Employee Balances

Activate User's Guide
Version
2025.1
Employee Balances

With the Employee Balances wizard, you can upload starting employee entitlement balances and balance transactions.

You can run this wizard more than one time.

Before you begin

Employees included in the Employee Balances template must exist in Dayforce. They must also meet the minimum requirements. For example, employees must have a hire date, a work assignment, and employment status data.

Note: Entitlements must be configured in Dayforce and available for use by the employees included in the import data.

Note: You can load employee data with the following wizards: Getting Started, Employees, or Clean Up Data for Parallel or Go Live.

Using this wizard

The previously loaded employee information shows in an editable grid with the entitlement-related fields that need to be populated. You can enter information directly in the grid or you can download the Employee Entitlement Balance Data template, populate it, and then upload the data. When you edit the data in the grid, Activate shows any applicable validation warnings or errors. If warnings or errors are shown, you must review and update the data in the grid or upload a corrected template to correct them.

Enter required changes in the template to ensure that future uploads are accurate. If you make edits directly in the grid, click Save and download the updated file for record keeping purposes.

Tasks

To complete and upload the Employee Entitlement Balance Data template:
  1. In Activate Central, click Load Your Data. The Load Your Data wizards are shown.
  2. Click Employee Balances.
  3. On the Employee Balance Load page, click Download.
  4. Select the location where you want to save the template document.
  5. Open the EmployeeEntitlementBalanceDataTemplate.xlsx template on your computer.

    Note: You can also download an empty Employee Balances template from the Download Template Files page.

  6. On the EmployeeBalanceData tab, complete all columns with the data for all employees in the organization.

    Note: The Activate release version shows in cell B3 on the Instructions tab of the template. This information helps you later determine the version of Activate you were using when you downloaded the template.

    Note: Instructions for populating the fields are in the Employee Entitlement Balance Data Template Fields section (below) and on the Instructions tab of the template.

  7. Click Save and close the template.

    You can use any file name for the template you upload. The file must be an Excel or CSV (Comma-Separated Value) document and contain the data in the required format.

    Important: Don’t change the name of the tab in the template. Activate uses the tab name to validate that the correct template is being uploaded. In addition, don’t change the column headings.

  8. On the Compensation History Data page, click Upload.
  9. Go to your completed Employee Entitlement Balance Data template in the location where you saved it.
  10. Click Open. The Employee Balances wizard validates the data.

    Note: If the uploaded file has errors, a Validation Failed message shows in red at the bottom of the page. You must correct the errors in the file on your computer and upload the file again.

    Note: When you upload an Excel file, Activate includes the name of the uploaded file into the name of the XML file it generates and loads to the Dayforce File Server. The format of the generated XML file name is <NamespaceName>_<Import Type>_<file name provided>_YYY-MM-DD_HHMM. This information makes it easier to audit files later.


  11. If the uploaded file has errors, a Validation Failed message shows in red on the page. You must correct the errors in the file on your computer and upload the file again.
  12. Click Next.
To review and confirm the data:
  1. Review the information shown in the grid.
  2. To make updates to data on the page:

    • To insert a new row in the grid, click the row where you want to insert it and click New.

    • To delete a row, click the row and click Delete.

    • To download the error message list and save it to your computer, click Download Errors File.
    • To correct errors in the grid, click in the field containing the error. Click Tab to move to the right and Shift+Tab to move to the left in the row. Use the scrollbars on the right side and bottom of the grid to go to other areas of the grid.

    • To save information in the grid to your computer, click Download File and save it to the location you want.

    • To upload the file from your computer, locate the file and click Upload File. The data in the file shows in the grid.

    • To remove changes that you don’t want to save, click Refresh.

  3. When the data is complete, click Done & Install. When you leave the page, the selected values stay in the grid.
To install entitlement balance information:

When the balances information is complete in Activate, you must install the information in Dayforce.

  1. After making any necessary corrections, on the Employee Balance Review page, click Load.

    The Load page opens with a list of the steps to complete and an estimate of how long the installation usually takes. During the installation, the current step in the process is bolded so you can monitor the progress.

  2. Click one of the following:
    • Add Email and enter your email address to be notified when the installation process ends instead of waiting for it to finish.
    • Next when the installation is complete.

    Activate Central opens with the wizard name now in green text and a green checkmark next to it. The day, date, and time of completion show, along with your name as the user who completed the wizard. The environment in which the installation was applied (Stage, Config, or Train) is also shown.

    Note: If you want to add more information, click I want to add more.

Results

Fields populated in Dayforce

The data uploaded from the Employee Entitlement Balance Data template populates the fields on the Work Actual Balances page (People icon > Work > Balances, Actual Balances section) in Dayforce.

Note: You must select an employee if you haven’t already done so.

Dayforce fields populated by the Employee Entitlement Balance Data template
Field in Template Field in Dayforce
Employee Identifier Employee Reference / Number
First Name First Name
Last Name Last Name
Balance Name Balance
Balance Date Effective From
Balance Amount Initial / Current Value
Is Transaction —
Minimum Value Minimum
Maximum Value Maximum
File generated by the Employee Balances wizard

After completing the Employee Balances wizard, a single import file is automatically generated and placed on the customer's FTP site.

