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What's New in balanceAAP

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balanceAAP

Part of the balanceWORKS family of software


As part of our efforts to continually improve our products and services, Berkshire performs periodic upgrades to balanceAAP software.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact Berkshire’s Product Support department at: product.support@berkshireassociates.com.
OR from within the software, access Support from the Help icon in the software header to send a message to Berkshire.

Berkshire’s Product Support Team

January 2022

  • balanceAAP Narrative tab was modified to address reported issues with Section Tag creation and management.
  • The Best Utilization Rule analysis and report, located on the Factor Weights tab, has been enhanced to reflect recent Availability changes and recommendations.
  • An update has been made to the balanceAAP Plan Review to most accurately reflect the number of hired applicants for Item 6.9.
  • Additional technology and security updates have been included to enhance performance and maintain usability.

December 2021

  • To improve efficiency and simplify the EEO-1 and VETS-4212 report creation process, the Analysis Information details for each report can now be imported directly into balanceAAP.
  • The Establishment Information fields which comprise the EEO-1 and VETS-4212 reports can now be searched from the main Report Information tab on each report.
  • Additional summary reports for Individuals with Disabilities and Protected Veterans are now available in the balanceAAP Dashboard.
  • To further improve the Competitive Promotion and Hiring Analysis features (which were added in February 2021), the following changes have been made:
    • New checklist reports have been added to the AAP Reports section for Competitive Promotions, Non-Competitive Promotions, and the Hiring Analysis.
    • The Plan Summary Report Settings have been updated to include Competitive Promotions, Non-Competitive Promotions, and Hiring Analysis as individual personnel activities.
    • Dashboard Summaries Report Settings have updated to include Competitive Promotions, Non-Competitive Promotions, and Hiring Analysis as Adverse Impact Report filters.
  • Additional technology and security updates have been included to enhance performance and maintain usability.

November 2021

  • Berkshire is excited to introduce the balanceAAP Plan Review. This feature is a verification tool used to evaluate your affirmative action plan and identify areas which may require additional attention. Relying on years industry expertise, Berkshire created a recommended list of items to review and verify prior to preparing the final plan reports.
  • The Census Coding export file has been enhanced to include the Grade and EEO Codes for balanceAAP users with the appropriate permissions.
  • The Grade and Job Group Sequencing feature (on Reference Tables) have been updated to allow for drag and drop reordering.
  • Additional technology and security updates have been included to enhance performance and maintain usability.

August 2021

  • The balanceAAP Recruitment Area Import has been updated to correct a recruitment area translation deficiency. In isolated situations, recruitment areas that were created using the EEO 2006-2010 ACS Tabulation Data, were not translated correctly to the most recent version.
  • Reference Tables and Data Tables were updated to reflect all drop-down fields will be sorted alphabetically by their corresponding codes.
  • REACH Assignment was updated to correct a reported issue where users were unable to set a Sub Plan’s REACH assignments from the Master Plan.
  • balanceAAP Dashboard Summary was adjusted to properly align all column headers.
  • The Data Export option to only include used codes when exporting Department Codes, Grade, Job Group, and/or Job Codes, has been corrected to properly reflect the user selection.
  • Additional technology and security updates have been included to enhance performance and maintain usability.

June 2021

  • The new US Census Bureau EEO 2014-2018 ACS Tabulation Data is now available in balanceAAP.
    • When Creating an Affirmative Action Plan, the new EEO 2014-2018 ACS Tabulation Data will be automatically selected.
    • Previously created plans can be updated to begin using the new census data through the Availability Calculations Settings.
    • The geographic regions used to organize the new census data have been modified. As a result, some recruitment areas which were previously used may no longer be available to use with the new census data. balanceAAP will translate your plan’s existing recruitment area(s) to the new corresponding area(s) where applicable. However, it is strongly recommended you recalculate your Recruitment Areas using the Recruitment Area Wizard.
    • The number of available Census Codes has also decreased with the new census data. Using an approved crosswalk table, balanceAAP will translate all Census Codes that have changed. If additional adjustments are required, they can be made in the Job Code table or through Census Coding.
  • We continue to enhance this product in response to identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.

