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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-12-12
Create Enrollment Events

Create Enrollment Events

  • Define benefit coverage types.
  • Security:
    Set Up: Benefits
     in the Benefits functional area.
Create the enrollment events that either:
  • Result in an increase or decrease in benefit eligibility.
  • Enable an employee to change current elections.
Enrollment events can be:
  • Open enrollment: A period when employees can make additions and changes to their benefit elections.
  • Benefit events: Specific qualifying events that open the enrollment process or trigger a gain or loss of benefits. Examples: Staffing, personal changes, and administrative changes.
  • Passive events: Events that result from the passage of time rather than from specific changes to employee data. Example: A dependent child reaches age 26.
You can create custom validations to display errors and warnings to prevent workers from submitting elections with mistakes. Example: Require workers to add attachments for evidence of insurability documents or required documents for new dependents.
  1. Access either:
    • Create Benefit Event Type
       task.
    • Create Open Enrollment Event Type
       task.
  2. As you complete this task, consider:
    Option Description
    Enrollment Offering Type
    Example: For a birth event you can give employees the ability to elect or change medical, basic life, and supplemental life.
    Worker Selectable
    Applies to benefit events only.
    Enable workers to initiate the enrollment process using the
    Change Benefits
     task.
    A Benefit Partner or Administrator can report any type of event.
    Route Enrollment to Benefits Partner
    Applies to benefit events only.
    Select to send the
    Enroll in Benefits
     notification to the Benefits Partner so that the Benefits Partner can enter the employee's elections.
    Clear to send the
    Enroll in Benefits
     notification to the employee so that the employee can enter their own benefit elections.
    Update the related business process to ensure that Workday correctly routes the event based on these selections. Don’t route enrollment tasks for automated benefit processes to employees or Benefits Partners using the
    Maintain Enrollment Event Types
     report. Instead, target enrollment tasks to a role or security group directly in the business process definitions.
    Restricted to Countries
    Select 1 or more countries. You can limit this enrollment event type to employees in a benefit group that includes these countries. To enable employees to participate in an enrollment event for the country, select that country in the benefit group.
  3. For benefit events, consider:
    Option Description
    Reinstatement Event
    Select to reinstate benefits coverage for rehires or employees returning from a leave of absence within an eligibility period. If either event occurs outside of the reinstatement eligibility period, Workday handles the event with the processes you define for nonreinstatement.
    Reinstatement Period Time Units
    Workday calculates the beginning of the eligibility period in this order:
    • Start on the rehire date or return from leave date.
    • Subtract the reinstatement period time.
    • Select the first day of the
      Unit of Time
       (month or year).
    If you select zero
    Reinstatement Period Time Units
     for any
    Unit of Time
    , a reinstatement period becomes eligible when these dates occur in the same
    Unit of Time
    :
    • Departure date.
    • Rehire or return from leave date.
    Example: Your reinstatement period is 2 months. If an employee's rehire occurs on August 15, the calculated eligibility period is June 1 to August 15. If their departure date occurs within this interval, the employee's benefits are eligible for reinstatement.
  4. For benefit events, consider:
    Option Description
    Days to Enroll Calculation
    Define the benefit enrollment period for a specific type of benefit event.
    Select whether Workday uses:
    • The initiation date of the event.
    • The date of the event; this date starts the enrollment period.
    Days to Enroll
    Enter the number of days that determine the end date for the enrollment period. Start with the date defined for the
    Days to Enroll Calculation
    .
    Workday only respects this date if the worker initiates a benefit enrollment event with the
    Change Benefits
     task. Workday recommends that you create a validation on the
    Dependent Event
     business process. The validation enforces
    Days to Enroll
     for when the worker initiates the
    Add Dependent
     task.
    Employee Cannot Report After Days to Enroll
    Select to prevent employees from reporting a benefit event after the enrollment period has passed.
  5. For
    Coordination of Events
    , consider:
    Option Description
    Do Not Reprocess Future Events
    Disables coordination of events for this type of benefit event when it has an
    earlier
     event date than the current benefit event.
    Example:
    • Marital Status Change has an event date of July 1.
    • Beneficiary Change has an event date of June 1.
    Normally, Workday places the Marital Status Change
    on hold
     and processes the Beneficiary Change. After completing the Beneficiary Change, Workday rescinds the Marital Status Change and creates a new event. By selecting this check box for the Beneficiary Change, Workday doesn't place Marital Status Change
    on hold
     and proceeds as normal without any reprocessing.
    This check box doesn’t apply to events where an employee has a gain or loss in benefit eligibility.
    Do Not Reprocess
    Disables coordination of events for this type of benefit event when it has a
    later
     event date than the current benefit event.
