Bridges Advisory #56 - April 22, 2005
Printable versionBRIDGES INVITES YOU TO TRY OUT THE UPGRADED HRMS SYSTEM. Maintenance Pack 4 (MP4), an upgrade to the myUFL Human Resources Management System (HRMS), is currently scheduled for the April 29-30 weekend. The university must be current with the latest updates from PeopleSoft in order to receive full technical support and benefit from future PeopleSoft enhancements. Implementing MP4 now will result in additional support to resolve some of the long-term or persistent issues, including HR and eRecruit, Time and Labor, Benefits or Payroll systems.
Bridges invites campus end users to participate in the testing of the HRMS systems. For general users, please go to My Self Service > Payroll and Compensation or Time Reporting and view or print paycheck, enter time or leave, change benefit information, etc. For department administrators who supervise employees, do hiring, job actions, payroll, etc., please go through all of the steps you normally do for hiring, job actions, payroll, approving time, etc.
To participate, you just need to sign on to the mybeta portal with your GatorLink username and password between Thursday, April 21 - Wednesday, April 27. The BETA portal is a test system that you can use to try things out. We use the beta system to confirm that changes we are planning to make to myUFL work properly. Beta and myUFL are entirely separate systems. Nothing you do in the beta system will change anything in myUFL.
As part of the testing, it is very important that we hear from you and your colleagues. This will allow us to identify and correct problems before the upgrade on April 29-30. If you encounter any problems or error messages, please send the following information to mybeta@ufl.edu (beginning Thursday, April 21):
- Your GatorLink username and UFID.
- The navigation you used and the actions you took on the ensuing page.
- The results that happened versus the results you expected.
- The last thing you did if you received an error message, blank screen, etc.
- The exact wording of any error message.
We encourage you to also send your overall impression of the upgrade. Please tell us if you encountered anything unexpected, if you saw a significant change in how you do a specific task, if the system seemed slower or faster, etc. The more information you provide, the more likely we can identify a problem or fine tune the system.
The final maintenance window for April 29-30 upgrade will be announced next week but will run Friday evening through Saturday afternoon. We expect minimal outages to the portal or HR/Payroll systems during this upgrade, but highly recommend that you not do any work during this time. With technical work such as this, there is always a chance of losing any work input during a maintenance window.
HOW TO FIND ALERT NOTICES. The Alert Notices page is maintained by the Academic Technology office. It is accessible from several locations:
- myUFL Portal Sign On Box
- Bridges Web Site under the Assistance section
- UF Help Desk Web site
If you use a browser bookmark for easy access, please use this source link: http://at.ufl.edu/~hdweb/status.cgi.
UF DIRECTORY NOW USES DEPTID INSTEAD OF AUTHORITY CODE. This past weekend a change was made to the UF Directory that will virtually complete the transition to the PeopleSoft Department ID (commonly known as DeptID) as the university's organization identifier. When viewing an individual's record, the Organization ID field, which used to display Auth Codes, is now named the Department ID field and display DeptIDs. Very few legacy systems continue to require the Authority Code and these applications are used by a handful of core users.
The "Adding an Individual to the Directory" instruction guide is updated to reflect this change.
Note to Department Security Administrators: Beginning April 18, DSAs must use the DeptID instead of the Auth Code when requesting security roles. Please use the highest level of the DeptID in the PeopleSoft department tree structure. For example, if 63100000 is requested, the Directory Coordinator will have access to departments 63100000, 63100100, 63100200, etc. For the role of UF_N_DIR_BROWSE_DEMOG_INFO, please use the wildcard of 'ALL' instead of the '****' that you used to use.
NEW UF DIRECTORY COORDINATOR ROLE ADDED TO ARS. The Retrieve Departmental Affiliate role, UF_N_RETRIEVE_DEPT_AFFILIAT, allows departmental personnel to download employee demographic information into a MS Word or Excel file. As noted above, DSAs will need to indicate for which DeptID the Directory Coordinator will have authority to perform this function.
