Let me provide a comprehensive breakdown of our implementation since several people have asked detailed questions. This should give you enough information to build something similar.
Solution Overview:
We created an OTBI eligibility dashboard that serves as the central monitoring tool for our benefits team, replacing manual spreadsheet tracking. The dashboard automatically identifies action items across the entire employee lifecycle and sends daily alerts to the appropriate coordinators.
OTBI Eligibility Dashboard Components:
The solution uses the Benefits - Enrollment Real Time subject area as the foundation, which provides comprehensive coverage of enrollment data, eligibility dates, and plan participation. This subject area is particularly powerful because it reflects current eligibility status in real-time rather than requiring overnight batch processing.
We built four main dashboard sections:
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New Hire Eligibility Tracking
- Shows employees hired in the last 60 days with their eligibility dates approaching
- Highlights those within 7 days of eligibility who haven’t been contacted yet
- Includes hire date, eligibility date, days until eligible, and contact status
- Filter by location and benefits coordinator assignment
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Eligible but Not Enrolled
- Lists employees who became eligible but haven’t completed enrollment within the required timeframe (we use 30 days)
- Shows eligibility date, days overdue, last contact date, and reason codes if documented
- Prioritized by days overdue so coordinators handle the most urgent cases first
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Life Event Pending Enrollment
- Tracks employees who reported qualifying life events (marriage, birth, adoption) but haven’t updated their benefits
- Displays event type, event date, deadline for enrollment changes, and days remaining
- Critical for compliance since life event enrollment windows are legally defined
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Dependent Aging Out
- Identifies dependents approaching age limits (typically 26 for children, varies by plan)
- Shows dependent name, current age, age-out date, and parent employee
- Provides 90-day advance notice so employees can plan for coverage changes
Benefits - Enrollment Real Time Subject Area Usage:
This subject area was perfect for our needs because it includes:
- Enrollment eligibility dates and status for each benefit plan
- Actual enrollment records showing what employees selected
- Life event data with event types and effective dates
- Dependent information including birth dates and relationships
- Plan eligibility rules and waiting periods
We combined it with the Worker subject area to get additional employee details like hire date, location, and manager assignment. The join is straightforward since both subject areas share the Person ID key.
Key calculated fields we created:
- Days Until Eligible = Eligibility Date - Current Date
- Days Overdue = Current Date - (Eligibility Date + 30 days)
- Age Out Date = Dependent Birth Date + 26 years
- Days Until Age Out = Age Out Date - Current Date
These calculations drive the filtering logic that identifies action items.
Automated Compliance Reporting:
For audit purposes, we built three compliance reports that run automatically:
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Monthly Eligibility Compliance Report: Shows all employees who became eligible in the previous month and their enrollment status. Includes those who enrolled, waived coverage, or failed to respond. This demonstrates we’re tracking eligibility properly.
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Life Event Audit Report: Lists all life events reported and subsequent enrollment actions taken. Includes timestamps showing we processed changes within the legal timeframes.
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Exception Resolution Report: Tracks overdue enrollments with coordinator notes explaining why (employee on leave, pending documentation, etc.). Shows follow-up actions taken.
These reports use OTBI’s scheduling feature to generate automatically on the first business day of each month and are stored in a shared folder for audit access. The timestamp and user metadata built into OTBI provides the audit trail.
Automated Alert Implementation:
The automated alerts were the game-changer for our team. Here’s how we configured them:
OTBI has an “Agent” feature that monitors dashboard data and sends notifications when conditions are met. We created three agents:
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Daily Eligibility Alert: Runs every morning at 6 AM, checks for:
- New hires within 7 days of eligibility (count > 0)
- Eligible but not enrolled > 15 days overdue (count > 0)
- Life events with < 5 days remaining to enroll (count > 0)
If any condition is true, the agent emails the benefits team with a summary and link to the detailed dashboard.
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Weekly Manager Alert: Runs Monday mornings, identifies managers with team members who have overdue enrollments. Sends each manager a personalized email listing their specific employees who need to complete enrollment.
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Monthly Executive Summary: Runs on the 1st of each month, sends leadership a summary of enrollment metrics: total new hires processed, enrollment completion rate, life events handled, and any compliance issues.
The agent configuration is done through OTBI’s “Actions” menu in the dashboard. You set up the delivery schedule, recipient list, and trigger conditions. The emails include embedded dashboard content so recipients can see the relevant data without logging into OTBI.
Implementation Timeline and Effort:
Week 1: Requirements gathering with benefits team, identified the four key scenarios, and mapped them to OTBI subject areas
Week 2: Built the dashboard sections, created calculated fields, and tested data accuracy against known cases
Week 3: Configured the agents, set up email templates, and conducted user training with the benefits team
Total development time was approximately 60 hours. No custom code or external tools required - everything uses standard OTBI functionality.
Results and Benefits:
- Reduced manual tracking time from 15 hours/week to less than 2 hours/week
- Improved enrollment completion rate from 87% to 96% within the required timeframe
- Eliminated missed life event enrollment windows (previously 2-3 per quarter)
- Provided audit-ready compliance documentation
- Increased coordinator confidence that no eligibility events are being missed
Key Success Factors:
- Using the real-time subject area meant data was always current
- Automated alerts ensured proactive follow-up instead of reactive discovery
- Role-based dashboard views (coordinators see their assigned employees only) improved adoption
- Monthly compliance reports satisfied auditor requirements without additional work
Recommendations for Others:
If you’re implementing something similar, start with the new hire eligibility tracking first - it’s the simplest scenario and proves value quickly. Then add the other scenarios incrementally. Make sure to involve your benefits coordinators early so the dashboard matches their actual workflow. And definitely set up the automated alerts - that’s what transforms the dashboard from a reporting tool into an operational system.
The combination of OTBI’s real-time data, flexible dashboard design, and built-in agent functionality makes this kind of automation very achievable without custom development. Our benefits team now considers this dashboard essential to their daily operations.