    Example:
    • Open Enrollment has an event date of January 1.
    • Beneficiary Change has an event date of December 20.
    Normally, Workday places Open Enrollment
    on hold
     and processes the Beneficiary Change. After completing the Beneficiary Change, Workday then rescinds Open Enrollment and creates a new event. When selected, Workday doesn't place the Open Enrollment
    on hold
     and proceeds as normal.
    This check box doesn’t apply to events where an employee has a gain or loss in benefit eligibility.
    Days to Enroll
    The number of days the worker has to complete their benefit enrollment, based on the date when Workday created the new event.
    This value depends on when the days occur if Workday:
    • Puts an enrollment event on hold.
    • Recreates the event because of Coordination of Events.
    If the minimum number of days occurs:
    • Within the enrollment period, the employee gets the full enrollment period.
    • Outside of the enrollment period, the employee has only the number of days defined in this field.
    You can enable coordination of events between web service events and future-dated events that you create in Workday. Select
    Enable Coordination of Events for the Change Benefits Web Service
     in the
    Edit Tenant Setup - HCM
     task. When selected, Workday reprocesses eligible future-dated events when the web service creates earlier-dated events.
  6. For
    Reopen Options
    , consider:
    Option Description
    Enable Reopen of Open Enrollment Event
    Enables employees to reopen their open enrollment event to make changes after the event is Closed or Finalized. Benefits Administrators and Partners can also reopen an employee's open enrollment event.
    Days in Reopen Period
    The number of days the employee has the opportunity to reopen their open enrollment event after the last day of the open enrollment period.
    Days to Enroll
    The number of days the employee has to enroll in elections after they've reopened their open enrollment event.
    The greater the value, the greater the risk for the employee to have a lapse in coverage.
  7. For 
    Benefit Event Codes
    , consider:
    Option Description
    Pre-Tax Event Code
    Post-Tax Event Code
    Life Insurance Event Code
    (U.S. Federal) Add unique event codes to your benefit event types.
    Example: Assign the
    Life Insurance Event Code
     2 to indicate the event allowing an insurance change is a life event, such as marriage or adoption.
    Workday recommends you only enter a
    Pre-Tax Event Code
     for FEHB event types, and handle post-tax deductions and event codes manually.
    To reveal these fields, access the
    Configure Optional Fields
     task, then select
    Create Benefit Event Type
    . Next, delete the row labeled
    Federal
    .
  8. For benefit events, add
    Events and Reasons
    .
    Option Description
    Event
    Use to map an enrollment event when you’ve modified a business process to include either of these business processes:
    • Change Benefits for Life Event
      .
    • Change Benefit Jobs
      .
    • You can configure the
      Change Benefit Election for Compensation Changes
       step on these business processes when a compensation change affects an employee's benefits:
      • Initiate Compensation Review Process.
      • Propose Compensation Change
        .
      • Propose Compensation Hire
        .
      • Request Compensation Change
        .
      • Request Employee Merit Adjustment
        .
      When you configure the step on a compensation process, Workday can automatically create benefit events when a compensation change impacts calculated insurance coverage or rates.
      When you rescind a merit event with a corresponding benefit event, Workday doesn't rescind the benefit event.
      These business processes are for future use. Don’t use:
      • Change Default Compensation
        .
      • Propose Compensation Offer/Employment Agreement
        .
      • Requisition Compensation
        .
    Restricted by Reason
    If you want the benefits eligibility check to run only when the business process includes specific reasons, select those reasons here.
    Use restriction reasons only if you have different events for job changes. If you leave out a reason from the list, Workday doesn't create an event for the event type.
    Example: You add the
    Job Change
     event and select
    Demotion
     and
    Transfer
     restriction reasons. The employee gets a promotion, but Workday doesn't create an enrollment event because you haven't selected
    Promotion
     as a restriction reason.
    If you leave the field blank, the benefits eligibility check runs every time the business process occurs.
    • For leave-related business processes, create reasons using the
      Create Leave Type
       task.
    • For organization-related and
      Change Primary Address
       business processes, no reasons are available.
    • For staffing and compensation-related business processes, create reasons using the
      Maintain Event Categories and Reasons
       task.
    • For terminations, define categories and reasons for terminating employment with these tasks:
      Maintain Termination Categories
       and
      Maintain Local Termination Reasons
       tasks.
  • Use the
    Maintain Enrollment Event Types
     report to make changes.
  • Use the
    Edit Benefit Event Type
     or
    Edit Open Enrollment Event Type
     task to make changes.
  • Use the
    Enrollment Event Types
     report to display a list of all the benefit event and open enrollment event types.
  • Use the
    Edit Enrollment Event Rule
     task to add your reinstatement event.