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2020.8 Release Notes

Introduction

The 2020.8 release adds features that enable MYOB Advanced People to integrate with the MYOB Advanced Workforce Management product. This release also addresses issues identified in previous releases.

This page provides an overview of the major new features in this release - for full information on all of the changes, see the 2020.8 Release Notes document:

New Features

Support for Workforce Management

This release adds support for integration between MYOB Advanced People and MYOB Advanced Workforce Management. Once this integration has been set up, timesheet data entered in Advanced Workforce Management can be imported into MYOB Advanced People and included in pay runs. For companies in New Zealand, where a record of employees’ work schedules can be kept and used for leave calculations, employees’ standard hours and scheduled hours can also be imported, so that their work schedules are updated automatically.

Enabling Workforce Management

Enable the “Work Force Management” feature on the Enable/Disable Features screen (CS100000).

The “Work Force Management” feature can’t be enabled if the “Employee Self Service” feature is currently enabled and vice versa.

The new Work Force Management Setup screen (MYSM2050) lets an administrator set up the integration details between MYOB Advanced companies and MYOB Advanced Workforce Management. This screen is available to the admin user only.

Setting up MYOB Advanced People

Employees

You can export employees from the MYOB Advanced People system via an export scenario and import them into MYOB Advanced Workforce Management from the Settings > Importers > Import Employees screen. See “Importing employees via Excel/CSV” on the MYOB Advanced Workforce Management Help Centre for information on the import file specification.

For Australian companies, the export file contains visible TFN numbers for the exported employees. It is important that you are aware of your obligations for handling sensitive employee information in Australia and that you have a process for the data transfer that ensures you meet these obligations. See “Privacy (Tax File Number) Rule 2015” on the Federal Register of Legislation website for more information.

Pay Items

A new Workforce Management section has been added to the Pay Items screen (MPPP2210). The options in this section affect how the pay item will be used by Advanced Workforce Management:

  • Available to Workforce Management – ticking this box indicates that the pay item will be available as a pay type in Advanced Workforce Management.
  • Indicates working day – this check box is available for pay items with the “Income” type. Ticking this box indicates that any time associated with this pay item should be treated as a working day.

If you want to use the rate supplied by Advanced Workforce Management for this pay item (see below), select Current Pay under Override Value on the Additional Info tab, and select Use Custom Rate on the Calculation Method tab.

Entitlements

Entitlements in MYOB Advanced People can be made available to leave types in MYOB Advanced Workforce Management. The existing options available under Self Service on the Entitlements screen (MPPP3300) also apply to Advanced Workforce Management:

  • Show Leave Balances – when this check box is ticked, the entitlement will be available for selection in Advanced Workforce Management.
  • Show Projected Leave Balances – when this check box is ticked, employees will be able to see their projected balance for the entitlement when requesting leave in Advanced Workforce Management.
Employee Definition of a Week

NZ companies only

A new “Employee Schedule - Standard Hours” option is available in the Definition of a Week dropdown on the Pay Details screen (MPPP2310). When this option is selected for an employee, their definition of a week will be determined by their Standard Hours, which are set up in MYOB Advanced Workforce Management. A new Standard Hours column is visible on the Employee Work Schedule screen (MPPP2260) to show the Standard Hours for each employee (if there are any).

Employees’ Standard Hours and Scheduled Hours values can be pulled into Advanced People from Advanced Workforce Management in one of two ways:

  • When importing timesheet data—see below.
  • By using the new Employee Work Schedule Import screen (MPPP2261).

Select one or more employees and click Import Work Schedules (or click Import All Work Schedules) to import Standard Hours and Scheduled Hours from the specified date ranges for the selected employees. You can use the Schedules button on this screen to set up a schedule so that employees’ work schedules are updated automatically.

Setting up MYOB Advanced Workforce Management

To enable data to be imported from Advanced Workforce Management to Advanced People, records in Advanced Workforce Management must be set up with data that maps them to records in Advanced People

Pay Types

Pay types in Advanced Workforce Management are mapped to pay items in Advanced People. When setting up a pay type, enter the ID of the pay item that it maps to into the External Mapping field.

The Calculate in Payroll option determines what rate will be applied to hours with this pay type when they are imported into MYOB Advanced People:

  • If the option is ticked, any rate supplied by Advanced Workforce Management will be ignored; the rate associated with the pay item in Advanced People will always be used.
  • If the option is not ticked, the rate supplied by Advanced Workforce Management will be used. (If no rate is supplied, the rate associated with the pay item in Advanced People will always be used.)

For leave in Australian companies, the system will use the rate determined by the Calculate in Payroll setting; however, for NZ companies, the system will always use the leave rates set up in MYOB Advanced, regardless of whether Calculate in Payroll is ticked.

