Dynamic Hub – Powerful Business Function Workflow Management

The PSPA Tech Dynamic Hub Enhancement helps administrators provide exceptional service to members by providing a comprehensive view of system data and activity tracking for specific business functions.

Overview

Dynamic Hubs can be configured for business unit functions such as Disability or Death processing. Other possible hub types include Refunds/Withdrawals or 415 Limit Adjustments.

A critical use case for Dynamic Hub includes managing disability benefits for members, which can be challenging because of the frequent medical reviews and adjustments for outside earnings. Members must be scheduled for periodic medical review meetings and agendas with important information prepared.

Another primary use case for Dynamic Hub is managing death benefits for members, including activities related to setting up the initial death benefits and tracking and adjusting ongoing payments for surviving spouses and multiple children.

The PSPA Dynamic Hub Enhancement can replace the spreadsheets and access databases organizations use to manage these processes. Its flexibility enables clients to configure effective Dynamic Hubs tailored to a specific purpose with familiar plan language and process steps. The dynamic hub design’s extreme configurability distinguishes it from alternative approaches.

The Dynamic Hub name stems from these features:

• Bring together system information and collect member information specific to the Hub Type and purpose.
• Different Hub Types can be configured. The Dynamic Hub can appear and function dramatically differently depending on the Hub Type and Benefit Plan.
• The Dynamic Hub is extensively configurable and can quickly be revised based on changing business needs.
• The Dynamic Hub keeps up with changing data and progression through the business processes while tracking all changes.
• Data can be viewed and maintained for an individual member on the Dynamic Hub page or in a collective group targeted to a particular activity using the Dynamic Group page.
• Maintaining Disability Benefits is dynamic because it requires periodic medical reviews and adjustments for outside earnings.

Hypothesis

What if Dynamic Hubs could be created for specific business functions unique to each configured benefit plan?

These business function Hubs could display related information from around the system on one page, making it easy to research members or provide quick answers on phone calls. Links would speed navigation to the source page for additional details and edits.

These Hubs could also collect related information that doesn’t yet have a place in the system and replace the need for tracking spreadsheets outside the system. What if these Hubs could schedule and track progress through the steps required for various activities related to the Hub’s purpose, making it easy to report on and prioritize outstanding tasks?

What if Hubs for different purposes, plans, or process flows could all be configured using the same tool so a custom solution doesn’t have to be created for each business function?

Solution

The PSPA Dynamic Hub enhancement stands on these pillars:

• Configurable – Universal functionality with extensively configurable features. Make it easy to add a new hub type and experiment with changes in a design session or as needs evolve. Quickly configure a new data element without requiring developer or database changes.
• Feature-Rich—Build features once and reuse them for multiple distinct hubs, such as robust search, activity tracking, scheduling, group view, user-defined table lookup, field defaults, file upload, and correspondence generation.
• Extensible – Customize and integrate custom data sources into hub sections.
• All member hub data and user-defined table entries are stored in one table.

Dynamic Hub Functionality

The Dynamic Hub presents information from throughout the system in one place. It also enables the organized collection and maintenance of additional user-configured data elements not found elsewhere in the system. In the examples, the Dynamic Hub has been configured to manage disability-related data.

Dynamic Hub Search Record

The Dynamic Hub Search Record lets you find members meeting user-entered search criteria.

EMPLID

You can optionally enter the Emplid for your search. Knowing the EMPLID is the fastest way to enter the Dynamic Hub. If the EMPLID is not entered, multiple search results may be returned, and the Next/Previous buttons in the list can help you navigate a related list of members.

Hub Type

Optionally select a Hub Type.  Entering a Hub Type is recommended to improve prompts in other search fields.

Hub Types:

• Disability
• Death

All configuration data is keyed by a Hub Type.

Benefit Plan

Optionally select a Benefit Plan. Entering a Benefit Plan is recommended to improve prompts in other search fields.

All configuration data is keyed by a Benefit Plan. Based on the configuration, the Dynamic Hub can look and function dramatically differently for each plan.

Retirement Date

You can optionally enter a Retirement Date. This will search for the member’s latest Retirement Date in a Retirement Application.

Scheduled Dates

You can optionally select a Scheduled Date. The prompt will show any Scheduled Dates configured with a Search Label used in any member’s Dynamic Hub data.

This search option allows finding all members with a particular Scheduled Date.

Translate Values

You can optionally select a Translate Value. The prompt will show any Translate Values configured with a Search Label used in any member’s Dynamic Hub data.

This search option allows you to find all members with a particular Translate Value, such as a Status or Medical Condition.

Table Search

You can optionally select a Table Lookup Value. The prompt will show any Table Lookup Values used in a member’s Dynamic Hub Data.

This search option lets you find all members with a particular Table Lookup value, such as a specific physician or attorney.

Open Activity

Optionally select an Open Activity Indicator.  “Yes” will include any search results with an open activity that meets the Scheduled Dates, Translate Values, and/or Table Search criteria if applicable.  “No” will include any search results with a closed activity that meets the Scheduled Dates, Translate Values, and/or Table Search criteria if applicable.  “{Any}” will return results with Open or Completed Activities. 

This search option lets you find all members with an Open Activity and create a work list.

Activity Type

Optionally select an Activity Type. “{Any}” will return results for any Activity Type. 

Last Name and First Name 

Enter all or part of the member’s first and/or last name to search by name.

Hub Sections

The Dynamic Hub is presented in sections.  Each section may be configured to include different information and operate slightly differently.

