University Human Resource Services
Bloomington
Personnel RepresentativesNews and Special Announcements
Change in the E-Doc Release Schedule | Adverse Working Conditions Policy | Decision to delay the load of budget data | E-Doc News Flash | Monthly Pay Dates Change | New Release of E-Doc System | Modification to PTO Revisions
Change in the E-Doc Release Schedule
Please see the announcement below from the HRMS Project Manager. This change in the E-Doc release schedule will delay the availability of the new mass E-Doc to process multiple pay rate changes and terminations for hourly and student employees. Since the mass update functionality will not be available until the Sept/Oct timeframe, you will need to submit individual employee E-Docs for any activity effective prior to the Fall release.
Thursday, June 17th release - delayed
Yesterday, a message was sent to HRMS users providing details for the next E-Doc release scheduled for Thursday, June 17th. We have recently encountered problems during testing which will require a delay in the deployment of Thursday’s release.
We are currently working to resolve these problems. However, at this point an alternative date for the release has yet to be determined. We anticipate no more than a two week delay and will provide an update as soon as possible.
E-Doc Release scheduled for July 31st - delayed
Due to the delays with the above preceding release the next E-Doc release which was scheduled for July 31st will be delayed as well. The functionality to be included in this release included:
- Mass E-Doc - the ability to update multiple employee records via one document
- Usability changes - primarily involves side by side “before and after” view for all E-Docs.
- Enhancements to the Add Person document - ability to add international employees and affiliates
- Enhancements to E-Doc error handling
At this point, the exact date for this release/functionality has not been finalized. However, we anticipate a release including this functionality to occur between mid-September and early October.
We apologize for these delays. The problems we have encountered were unanticipated.
Adverse Working Conditions Policy for Staff Employees
As you may know, Physical Plant has provided notification that some campus buildings will experience a disruption in the amount of chilled water supplied for air conditioning during a project to replace some of chillers. During this project it is expected that chilled water will be in short supply and require rationing. As a result, some buildings will likely experience higher than usual temperatures.
UHRS thought this would be a good opportunity to provide some guidance to managers, especially for departments affected by these temperature conditions:
- Determine if assigning affected employees to work in a different location is feasible. Some types of work may even be conducive to working from home. Consult with UHRS prior to instituting a work from home arrangement.
- When appropriate, consider relaxing the dress code for the unit by permitting employees to wear business casual or casual attire (within reason).
- Depending on electrical capacity in specific areas, provide or allow employees to bring in fans to help circulate the air.
Reduce lighting and the use of unnecessary PCs and other equipment - they add to the heat. - Allow employees who simply cannot manage the temperature level to take the time off using their accrued time or without pay (which, for hourly employees, is the only option for time off.)
Keep in mind that as provided under the University’s Adverse Working Condition policy, a department head may release an employee from work with no loss of pay only when all three of the following conditions have been met: when the department closes due to adverse working conditions; when it is the balance of a workday; and when approval is received from the appropriate chancellor or vice president.
Let UHRS know if there are questions of if this office can be of specific assistance.
Decision to delay the load of budget data
HRMS E-Docs Users:
A decision has been made to delay the load of budget data into HRMS PeopleSoft. The budget load is now tentatively scheduled for the evening of June 11. For those of you who have been told to hold transactions involving budgeted employees and positions until after the budget data loads, that obviously means you will have to wait an additional week. All other guidelines you have previously received from your respective HR offices still hold true. This includes budget load specific instructions as well as normal payroll closing deadlines.
A few key reminders:
The HRMS system currently has checks in place to make sure an 'in progress' E-Doc is still valid based on the data in the PeopleSoft database. E-Docs enroute on June 11th will be disapproved automatically by the system if the transaction impacts an employees’ job row loaded by the budget process. The ‘disapprove’ will occur the next time the document is opened from an Action List. A message has been sent to all E-Doc initiators highlighting this process. Departmental E-Doc initiators/approvers will need to be aware of Acknowledgements generated via the automated disapproval process. New E-Docs will need to be initiated to replace those disapproved.
University Human Resources can not do any entry/approvals into PeopleSoft on Thursday or Friday of each payroll closing week. Coupled with the fact that only HIRES can be approved on Wednesday of that closing week, and TIME E-Doc entry deadlines are earlier than non-TIME, our office is looking to departments to closely follow the eDocs Action List delivery guidelines published each month on UHRS’ Personnel Reps website.
For staff terminations, adjustment vouchers need to be received by Beth East two days prior to payroll closing. Only original vouchers are accepted, and for exempt employees, original signed PTO cards are needed for the current year, and 2002, 2003 if applicable.
