Variable Pay Program Configuration and Administration

Posted on Feb 3, 2026 in Business Administration and Innovation Management

Topic: Bonus Plans (Questions 1-4)

P1. Where do you link bonus plans to business goals? * Business goal weights file

P2. Your customer needs to link a bonus plan to a specific requirement. How do you address this requirement? * 1

P3. Which bonus plan setting is defined in the import file? * Bonus Cap Percentage

P4. In which scenario must you use a separate bonus plan for employees in the same program? * The customer has multiple sets of business goals.

Topic: Business Goals and Goal Weights (Questions 5-16)

P5. Your customer needs to use a specific field for business goal weighting. Which field is it? * payoutPercentTarget

P6. Which of the following methods can be used to calculate Business Goals?

  • Interpolation
  • Multiplicative
  • Direct payout

P7. What is a key requirement for goal weights across all bonus plans? * Goal weights are required to equal 100% for each bonus plan.

P8. Where do you define the function type for business goals? * Business Goals

P9. Your customer needs to link a bonus plan to business goals. What actions are needed?

  • Reference the Plan ID in the business goal data file
  • Reference the Plan ID in the Bonus Plan file
  • Update eligibility rules to include a bonus plan

P10. From where are employee history fields imported? * Employee history fields

P11. An active employee changes business units mid-year. How many eligibility records are needed? * 3

P12. In which file do you define goal mappings for business goals? * Weights and mappings data file

P13. Which scenario requires a business goal to be reimported? * Change in business goal name

P14. A public goal uses performance metrics. How should the interpolated business goal be loaded? * Load metrics as: performanceMin= 0, performanceTarget=50, performanceMax=100

P15. What attribute uniquely identifies a Business Goal in the XML? * Plan ID

P16. How would you ensure consistent goal weighting across an integrated plan? * Use a common field value for all employees in the employee history file.

Topic: Eligibility (Questions 17-24)

P17. If the standard eligibility process is insufficient, how can you include employees in a bonus plan?

  • Create a rule in Manager Form Eligibility to include employees
  • Use an MDF rule instead of importing eligibility rules

P18. Which of the following are examples of eligibility rule conditions?

  • Only employees who are active employees on January 1, 2020 are eligible to receive a bonus.
  • Only Permanent full-time employees are eligible…

P19. An employee changes plans mid-year. What does this imply for the employee’s eligibility? * This employee is eligible for the Corp plan from January 1-July 31 and the BU plan from August 1-December 31

P20. Which data sources define eligibility rules?

  • Employee history data file
  • Bonus plan data file

P21. When is the Manager form eligibility setting used? * All employees are eligible

P22. Assume a manager needs to exclude employees who resigned. What is the purpose of this setting in Eligibility Rules? * To exclude employees who have given their notice from the Variable Pay form

P23. Your customer needs to define eligibility based on different organizational levels. How can this be achieved for target populations?

  • Enable global eligibility rule
  • Use Bonus Plan Eligibility
  • Configure multiple rules by EC entity for the program

P24. What does the setting to ‘Bypass Guideline Calculation’ do? * It changes the guidelines so they are updated on the form immediately * It helps render the worksheet faster when there are more than 1,000 guideline formulas

P25. A performance rating is considered “overlap” if what condition is met? * PM form start date <= Assignment end date • Assignment start date <= PM form end date

Topic: Bonus Calculation (Questions 25-32)

P26. Which of the following are examples of multiplicative formulas?

  • Base x business performance
  • Base x (business performance x individual performance)
  • Base x business performance x team performance x individual performance

P27. Bonuses for employees with mixed performance metrics need to be implemented. How can this be achieved?

  • One variable pay program that uses Base x (Business Performance + Individual Performance)
  • Two variable pay programs: one using Base x Business Performance and using Base x (Business Performance + Individual Performance)

P28. In which location is the basis amount for an integrated plan imported from?