Sample Dynamic Hub with all sections collapsed:

Data Presentation Sections

Data Presentation Sections display data from around the system only. They are modeled after other delivered or custom pages with data related to Dynamic. The sections can differ slightly to include only the most relevant information or combine multiple pages. A link is always provided to navigate to the full page used to maintain the relevant data.

Member Demographic Data SECTION

Retirement Application Section

Retirement Application is a custom page to manage benefit requests and set up and run related processes.

Valuable links to View Retirement Application, View Calculation Results, or Generate Calculation Worksheet are included in this section.

The Calculation Details are configurable fields that pull specific Function Results or Aliases from the calculation. More details are shown when the mouse pointer is placed over the result description.

Calculation Override Worksheet Section

The custom Calculation Override Worksheet data was used to convert calculation data for disabled members at go-live.

Disability Outside Income Section

The custom Disablity Outside Income page collects information on income while the member is on disability and is used to offset benefits.

Miscellaneous Pension Data Section

The custom Miscellaneous Pension Data page tracks user-defined data pertinent to plan members.

Administer Appointees Section

The custom Administer Appointees page tracks the Power of Attorneys and other representation.

Custom Retiree Information Section

The Custom Retiree Information Page is used to set up a benefit payment.

Benefit Payments Section

The retiree benefits payroll history is displayed in the disability payments section so users can see the history of disability payments and adjustments paid to the member.

Data Collection Sections

All Hub Data Collection Sections include an Activity at the parent level and Fields at the child level.  An Activity is essentially a collection of data elements.  Some data sets can be repeated throughout the Disability life-cycle; for example, in the Activity Section, each review of the member’s disability eligibility or benefit amount can be captured as a new Activity data set.  Other data collections may change less frequently or summarize the current status; for example, in the Data Section, details about the disability that don’t change with each activity can be captured.  Yet other data collections can be maintained independently from the member and then associated with one or more members as appropriate; for example, in the Data Section, a member can be associated with a particular Attorney, and in the Table Section on another page, the list of Attorneys and their contact information can be maintained.

You can configure the label for a section and configure whether it should expand or collapse when the page is opened.  

Hub Section – Data Collections

The Data Section appears on the Dynamic Hub page.  It is sorted in ascending sequence order and displays all data sets. A new row is inserted at the bottom of the section.

Hub Section – Activity

The Activity Section appears on the Dynamic Hub page. It is sorted in descending sequence order and displays only the item with the highest sequence number first—the current activity. A new row is inserted at the top of the section.

Additional Features: Complete Activity

Hub Section – Tables 

The Table Section appears on the Dynamic Hub Table Config page. It is sorted in ascending sequence order and displays the item with the lowest sequence number first. A new row is inserted at the bottom of the section.

Filter/Sort Tools

Filter/Search Tools are provided to find Activities in the member’s Dynamic Hub data that meet the entered criteria.

After entering the search criteria, use the Refresh button to update the Activity section. The Clear Filters button removes all entered search criteria.

Activity Type

Select from Activity Types found in member’s Activity data.

Translate Values

Select from Translate Values (with configured Search Label) found in the member’s Activity data.

Schedule Dates

Select from Scheduled Dates (with configured Search Lable) found in the member’s Activity data.

Text Search

Activity Field values are searched for entered text.

Sequence Number

Enter an Activity Sequence Number to limit results to a specific Activity Sequence Number.  This is especially useful on large data sets like a user-configured Table.

Sort Activity Type/Status/Data

Use these checkboxes to sort results by the selected fields

Display Deleted

Display Deleted will include deleted Activities in the results.  Delete Activities can be restored.

Dynamic Group

The Dynamic Group page displays specific Activity fields in a grid for a subset of members with the same key value—for example, a meeting agenda for all members scheduled for a specific meeting date.

You can configure the fields displayed, the order of display, and the edit capabilities. One dynamic group report can be created for each activity.

The Group data can be exported to Excel directly from the grid to publish a meeting agenda.

Decisions made in the meeting can be updated directly in the grid for each member on the meeting agenda.

Selection Criteria

The Scheduled Date or Translate Value, configured for the Group, is displayed, and the user can enter criteria to populate the Group grid.  The refresh button updates the grid based on the entered selection criteria.

Select/Action

All or some of the members in the grid can be selected for bulk operations.  

Copy to Group List

Create, append, or replace a group list using the Copy button in the Select/Action section using the list name and list option selected.  

Options: 

• Create a New List – Make a new list with the list name entered with the selected members.
• Replace List – Delete and Replace the existing named list with the selected members.
• Append to List – Add any missing selected members to an existing named list.

Open Group List

Open the named group list on the Group Processing page. This option is helpful for processing and reviewing batch calculations.

Update Selected Rows

Update selected rows with the same value for any or all editable fields in the grid. This helps update the disability decision and decision date for some or all of the group members with only a few clicks.

Configuration Feedback Loop

Users granted access to the configuration page are presented with a direct configuration link to edit the configuration. After returning, click refresh to see the changes results almost instantly. The quick feedback loop allows configuration changes during a design session and immediately demonstrates their impact.

Quick fix loop involves:

1. Configuration Link
2. Edit Configuration
3. Click Save
4. Close Window
5. Open Filter/Sort Tools
6. Click Refresh

Prerequisite Updates

None

Additional Resources

Dynamic Hub Configuration – Quickly Build Amazing Applications for Functional Teams