Leave Types

Leave types in Advanced Workforce Management are mapped to entitlements in Advanced People. When setting up a leave type, all entitlements that have the Show Leave Balances option ticked will be available for selection in the Service Type field. Select the entitlement that the leave type maps to here.

For Australian companies, only entitlements with units in Hours are supported for integration with Advanced Workforce Management at present.

Cost Centres

Cost centres in Advanced Workforce Management can be mapped to subaccounts in Advanced People by setting up a data map on the Data Maps screen (MPPP7020). To make this process easier, you can use the Export CSV button on the Cost Centres screen in Advanced Workforce Management to export a list of cost centres. This list can then be edited to add columns for subaccount mappings and imported into the Data Maps screen.

See the “Importing Timesheets” white paper for more information on data mapping.

When setting up a cost centre, you can enter the ID of the subaccount that it maps to into the External ID field. Future releases will use this field to map cost centres to subaccounts automatically—by entering an ID now, you will be prepared for this functionality when it becomes available.

Importing Timesheet Batches

Importing from Advanced Workforce Management

A new Timesheet Batches screen (MPPP7060) is available for pulling timesheet data from Advanced Workforce Management. Click Import External Timesheets to pull in timesheets from Advanced Workforce Management. Timesheets are imported from any pay runs in Advanced Workforce Management that are in the “Finalised” status and have not already been imported.
Importing timesheets from Advanced Workforce Management has the following effects:

  • Timesheet data records appear on this screen, and can now be imported into the Advanced People system in the same way as other timesheet/time card data.
  • For NZ companies, employee’s schedules are updated on the Employee Work Schedule screen (MPPP2260) based on the imported data:
    • Data on employees’ shifts is imported into the Scheduled Hours field on their schedules.
    • The Working Day checkboxes on employees’ schedules are ticked or cleared as appropriate, according to the days they worked.

You can use the Schedules button on this screen to set up a schedule so that timesheets are imported automatically.

Importing into Advanced People Pay Runs

Once imported from Advanced Workforce Management, the timesheet data can be imported into pay runs via the Import Timesheets screen (MPPP7030). New columns have been added to the Import Timesheets screen to contain extra data that may be included in timesheets from Advanced Workforce Management:

  • Holiday start date (NZ companies only) – this column is populated for Annual Leave requests.
  • Rate – this column will be populated if the data from Advanced Workforce Management includes a rate (see above).

Once imported on this screen, you can bring the timesheet data into a pay run in the same way as any other timesheets—see the “Importing Timesheets” white paper for details.

Resolved Issues

Finance

Problem ID 

Description

CE00011897 CE00011539 CE00012933

The error message “Sequence contains no elements” could appear when attempting to process a document on the Generate GST Debit Adjustment screen (AP504500). This has been resolved.

Distribution

Problem ID 

Description

CE00013434 CE00013225

In some cases, discounts did not populate correctly on the Sales Orders screen (SO301000). This has been resolved.

Payroll and Self Service

Problem ID 

Description

CE00015114 CE00015047 CE00015292 CE00015360 CE00015392 CE00015429

The error “Object Reference not set to an instance of an object” occurred when attempting to create an entitlement adjustment, if the “Subaccounts” feature was disabled on the Enable/Disable features screen (CS100000). This has been resolved.

CE00012509 CE00009124 CE00012194 CE00013408 CE00014446

The Pay Run Details report (MPPP6021) could show incorrect totals. This has been resolved.

CE00015206 CE00015158 CE00015195 CE00015232

This release corrects an error that could prevent superannuation batches from being submitted.

CE00013420 CE00013137

Imported leave that spanned a public holiday/calendar exception was not being split into rows in the Days Taken window to allow the date to be used by the public holiday Days Taken. This has been resolved.

CE00015269 CE00015182

The Tax Year on the Employee’s Current Pay screen (MPPP3130) sometimes displayed incorrectly (this did not affect calculations). This has been resolved.

CE00015230 CE00015199

When leave is imported to a pay run, and there is no income pay item in the employee’s Standard Pay, the import is unsuccessful. This has been resolved; the workaround is to add any pay item with Type = “Income” and ensure the value is 0.

CE00014025 CE00013536

When an employee entered a leave request, it was recording against the branch that the user was logged in to at the time, rather than the branch that the employee belonged to. This has been resolved.

-

For Australian companies, when an employee had more than one pay item for superannuation (e.g. salary sacrifice), the system did not validate that all pay items with the same fund also have the same membership ID. This has been resolved.

-

On the Days Taken window, if a user entered a Unit amount that was greater than the employee’s Ordinary Wage pay item amount, the resulting error was not displayed onscreen. This has been resolved.

-

If an employee’s work calendar was changed, it was not possible to create a partial leave request for the employee. This has been resolved.

System and Platform

Problem ID 

Description

-

The Full User (Full API) licence type was not available on new MYOB Advanced People sites. This has been resolved.

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