Open Enrollment season is here! As you finalize the changes to your organization’s upcoming Benefit Plan year, keep in mind the significant impact to your integrations. Integrations are often forgotten when planning for Open Enrollment (OE), which can result in a delayed project timeline.
These guidelines will give your Workday team a head start on planning for a smooth Open Enrollment season – from benefit elections to integration files to mailing cards to your team members!
OE Season is a busy time for Benefits providers. This can cause longer waiting and processing times. We recommend engaging all your vendors as early as possible, not later than 8-10 weeks prior to your New plan Year Start Date. This can help you identify OE deadlines, especially if you’re introducing new benefits vendors or new plan offerings.
Each of your Workday Benefits Integrations generally falls into one of the three following OE scenarios:
- New Vendors and/or Benefit Plan Changes
- New vendors mean new integration files that need to be designed, configured, and tested prior to launching your Open Enrollment
- New plan offerings can also require new file feeds or updates to existing integrations.
- New plans that are COBRA-eligible should be accounted for in COBRA integrations.
- Existing Integration Changes – existing vendors usually have Open Enrollment-specific file requirements which need to be tested in advanced of deadlines set by each vendor.
- Accounting for plan modifications such as new coverage tiers of account structure changes.
- Updating COBRA integrations if there are updates to benefit plans or coverages tiers.
- Managing Integration Schedules for Current Plan Year, OE File, and Ongoing New Play [should this be Play or Pay?] Year files.
- Existing Integrations without Changes– even when you’re not expecting any changes from your vendors, annual maintenance consists of:
- Validating there are no expected changes for integration or required test files.
- Managing Integration Schedules for Current Plan Year, OE File, and Ongoing New Plan year files.
Should you need additional support during the OE season or require an extra review on your setup, our team is always available to answer any of your Workday OE integration questions!
