In the last blog, we took a look at the benefits of storing historical data. Another benefit of being able to store data in this way is that it enables you to enter futuristic data i.e. a record with an ‘Effective From’ date that is in the future.
This might sound a bit fantastical, but we’re not talking about gazing into crystal balls or examining tea leafs. Here are a few really common examples of when you might enter futuristic data and the benefits:
- Entering a new hire – Jack is starting next Monday and you, the HR Professional, have received all the details about his position, salary and employment contract from the hiring manager. You don’t want to leave it till Monday to enter the details as you’re having a quiet moment now and want to take advantage. Cezanne OnDemand’s New Starter process allows you to enter a hire date in the future and get all those details entered in advance. Even better, if you need reminding to do something on the day he starts, the HR systems will send you a reminder email.
- Entering leavers in advance – it’s like the new hire example, but this time someone’s leaving. You can get all their records closed off in advance. But don’t worry, nothing will kick-in until they’ve left, so they’ll still have access to the system. If they’re a manager, they’ll still get absence requests from their team. And once they’ve left, the system will automatically shut down their user account and start routing absence requests to the new manager.
- Organisational Changes – there’s a bit of a managerial reorganisation and you definitely don’t want to wait till the changeover day before making the changes. Luckily you can enter future dated Org Unit / Position deployments to reflect what the new structure will be like. But until that day, everything will seem the same to employees and Line Managers. So Line Managers will only have access to their old team until that day. And on the day, they will see their new team (and of course, not their old team) and receive their new absence requests.
- Accurate Reporting – this one again. Entering futuristic data also helps accurate reporting. If you’ve entered a lot of leavers and joiners you may want to see how this will affect your headcount. Just change the reference date of the headcount report to a date in the future and you’ll see the impact immediately.
You may be interested in reading: why you should be recording historical data
John Hixon
Chief Operating Officer
With over twenty years’ experience under his belt in the HCM Tech industry, Cezanne HR’s Chief Operating Officer John Hixon has been a driving force behind the company’s meteoric rise. From ambitious start-up to one of the leading SaaS HR brands, over the past ten years, John has been instrumental in developing an HRIS platform that brings people and businesses together.
