Once you have completed setting up your Annual/Open Enrollment, it is highly recommended that you set aside enough time to perform sufficient testing prior to opening up the Open Enrollment Event for all eligible Employees. It is generally recommended that you add one or more Test Employees to the system in order to conduct testing. As we cover key things to look for and not for every possible scenario you may encounter in this article, it can help to think back on past scenarios or issues to test and prevent them from recurring. 

It is recommended that you test each possible scenario that an employee might encounter during the Open Enrollment Event by changing the Demographic Data of the Test Employee to test various eligibility scenarios. The Benefit Eligibility Summary report is a great tool for understanding the various scenarios that you might wish to test.

Delete any test employees from the system before any electronic Eligibility Files are delivered to any Third Parties in order to prevent Test Employees from being passed to the Third Parties.

We offer a video training for this topic on Arcoro Learning.

Adding a Test Employee

Add ‘Test’ Employee

1. Expand Employee, expand Utilities, and click Add New Employee.

   

2. Progress through the tabs as normal to create the new test employee, but ensure you do the following:
   • The last name of the employee should be "Test" to prevent the employee's data from being sent in EDI files.
   • Set up the ‘Test’ employee with various settings and demographic information, such as age, marital status, any dependents, etc., so you can test all the rules and different coverage level rate combinations.
   • Create a Compensation Record for the test Employee as it can help drive benefit management.
   
3. Click Save when finished. Repeat this for additional employees for other demographics/situations to test.

Learn more about setting up a new employee from our dedicated article here.

Creating Test Dependents

While creating your test employee, also create test dependents such as a spouse and/or child. For example, you may want to set up a test child dependent to test benefit eligibility when the child ages out at the age of 26. 

1. Search for the employee you will be testing.

   

2. Hover over Benefits and click Dependents & Beneficiaries.

   

3. Click Add Dependent from the Actions drop-down menu.

   

4. Enter dependent information as necessary to test any benefits that rely on a dependent or the age of a dependent. The last name of the dependent should be "Test" to prevent any potential confusion with actual dependents. 

   

5. Click Save when finished.

Testing Benefits Between Years

You can also set up the test employees' benefits for the previous year to test benefits with EOI (evidence of insurability).

1. Hover over Benefits and click Benefits while viewing the employee profile.

   

2. Use the date range filter to include the previous and new benefit package. Click Filter.

   

3. You should see the list update with the previous and new benefit package.

   

4. For our example, the employee has an employee voluntary life benefit with $90,000 coverage, a spouse voluntary life with $25,000 coverage, and a child voluntary life with $10,000 coverage. During enrollment, we can test for correct EOI prompts during open enrollment, such as for increasing coverage level ranks.

   

Give Test Employee Benefits

1. Hover over Benefits and click Benefits while viewing the employee profile.

   

2. Click Check Eligibility.

   

3. For Step 1, set the Benefit Eligibility Date to match the Start Date of the Benefit Package that you will be testing against and click View Eligible Benefits.

   

4. For Step 2, select all the benefits with the provided checkbox. Click Process Eligibility at the bottom of the table.

   

Create an Open Enrollment Window

1. Search for the test employee.

   

2. Hover over "Employee Homepage" and click Enrollment Windows.

   

3. Click Create Window from the Actions drop-down menu.

   

4. Create the open enrollment window. Click Add Record when finished.

   

Testing Event

Beginning the Event

1. Search for the employee you will be testing.

   

2. Hover over Employee Homepage and click View Homepage.

   

3. Select the Open Enrollment event under Change Events from the drop-down menu and click Begin Event. It is best practice to click Reset and Begin Event again, if available.

   

Event Steps

The event steps presented to you and your employees are configured from the "Events Configuration" tab of the "Employee Portal Setup" menu. If you encounter any issues or oddities, make note of them to correct after testing the open enrollment. While we cannot test for every scenario, we have provided some common things to look out for below, which may or may not apply to your organization. 

Instructions Tab

The "Instructions" tab first step of Open Enrollment will typically be a set of standard non-configurable instructions, which can be disabled if not needed by your organization. The instructions detail that the employee will be progressing through steps represented with tabs. Employee will not be able to progress until they complete and save their changes for a tab. After saving their selection(s) on a tab, the next tab will become available for them. Previous tabs will be available for them to return to, if necessary. 

Acceptance Tab

The "Acceptance" tab can be disabled, set to use the default text, or configured with your own text. The default text indicates that Core HR/Arcoro is not responsible for any technical difficulties employees may experience, not to save usernames/passwords in your browser, and Core HR and your company are not responsible for browser configurations.

