Web Timesheets Project Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Transcription

1 Web Timesheets Project Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) July 15, 2011 The questions in this FAQ are grouped into 3 main categories. The categories are: Project Questions: These questions relate to the project goals and timelines Process Flow Questions: These questions relate to who will do what functions in the Timesheet process flow and when those functions should occur in the new process. Timesheet Functionality Questions: These questions relate to how the online timesheet works and how to navigate it. This section is separated in 4 subsections: 1. Timesheet availability related questions 2. Earnings and recording hours questions 3. Labor accounting related questions 4. Other Note: The answers in this FAQ may change as the pilot progresses. Project Questions: 1. Why is the University working on a web timesheet project? The ITEC committee, which consists of executive level representatives from each MAU, determined that the University s #1 automation priority was to move from the current paper timesheet process to an online timesheet process. See the Web Timesheet project web page for additional information including the anticipated benefits of converting to an online timesheet: 2. How and when will employees get to see the new web timesheet interface? The team will be sending communication to all employees in August 2011 and again in September to update them on the project, provide them the opportunity to view an online demo of the non-exempt web timesheet, and submit a survey to provide their feedback on the new timesheet. 3. How can employees provide feedback to the project team if they have suggestions on how to improve the new web timesheet or the process flow? They will be able to respond to an online survey to provide feedback and suggestions. The survey is in development. The link will be ed to employees along with a link to view an online demo of the non-exempt timesheet in August When will the web timesheets be implemented and available for employee use? The non-exempt timesheet will be implemented by a select pilot group of departments from August through October 2011 in a pilot phase. The exempt timesheet is anticipated to enter the pilot phase in November 2011 if the non-exempt pilot goes well. The team is waiting to set the date the timesheets will be available for all employees until the pilot period is complete. However, it s anticipated that the rollout to employees will begin in Spring

2 5. Who is my MAU web timesheet (WTE) project team representative? Click to 6. Will employees from the extended campuses be included in the pilot program? We have not assigned our pilot groups yet. Each MAU is working on selecting their pilot departments. However some of our team PPAs/CCCs are from the extended sites and we expect that some of our pilot groups will also come from the extended campuses. Process Flow Questions (who does what and when): 7. Who is required to complete a timesheet on a biweekly basis? All non-exempt (Hourly) employees, whether they re regular, term, or temp, must complete and submit an accurate reporting of their hours worked on a biweekly basis. o If that employee is also working on grants, the employee is also certifying the time they worked on the grants for the purposes of complying with grant certification requirements. Exempt employees (Salaried), whether they are Executive, Faculty, or Staff, need only submit a timesheet when: o They have taken leave in the pay period o The employee has worked on grants during the pay period. If the employee works on a grant, they are legally required to complete the biweekly timesheet for the purpose of grant effort certification. 8. What will be the deadline for the employee to complete the timesheet and send the timesheet to the approver? Monday Noon after the pay period end is the deadline we re considering in the new web timesheet process. This should give employees more time to accurately record their actual time worked than the current paper process deadlines. Employees won t have to estimate what they think they ll be working as they have to do in our current paper process. 9. What will be the deadline for the Timesheet Approver to review and approve the web timesheets? Wednesday Noon after the pay period end is the deadline we re considering in the new web timesheet process. This would provide the approvers 2 days to complete their review and approval process. Please note that the system will do a significant portion of the error checking that currently occurs manually during the review period in the paper process. 10. Will exempt employees get paid if a timesheet is not submitted? Yes, they will get paid. However if that employee took leave or is working on a grant a timesheet is required. If no timesheet is received for a grant employee, their labor charges will be moved off the grant and charged to the general fund. 2