March 2021

  • Narrative Editor Enhancements
    • Berkshire is pleased to announce that all plans created after March 25, 2021, will begin using a redesigned Narrative editor. The new editor will continue to provide you with the ability to edit your Narrative's Tags, Sections, and Template Document Body, with each function enhanced to improve efficiency and simplify your process.
    • Also included are updated Narrative Templates (Minorities and Women, Individuals with Disabilities, and Protected Veterans) that include new language to match regulation changes, improve readability, and improve efficiency. Narrative Templates now present all sections together in a single cohesive document.
    • Lastly, reports will appear at the end of the new Narrative document and no longer be interspersed throughout the document, preventing previous issues related to formatting and readability.
  • Correction of a reported issue where users were unable to use the Combine Job Groups feature in Sub-Plans.

February 2021

  • In response to the OFCCP’s competitive promotion-focused review announcement, balanceAAP has been modified with the following enhancements:
    • Using applicant table data, bAAP can now create Competitive Promotion and external Hiring Analysis reports.
      • The Applicant Table has been modified and each applicant entry should now be listed as Internal and/or External depending on where the corresponding requisition’s hired applicant originated. All existing and future entries, without an Internal or External value, will be marked as External.
      • Applicants that are associated with a requisition that was filled by an Internal candidate will be part of the Competitive Promotion analysis.
      • Applicants that are associated with a requisition that was filled by an External candidate will be part of the external Hiring Analysis.
      • Previous applicant reports are still present and have not changed.
      • The ability to modify the selection and pool criteria by disposition type is available through the Plan Settings > Personnel Analysis Settings page.
    • The ability to create a Non-Competitive Promotion analysis has also been added and will use Promotion table data.
      • The Promotion Table has been modified and each promotion entry can be identified as Competitive.
  • The Gender Table has been updated to allow for an explicit designation of female gender codes.
    • All existing plans have been updated to designate any codes as female that were not previously identified as male.
    • Where desired, a gender code for non-binary can now be added. Codes added for non-binary should have neither male nor female checked off in the Gender Table.
    • Reports have been updated to properly include non-binary gender records in the totals and results by race, and non-binary records are excluded where male and female are reported.
  • We continue to enhance this product in response to identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.

December 2020

  • The ability to flag an employee as Remote has been added to the Roster Data table. When Remote employees are included in your plan, they will be treated as part of the United States region when calculating Availability.
  • The Individuals with Disabilities Utilization Goals report has been modified and users now have the ability include the total number of IWDs, when the report is run.
  • A new balanceAAP report for the Availability Rationale has been added to the Main AAP Reports section. The contents of this report will match the details that appear in the Availability Analysis section of Minorities and Women Narrative.
  • File Consistency has been updated and users are now able to Add PA records when an employee’s old plan code does not match their last new plan code.
  • The File Consistency Report now contains the job title, in addition to the job code.
  • We continue to enhance this product in response to identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.

July 2020

  • Internal Availability enhancements improve the ability to cascade Master Plan feeder options to sub plans.
  • AAP Reports and Dashboard have been enhanced to improve calculation performance.
  • We continue to enhance this product in response to identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.

April 2020

  • Via “New” and “Old” Plan Code fields on balanceAAP’s Data Tables, Master plan preparers can now document promotion and transfer pathways between AAPs, as part of developing feeders.
  • We continue to enhance this product in response to identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.

January 2020

  • The Availability > Factor Weights screen has been augmented with a feature to alert the user when internal feeders are not present so they can be reviewed and/or addressed.
  • We continue to enhance this product in response to identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.

December 2019

  • System Alerts have been consolidated to a balanceWORKS landing page, organized by software product, offering a centralized method for users to view and acknowledge system messages.
  • We continue to enhance this product in response to identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.

