Cosmos Release
September 10, 2020
Welcome to the Cosmos Release
We’re packing a ton of great new features and enhancements into our Q3 Cosmos Product Release – several of which came directly from feedback we got from you, our customers! From design updates that make it easier to find what you need to greater configurability to fit your exact benefits needs, Cosmos helps bring order to the complex world of benefits.
Streamlined
Enrollment
Enrollment
More
Self-Service
Self-Service
Better HR
Efficiency
Efficiency
Easier
Configuration
Configuration
All Boost
Updates
Updates
<img src="/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/10/Boost-Icon.png" alt="Boost Icon" width="30"
Indicates a Boost enhancement. For a summary of all Boost updates in this release, click here.
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Streamlined Employee Enrollment
We’re continuing to make our employee experience even more clean, concise, and easy to navigate. These small updates help reduce page noise, improve benefit understanding, and keep employees focused on what’s most important: making the right benefits decisions.
Improved Navigation
New navigation updates within the enrollment workflow help keep employees focused and completion rates high. While the main menu has always scaled based on the screen size, Cosmos gives employees the ability to minimize and expand it at any time. We’ll also automatically minimize the menu by default when starting enrollment to limit distractions.
Plan Pages Enhancements
Several tweaks to Plan Pages in the Employee Experience should have big impacts for participation and completion rates, including auto-expanding plan content by default and making education resources more visible. Based on your feedback, we’re also removing plan filters if you have fewer than 6 plans and displaying up to 5 by default, so employees have a more streamlined view.
EOI Enhancements
To streamline the process and boost completions, we’re updating how we present Evidence of Insurability to employees by using simpler, more user-friendly language and buttons vs. text links to drive immediate action. For EOI integrations, we added the ability for employees to launch the integration from their To-Do list, allowing them to submit the EOI form even after enrollment has closed.
Simplified Dual Enrollment
In general, employees going through dual enrollment (completing open enrollment AND new-hire/life event enrollment at the same time) tend to have lower completion rates. We’re rolling out enhancements in Cosmos to combat this – like clearer language and an automatic redirect that drives users to start the second enrollment right after they complete the first one.
New Employee Alerts
HR teams spend a lot of time tracking down incomplete tasks and paperwork. To help take some of the burden off of your team, we’re adding a new notification icon to the main menu to make it easier for employees to see when they have outstanding items that need their attention – like enrollments or document requests.
Automatic Plan Recommendation
We’re enabling Plan Recommendation on 8/27 for direct customers on 7 key Voluntary benefits types: Accident, Critical Illness, STD, LTD and Voluntary Life (Employee, Spouse, Dependent). This feature helps employees choose best-match plans and/or coverage amounts, by asking them a few simple questions.
New Lincoln Financial Group EOI
This new Boost Single Sign-On integration with The Lincoln Financial Group allows employees to complete Evidence of Insurability (EOI) directly within the benefits shopping experience. At checkout, we’ll send completed questions to Lincoln for you – no printing, mailing or hassles!
Expanded MetLife EOI
We’re also expanding our MetLife Evidence of Insurability (EOI) API to groups ≥100 benefits-eligible employees. Now these groups can get the same efficiency and convenience of MetLife’s electronic EOI SSO that launched last release but was only available for groups with >1,000 lives.
New MetLife Directory
Employees can now search for and select dental providers within the MetLife Dental PPO plan without having to leave PlanSource! Employees can filter by in-network and specialty providers, and providers automatically add to their plan information once selected.
More Self-Service
We’re always looking for ways to give you more control over your benefits administration – and make sure it’s easy enough to manage on your own. With expanded self-service in Cosmos, especially around financial accounts, your team can save time while doing more.
Employee HSA Lump-Sums
Now, employees can make an initial one-time contribution to their HSA right from the enrollment workflow in PlanSource. Employees will see an option to add a lump-sum payment in addition to their per-pay-period contributions. Contributions automatically stay below the IRS limits, and you can choose to disable this feature if you’d like. Now available for early adopters.
Employer HSA Lump-Sums
We’re also adding the ability for employers to manage lump-sum contributions to employee HSA accounts directly through PlanSource as well. You asked, we delivered. This was a top feature request we heard from customers, given that more and more are offering HSAs as an incentive for HDHP participation. Now available for early adopters.
New Billing Options
For Boost and Premium Billing customers, we’re adding several updates to give you greater financial self-service and flexibility. Admins can set up multiple active bank accounts and designate a preferred default. You’ll also be able to map billing statements, carriers and populations to different bank accounts. Lastly, new role-specific access and alerts help billing teams get the info they need quickly and securely.
Better HR Team Efficiency
We understand overworked HR teams are working overtime right now, and every minute saved counts. That’s why we’ve added features that’ll help you do more in less time and fewer clicks, thanks to new workflows and greater configurability.