Budget Load - for those union represented bi-weekly employees who promote, transfer, etc, after the budget is loaded, departments will not need to process E-Docs to give the July 1st increase - UHRS will do that automatically. For exempt employees who promote, transfer, etc., after the budget is loaded, departments will need to process E-Docs if a July 1st (or August 1st) salary is different from the budgeted amount, or a new HIRE prior to July 1st is to receive a different salary on July 1st. Please contact your UHRS processor for any questions regarding E-Docs.
E-Doc News Flash
Last year your department was provided with “one-time” spreadsheets displaying all of your hourly and student hourly employees. This was your “one-time” opportunity to process a “mass” update to hourly employee job records, indicating multiple pay rate changes and terminations - no individual employee E-Docs were required for these employees. Since that time, individual employee eDocs have been necessary to process any pay rate changes and terminations.
The HRMS Project Team is currently working on a mass E-Doc that will accommodate multiple pay rate changes and terminations for hourly and student hourly employees. The target date for releasing these E-Docs is with the July 31st release.
If your department has multiple pay rate changes and/or terminations that can wait for the July 31st release, then please do so. Otherwise, you will need to submit individual employee E-Docs for any activity effective prior to the bi-weekly pay period beginning August 1st (8/1/2004 - 8/14/2004).
Monthly Pay Dates Change
For some time now, the timing of the monthly pay date has been confusing to many faculty and exempt staff. Sometimes it has been the first of the month, sometimes a date in the previous month. And, there is also confusion about which month's work the pay is for.
Beginning in 2004, the monthly pay date will always be the last business day of the month, and will reflect pay for that month. The only exception to this will be the December pay, which will continue to be paid on the first business day of January. Please notify all of your monthly-paid employees of this change.
Hopefully, this will be much clearer to employees, and will allow them to plan their budgets more consistently. Unfortunately, we cannot change the date of the December pay, because (among other reasons) it would create a situation where employees would have 13 payments in one year, and there would be adverse tax consequences.
If you have any questions, please contact Harriet Fierman, Director, IU Payroll ( )
New Release of E-Doc System
A new release of the Electronic Document system is scheduled to go into production over the upcoming weekend. This release will include improvements to the Electronic documents themselves as well as the Eden workflow functions. Over the weekend, Phase 4 of the Student implementation will also be put into production. Below is a summary of the key e-Doc enhancements for this release. Keep in mind that the system will be unavailable over the weekend as the new functionality is tested and moved into production. Our online documentation is being revised to reflect these change and should be available on the SOS site on Monday.
Electronic Document enhancements (including Eden workflow improvements):
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Tracking changes: changes from the current PeopleSoft record as well as any changes to editable fields during routing and approval will be automatically attached as notes when the document is routed or approved.
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Job indicator logic: PeopleSoft requires that an employee have exactly one Primary job at any given date during employment. Payroll and Benefits are both heavily reliant on this field and invalid choices can result in benefit program termination. As such, eDoc logic has been implemented to avoid common error situations.
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'Create Position': The interface has been modified to better distinguish between the creation of Pooled and Appointed positions.
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Create/Maintain Additional Pay': Display more information from the employee’s job row to which the additional pay is attached (labeled as “Home”).
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Create Summer Pay' will have its own link in OneStart.
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Acknowledgements: Certain types of acknowledgements generated by eDocs (historical Admin Posts) will be removed.
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Fiscal/UPAA Delegation: the link in OneStart for “Alternate Action List” has been renamed to the more descriptive “Delegate Action List.”
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Fiscal/UPAA Routing: after initiation, a document was previously routed to the Fiscal Approver and then the University Personnel Action Agent. That order has now been reversed, it will route to the UPAA and then the Fiscal Approver.
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Action List: a number of changes have been made to improve the interface for high volume users. These optional features include filtering and enhanced navigation.
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Quickfinder: the results returned by searching within a particular quickfinder have been reformatted to resemble that of the Document Search results.
In addition to our HRMS changes, the SIS project is implementing new functionality with its Phase 4 release. Phase 4 include parts of Student Financial, Financial Aid, and Student Records/Registration.
To All Personnel Representatives:
This is a modification of a recently distributed memorandum describing revisions to the procedure for recording the use of Paid Time Off (PTO) for exempt Staff employees. Based upon comments received, new material has been added (in italics) to help clarify a number of points.
The procedure for recording the use of PTO contains the following two new steps:
The use of PTO must be submitted (to the unit’s record keeper for payroll) at least monthly, and
At the end of each month, the employee and the supervisor are to confirm that the record is accurate and make any corrections if necessary. This does not mean that a face-to-face meeting has to occur. The purpose is to show that each has done a monthly review of the record. If discrepancies cannot be resolved, contact UHRS. The supervisor and employee are to initial the form monthly. E-mail messages or notations on electronic records are appropriate alternatives to initials on a paper form.