Personal Tab

The "Personal" tab presents the employee with their current personal information. If any of the information is incorrect, they can use the appropriate change even after completing the open enrollment event. 

Dependents Tab

The "Dependents" tab allows an employee to review existing dependents and add a new dependent. Clicking Add Dependent will take them to a menu where they can complete the required fields marked in red. Clicking Edit for an existing dependent will allow the employee to update their information. Dependents cannot be deleted from this tab. Something that can help during your testing is to have a test dependent where one is eligible for benefits and another that has aged out of benefits, to see how benefits will respond. While dependents can be added regardless of age, the eligibility rules configured for a benefit will determine if the dependent can be enrolled.

Benefits Tab

The "Benefits" tab is where you will review the instructions, summary documents, video, and benefits an employee would elect. "Medical" benefits will be the initial benefits presented. Linked resources will open in new tabs/windows or downloadable documents, so the employee is not interrupted in their enrollment.

When going through your testing, you can check any of the following:

• Reviewing the various election options for the employee with employee-only and dependents:
  • When selecting "Employee Only" coverage, the dependents should not be available for selection. If dependents are selected before selecting "Employee Only", they will be deselected. 
  • When selecting "Employee + Spouse" coverage, the spouse will be auto-selected.
  • When selecting "Employee + Child(ren)" coverage, children will be auto-selected, but children who have aged out will not be selectable and will be marked in red. 
  • When selecting "Employee + Family" coverage, spouse and children will be auto-selected, but children who have aged out will not be selectable and will be marked in red. 
• Try to select coverage options that will generate a deduction to confirm payroll deductions and taxation settings are configured correctly. 
• "Dental" benefits should be similarly tested to "Medical" as dependent age rules will also apply.
• If any benefits have updated premiums, review and confirm that the cost displayed matches the updated rates. If any rates are incorrect, update the premiums for the benefit package or benefit plan after completing your testing.
• For life benefits, such as Basic Life and AD&D, review the age reduction instructions, links to the summary, and coverage costs. It may help to have an employee who is within the age reduction range for testing.

  

• For benefits with EOI requirements, review that the instructions are current and consider electing a benefit that requires EOI to ensure appropriate messaging during the "Review" step. For our example, the employee is enrolling in a voluntary long-term disability benefit. If the test employee had enrolled in the benefit previously, they will not need to provide EOI and will already be enrolled. If the test employee had previously waived the benefit, they will be required to provide evidence of insurability and will use the linked EOI form in the instructions to enroll. It may be important to have a deadline for submitting EOI forms so employees do not delay in providing forms. 

  

Beneficiaries Tab

The "Beneficiaries" tab will list the elected employee life benefits, beneficiaries, and distribution. Spouse and child life benefits will not be listed as they will default to the employee being the beneficiary. When selecting beneficiaries, primary beneficiaries are required, with secondary being optional. The percentage total for primary beneficiaries must each equal 100%. If secondary beneficiaries are selected, their percentage must always equal 100%.

Emergency Contacts Tab

The "Emergency Contacts" tab is where employees will add and/or update their emergency contact information. There must be at least one emergency contact for the employee. The "Select Emergency Contact" checkbox must be enabled for the appropriate emergency contact(s) to be valid. A secondary phone number is required for the emergency contact(s), but it does not have to be unique and can be the same as the primary phone number, or a simple "0" can be entered as a placeholder. 

Review Tab

In the "Review" tab, you will be able to review all the personal information and benefits elected for the employee. If you have selected any benefits that require evidence of insurability, you will see a message indicating as such. It may help to include a link to the EOI form and a deadline for form submission.

Benefit, Beneficiary, and Emergency Contact Information

Key details that will be shown are:

• Coverage dates
• Benefit plans
• If a benefit plan requires EOI
• Coverage amounts, if applicable.
• Employee cost for benefits, and whether deductions are pre-tax or post-tax.
• Beneficiary Assignments
• Emergency Contacts

Retest

Employees would typically click "Save & Confirm" if everything is correct to confirm their elections. During testing, though, you will not be saving and confirming the selection, as you will typically go through multiple rounds of testing.

After making the necessary changes to benefits or the event steps, return to the employee homepage, navigate back to the "Change Events" menu, and click "Reset and Begin Event" to start the event from the beginning. Progress through the steps again to check that your updates are applied correctly.

If you are not going to test the event again, you can cancel the event and return later. 

Testing Checklist

We recommend going through the Testing Checklist below to ensure you test thoroughly.