If you find your annual Chris21 updgrade a hassle, or perhaps daunting due to a lack of resources or specialised knowledge, I can help you.

I’ve been working with clients for many years. One of the tasks I am commonly asked to help with is the upgrade. Over this time, I have created a detailed upgrade process. This process ensures Chris21 upgrades and engine updates are completed to a high standard.

I also take into account client specific requirements. For instance you may be using the database option to store your Chris21 database in SQL. Or you might have a number of interfaces that rely on Chris21. It is important to consider these requirements and to test post upgrade.

You should undertake your general release upgrade as early as possible after it is released. This will allow you time to test. It is common, however, for clients to wait a bit later in the year to upgrade. This is because engine updates are released (usually monthly) and these will address issues found with the general release.

In addition to the general release (this year it is version 8.19), there will always be an engine update that will need to be installed closer to the end of the financial year. Usually the vendor will advise that a specific engine update must be installed prior to the start of the new financial year.

For some more information about this year’s upgrade, you can read my article Chris21 Upgrade 8.19 – Tips for Your Upgrade.

My upgrade process is well proven and has provided peace of mind for many clients. Due to the specialised knowledge required, clients and IT departments are often happy to let me take care of this for them.

Contact me now for a complimentary consultation and I will explain how I can help with your Chris21 upgrade. Leave me a comment below or send a message via the Contact Me page on this website and I will get back to you.

The post Help With Your Chris21 Upgrade Version 8.19 appeared first on System Logic.

There has been a lot of talk in the media about this, even though the majority of employees won’t be impacted. The Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) points out that the new annualised wage arrangements “do not affect all employees, or even most employees”. “Only about 20 of the 122 industry and occupational awards contain annualised salary clauses”. You can read the article New annualised salary clauses come into effect to find out which groups of employees are affected.

If you do need to start recording employee hours and unpaid breaks, you can use the standard Chris21 timesheets. The good news is, it may not be as onerous as you might think. Chris21 has two inbuilt timesheet functions that you can utilise. Also, bear in mind that you can use timesheets for recording and reporting purposes only. This means you can use your current processes to pay employees, you don’t have to pay by processing the timesheet

The key takeaway from this is you will have the ability to report over timesheet data as and when required. You can use this information when auditing payroll to ensure employees on annualised wage arrangements are paid correctly.

Let me show you how to achieve this. Contact me to arrange a no obligation meeting.

The post New Annualised Wage Arrangements – Using Chris21 Timesheets to Record Employee Hours appeared first on System Logic.

The Chris21 Support Network group has been operating for a while now. I first introduced this group back in January 2018 in this post – The Chris21 Support Network is now on LinkedIn. Since then it has been steadily growing, with new members joining on a regular basis. The key thing about this group is that it is made up predominantly of Chris21 users, and that makes it good for you. That’s because as a fellow Chris21 user, you will be interacting with like-minded individuals, getting solutions to real issues.

The group already includes many very knowledgeable members. I am always pleased to see questions from other members being answered quickly by other members. They have the answers and are happy to share.

I’m also happy to share my expertise with the group. I have built up extensive knowledge about Chris21 over the years consulting with clients. If I see a question that hasn’t been answered or I have something worthwhile to add, I am more than happy to do so. It’s all about sharing ideas and expertise, to help solve those annoying problems.

Current discussions in the group

To give you an example of the types of discussions we get in the group, here are three current talking points:

• the best method for extracting vacancy reports from Chris21
• an issue emailing payslips from Chris21
• reporting over attachments in Chris21

iChris – the latest iteration of Chris21

Most of you will by now be aware of iChris and some of you will be using it. It’s the next generation of the Chris product. While iChris looks quite different from Chris21, the backend, where all the configuration and processing take place is essentially the same. This means that you can expect the problems you see in Chris21 to also surface in iChris. So, it follows that the fixes will be the same.

For these reasons, my first thought was that the Chris21 Support Network would be sufficient to also support iChris users. Most of the work is the same for both systems. If someone suggests a fix for a Chris21 problem, it’s highly likely that this fix can also be applied to iChris.

There are, however, enough differences between the two systems to warrant a new support group specifically for iChris users. Hence, I have recently started the iChris Support Network group.

For iChris users, is it worthwhile also joining the Chris21 Support Network group?

I think it is because this way you will be able to view discussions from more members. Most users are members of the Chris21 Support Network because this group has been running for longer and Chris21 represents a bigger slice of the pie between the two applications. Over time, I would expect iChris to gain traction and eventually become the application with the larger user base.

I encourage you to join your preferred group, or both groups. To ensure these groups become thriving sources of information and assistance, we need a mix of users. If you

• are new to Chris21 or iChris and could benefit from some help
• are a seasoned, knowledgeable user who is happy to help fellow users to solve problems (and learn new things yourself)
• are interested in learning more about Chris21 or iChris
• would like to hear how others approach things so that you can get a different perspective

then it would be fantastic to welcome you into the groups. It would be great to have your expertise and your questions, and I am sure you will get a lot from it. And you can be sure that your fellow members will benefit too!