The university’s form, Paid Time Off (PTO) Record and Instructions, has been revised to incorporate these two new steps. The form is available on the UHRS Web site at www.indiana.edu/~uhrs/policies/nonunion/10.0/10.6.html and on the FMS Web site at www.fms.indiana.edu/payroll/prforms.asp.
The full, five-step procedure for recording the use of PTO has been added to the policy, Paid Time Off for Staff in the PA Time Off Program, at the above UHRS Web site. As they appear in the policy, the five steps are:
a. PTO is to be submitted at least monthly to the employee’s department or to an office designated by the campus.
b. The use of PTO and all other categories of time off are to be maintained on the university-provided record or a comparable paper or electronic record. (A comparable record must meet two criteria: provide for monthly recording of time off and provide for the employee’s and supervisor’s monthly confirmation of the record’s accuracy.)
c. At the end of each month, the supervisor and employee are to review the record to confirm its accuracy, make any corrections if necessary, and initial the form. Email messages or notations on an electronic record are appropriate alternatives to initials on a paper form; a face-to-face meeting is not required.
d. In January of each year, the department head is to review the previous year’s record confirming its accuracy.
e. The record is then submitted to the campus-designated office in a format established for the campus. (At Bloomington, the year-end balances are reported to FMS-Payroll.)
This procedure permits the use of recording instruments other than the university-provided form. Some units use other electronic or paper forms or forms available in software packages. This is acceptable as long as the five steps listed above are followed.
The revised form replaces the FMS-issued “blue card” which some departments use. Discard any unused blue cards and do not use them for 2004. Departments that will use the new university-provided form are to print it from the above UHRS or FMS Web site. Departments may also save and customize the form as an Excel file, if they wish to record the use of PTO electronically.
Please ensure that the supervisors in your unit and their exempt Staff employees are familiar with the new PTO recording procedures. Departments with employees classified as PANE should continue to use the procedures for recording time off that have been established for them. Departments with exempt Staff employees in the PB time off plan should modify their procedures for recording of time off for these employees to also provide for monthly recording of the time off and the supervisor’s and employee’s monthly review of the record.
Use of Paid Time Off: The rules for the use of PTO have not changed. However, there were a number of requests to include a summary of the rules. The full policy on PTO is on the UHRS Web site referenced above.
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Employees must have supervisory approval to use PTO, preferably in advance.
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Employees who encounter a personal or family illness or an emergency may charge the time off to PTO.
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Employees must take PTO in full-day increments unless using it to cover a reduced work schedule authorized under a Family and Medical Leave of Absence or a Worker’s Compensation covered absence under which PTO can be charged on an hour basis. (Absences that are less than one day are not to be charged to accumulated PTO or taken without pay except as provided under FMLA. Partial day absences cannot be “saved up” until they equal eight hours and then charged to PTO).
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Employees can use PTO on the first day of the month following the month it is earned.
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Employees cannot “borrow” future earnings of PTO with one exception: if a new employee has not earned enough PTO to cover a department’s closing between Christmas and New Year holidays.
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Employees can use as much PTO as they earn from January 1 to December 31 of each year (30 or 36 days). This limit does not apply to use of PTO for a Family and Medical Leave of Absence.
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Employees can use PTO to cover military training not covered by the provisions of the policy, Leaves for Military Duty. Such usage does not count toward the maximum amount employees can use each year.
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Employees may carry over unused PTO up to their annual accrual of 30 or 36 days to the next calendar year. This does not increase the annual allowance for the next year, but does allow employees to use the time earlier.
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At the end of each year, 100% FTE employees may allocate up to a maximum of 12 days of unused PTO to a sick leave account. There is no limit on the total amount of time an employee may have in her or his sick leave account.
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Employees may use time from their sick leave account to cover personal or family illness.
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Work performed in addition to the regular work hours is customary with professional responsibilities. Exempt employees do not receive pay or additional time off for work beyond the regular workday or workweek. However, under unusual circumstances, departments may authorize additional time off after an employee has worked extra hours for a sustained period or as part of an extraordinary workload. See the personnel policy “Work Hours for Exempt Staff” on the UHRS Web site for details.
Note: The new PTO card has one revision. The University Service Credit line is not needed and has been removed. If you have already started using a card with it on it, the line may be ignored.
Page updated: 20 January 2004
UNIVERSITY HUMAN RESOURCE SERVICES
Poplars E165, 400 E. 7th St., Bloomington, IN 47405 • (812) 855-2172
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Indiana University is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer
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