When the IC has plans to hire a new employee in the future it is useful to create a planning record in Beacon HR to reflect the future position counts. In Beacon HR use the Position Wizard to create a planning record. 


How to Find the Position Wizard

There are two different ways to navigate to the Position Wizard in Beacon HR. 


The first way is to click the add person icon on the Front Position List.

The second option is to click the Planning tab and select Create Planning Record.


Steps to Complete the Position Wizard


Step 1. Identify Who Will Fill the Position

In Step 1, the user will identify who will be filling the position. Choose whether the position will be filled by a: 

  • Person who is new to your institute
    • In this scenario, you know the person that will be onboarded, and the position will be filled by a person outside your institute. This includes persons currently at NIH but at another IC. In most cases, you will have a name to enter in Step 2.
  • Existing employee at your institute
    • Similar to the "person who is new to your institute" option but in this case the onboarding employee will already exist at your Insitute and exist in Beacon HR. 
  • Unfilled position is unfilled 
    • This option is unique in that you do not know who will be filling the position but you are creating a future vacancy or recruitment. For example, if you know that in two months you will be hiring a new Administrative Officer but do not know yet who is filling the position you can select this option. 



Step 2. Employee Information

Next, you will fill in information about the person filling the position. The information in Step 2 will differ depending on the option you selected in Step 1.


  • If you selected that the person is new to your institute, you will enter his/her name and NED ID. (Note that the NED ID is not a required field. Entering the NED ID ensures that when the official position downloads that the vacancy is automatically filled.)

  • If the employee already exists at your institute, you can locate him/her by their Last Name or NED ID. Simply enter in the name or NED ID and select Search. The fields below the search button will automatically fill and you can then select Next.

 

  • If you selected that the position is unfilled, select whether it is a Vacant or Recruit position.


Step 3. Vice Information

In Step 3, identify whether this position is being viced from an existing position in Beacon HR. If this position is not being viced, click Next to continue to Step 4.

If this position is being viced from another employee’s existing position, select the Vice checkbox. Then, enter in either the Last Name or NED ID of the position that’s being viced and click Search.

Step 4. Position Information

In Step 4, you will enter information about the position. Refer to the tags in the screenshot below for more information about entering the position information:

  1. First, select a merge source from the dropdown. Selecting the correct merge source is an important part of ensuring the planning record you entered merges with data from the Official Source.

    Select HRDB if the position is for an FTE.
    Select FPS if the position is for a Fellow.
    Select NED if the position is a Contractor, Guest, or Volunteer.

  2. Select a Position Title from the dropdown.

  3. Select if the position is an FTE (Full-Time Equivalent) or Non-FTE position. Positions that are sourced from FPS or are exclusively in NED will be Non-FTE positions.

  4. Select a position type from the dropdown.  This correlates to the pay plan. If the planning record is a FTE position, the default selection is GS – General Schedule. If needed, you may change this selection. If the planning record is a Non-FTE position, select a Position type.  Users have the following selection options:

    NT – Fellow
    NT – Contractor
    NT – Guest
    NT – Volunteer
    NT –Acting

  5. Select to which Organization the position is assigned.

  6. Enter the estimated or known Start Date for the position. Click in the Start Date textbox and select a date from the calendar.

  7. If the planning record is a GS position, you may type in the Grade, Step, and Salary, or select the planned Grade and Step using the salary wizard.
  8. Designate a Slot number. (Note: This is not a required field.)

  9. Enter in the CAN information.

  10. Click Finish.

After clicking finish, you will see the Position Details for the planning record that you created. From this page, you can modify the various other data as needed.


Setting a Reminder

As part of the process of creating a planning record, we recommend that users create a reminder. A reminder is an individual check you can set on a record to ensure you are staying on top of action items and keeping your data fresh. 


To set a reminder, click the red flag icon from the position.


Then, select the plus sign icon on the right of the pop-up.


You can enter in the Reminder text and choose a start date for when you want to be reminded. You can also select how often you want to be reminded and whether you want to receive this reminder by email. If you check your email Beacon will send you an automatic email on the star date with your reminder text.