In IFS Applications a benefit plan is defined as "a plan from one specific provider with all its options". E.g., "CIGNA Medical" is a plan, "CIGNA Medical Single" is a plan option. The benefit plan also holds general information such as group and plan number needed in the communication with the provider. Eligibility rules are optional and can be defined on the plan level (not for a certain option within the plan).
Each plan option is automatically given its own "short name". This is default put together by the entered values in fields: Benefit Plan + Provider + Option Item. The short name is used to identify the plan option in all the other windows. The short name can be altered by the administrator to fit any specific requirements. You can not enter two exactly the same short names.
The benefit plan information includes a "Benefit Category" field. You can use this field to group your plans as you wish. The category information is available in overviews for this reason.
There are two types of plans when it comes to the amount/percentage to pay by the employee:
Fixed amount plans, where the amount (or percentage) is defined with the option and can not be set to anything else by the employee. This is the normal case for medical, dental, vision, hearing, etc. For these plans you also enter the pay period with the amount, which is used by the payroll system to calculate the correct pay slip deduction or additional in case of a waiver.
Not fixed amount plans, which is the opposite where the employee herself sets the amount or percentage, normally within certain limits. In this case, the pay slip deduction frequency follows the pay frequency entered in the employees salary information.
You control the type by a checkbox-setting. This will then affect the system behavior in the enrollment windows etc.
To enable employee self-service functionality there are a number of status settings available to the administrator. E.g., when set to Published, the plan option is made visible in the self-service web windows and can be selected by the eligible employee's. Further information about the statuses is found in the window descriptions.