Creating two lines with one source line

[kstorey]

I am working on a second problem in a conversion KRONOS payroll hour file with a single paycode that needs to be exploded into two separate paycodes.

For instance, when seeing a line with a paycode of 14 in my source data, I need to create two separate lines with two different pay codes. One for regular and one with a shift differential. The hours are exactly the same.

Below is a sample of the source text file:

Group Shift Earnings User
COMPANY DEPARTMENT SKILL CODE RESERV1 RESERV2 RESERV3 Class Date PayCd Category Code Hours Amount
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Employee: 000001000 Name: BROWN CHARLIE Badge: 000001000
CCMC 450 RN 402 1 7/29/08 CH 14 5 12.57

I have captured everything and set up a file layout (below) The "14" is the old Earnings Category from KRONOS and the "ERR" is a new calculated field for our new system. I called it Earning Number.

2 121 ERR 12.57 1 6230 0 14

The field names for the above are as follows:

The 2 is the Record Type
The 121 is the Employee number
The ERR is a calculated field called Earning Number that uses a If statement to replace the 14 (as defined below). It works perfectly for the other Earnings Categories in the report.
The 12.57 is the Hours field

The 1 is the Shift Field
The 6230 is the Department field
The Zero is a Flat Amt field
And the 14 is the KRONOS Earning Category field.


Basically, I need to create two separate lines to replace this line that gives me the same information in all the other fileds, except I need the Earning Number to be "010" for the first line and "090" for the second line.

Can anyone help me out?

Thanks,

Kevin Storey

[Grant Perkins]

Kevin,

A couple of suggestions as a starting point for some ideas.

1.

Process for all single lines and export to teh required format (or an intermediate file if you are comformatble with the idea of more than one transform of the data as far as quality control is concerned.)

Run a second process that looks for ONLY the Earnings Category value 14 (by trap or by filter accoridng to choice) and export the results of that to the same file (or DB table or whatever), appending to it. Or to a different version of the file and concatenate the two.

Sort into order if required.

2.

Similar idea but use an adaptation of the MCR Hot Voodoo concept from the July Monarch Report forum (Listed on the Forums page) and duplicate every line but then filter for only the values you require according to the b'column identifier' and other calue combination (which will also be used for the alternative calculated field values I would assume).

This way is a little more complicated to create but gets the job done in a single process.


How do you feel about those concepts?



Grant

[kstorey]

Grant,

I think I can accomplish the first suggestion. I have not used Monarch in a while (when you become the CEO, you don't have to do as much of this stuff..but I am in a small hospital with no one else to do it....), so I am a little rusty. I will try it.

Thanks so much for your help.

Kevin

[Grant Perkins]

Kevin,

Either way is not too tricky but may look a little challenging through the rust! ;)

Really the choice may be related to how you feel you need to validate the results. (Actually you could do both methods and compare I guess, using Monarch. That should offer a reasonable validation check.)

If you are going to use the first approach I think Project Exports may be useful and then a batch file perhaps. Is this a one off conversion or something you will be repeating regularly? If the latter you may find it worth spending a few minutes to check out some of the automation options a little further up the Monarch family tree to help you with your time and responsibilities allocation!

Let us know if you feel you are stuck at some point. There will usually be someone around who can suggest a way forward.

Have fun.


Grant

[kstorey]

Grant,

Honestly, until I can find a better solution, like actually developing a file in KRONOS (Time & Attendance System) itself, this will occur every two weeks. The whole process is not something I can teach my payroll clerk, so I bet I will have to perform it until I can come up with something better.

I do appreciate all your help.

Thanks,

Kevin

[Grant Perkins]

Kevin,

Whichever way you approach this I think a small batch script attached to a nice little 'Run' icon could make your life easier and maybe open up the possibility of assigning the 'click this' task to someone else without them needing to know how it works. They would of course need to understand the output ...

I would also propose that using Monarch as an interface tool (once every 2 weeks makes it harder to justify more complete automation ) might be a better medium to long term bet than creating some dedicated code in one of the applications. Especially if the special code is not supported by the vendor leaving you to deal with mods and testing and auditing whenever anything changes.

I could be way off target with this so it would be interesting to hear comments from others relating similar experiences.


Grant