A complete list of Directory end user and core user roles is now available on the Bridges Web site, under Additional Resources on the Directory Services page and the Security services page.
DEPARTMENT ADMINISTRATORS: COMPENSATORY LEAVE CASH OUT. All special and overtime compensatory leave on balance as of May 5 will be cashed out during the pay period ending May 19, 2005. Overtime and special compensatory leave earned after May 5 will be part of the 2005-06 fiscal year balances.
In keeping with past practice, departments are strongly encouraged to require employees to use accrued compensatory leave prior to the cash out to minimize compensatory leave cash-out payments.
Employees may use overtime and special compensatory leave through the end of the fiscal year (June 30), but it must be entered by 5 p.m. on May 17. Please note that this is an earlier deadline than previously published. Any overtime or special compensatory leave remaining on balance after time administration runs the evening of May 17 (balance as of May 5 minus overtime/special comp leave reported to be used between May 6 and June 30) will be cashed out automatically-no additional action is required by the department.
A report is available that indicates which employees have accrued compensatory leave. To access this report, you must have the UF_ER_HRPR_BEN_LEAVE security role. Log into the myUFL portal and navigate to Enterprise Reporting > Human Resources Information > Benefits Information > Leave > Leave Accrual Usage and Balances by Pay Period End Date (PPE) and Department (DEPT)
Please contact Payroll Services at (352) 392-1231 with any questions.
USING ACCRUED COMPENSATORY LEAVE. Employees may use overtime and special compensatory leave through the end of the fiscal year, but it must be entered by 5 p.m. on May 17. Please note that that is an earlier deadline than previously published.
Compensatory leave should be entered accurately for the future date on which the employee will be absent from work.
Exempt and non-exempt employees should navigate to My Self Service > Time Reporting > Report Weekly Elapsed Time. Please refer to the instruction guides on the Bridges Web site. Time and Labor > Instruction Guides > Recording Time.
Regardless of the date through the end of the fiscal year on which the compensatory leave use will occur, it must be physically entered in Time & Labor by 5 p.m. on May 17.
PO DETAIL WITH OPEN ENCUMBRANCE REPORT NOW AVAILABLE. To help campus with the fiscal year end process, the "PO Detail by Business Unit" report in Enterprise Reporting > Financial Information > Purchasing now ties to Commitment Control (KK), and has been renamed "PO Detail with Open Encumbrance."
DETAIL EXPENSE REPORT DRILL-THROUGH NOW DISPLAYS IN LANDSCAPE MODE. A new drill-through has been added to all budget detail cubes in Enterprise Reporting entitled "Operating Expense PDF." Based on suggestions from reporting users, this drill-through is set up to default to a printable PDF in landscape mode for easier viewing of data. We value your input -- keep your ideas and suggestions coming!
PORTAL TIP: SAVING FREQUENTLY USED SEARCH CRITERIA. Quite often we use the same search criteria in our daily jobs. Did you know that you can save search criteria? Saving a frequently used search can save you time when using myUFL.
- Begin from any Advanced Search page. Enter your search criteria.
- Click on 'Save Search Criteria'.
- Enter your search name in the 'Name of Search' box.
- Click 'Save'
- Click 'Return to Advanced Search'
Your search will now appear in the 'Use Save Search' drop down box. You also have the option of deleting any of your saved searches by clicking on the 'Delete Saved Search' link.
NEW INSTRUCTION GUIDES. A new instruction guide is available this week for the following service:
- Directory: Adding an Individual to the Directory (Updated)
For frequent updates about the project, subscribe to the UF Bridges pagelet in the myUFL portal. For a quick tutorial on how to use myUFL, please sign on to the portal and click on Help > How to Use myUFL.
For more information about myUFL systems, visit the Bridges Web site.
For help or support in using the new systems, including the portal, contact the UF Help Desk at 392-HELP or helpdesk@ufl.edu.