To request to join, simply click these links. I always review requests to join to ensure we only have Chris21 or iChris users as members. This is to help keep spam out of the group:

Chris21 Support Network

iChris Support Network

Alternatively, you can search them on LinkedIn or leave a comment below. I look forward to welcoming you to the Chris21 and iChris Support Networks!

The post Chris21 and iChris Support Networks on LinkedIn appeared first on System Logic.

The solution I usually go to is to create reports that link the employee table with the position table. This way, you can extract powerful reports that will show both the employee details along with the position details. The position details are things such as organisation levels, standard hours per week, position status, plus many other fields that are there for reporting purposes.

If you want more information about position linking and want to give it a try, see my blog Linking Files in Chris21 Reports.

But there is a way to grab fields from other files (with different parent keys), and without having to link the files. Read on…

Creating Position Reports Without File Linking

When it comes to position reports in Chris21, you have another option which doesn’t involve file linking. In this case, you can access inbuilt hidden Position Table (PDT) fields that are included on the Position (POS) file. There is a limited number of these fields, but in many cases, they will provide the detail you are looking for in your report.

You access these hidden fields by using the Field Chooser when creating your report. From the Field Chooser, hit F6 and enter POS to view the Position form. From here, you drag the fields that you want into your report. The fields from PDT that you want in your report won’t show up on POS, so you have to go to the list of all fields to find the ones you want.

Finding Hidden Fields

To do this, at the bottom of the Field Chooser click the All Fields tab. You will see a list of POS fields, in this list are the available hidden fields from PDT.

From here it is just a matter of finding the fields that you want and then double click to add to your report. For instance, if you want organisation level fields, look for the fields POS L0 CD – POS L9 CD. These cover the 10 available organisation levels. If you have, for example, an organisation level 4 called Department and you want to view it in your report, add the field POS L4 CD.

When you save and run your report, you will see your organisation level 4 in your report so that you can identify each employee and what department they belong to.

With this information, you can add other fields to you report, such as salary, and then publish to Excel. Once in Excel, you can filter by department or sort and create totals by department to show total salaries by department.

As I mentioned, the available hidden fields are limited so you can’t extract every field from PDT into your position report. When you can’t find the field you need your only option will be to link the POS and PDT files.

Give this a try as an alternative to linking files. You may find it a simpler approach to file linking with the same results. It can be a complicated topic, let me know in the comments if you have any questions.

The post How to Create Position Reports in Chris21 Without File Linking appeared first on System Logic.

A good example of a report using a dynamic date is the wokflow Control Forwarding – WFF report. This is a report that processes workflow records that are past the Due Date and are forwarded onto the next manager in the workflow chain.

Usually you would run this process daily, so that overdue workflows are processed in a timely manner. You would also want to schedule the process to run automatically for better efficiency.

Dynamic date example

The WFF process asks for a date to be entered. If you enter today’s date it will simply run for this date each time it runs. Of course, this means after the firsts run the process will effectively be doing nothing because the date hasn’t changed.

To overcome this, we enter a dynamic date. The format is =T. This tells the system to run the report for the current date, therefore the date is dynamically changing. Then, when the process is scheduled, it will always compare workflow Due Dates with the current date and process accordingly.

The main thing to note is that it is important to place the = sign in front of the T so that the system knows that a date calculation is required.

Other uses of dynamic dates

Dynamic dates can be used in your Chris21 reports in many different ways. For instance, I created a report for a client recently that used a dynamic date to identify new starters so that they could be assigned a HR21 account.

This report was scheduled to run daily. It was able to identify if there were any new starters on Today’s date. I then setup a process to automatically create the HR21 user account, but that’s another story.

Another example is a report I created that used a dynamic date to send a report to finance after each payrun. In this case, I wanted to send it the day after the payrun was completed. In the report I entered the dynamic date =T -1D.

In this example the report used the payrun end date field in the report selections. In this field, I entered =T-1D. I then Scheduled the report to run the day after the payrun end date and fortnightly (it was a fortnightly payrun). The dynamic date calculation ensured that only the current pay details will be included in the report that is sent to finance each fortnight.

Scheduling reports with dynamic dates

In order to use dynamic dates in your Chris21 reports you will need to create a form for each report and place it on the menu. You can’t use a dynamic date directly from the Report Designer. See my blog How to Add Chris21 Reports to a Menu if you need assistance with this.

I hope this article has given you some ideas about using dynamic dates in your Chris21 reports. For more information about the types of date calculations you can use, see the Chris21 help notes. They are quite extensive on this topic.

This is quite an involved topic so feel free to use the comments below to ask me any questions and I will do my best to help!

The post How to Use Dynamic Dates in Your Chris21 Reports appeared first on System Logic.

Navigate Chris21 – Tip 1: Exclude terminated employees from the default list

The default list you see when you login to Chris21 shows all employees, both active and terminated. Sometimes you may want to filter out the terminated employees from this list. This has two main benefits, one is to reduce the overall size of the list, and the second is to ensure that you only ever select active employees when you choose an employee from the list.

To filter the default list to show only active employees, right click anywhere on the list and click Include Terminated Staff from the pop-up menu. This option is selected by default so clicking it will deselect it.