3 11. Does the Timesheet Approver have to be the employee s supervisor? No. The Timesheet Approver can be the supervisor or the lead. A lead is the person who oversees the day to day work of the employee, directs their work, assigns work, reviews the employee s work, and/or provides guidance. However, the PPA, CCC, or Fiscal Officer should not be the Timesheet Approver (except for the employees that they actually supervise). 12. Will two approval signatures be available with electronic timesheets? This is a current practice with grants with PIs and the supervisors. While effort certification is required by law, a PI does not need to approve a timesheet unless the employee is not available to certify their time, at which time someone who is aware of how the time was spent must be the approver. There will be training on effort certification and requirements. In most cases, the FYI functionality can be used to provide access to the timesheet and accommodate situations where currently 2 people are approving the timesheet. In rare cases where 2 people actually need to have full approval authority for the timesheet, this can be accommodated. 13. If a Timesheet Approver is not available, who can approve the timesheets? The Timesheet Approver has the ability to set up multiple proxies so that when the Approver is not available, a proxy can perform those functions. A proxy should be peer to the Timesheet Approver, at a level above the timesheet approver, or a delegate that is still at a level above the employees they are approving and has knowledge of the work being performed. The PPA, CCC, or Fiscal Officer is not to be the proxy unless they are actually the peer or next line supervisor to the Timesheet Approver. There should be fewer instances where the Timesheet Approver is not available since the Timesheets are accessible anywhere internet access is available. 14. Will proxy designation have a period of time associated with it? Not as it was delivered to us. The Approver can take the proxy off whenever they choose. Super-users (Payroll staff) can also remove proxies. 15. If the employee is not available, who should enter and submit the timesheet for the employee? The Timesheet Approver or the Approver s proxy. The team is still determining if there will be additional options. Employees will have access to their timesheet from any place that has internet access so there should be fewer instances where the employee is not available. We recognize that there are some employees who work in the field and do not have internet accesses. There will be alternative methods for those employees. 16. Can employees have proxies? Not as the tool was delivered. Only the Timesheet Approver or their proxy can complete a timesheet for an employee who is unavailable. 3

4 17. How will we handle late revisions of timesheets in the new web process? If the employee completed the timesheet by Monday Noon, submitted it to the supervisor, and then realized there was an error: o If it is still before Monday Noon, the employee can pull the timesheet back to themselves using the revise timesheet option, fix the timesheet and resubmit it to the approver. o If it is after Monday Noon but before Wednesday Noon, they can contact their timesheet approver and the Timesheet Approver can return the timesheet back to the employee so the employee can correct the web timesheet and resubmit it. o If the error is caught after Wednesday noon, then a paper revised timesheet will have to be submitted to the payroll office for manual processing. Employees have a longer period of time to complete their timesheet correctly and the system will inform them of many errors as they are entering the timesheet. It s expected that this will reduce the volume of revised timesheets. 18. Will the PPA/CCC/Fiscal Officer have access to review the timesheets? Yes. At this time, we anticipate the PPA/CCC/ & Fiscal Officer will have FYI accesses. With this access type, they will be able to see the timesheets at any stage in the process. However, they will not have the ability to change the timesheets. The team will be reassessing the PPA/CCC/FO accesses and their ability to route or provide comments in the process during the pilot phase. Please note, the new system will be doing a significant portion of the error checking when the employee fills in the timesheet so the PPA/CCC/FO will have significantly less errors and issues to check for in the process. 19. What would someone with an FYI role do if they noticed something was incorrect on the timesheet, such as a Fiscal Manager who is an FYI and notices a wrong FUND or ORG was used? Currently, they would have to use processes outside of the electronic timesheet process to contact the employee or approver. If the error is caught before the timesheets are due, the employee or approver will be able to make the correction. We will be testing this process in the pilot to see if additional FYI accesses are needed. 20. Is there a limit to the number of people that can have FYI access to the timesheets? No limit. Multiple people can be listed as FYI to view employee timesheets. 21. Why do employees working on grants have to complete the timesheet to certify their effort? It is a legal requirement that the effort worked and charged to a grant be certified as true and correct by the employee or a person of knowledge (Lead or Supervisor). The University currently requires this certification to occur on a biweekly basis using the timesheet since that is when the labor charges to the grant accounts. Timesheet Functionality Questions: Timesheet Availability Related Questions: 22. When will a web timesheet first be available for a new employee? 4

5 After the person, job, and timesheet approver information is entered in Banner on PPAIDEN, PEAEMPL, NBAJOBS, and NEA2SPE the employee s web timesheet will be available in UAOnline for the pay period we re in and the following pay period if the job is active. 23. What if a job form has not been entered on time? It depends on what the job form was for. o If it was to start a job for an employee, then it needs to be entered before a web timesheet is available. If the employee does not have the timesheet available to them by the Monday following the pay period, then a paper timesheet will need to be submitted. o If it was for a change to pay or FTE, you may need to contact the payroll office to have a pay adjustment performed. 24. When can employees enter their time on the timesheet? Timesheets can only be entered during the timesheet entry period which will be 2 weeks prior to the pay period begin date thru Monday Noon following the pay period end date. Only jobs active for that pay period will be able to enter a timesheet for that period. Employees can choose to enter their time every day or they can wait and fill in the timesheet on Monday morning after the pay period end date. 25. When an employee has multiple jobs, do they submit multiple timesheets? Yes, there will be separate timesheets for each job just like the current process. Each job can also have its own timesheet approver. 26. How many jobs will be listed on the timesheet selection screen for an employee? For instance we have a student that has been working for a few years and in that time they have had 5 jobs. How far back will it list the jobs? We haven't defined how long timesheets will be available for viewing at this time. We anticipate having at least 2 years available online. All active and terminated jobs that were available during that 2 year period and were setup for web timesheet will be viewable in the list. If there were web timesheets completed for those jobs, those timesheets will be viewable. 27. If an employee has several prior and current jobs listed, what lets them know what jobs they need to fill a timesheet out for and which time periods? Can they only pull up a timesheet for an active job? Current active jobs will appear at the top of the job selection list so the employee can start at the top of the job selection list to select their current jobs. Terminated jobs will also appear in the list if a web timesheet existed. When the employee clicks in the timesheet period drop down for either the active or terminated jobs, only pay periods where the job was active and a web timesheet existed will be listed for viewing. Employees will select the Not Started or In Progress timesheet for their appropriate active job. 5

