Census Specifications
ProVal allows you considerable flexibility in setting up your databases. You establish the fields that you wish to use, name them as you wish and set up the codes and labels for coded fields, as appropriate for the circumstances. This freedom of choice means that vital information will be found in different places in different databases. For example, ProVal needs to know how to determine the age of each participant. This information may be found in different places in different databases: the “Age” field in one database, the “DOB” field in a second, and the “Birth date” field in a third.
The Census commands comprise Census Specifications, Salary Definitions and Service Definitions.
The Census Specifications tell ProVal where to find fundamental information in your database – such information as status on the valuation date, birth date, hire date, sex – and how to interpret that information. In our example of participant age, the census specifications matched with the first database would refer to a field called “Age” and the census specifications matched with the second database would refer to the field “DOB”. In order to run a Valuation or a Core Projection, you must select a set of Census Specifications.
For active participants, Salary Definitions tell ProVal how to determine each year’s salary for years before the valuation date and for the year beginning on the valuation date. At least one Salary Definition, called the Valuation Salary Definition, is required to run a Valuation or Core Projection. You may define Salary Definitions under the Salary Definitions command or, alternatively, elsewhere in ProVal, where parameters that define salary for some purpose are located (e.g., under the Active Data topic of the Census Specifications for valuation salary). For a description of the parameters under this command, see the Salary Definitions Help article.
For active participants, Service Definitions tell ProVal how to determine service as of the valuation date and as of each possible decrement date before and after the valuation date. Use of Service Definitions is optional; alternatively, you may reference a database field that contains either a date from which to measure service or accumulated service as of the valuation date, much as age is defined by a birth date or age field. In certain circumstances, however, a database field is not sufficient:
If service is to increase after the valuation date by an amount other than 1 per year (ProVal’s standard assumption), you must use a Service Definition.
If you wish to round the measured service in some manner, it may be necessary to define service by means of a Service Definition.
You may define Service Definitions under this command or, alternatively, elsewhere in ProVal, where parameters that define service for some purpose (e.g., eligibility, benefit accrual, attribution) are located. For a description of the parameters under this command, see the article on Service Definitions.
Census Specifications Parameters
Note that the Inactive Data topic of Census Specifications in OPEB mode differs from the Inactive Data topic that pertains to the pension modes. This difference is primarily due to a basic difference among modes: in any of the pension modes, ProVal accepts benefits for inactive participants as data items, but in the OPEB mode inactive participants’ benefits are projected and calculated according to the benefit formulas contained in the Plan Definition.
Name may be any descriptive phrase, including spaces, under which to save this Census Specifications library entry.
Select a topic to edit contains entries for each category of information found in a set of census specifications. Click the name of a topic to access its dialog box. The topics of Census Specifications are:
Status Code Mappings – identifies the status of each participant.
Active Data – describes the fields necessary to value active participants. You must complete the parameters of this topic if you have any statuses mapped (under the Status Code Mappings topic) to ProVal’s active status.
Terminated Vested Data – describes the fields necessary to value (German pension mode only) terminated vested participants. You must complete the parameters of this topic if you have any statuses mapped (under the Status Code Mappings topic) to ProVal’s terminated vested status.
Inactive Data – describes the fields necessary to value inactive participants. You must complete the parameters of this topic if you have any statuses mapped (under the Status Code Mappings topic) to any of ProVal’s inactive statuses.
Data Defaults (optional) – sets database field values to use in place of missing (and perhaps “zero-filled”) data.