Opening and Closing Enrollment - Knowledge Base | BerniePortal

How to Open and Close Enrollment

Open enrollment for a renewal date group so eligible employees can make new elections. Closing enrollment ends the period and auto-enrolls employees who did not submit elections based on your auto-enrollment settings. Only one renewal date group can be open at a time.

Who can open and close enrollment

Employers with Benefits can open and close enrollment. Global Admins working as the employer can as well.

Before you open enrollment

Before you start:
  • Configure Upcoming Offer for every Benefit Subgroup. See How to Configure Upcoming Offer - Benefits.
  • Make sure eligible employees are assigned to those subgroups. Open enrollment cannot start when the employee list is empty.
To open enrollment:
  1. Select Benefits in the top navigation.
  2. Select Open Enrollment.
  3. Open the cog menu for the closed renewal date group you want to open.
  4. Select Open Enrollment.
  5. When asked: Are you sure you want to start open enrollment for this Renewal group? This action cannot be undone., select Submit.
Opening enrollment:
  • Moves plans from Upcoming Offer into Current Offer, and from Current Offer into Prior Offer.
  • Moves eligible employees into Awaiting elections.
  • Cannot be undone.
If not all Benefit Subgroups have an Upcoming Offer configured, BerniePortal blocks the start with: You cannot start Open Enrollment because not all Benefit Subgroups are configured for the Upcoming Offer. Please address and try again.

If another renewal date group is already open, BerniePortal blocks the start with: You cannot start open enrollment for two groups simultaneously. Please close the other group first.

If the new Upcoming Offer is missing plans from the previous enrollment, BerniePortal shows a warning that continuing will un-enroll employees from plans that are not offered. You can select Continue with open enrollment or Cancel.

To close enrollment:
  1. Select Benefits in the top navigation.
  2. Select Open Enrollment.
  3. Open the cog menu for the open renewal date group.
  4. Select Close Enrollment.
  5. If the Configure Auto-Enrollment screen appears, match each prior plan and coverage tier, then when asked: Closing enrollment will immediately end open enrollment and any employees who didn't submit elections will be auto-enrolled in plans based on your configured settings. This action is final and cannot be undone., select Close Enrollment.
If no employees need auto-enrollment configuration, selecting Close Enrollment closes enrollment immediately with no confirmation screen.

Closing enrollment cannot be undone. Employees who did not submit elections are auto-enrolled based on your configured settings. For more on those settings, see What is Auto-Enrollment & How to Configure Auto-Enrollment.

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