The Dates/Age/Service calculation is designed to provide you with the dates and ages when the member potentially meets various eligibility requirements (e.g., earliest retirement date, participation date, normal retirement age, etc.), as well as the service amounts at specific times (e.g., participation service, vesting service, etc.). This is different from the Estimate and Final calculation types where service is frozen as of the decrement date.

For example, you may want to determine the date the member is eligible for early retirement, which the plan defines as the first of the month coincident with or following the attainment of age 55 and 7 years of service. If you run an estimate with a decrement date of 12/31/2008 and at that date the member is age 55 with 6 years of service, the early retirement date would not be met and would not be returned. If you run the same scenario as a Dates/Age/Service calculation with a calculation date of 12/31/2008, ProAdmin will project service to determine that the early retirement date for this member is expected to be 01/01/2009.

Another difference between the Dates/Age/Service and the Final or Estimate type of calculation is that only those items set up in your Output Definitions (that are not benefit-based) will be calculated. The calculation will ignore any Benefit Definitions set up under your Plan Definitions;  no benefits, Benefit Formula Components, Accrual Basis Components, or Custom Operators are calculated.

Name can be a phrase of any length. All characters are permissible. Include key information about the calculation that you are running.

The Populate button allows you to fill in the Dates/Age/Service calculation inputs using information from an Estimated or Final Benefit Calculation within the current Project. Topics that can be populated are Name, Data, Calculation Date, Plan Definition, Census Specifications, Projection Assumptions, Output Definition, and the Calculation Results display settings (such as the last table that was displayed).

If you select the From Database radio button, Linkage selects an entry from the Database Linkage library that describes the database and how to access the desired data. When using a database, the Person ID is the identifying number or code that will be used to select the data from a database. This number or code is contained in the field on the database that is specified as Person ID in the database linkage. 

If you select the From XML radio button, Linkage selects an entry from the XML Database Linkage library that defines how the data is represented in the XML document.  When using XML, a File name must be entered that identifies the XML document. If no path is specified, the file is assumed to be in the client directory. Click the  button to navigate to a particular folder and file. If the folder is the client directory, the file name will be displayed without a path.

The data review split button  allows you to review the data before the calculation has been run. The language on the button is dynamic and indicates the state of the data. The default behavior is to refresh the data, but the ProAdmin.ini file [CONFIG} setting RunWithSavedData can be used to change the default to use saved data when available.  If you select this button, the Data Review dialog(s) will be presented.  You may scroll through and make changes as desired.  If you select Apply Defaults, the Census Specifications Data Defaults will be applied and changes will be displayed for review. Manual data elements that have been modified will be highlighted in blue for review. Clicking the OK button will then save any data changes.

The Populate calculation date on load or refresh checkbox allows you to fill in the calculation inputs by extracting them from the XML file based on the input Key Field tags identified in the XML Database Linkage.  If this box is checked and data is being loaded or refreshed from an XML file, the Calculation date will be extracted from the XML file and ghosted on the dialog box. 

The Assumptions section includes:

Calculation Date is the decrement date (e.g., termination date) used to calculate output items that are defined as determined "at decrement date" in the Output Definition. By default service stops at decrement, but for Dates/Age/Service calculations, service stops at the last calculation date, not the date entered for Calculation Date. Please see Stop service at calculation date if you need to stop service at the calculation date for Dates/Age/Service calculations, such as for calculating Normal Retirement Date but only using service through the Calculation Date.

Plan Definition selects an entry from the Plan Definitions library. The Plan Attributes of the Plan Definition selected will be used to determine information such as the plan year. Please note that any Benefit Definitions for the selected Plan Definition will be ignored.

Census Specifications selects an entry from the Census Specifications library to interpret your census data for this member.

Projection Assumptions selects an entry from the Projection Assumptions library to define data after the last reported data date. Please note that while Projection Assumptions are optional when running this type of calculation, they do have an impact on the calculation of service. For example, if you have an Eligibility Definition that references service based on hours, without Projection Assumptions ProAdmin will not credit any future service accruals.; this could cause a date or an age to not return.

Output Definition selects an entry from the Output Definition library. This entry determines which dates, ages, and services ProAdmin will calculate.

The run split button allows you to select which data to use and run the calculation. The language on the button is dynamic and indicates the state of the data and calculation. The default behavior is to refresh the data, but the ProAdmin.ini file [CONFIG} setting RunWithSavedData can be used to change the default to use saved data when available.

Once the calculation completes, a message box displays indicating whether the calculation was successful. You can print the processing messages contained in the box by clicking on the Print button, or they are always available at a later time. After you click on the OK button, the next display will depend on whether the calculation is an initial run or a rerun. If it's an initial run, the Calculation Results will be displayed.  If it's a rerun, ProAdmin will display any changes between the prior and the current calculation results. You can print or save these results to file if desired.  Once you click the Close button on the changes, the Calculation Results will be displayed.  The Calculation Results consolidated view includes a Calculation Worksheet, Summary Results, Output Definition Results, Processing Messages, Inputs and Detailed Results.  

In the case of calculations that have not or can not be run (due to either system or user-defined errors), the Calculation Results will display the inputs to the calculation, as well as Processing Messages.