  • Imported from employee history
  • Imported from user data file

P29. Company XYZ uses a specific calculation structure. Which formula applies to this organization? * base x (business performance + individual performance)

P30. Which mathematical operations are used in calculation equations?

  • Multiplication
  • Addition

P31. What is the main difference between additive and multiplicative payout formulas? * Additive formulas use section weights, whereas multiplicative formulas use payout percent.

P32. How is a Direct Payout percentage applied in the calculation function type? * Direct payout percentage will override normal performance payout calculation

Topic: Employee History Data and Background Element (Questions 33-44)

P33. Which of the following fields must be included in the Background Element?

  • Basis
  • Local Currency Code
  • Variable Pay Program Name

P34. Your customer imports data but notices old records remain after processing. What causes this? * Data for all employees when the option “Delete all existing records prior to importing new data” is checked

P35. The customer needs to import target percentage and salary data. What data type requirement must be made? * The tgtPct and salary fields must both be numeric fields

P36. Which field types can be used in the background section?

  • Percentage fields
  • Boolean fields
  • Integer fields

P37. Refer to the Effective Date in Employee Central. What does this date refer to? * The date the system uses to pull data from Employee Central

P38. A customer sees incorrect bonus calculations due to outdated data. How can the customer correct this? * Calculate Bonus and Update worksheets

P39. The employee history import fails with an error message. What is the likely cause? * The basis column is using commas

P40. A customer imports historical data for a mid-year change. What dates should the customer enter? * Dates equal to the program dates

P41. When using employee history to determine eligibility, what field links to eligibility rules? * Option ID

P42. A customer uses a custom field for Basis that is not calculating correctly. How can the customer ensure it calculates correctly? * Configure the Basis field as a custom field in the background element.

P43. Your customer needs to use Business Unit for eligibility. What are the first steps?

  • Import business unit data via the employee history data file
  • Define the Business Unit field in the Variable Pay Background Element XML

P44. What information is required when importing data into the background element data file? * The background element name

Topic: Reports and Reward Statements (Questions 45-51)

P45. Which tools can be used to communicate the final bonus amounts awarded to employees?

  • Variable Pay Rewards Statement
  • Personal Compensation Statement Notification
  • Combined Rewards Statement

P46. What information is included in the Variable Pay Details report?

  • Eligibility criteria for each employee
  • Bonus calculation for each employee
  • Multiple rows of payout for each employee

P47. Your customer cannot find certain employees in the audit report. Which reports can help diagnose the issue?

  • Export Users Without Managers
  • Variable Pay Audit report
  • Employee History report

P48. Which Variable Pay report identifies employees missing required eligibility data? * Employee History Gaps report

P49. What feature allows managers to send a notification that the bonus assignment is still in progress? * Bonus assignment letter

P50. What formula can suppress statements if the final payout is zero? * if(finalPayout=0,”FALSE”,”TRUE”)

P51. What report must be run to show results based on the bonus payout amount? * Bonus payout

Topic: Integration Scenarios (Questions 52-58)

P52. Your customer has performance ratings in both US and German systems. How should ratings be integrated for bonus calculation in this situation?

  • Export the rating from the US performance forms then load ratings for all eligible employees into the Overall Performance background element of the Employee Profile.
  • Import the German ratings into the Overall Performance background element of the Employee Profile. The US ratings remain in the performance forms.

P53. Your client needs to manage different bonus structures across regions. How should this be handled in this scenario? * Four variable pay templates, with the bonus start and end dates aligned with the customer’s dates and employee history to match

P54. The bonuses for a specific group must combine corporate and country performance goals with individual goals. How can this be configured?