6 28. Will the current timesheet be the default or must the employees and supervisors always choose the timesheet wanted? The current timesheet due will be highlighted in the drop down menu to assist the employee in selecting the correct timesheet period. However, it will not be the top timesheet in the pull down menu. Timesheets are sorted by date and since we want some future timesheets available, they will appear first in the list. 29. Can there be an option for Approvers to make additional web timesheets available for their employees? Not at this time. We are aware of the situation in regards to researchers and faculty working in the field and are working on various solutions to that issue. However the Banner product, as delivered, does not allow the Timesheet Approver to control timesheet availability. If we make additional timesheets available, they will be available to all employees with active jobs. 30. Do comments made in the comments section of the timesheet go the whole way to payroll or stop at the timesheet approver? The comment stays with the timesheet even after it goes through payroll and becomes part of the permanent record. Earnings and Recording Hours Questions 31. Will holidays be labeled above the dates on the timesheet so employees are reminded of the holiday dates? We are adding a modification to add an H above each holiday day for all employees, even if they do not receive holiday pay, to remind them that there was a holiday. 32. Will holiday hours default onto the web timesheet or will the employee have to manually record them as they do now? Holidays will default into the web timesheet based on the employee s eligibility and be prorated based on their hours per day setup on the job record. The employee will have the ability to move the holiday within the pay period if they had to work the holiday and are taking a different day in the pay period off as the holiday. There will be significant automated error checking in regards to holiday pay and holiday premium pay to help ensure that it is recorded accurately and in the correct pay period. 33. What if someone is not in active status before/after a holiday, will they be given a warning that they will not receive holiday pay? This requirement is currently being looked at for possible modification. We will update you once we know if this will be changing. 34. Will Overtime be calculated automatically or will the employee still have to manually record it? Due to the fact that overtime charges have to be able to be adjusted to charge against different labor accounts and variable jobs, the employee will still have to manually record their overtime on the correct job and what account it should be charged to. However, the system will provide an error message to the employee if the overtime 6

7 amount is calculated incorrectly, telling them the amount of OT they should have and providing other helpful information. 35. What about Overtime or a flex work week? Say the employee worked 10 hours one day and 6 the next; will that be a problem? No, it will work fine. The University calculates overtime based on the full work week, not on hours worked per day. Flex time is not a problem. 36. Overtime for L6070 employees and Firefighters is calculated differently than most employees. Will this be a problem? No, we have taken this into consideration in building our overtime error messages. 37. Will family medical leave be recordable on the web timesheet? Yes, earnings code 601 will be available to the employee to record family medical leave taken as it is on paper timesheets. The system will automatically generate the additional sick leave code to properly cascade, pay the employee, and reduce the appropriate leave buckets. 38. Regarding student earning codes; will the student 050 and 055 work-study codes be defaulted correctly in the new timesheet system? Yes, the 055 or 050 will default appropriately based upon information from the job record. 39. Would anything show if a student entered more hours than allowed? Yes, a warning message will generate if the student works more hours than the job record reflects. However, the warning will not prevent the hours from being recorded since there are situations in which it is allowable for the student to have worked more. Labor Accounting Related Questions: 40. Will the employee have to enter their labor account codes on their timesheets? No. The system will default the labor accounts from the employees job record onto the web timesheet at the point the timesheet is in progress by the employee. If the job record labor accounts are correct, the correct information will be available on the timesheet. If the job record data is not correct, the employee will be able to manually enter the fund and org or search for it and select it from the fund and org search functionality. 41. If the departments will now be responsible for keeping the job record labor account information accurate, will we still have to use the current paper job form process to request changes? No. We are developing a new process that departments will access through UAOnline that will make it easier and more efficient for the departments to keep the job record labor accounts updated and accurate. 42. Is there an error for work-study students if they do not list their hours under both the regular fund and the grant fund? 7

