Sidehill - Benefits Administration Platform for Enrollment, Life Events and Carrier Feeds
Benefits Administration for a US Manufacturer
Designed and built a clickable benefits administration platform for a Colorado outdoor gear manufacturer with about 1,800 employees: open enrollment with completion by location and language, one queue for new hires and life events, event decisions checked against Section 125 rules, and an employee benefits record that ties elections to carrier files, ACA codes and payroll deductions.
Most of our work is under NDA. Per agreement, we can share the work but not the company details - all names and identifying information shown here have been changed.
Impact
Dashboard, open enrollment, event queue, event detail and the employee benefits record with 8 tabs. Each of the 22 demo events and 26 employees opens its own page.
New hire to termination, each with its window (31 days by client policy, 60 for Medicaid or CHIP), HIPAA special enrollment flag and Section 125 category. Requests outside what the event allows are flagged.
834 files to Anthem, Kaiser, Delta Dental, VSP and MetLife, plus HealthEquity and WEX contribution files, each with its last file, 999 result, open errors and days since the last full file.
Across HQ, the plant, the Pueblo distribution center, 8 stores and remote staff, with 29 dependents, 22 events, 12 plans and a 1,412-employee eligible population for plan year 2026.
The Problem
Granite Saddle's three-person benefits team ran enrollment on paper forms and carrier web portals. Open enrollment meant two weeks of keying elections into four carrier sites and payroll, so deductions often did not match coverage, life events arrived by email with no clock, ACA hours for seasonal staff lived in a spreadsheet rebuilt each autumn, and plant and store employees without a desk or work email enrolled late or not at all.
Our Solution
Sidehill holds the plan year in one place: open enrollment with progress by group, one queue for every enrollment event with its window and documents, a decision screen that checks each requested change against the event and previews costs, 834 transactions and payroll effects, and an employee record that shows elections, dependents, ACA months and deductions together.
The Challenge: One Election, Many Systems and Many Rules
Every benefits election has to agree with the plan rules, the carrier's file, the payroll deduction and the ACA record, for a workforce of office, plant, warehouse, store and seasonal staff, many of them part-time.
Life Events With No Clock
Pre-tax elections are irrevocable for the plan year unless a permitted change event occurs, and the change must be consistent with the event. Requests arrived by email, so the team could not prove whether one fell inside the window or what it allowed.
Coverage and Deductions Out of Step
Elections keyed by hand into carrier portals and payroll drifted apart: some employees paid for plans they had dropped, and a few were covered for months without paying. Each carrier also needs its own 834 enrollment file and acknowledgement check.
ACA Status for Variable-Hour Staff
Granite Saddle must offer affordable coverage to full-time employees, 30 or more hours a week or 130 a month. Seasonal and variable-hour staff need look-back measurement, and 1095-C forms were corrected by hand every February.
Health Data Behind a Firewall
Under HIPAA, plan health information may only be used for plan administration by named staff. HR partners, payroll and finance each need part of the picture, but not dependent documents, SSNs or plan-level detail.
Our Approach: From Plan Rules to a Clickable Platform
Spec and Rules Research
Mapped 9 user roles, 42 screens across staff pages and an employee portal, and the data model for plan years, plans, coverage segments, versioned life event types, dependents, ACA measurement periods, 1095-C forms, 834 feed runs, deduction feeds and COBRA hand-offs. Wrote down the rules the design follows: ERISA, the ACA employer mandate, Forms 1094-C and 1095-C, HIPAA, Section 125, COBRA, ANSI X12 834, Colorado FAMLI and the Medicare Part D notice.
Clickable Demo on a Production UI Kit
Built 5 key screens on a production dashboard kit: the dashboard with KPIs, event deadlines, work by role, feed health and coverage mix; open enrollment with its checklist to open and completion by location, employment type and language; the event queue; event detail with allowed changes, election change preview and downstream 834 and payroll effects; and the employee benefits record. Actions run on local state.
What a Production Build Adds
Integration with the HRIS, time and attendance and leave systems, payroll, carriers over SFTP with PGP encryption, HealthEquity, WEX for FSA and COBRA, the IRS AIR system for ACA filing, Postmark, Twilio and Lob for notices, and Okta sign-in. Role-based access behind the HIPAA firewall, a full audit of every election, override and file, and the mobile-first employee portal in English and Spanish with plan comparison.
Why It Works: Every Decision Shows Its Rule
The Queue Runs on Deadlines
Every event shows when its window closes and how many documents are in. Rows turn amber within 5 days of the window closing and red once it has passed, and the dashboard lists every window closing in the next 7 days, soonest first.
Changes Checked Against the Event
Event detail lists what the event type permits and marks each requested change as consistent or not consistent with the event, with a timeliness check against its window. Reopening a window is limited to the benefits manager.
Downstream Effects Before Approval
Before approving, the specialist sees the per-pay cost before and after, the effective date, the 834 transactions each carrier will receive, the first affected pay date and any retro adjustment, so coverage and deductions change together.
One Record for Each Employee
Elections with coverage history, dependents with age-out dates and an audited SSN reveal, ACA monthly hours against 130 with 1095-C codes, deductions including imputed income, and per-carrier status showing whether the carrier's data matches.
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Enterprise Software Engineering - Human + AI
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Location
Global Headquarters
21 Merchant Road, 3rd Floor, Singapore 058267
Main corporate office and leadership operations
North America Office
548 Market Street, PMB 12345, San Francisco, CA 94104
Client operations and business development
India Office
402 Shivalik Shilp II, SG Highway, Ahmedabad 380015
Engineering and delivery center
Enterprise Software Engineering - Human + AI
Contact Us
Locations
Global Headquarters
21 Merchant Road, 3rd Floor, Singapore 058267
Main corporate office and leadership operations
North America Office
548 Market Street, PMB 12345, San Francisco, CA 94104
Client operations and business development
India Office
402 Shivalik Shilp II, SG Highway, Ahmedabad 380015
Engineering and delivery center
© 2026 - Copyright. All Rights reserved Oceanlab