As you probably know, after release 1636 was implemented, reports began
flowing in to Base Payroll and Payroll Coordination of anomalies in editing of
step values, and to prevent these anomalies from interfering with production
updating, many sites decided to downgrade the severity of message 08-721
(STEP INVALID FOR THE PERSONNEL PROGRAM CODE) to less than
reject level.

Release 1641 issues the permanent fix to the step editing problems, and the
key difference from r1636 is that it allows blank Salary Step (EDB2049) values
for all Personnel Program Codes.  This change has been applied to the same
edit programs modified in the earlier release:  PPEC051 and PPEI053.  Some
of the r1636 problem reports observed that there were inappropriate
restrictions
on step values for academic employees and for certain DOS codes.
Those are not explicitly referenced in the current release but in effect
are solved because one would not normally code step values for them,
and now blank values are acceptable.

A technical change has been made in the way that step data is obtained for
validation purposes from the TCT via called program PPTCTUTL.

R1636 issued a one-time program to alert payroll sites to existing bad step
values, and the size of some of the campus reports was truly alarming, mostly
due to entries showing missing step values.  R1641 issues a similar one-time
program that plays by the new rules and will give you a more realistic view
of any bad data.

May we have your ok to install r1641 and also to restore the error severity
for 08-721 to reject level for those sites that temporarily lowered it?
The release letter designates installation as urgent for sites like ours
that already have installed r1636.

   bvb