  • Additive plan with one Business Goal section • The Business Goal section is weighted 60% and the Individual section is weighted 40% • Within the Business Goal section, Corporate Performance is weighted 50% and Country Performance is weighted 50%
  • Additive plan with two Business Goal sections • Corporate Performance in one Business Goal section, weighted at 30% • Country Performance in other section, weighted at 30% • Individual section weighted at 40%

P55. A client has three distinct bonus calculation methods. How many templates are needed? * 3

P56. You are processing employee history records with overlapping dates for the payout. How is the bonus prorated? * Each record is considered… and the bonus is prorated based on the dates of each record

P57. Your customer wants to combine multiple reward statements into one view. How would you advise your customer? * Create a combined statement called “Total Reward” and launch it from the existing Variable Pay template with the largest number of employees

P58. Your client has goals that should only apply to certain employees without requiring administrative intervention. How can this be achieved? * Goals that are relevant to the employee’s bonus need to have a different type, set when creating the goal

Topic: Variable Pay Form (Questions 59-65)

P59. A client uses fields populated via external logic, not EC configuration. How are these fields displayed? * The fields use a lookup table to derive the data based on conditional logic and are read-only.

P60. You want to use data from the Compensation module to populate the form. What do you use? * Compensation profile

P61. What task allows you to change the display name of employee history fields on the form for better context? * Relabel employee history fields

P62. Your client needs to display different fields based on the level of data (employee vs. assignment). Where can you make the change?

  • Column Designer, Entry Level fields
  • Column Designer, Assignment Level fields

P63. Which configuration tools control the structure and fields shown in the Details section?

  • Column Designer
  • Variable Pay XML template

P64. Where are payout curves configured and applied?

  • Reports
  • Calculations

P65. Which steps are required to display Variable Pay data in the Succession Individual View?

  • Select Display Live Profile View
  • Add the Variable Pay Individual View to the Succession Data Model
  • Add the Variable Pay Individual View to the Variable Plan template

Topic: Variable Pay Program Settings (Questions 66-80)

P66. A customer needs a single template that supports both standard and custom eligibility/calculation logic for all employees. What template type should be used? * Hybrid template

P67. Why might an administrator use the Check Tool?

  • To determine inactive planners in the hierarchy
  • To determine if custom fields are reloadable

P68. In which situations must you use multiple variable pay programs instead of a single program?

  • There are only two business goals, but the weighting of the goals varies by employee grade.
  • The bonuses of different groups of employees are affected by different business goals

P69. When employee data changes mid-cycle, what factors determine the correct bonus calculation?

  • Rating type
  • Effective date

P70. How can you assign employees to a manager hierarchy that differs from the standard reporting structure? * Use the custom manager option for assigning employees in the user data file and in the route map.

P71. What is the impact of changing the proration rounding setting? * Changes start and/or end date used in BonusCalculation

P72. In which scenario must assignment data be imported into a separate row? * When the company needs to send individual assignment information to separate cost centers for processing

P73. Which currency types can be used in the currency conversion table? * Functional, User, Planner, and Any Currency

P74. Which of the following scenarios require the use of pay gates?

  • There are three business goals: Revenue, EBITDA, and Customer Satisfaction. The entire business goal section will pay out at 50% unless Customer Satisfaction is above target
  • There are three business goals: Revenue, EBITDA, and Customer Satisfaction. The EBITDA goal will payout at 0% unless the Individual performance rating is “Good” or better.

P75. How do you ensure that payouts fall within a specific range based on performance ratings? * Configure minimum/maximum guidelines in the plan setup

P76. Which data sources can be used to create guidelines?

  • Pay grade
  • Rating
  • Job level

P77. You have data regarding employee performance ratings and compensation. Which data sources are needed?

  • Job information
  • Compensation information

P78. Your customer wants to limit the maximum bonus payout regardless of calculation results. How can this be achieved? * Use bonus plan caps

P79. Which factors might necessitate using separate pay programs for different employee groups?

  • The customer is using different eligibility rules
  • The customer has some employees in Employee Central and others in an external system
  • The customer is using a different bonus calculation formula

P80. Your customer needs to view different sets of data on the Variable Pay form. How can this information be displayed?

  • Configure custom views in plan setup
  • Define compensation period data in the compensation profile.