October 2019

  • When editing and saving Narratives > Templates, the option to "Revert to Default" has been supplemented with an option to "Revert to Last Saved Version".
  • We continue to enhance this product in response to identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.

August 2019

  • As the second phase of EEO-1 Report development to support "Component 2" data collection, the file export feature is now available, in accordance with EEOC specifications.

July 2019

  • The first phase of updates to the EEO-1 Report module will support data collection for the form’s new “Component 2” submission. This functionality allows for the reporting of employee demographic counts by pay band for each EEO category. Below are Help links that provide more information:
  • To set precedence for multiple transactions in a day when the File Consistency check or Start Point analysis is run, System Tools > General settings have been augmented with a Personnel Action Order menu, providing the capability to prioritize personnel actions in a default or custom order.
  • We continue to enhance the interface in response to identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.

June 2019

  • As part of Apps to Hires, a suite of Applicant data reconciliation tools, duplicate applicants can now be reviewed and resolved.
  • The layout for working with File Consistency issues across an employee's transaction records has been improved so that records with issues can be quickly located, selected, and resolved.
  • The visual look of the Summary chart headers has been improved on the Dashboard.
  • We continue to enhance the newly designed interface in response to identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.

May 2019

  • The ADVERSE IMPACT FOR APPLICANTS report can now be run by Requisition Number.
  • A new feature to create Trend Reports has been added to the Reports module. These reports will assist in identifying positive and negative movement in key AAP metrics over time.
  • We continue to enhance the newly designed interface in response to previously identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.

April 2019

  • A new option is available in the File Consistency check to include the prior plan. With this setting, the scan can be performed on the Roster to flag inconsistencies between the prior and current year entries.
  • Census Coding now includes tools to:
    • Filter the Census Coding table to readily review and update EEO group classification mismatches.
    • Support the advanced user in filtering for letter-based Census codes and converting these codes to the proper numerical entries.
  • Advanced History features allow you to:
    • Create and store a "History plan," originating from balanceAAP's Start Point analysis, an existing feature that estimates the historical placement goals based on current plan data.
    • Manage created History plans, by assigning one to the current plan and/or deleting prior History plans.
  • We continue to enhance the newly designed interface in response to previously identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.

March 2019

  • Plans, the initial landing page, now helps you track audit plans, including the option to show audited and/or unaudited AAPs on the Open Plan tab. Audit plans will be indicated on this tab and the Recent Plans list through highlighting.
  • After the reorganization of External Availability in the prior release, Census Coding tools have been enhanced with the following features:
    • The layout has been redesigned to feature a table format, displaying all relevant Census Coding information — including Census/Job Code matches — PLUS a direct work area for updating these matches.
    • The Census Coding table can be filtered by Job Code, EEO Code, Census Code, revision version, and whether in use.
    • A Census code listing can be expanded to display the SOC (Standard Occupation Code) definition and demographic statistics from the U.S. Census database.
    • The work area now features comprehensive, multi-level Search tools to find Census Codes.
    • Census code assignments can be exported to Excel, via a quick-click button.
  • File Consistency > Batch Ops have been augmented with:
    • Options that consider and help resolve multiple personnel transactions for an employee when they occur on the same day.
    • (For a Master plan) a global operation that updates the Plan code in an employee's personnel action records to match the employee's "Reports to" entry on the Roster Data table.
  • We continue to enhance the newly designed interface in response to previously identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.

February 2019

  • For better ease of use, the software's Availability > External Availability components have been segregated into two distinct work areas, accessible directly from the side navigation menu:
    • Recruitment Areas
    • Census Coding
  • The BEST UTILIZATION RULE report (Availability > Factor Weights) now outputs improved analysis when the "All Plans" option is selected for a Master/sub plan set.
  • We continue to enhance the newly designed interface in response to previously identified customer needs and to enhance performance or perform minor bug fixes.