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Customizing Your Benefits

Enrollment Processes: Design
Best Practices and Guidelines
for Improving User Satisfaction
and Reducing Risk

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Justin Morgalis
AspireHR

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2008 Wellesley Information Services. All rights reserved.

What Well Cover

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Introduction
Examining SAP Employee Self-Service (SAP ESS) as
delivered
Exploring options available for enhancement
Demonstrating enhanced SAP Benefits
Wrap-up

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1

In This Session ...

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Explore standard ESS Benefits enrollment

Learn tips and techniques for developing more effective
and intuitive SAP Benefits enrollment processes while
still keeping development and ongoing maintenance
effort down
Explore the development options available for enhancing
enrollment user interfaces

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2

In This Session ... (cont.)

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Learn how to leverage SAP NetWeaver Development

Infrastructure (NWDI) to effectively develop and modify
enrollment iViews
Step through a demo of an enhanced SAP Benefits
enrollment process to see how proper design and
development can lead to better data quality and more
efficient enrollment periods

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3

Inherent Challenges in Benefits Enrollment

Occurs once a year

Doesnt allow a trip up the learning curve

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Negotiations with providers, unions

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Not everyone is aware exactly how much it will cost

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Multiple plan and coverage options, pre-requisites, corequisites: Who can understand all that?
Every companys benefits are different

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Cost calculations too easily glossed over

Benefit plan variations by geographic area

Every employee wants to know what will fit best

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Wants certain information hassle-free

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What Well Cover

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Introduction
Examining SAP Employee Self-Service (SAP ESS) as
delivered
Exploring options available for enhancement
Demonstrating enhanced SAP Benefits
Wrap-up

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5

SAP Employee Self-Service (SAP ESS) as Delivered

SAP ESS has many top-shelf features

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Robustly engineered
f Data access works the first time, every time
Hides complexity
f Operates very much as a black box
Handles a very intricate process well
f Used out of the box, enrollment is possible

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You know the But is coming

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Warning

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SAP Employee Self-Service (SAP ESS) as Delivered (cont.)

Standard ESS Benefits enrollment risks in our

experience:

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May be overwhelming to users

May not be 100% intuitive
Employee can change plan and not complete enrollment
process
Risks associated with self-service benefits enrollment:
f Larger than expected numbers of trouble calls to HR
f Reduction of employee satisfaction
f Liability for incomplete enrollments
Issue

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This product is the face of your HR department

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And, as we all know, looks matter

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Show Me

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Crowded screen may be

confusing and overwhelming
to the user.

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Users may not know how to

proceed or if the process is
complete.

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Incomplete process leads to, at

best, headaches for HR if not
worse.

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8

What Well Cover

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Introduction
Examining SAP Employee Self-Service (SAP ESS) as
delivered
Exploring options available for enhancement
Demonstrating enhanced SAP Benefits
Wrap-up

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9

SAP Enhancement Points

Options for inserting code and the beginning or end of

any Remote Function Call (RFC) module
Run as a part of that RFC
Available as of SAP ECC 6.0
Are not affected by Support Pack updates

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A key for maintainability

Reduces TCO

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Enhancing objects rather than modifying reduces the effort

required for SP upgrade

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SAP Enhancement Points (cont.)

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ABAP code that fits at the beginning or end of RFCs

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Run as a part of that RFC

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Web Dynpro for Java

SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio (NWDS) allows you to

modify the ESS development components built with Web
Dynpro for Java
Web Dynpro for Java components run on top of SAP
NetWeaver AS Java, whereas SAP ERP runs on top of
SAP NetWeaver AS

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Unaffected by ERP stack updates

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Ideal for layout and display changes

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SAP NetWeaver Developers Studio (NWDS)

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Layouts can be modified from the Layout view

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SAP NetWeaver Developers Studio (NWDS) (cont.)

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Or, go right into the Java code

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What Well Cover

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Introduction
Examining SAP Employee Self-Service (SAP ESS) as
delivered
Exploring options available for enhancement
Demonstrating enhanced SAP Benefits
Wrap-up

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What Are the Enhancements to SAP Benefits?

Tabbed plan selection view

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Unwieldy plan listing restructured around plan types

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Radio buttons

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Replacing SAP standard UI tables with radio buttons

Used when single selections are required

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Dynamic acknowledgements

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User cannot proceed without acknowledging

f End User License Agreement (EULA) style

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What Are the Enhancements to SAP Benefits? (cont.)