New Employee Audit Page
Our redesigned Employee Audit Page makes it easier to find the information you need. We’ve reduced the number of clicks it takes to get here (we heard you!) – you can now navigate to the page from the top-level Actions menu on Employee Profiles. The updated design clearly highlights year-over-year changes and also features improved table views, a new full-screen view option, more comprehensive demographic details and more!
New Communications Options
New email functionality coming in Cosmos will help HR Admins save serious time – both on the front end by proactively addressing questions and on the back end, by cutting down on day-to-day administrative tasks and follow-ups. You’ll now be able to turn messages on and off, generate test emails, and add attachments to email templates … a great way to tease out educational content ahead of open enrollment.
Virtual OE Kit
This year’s open enrollment season will look like nothing we’ve seen before. Check out our free Open Enrollment Kit for tons of great resources, tips, and out-of-the-box templates that can help your team save time and pull off a successful virtual benefits enrollment. We’ve even added 3 new customizable design template themes for 2020, so you can give your OE some fun … even if it’s from afar!
New Guardian Enrollment API
With Cosmos, we’re unveiling our new real-time Enrollment API with Guardian. With it, enrollment info instantly sends to Guardian as soon as employees complete their benefits checkout within PlanSource. The API also lets you:
- Search for data transfers by date, employee or ID
- See exactly which data was sent and received
- Export enrollment results into Excel and review any errors
- Eliminate batch EDI files, discrepancies and delays
- Cut enrollment errors caused by complex file structures
Easier Configuration
Benefits are complicated. We’re here to make them simple. That’s why in our Cosmos Release, you’ll see simplified workflows and expanded configurability for your renewal and new-hire processes.
Guided Renewal Enhancements
We’re making several key updates to renewal workflows to make them easier and provide greater configurability, including more in-app help content, faster page load times and support for plans that don’t use costs. Admin Renewal Status reports now show all renewals and we’ve also updated renewal emails, including de-branded notifications.
New Renewal Summary Page
We’ve simplified the Renewal Summary layout to make it easier to see changes and comprehensive change details. The new page design clearly highlights year-over-year changes and provides drill-down detail on cost changes, which users made which changes, and when.
Expanded New-Hire Workflows
Additional configurability for new-hire processing delivers greater flexibility to your team while also saving them time spent on administrative tasks. Enhancements include the ability to automatically close new hire events upon enrollment and to display Enrollment Start Date by default instead of SSN.
Plan Configuration API
We’re adding a ton of functionality to our Guardian Plan Configuration API, including the ability to:
- Customize plan display names
- Easily validate FEINs if errors occur
- Batch-edit plan populations
- Quickly see and resolve warnings
- Distinguish new vs. existing plans
- Restart the Guardian integration
- Exclude certain plans from import
- Turn on Find a Provider in renewal
All Boost Enhancements
Boost’s groundbreaking approach to modern benefits management provides organizations with industry-leading benefits technology and carrier integrations. And in Cosmos, we’re introducing new API integrations with Guardian, Lincoln and MetLife.
New Lincoln EOI SSO
This new Boost Single Sign-On integration with Lincoln Financial Group allows employees to complete Evidence of Insurability (EOI) during and in the shopping experience. At checkout, we’ll instantly send completed questions to Lincoln for you – no printing, mailing or hassles!
Expanded MetLife EOI
We’re also expanding our MetLife Evidence of Insurability (EOI) API to groups ≥100 benefits-eligible employees. Now these groups can get the same efficiency and convenience of MetLife’s electronic EOI SSO previously available for groups with >1,000 lives.
New MetLife Directory
Employees can now search for and select dental providers within the MetLife Dental PPO plan without having to leave PlanSource! Employees can filter by in-network and specialty providers, and providers automatically add to their plan information once selected.
Optimized Page Content
New page content is now available for 12 Boost carriers within the employee shopping experience! This update increases participation rates by providing a cohesive experience and expanded education. Ask your broker or Account Manager for more details!
New Guardian Enrollment API
With Cosmos, we’re unveiling our new real-time Enrollment API with Guardian. With it, enrollment info instantly sends to Guardian as soon as employees complete their benefits checkout within PlanSource. The API also lets you:
- Search for data transfers by date, employee or ID
- See exactly which data was sent and received
- Export enrollment results into Excel and review any errors
- Eliminate batch EDI files, discrepancies and delays
- Cut enrollment errors caused by complex file structures
Guardian Plan Configuration API
Tons of new functionality in our Guardian Life API lets you now:
- Customize plan display names
- Easily validate FEINs if errors occur
- Batch-edit plan populations
- Quickly see and resolve warnings
- Distinguish new vs. existing plans
- Restart the Guardian integration
- Exclude certain plans from import
- Turn on Find a Provider in renewal
Read Our Technical Release Notes