8 Yes, we intend to have an error message if the hours are not recorded to the labor accounts based on the required percentages on the job record. 43. On the current paper timesheet, it can be difficult for employees that work on multiple grants to identify the proper grant labor account codes to record their time worked. Is anything being done to improve this in the web timesheet process? Yes. This is a significant issue because it s critical that the employees be able to recognize the grants so they can comply with the legal requirement that they certify their effort on the grant. We have added the following information to assist the employee in recognizing the labor account codes: o The fund name is visible on the timesheet in addition to the fund code. o The fund researcher name, grant agency, and the end date are viewable when the employee hovers the mouse over the fund code. o The Org name is viewable when the employee hovers the mouse over the Org code. o If the employee needs to add a fund code and is not sure of the code number, the employee can use the fund search functionality and search by a partial fund name, a partial fund code, or the fund researcher name to find the code. o If the employee needs to add an org code and isn t sure of the code number, the employee can use the org search functionality to search on a partial org name or partial code. o The fund name and org name in Banner is configurable to the department s needs so the department can choose a fund and org name that is easier to recognize by the employee. 44. In the current paper process, employees often record their time to labor accounts that are no longer allowed. Will the web timesheet be able to prevent this? The web timesheet will require that a grant and fund be active in the pay period for time to be recorded to it. The employee will only be able to record time on days where both the fund and related grant were active. If either the grant or fund become terminated mid pay period, then the employee will only be able to enter their hours against that grant for the first part of the pay period. If the employee tries to enter time against a terminated grant/fund, then an error message will appear. 45. Will an employee be able to enter hours to the fund if it reopens during that pay run? Yes, as long as both the fund and associated grant are active on that day, the hours can be entered. 46. Is there a way to view the account and program codes even though they will be hidden in the timesheet? Once the timesheets are fed into PHAHOUR, PPA/CCCs can review the account and program codes in PHAHOUR or using the existing payroll reports. The timesheet will not display the account and program code because the Fiscal Officers on the team have stated that they would prefer to use the default codes associated with 8

9 the org number and the ECLS. Therefore, they will be programmatically generated and populated into PHAHOUR at the time the web timesheet is imported. 47. Will the new process prevent hours from being entered if the personnel line item is overspent? We are going to attempt to put a warning message in if the employee enters hours to a labor account that is overspent. However, the employee will still be able to enter and save the hours. It is important to capture hours worked on a project even if they can t be billed to the grant. 48. I saw a labor override button on the approver screen. Will the approver be able to override labor? The labor override link only displays what the original job labor defaults were when the timesheet was initiated. The approver can compare this to the timesheet information to review changes. If the approver identifies an error in labor, they can return the timesheet to the employee for correction and recertification of the effort. The only time an approver should change the labor is if the employee is unavailable to correct it. In that case, the approver is now performing the legally required grant effort certification when they correct and approve the timesheet. 49. I see the possibility of an increase in Labor Reallocations as employees make mistakes or don't know their Fund and Org codes. Is there a way to freeze FUND and ORG so no one can change those boxes? We can't lock fund and org codes since we need the flexibility for those working on grants and other positions that require a frequent change in those codes. Other Questions: 50. What will the retention of these electronic timesheet documents be? What about back up of the data? We have yet to determine how long the timesheets will remain in UAOnline before moving them to Onbase, where we retain the other archived timesheets to meet our records retention requirements. The data is backed up on the same regular schedules as all other Banner data. 51. Will the daily web timesheet data be available to be queried, perhaps via TOAD? Yes, we expect to have the new web timesheet tables available in RPTP and able to be queried against using TOAD if you have the proper security access. We have not started discussion on when these tables will become available and on what refresh schedule yet. 52. What is the legality of not having hard copies of timesheets? Paper copies of timesheets are not required. The law requires records to be maintained. Our web timesheet is an acceptable method to meet our regulatory requirements. The re-entering of the pin by the employee acts as the timesheet signature and 9

10 certification and is information stored in the system. Many other employers across the country use Banner and other systems for electronic time reporting very successfully. 53. How are we addressing recharge services in regards to their activity codes for groups using a work order system? We may have to see if there is another option for these employees since the activity code which ties to their work orders is currently not available in the web timesheet. It s estimated that this may affect approximately 70 employees system wide. We know this issue exists for some GI employees and many facilities employees. Further discussion is needed to find an appropriate solution. This group of employees will not be participating in the pilot. 10