Dynamic buttons and text

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Buttons and text areas that change or appear based upon

user input

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Dynamic popups

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Custom popups based on user actions

Can be used to trigger other workflows or actions

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Customized SAP Portal popup

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Customized to make the pre-existing portal popup more usable

throughout the application

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Tabbed Plan Selection View

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Unwieldy plan listing restructured around plan types

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Tabbed Plan Selection View (cont.)

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Unwieldy plan listing restructured around plan

types (cont.)

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Why Reorganize into a Tabbed Plan Selection View?

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Organizes the plans for ease of navigation

Creates an implicit order to enrollment
Condenses the view down to avoid scrollbars

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Scrollbars mean user confusion and incomplete transactions

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Radio Buttons vs. Standard Tables

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Radio buttons are a convention everyone is used to

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Why Replace Standard Tables with Radio Buttons?

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Replaces an unfamiliar control with one any Web user

has used before
More logically organizes the options for better
comprehension

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Dynamic Acknowledgements

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Process flow becomes dependent on successful

acknowledgement

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Dynamic Acknowledgements (cont.)

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Acknowledgement unlocks the next step in the

process flow

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Why Add Dynamic Acknowledgements?

Adds an element of user control

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User cannot proceed without having accepted the terms

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EULA-style familiar to users of the Web

Auditing purposes

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Dynamic Buttons and Text

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Text and buttons change based on user action

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In this case, we are changing

the button captions based on
the plan selection so that the
user knows which plan he/she
is going to modify.

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Why Add Dynamic Buttons and Text?

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Explicitly tells the user what they are about to edit or do

Allows different instructions to be presented based on
user action
Will prevent user from proceeding if they are not using
the view correctly

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Dynamic Popup

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Popup with dynamic text responding to user actions

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Valuable for important conditional information that you may not

want cluttering up the screen on a regular basis

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Why Create Dynamic Popups?

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Allows important warnings to be presented to the user

Actions can be tied to the popup

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Canceling the transaction

Going back to an incomplete area

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Customized SAP Portal Popup

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Standard

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Custom version

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Why Customize the SAP Portal Popup?

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Already in place to prevent loss of work or data

Customized to more accurately relay what its purpose is

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Removal of All Automatic Plans from Enrollment

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Plans that are enrolled in automatically are removed

from the plan listing

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Why Remove All Automatic Plans from Enrollment?

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Streamlines the process for the user

Limits the potential for user confusion or mistakes with
the automatic plans
User should not be opting out of plans that are
automatically granted

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Waived Plan Cleanup

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Treatment of Waived plans as if plan did not exist

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Why Treat Waived Plans as if the Plan Didnt Exist?

Waived plans were showing up as coverage levels

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This was potentially prompting users to remove plans that were

waived, which would delimit the record, instead of sending the
waived plan to the provider

More intuitive

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35

Show Me

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Lets see what I am talking about

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Enhanced Benefits
Enrollment Process

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Lessons Learned

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Try to keep changes siloed (i.e., do not use ABAP and

Web Dynpro to make changes to meet one requirement
when one of the two will suffice)
If possible, use ABAP to make changes
Use NWDS over portal configuration for more stable
changes
Any way that users can make a mistake, they will

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That goes for any user community anywhere

So limit the possibility of mistakes through good design

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What Well Cover

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Introduction
Examining SAP Employee Self-Service (SAP ESS) as
delivered
Exploring options available for enhancement
Demonstrating enhanced SAP Benefits
Wrap-up

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Resources

Enhancement Framework: The new way to enhance your

ABAP system

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www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/9cd
334f3-0a01-0010-d884-f56120039915 *

Implicit Enhancement Options in ABAP Source Codes

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http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04s/helpdata/en/29/e59441026a
ae5fe10000000a1550b0/frameset.htm

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http://help.sap.com (NWDS)

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Follow SAP NetWeaver SAP NetWeaver CE Development

Developers Guide in SAP Library

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* Requires login credentials

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7 Key Points to Take Home

Standard delivered ESS is robust solution but can be

improved from a user experience standpoint
Your ESS product is the FACE of your department

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Make it easy on the eyes

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Enhancement Points (EPs) can be used to make

business logic changes within SAP ERP that previously
would require a core modification
These EPs are not affected by Support Pack updates
Web Dynpro for Java can be used to make layout and
other display changes using NWDS

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7 Key Points to Take Home (cont.)

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Layout changes can drastically improve usability of

your system
An improved intuitive Benefits Enrollment process
will lead to happier, properly enrolled employees and
(TA-DA!) less work for HR

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Via less calls to HR staff and call centers

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Your Turn!

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How to contact me:

Justin Morgalis
jmorgalis@aspirehr.com

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Copyright 2008 Wellesley Information Services. All rights reserved.