Note: A tick next to the Include Terminated Staff menu item indicates that terminated staff are included in the default list. When the tick is clear, only active employees will be displayed.

To revert to showing terminated staff, simply right click on the list and click Include Terminated Staff.

Note: When you set this option, it will remain at the same status even after you logout of Chris21. The system remembers your setting until the next time you change it.

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Navigate Chris21 – Tip 2: Use Save-As to create new records

When you need to enter data in Chris21 and you are looking for shortcuts to make your life easier, try this tip. Use Save As to use the data from one record to form the basis of another record.

For example, you may need to add new Position Table (PDT) records. As you might know, there can be quite a few fields that need to be updated to create each record. Therefore, this can be a time-consuming process, especially if you have many records to add.

To use the Save As functionality in Chris21 to create a new PDT record, you first need to open an existing PDT record that is similar to the record you want to create. Then click File -> Save As from the main menu.

Then all you need to do is change the Position Number to the new Position Number you want to create. At this point you can review the other fields on the form and change any as appropriate.

Then click Save to create your new PDT record.

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Navigate Chris21 – Tip 3 : Show form identifiers on form tabs

If you have trouble remembering what the 3-character form identifier is for the form you are working with, you can show these on the form tabs. Just select Tools from the top menu in Chris21, then select Options.  Then select Interface Options. From the list of options select Show form identifier with form name. From now on, you will see the 3-character form identifier next to the form name.

I hope these tips help! If you have any navigation tips and tricks that you use, let me know and I will post them for fellow Chris21 users.

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Chris21 Rollback Overview

If you haven’t setup Chris21 rollback yet, you might find this article interesting. The Chris21 rollback function has been available for a while now. It provides a quick and easy way to ‘rollback’ your changes should it be necessary. For instance, the Update Pay – UPD process. A lot of things happen when UPD is run. Traditionally, if you realise you need to go back after running UPD, it would mean restoring a backup.

That can be a hassle and time consuming, especially if you must wait on IT to do this for you. And there is always the possibility of issues occurring with the backup restore.

The Chris21 rollback feature takes away a lot of this hassle. For example, if you want to rollback UPD, you simply select the UPD file from the Rollback form and click Rollback. The system will then undo all changes that the UPD process made. There is no need to restore any backup files.

And best of all, the process to setup the rollback functionality is simple.

How does Rollback work?

If you need to rollback a process into the current database, use the Rollback Update – ROU process. This will set the data back to the state prior to when the initial was run. The Rollback function does not back up any files, rather it backs up individual entries or records which are written or updated by the process.

You select the processes that you wish to be rollback enabled using the Rollback Details -ROD form. Whenever one of these processes is run, all information prior to running this process is saved in a unique rollback file.

For more information about rollback see my blog How to Use the Chris21 Rollback Feature.

Configuring Your System for Rollback

Before you can use the Chris21 Rollback function you must configure your system. Even though you may have selected processes for Rollback using the Rollback Details -ROD form, rollback files will not be created until you have completed these steps:

• Enable Settings – CFT setting number 141.
• Update the RBSEQ table. Go to Tables – TAB and lookup RBSEQ. Set the Description value to 00000 (five zeros). This forces the rollback process to create a rollback file using the first available filename.
• Add these forms to your security – ROD, ROF, ROK, ROP and ROU. Also add ROD and ROU to your menu. These are usually added to the System -> Audit menu.
• Identify the processes or forms required for Rollback. Select the Rollback Enabled checkbox for each process required. The processes that are currently rollback compliant are:

Form Identifier	Process Description
UPD	Update Pay
LLR	Leave Liability
TCB	Timesheet Import
FEU	Update Fast Time
ETU	Update Daily Time
MTU	Update Multiple Staff
ALA	Adjust Previous Leave
LPP	Leave Pre-Process
MDC	Reset PYP Values
CLR	Clear End of Year
CST	Clear Static Update
GSU	Update Salary
GAU	Update Awards

System Performance and Housekeeping

You may notice a slight degradation in system performance when running a process that is Rollback enabled. This is because the changes are being written to a rollback file. Although in my exprience, I’ve never noticed any degradation in performance.

The Chris21 rollback feature will create rollback files each time a rollback enabled process is run. You may never need to rollback a process, however the file will remain in the system DAT directory until it is deleted. Over time, a large amount of rollback files will accumulate in the DAT directory. To avoid this issue, enter a value in the Days to Hold field on the Rollback Details – ROD form. This defines the number of days to hold the files before they are deleted. In the example below, rollback files will be deleted after 7 days:

Rollback files are deleted when the Background Administrator – FLM process is run with Remove Expired Rollback Files selected. For more information about FLM see my blog Chris21 Database Management – Housekeeping Processes.

Rollback will give you more flexibility and allow you to work more efficiently. The key point to remember if you want to take advantage of the Chris21 Rollback functionality, is to perform the configuration setup. Without this, the system will not be able to create the necessary rollback files.

If you have something to share, add your comments below!

The post How to Setup Chris21 Rollback – and Why You Should appeared first on System Logic.