed, the screen will display Batch Job Finished.
Refer to
Reports
General
Error Log Report
The instructions in this manual have been grouped into the logical stages of the process. These are
- data errors
- hash totals
- validation errors
- reject flow
- archive flow
- flow history
Depending on what type of data is being loaded via this tool, the screen images shown in the manual might differ in terms of its content. However, the procedure remains the same with regard to the steps to be followed.
For each data type supported by the conversion utility, the following information has been included (Annexure C):
- details of the validations performed during the load process
- how to view the data uploaded
- an example of the input file (for illustrative purposes only – refer to the input file layout for accurate details)
- the layout format of the file