Human Resources Position Control, what is it and should I be using it?

Today, I am going to put the spotlight on a great function Dynamics GP has and not many use; after reading this blog you may want to think about using Position Control for your organization!

Position Control was designed and developed to fill a specific need within the Public Sector such as State and Local Government, Education, Special Districts; but any industry can use this.

Position Control allows businesses to define specific “seats” for each Position. A seat can be thought of as a chair at a table, where the table represents the position. Only one employee can fill a specific seat at any point in time. So, conceptually, two half-time employees could sit in the same full FTE (Full-Time Equivalent) position seat. While most information will be driven to the employee from the position, compensation amounts can alternatively be driven from the seat if the user desires.

Position Control integrates with Payroll processing such that position seat assignments can override payroll compensation rates to use those rates assigned to the position seat. This assists payroll clerks so that they don’t have to modify pay code assignments for permanent and temporary assignments. Fund accounting is supported as well, allowing Payroll to pull certain segments of the posting accounts from payroll and portions from the position. This can greatly reduce the number of posting account setup records required. Pay step table increases are supported as an attribute of the position as well.

A super cool feature is Position Information Inheritance. Each role will have attributes such as location, division, pay, benefits etc. all these attributes can be rolled down to each employee within this position!

Position Control includes several reports that allow the user to track budget excesses by department, division, reports to position, supervisor and more. With these options, the user can quickly identify critical areas of the business that require intervention to ensure fiduciary responsibilities are met.

One important consideration with Position Control, a traditional “Position” in Dynamics GP cannot be reused across multiple departments because, with Position Control, a Position is unique within the organization. For example, if you have a “Fireman” position, you could not use that code in both “Fire House 1” and “Fire House 2” departments. This is important when planning your implementation of Position Control.

Set-up Position Control

Make sure you have the registration marked in Tools > Setup > HR > Position Control > Enable Position Control in Sample Company.

Microsoft Dynamics GP menu > Tools > Setup > Human Resources > Position Control > Position Control

1. Choose budget override options to allow, disallow or issue a warning before including employees with no seat assignment in payroll builds.

2. Mark the ‘Save changes to history’ option to save budget overrides changes to history.
3. Mark the Enable Position Control in Sample Company option if you want to use position control in the sample company, Fabrikam, Inc.
4. You must restart Microsoft Dynamics GP for the change to take effect.

Set-up Position Plan Codes

Microsoft Dynamics GP menu > Tools > Setup > Human Resources > Position Control > Position Plans Position plan codes

1. Enter a code to identify the plan and description.
2. Enter starting / end date.
   • You can mark Inactive if you are not ready to use this plan yet.
   • You cannot make the ‘Current’ plan inactive.
   • You can click ‘Make Current’ to make the selected plan the current plan.
   • To base a new plan on an existing plan, select the existing plan and click ‘Copy’. In the Copy Plan window, enter an ID and description for the new plan and click Copy. When you copy a plan, all details of the plan are copied, including details for each employee that's included in the plan.
   • You can click the ‘Excel’ button to either export the plan information to an Excel workbook or to import it from an Excel workbook.

If you print a report during this process, and if the plan has any inactive employees assigned to the position seats, the report will display the plan information for inactive employees only.

Set up Position code for a position plan

Microsoft Dynamics GP menu > Tools > Setup> HR > Organization > Position

• Tab through all the fields and populate them as needed.

Import a Position plan from Excel

Microsoft Dynamics GP menu > Tools > Setup > Human Resources > Position Control > Position Plans

Warning: If you choose to import the Microsoft Excel plan workbook into a plan, the existing information in the plan will be overwritten with the information from the workbook.

1. Select the plan you want to import data to.
   • Chose Excel > select ‘import from Excel’
   • Choose Next to open Excel file selection window
   • Enter or select the name of the file to import
   • Choose Next to open the Completing the Plan window
   • Choose Finish to complete the import

Position Information Inheritance

1. HR & Payroll > Human Resources > Utilities > Position Control > Position Information Inheritance.

Use the Position Information Inheritance window to change the position information and other details for the employee.

 Position Control Tables

It is always recommended to set up a test company with a copy of your live company. Once you have the test company refreshed, you can use this to set up Position Control and test and make changes however you need to. Here is a link to KB 871973 - "How to set up a test company that has a copy of live company data ":  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/871973

While Position Control can be somewhat daunting to setup and configure, once fully implemented, Position Control can greatly enhance the ability of organizations to control costs, reduce the time it requires for fiscal year changes to employee compensation and benefits, and simplify position assignment changes for an organization.

I hope this information will is useful and will guide you in your set up of Position Control!

Margi Jandro

Support Engineer