Employee Entitlement Balance Import

  • FTP Subdirectory: Import/EmployeeEntitlementBalanceImport
  • Filename: <Namespace>-EmployeeEntitlementBalanceImport-<DateTime>.xml
For an example illustrating how Activate translates the template data to XML, click here.
Copy 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<EmployeeEntitlementBalanceImport>
    <EmployeeBalance>
        <EmployeeXrefCode>1006</EmployeeXrefCode>
        <BalanceXrefCode>VACATION_HOURS</BalanceXrefCode>
        <MinValue>0.000</MinValue>
        <MaxValue>300.000</MaxValue>
    </EmployeeBalance>
    <EmployeeEntitlementBalance>
        <EmployeeXrefCode>1006</EmployeeXrefCode>
        <BalanceXrefCode>VACATION_HOURS</BalanceXrefCode>
        <AsOfDate>2019-01-25</AsOfDate>
        <Amount>125.500</Amount>
        <TreatAmountAsTransaction>1</TreatAmountAsTransaction>
    </EmployeeEntitlementBalance>
</EmployeeEntitlementBalanceImport>

Next steps

Complete the next wizard, as appropriate.

Employee Entitlement Balance Data template fields

All templates have the same basic structure:

  • Instructions tab: Helps you understand the purpose of the data and complete the fields in the template.
  • Data tab: Contains headers for the data to be included in the template. The headers remain the same, but you can change the column order. If you add more columns, Activate ignores them.

All number ranges in the templates include the numbers at both ends of the range.

To see a list of the fields in the template, click here.
Employee Identifier (Required)
Order Data Type Description Examples Why This Is Needed
1 Alphanumeric. Unique value between 1-9 characters. It allows our system to identify employees uniquely. Use the same number assigned to the employee in the Getting Started HR data loads. 3241245
000000006
abc123499

For this import, the Employee Identifier, First Name, and Last Name helps users identify employees when completing the template.

This required field is used to validate that the data being loaded is assigned to the correct employee record. The values provided must match exactly to an existing employee record in Dayforce.

First Name (Required)
Order Data Type Description Examples Why This Is Needed
2 String1 between 1-64 characters.

Legal first name of the employee.

The value provided must match exactly to an existing employee record in Dayforce.

 Joanne For this import, the Employee Identifier, First Name, and Last Name helps users identify employees when completing the template. This required field is used to validate that the data being loaded is assigned to the correct employee record. The values provided must match exactly to an existing employee record in Dayforce.

1 Special characters accepted within the string include: alphanumeric, space, period, apostrophe, dash, number symbol #, comma, underscore, forward slash /, parentheses (), &

Last Name (Required)
Order Data Type Description Examples Why This Is Needed
3 String1 between 1-64 characters.

Legal last name of the employee.

The value provided must match exactly to an existing employee record in Dayforce.

 Smith For this import, the Employee Identifier, First Name, and Last Name helps users identify employees when completing the template. This required field is used to validate that the data being loaded is assigned to the correct employee record. The values provided must match exactly to an existing employee record in Dayforce.

1 Special characters accepted within the string include: alphanumeric, space, period, apostrophe, dash, number symbol #, comma, underscore, forward slash /, parentheses (), &

Balance Name (Required)
Order Data Type Description Examples Why This Is Needed
4 String1 between 1-64 characters. The name of the Balance as it exists in Dayforce HCM. Vacation
Sick Time
Personal Time Off		 This field allows Activate to automap to the existing balance in Dayforce HCM.

1 Special characters accepted within the string include: alphanumeric, space, period, apostrophe, dash, number symbol #, comma, underscore, forward slash /, parentheses (), &

Balance Date (Required)
Order Data Type Description Examples Why This Is Needed
5 Date. Excel right-justified date format or Excel text format yyyy-mm-dd. The date the Balance Amount is effective from.

Date formatted cells:

09/24/2015
24/09/2015

Text formatted cells:

2015-09-24

This field is used to identify the date in which a starting balance is accurate from. When providing transactional balances, it’s the date on which the balance transaction occurred.
Balance Amount (Required)
Order Data Type Description Examples Why This Is Needed
6 Numeric. The opening or transactional balance of the Entitlement in Dayforce. Amount can be provided in Hours or Days or Currency Amount. This value can be provided as a positive or negative number. 10 125.5 -15 This field is used to identify the number of hours or days included as part of the starting or transactional balance.
Is Transaction
Order Data Type Description Examples Why This Is Needed
7

Accepted Values:

YES NO

 Indicates whether the balance amount being provided is a transactional amount as opposed to an opening balance amount. YES
NO		 This field is used to include transactional balance amounts as part of your import.
Minimum Value
Order Data Type Description Examples Why This Is Needed
8 Numeric. The minimum balance is allowed for the employee's balance. 0 -10 This field should be used when a TAFW Balance has a minimum threshold that can’t be subtracted beyond.
Maximum Value
Order Data Type Description Examples Why This Is Needed
9 Numeric. The maximum balance is allowed for the employee's balance. 15 200 This field should be used when a TAFW Balance has a maximum threshold that can’t be exceeded.