R1610 is a small but important release that responds to some oddities
experienced in HCRA and DepCare processing a year ago and makes changes
to SHPS processing.  An itemized list of the changes is included in the
release
letter, and here are a couple of the highlights:

- Calendar year maintenance deletes HCRA and DepCare enrollments, but
   now is modified to leave entries for employees hired in early December
untouched.
- SHPS data selection is modified to exclude contract amounts and effective
   dates for future years when reporting for the current year.

TABLE UPDATES
- Message table transactions are provided.

OPERATIONAL CHANGES
- This release changes the cycle naming convention for the semi-monthly SHPS
   files.  The one created approximately mid-month will be called S2
instead of S1,
   and the one created early in the month will be called S1 instead of
S2.  This
   doesn't seem quite right to me, as the cycle id should reflect when the
data is
   "as of" rather than when it's delivered, and it introduces an
inconsistency with
   semi-monthly cycle naming for the NER (state new employee registry) file
that is
   created on the same schedule, as a matter of fact, in the same job for
our sites
   as for SHPS.  I have just written to Base Payroll about this, and we'll
have to
   figure out what this means to our PP*IFC jobs.
- A spec card is added for SHPS program PPP466 (layout form is UPAY 920)
   whose purpose is to specify the reporting year, or more precisely,
override it.
   By default it will be the current year.  The spec card override is "only
required
   for the S1JANyy file and then only if the file is actually produced during
   December of the previous year."  Despite that, the release letter
recommends
   that we always code the spec card and change the year value once a year.

IMPLEMENTATION
   This is a date-mandated release that must be installed before 1) producing
the SHPS S1DEC04 file due on 12/17 and 2) running calendar year periodic
maintenance.  May we have your ok to install?

   bvb