As many of you know, we've encountered quite a few abends
recently in compute program PPP400 in the area of benefits
rates lookups.  Today in r1462 Base Payroll has issued
modifications to PPP400 that we believe will solve these
problems.  The specific area that is targeted is processing
of entries in the PPA (pending premium activity) table.

- Defunct plan codes PH and UC should not exist in the PPA
   table, but if they do, the modified version of PPP400 will
   process them against 2002 rates.  If new-style coverage
   codes are present in these entries, they will be converted
   to the old-style coverage codes

- Very old entries with pay period end dates prior to December
   2002 may exist.  These will be processed using their
   appropriate year's rates, and where needed the coverage
   codes will be converted.

- "All other PPA rows will be processed against 2003 rates
   (until December)."  This is the one that I believe we'll derive the
   greatest benefit from because most of our abends have been
   for employees with December effective dates but whose
   December deductions were suspended.  When we ran
   January computes and the system attempted to take those
   suspended deductions, it did its rate lookups against 2002
   BRT entries.  That worked fine if it wasn't a new insurance
   program introduced in 2003 such as Blue Cross and if the
   employee had an old-style coverage code such as U, otherwise
   the medical, dental, and/or vision rate lookups wouldn't find an
   entry and caused PPP400 to terminate the job.... one employee
   at a time.  Modifications in r1462 will point the rate lookups
   to 2003 BRT entries where the rates will be found.

There are no table updates.

This release is marked urgent, and given our past experiences,
I'd really like to install it before your final month-end computes
next Monday and Tuesday nights.  May I have your ok to do that?

   bvb