The e-News is a semimonthly electronic newsletter for users of Harvard's financial, human resources, and reporting systems.

Click the links below to learn more about ...

New Process for Hiring Student, Temporary, and LHT Workers to Debut in August   top

A major part of Release 4.0 will be a new PeopleSoft quick-hire process for temporary employees (student and non-student) and less-than-half-time employees (LHTs).

The basis of this process will be three new online forms that can be used to hire temps, student temps, and LHTs directly into PeopleSoft. These Quick Hire forms will:

• require only six pieces of data for each new hire
• import personal information (name, address, etc.) on student employees from the Student Information System (SIS), minimizing data entry
• import previously captured personal information on temps, minimizing data entry, and
• determine whether the action you are taking is to hire, rehire, or add a concurrent job without you having to know in advance or choose the right form. One form will handle all three kinds of transactions for each kind of employee.

There will be two system-based roles associated with the forms: preparers and submitters.

Local security administrators have been asked to submit information about those users who should have preparer or submitter roles to Applications Administration by Friday, August 8. Contact them if you should have access, and find that you do not after the system goes live on August 25.

Important note: Users at FAS and SPH will use local systems, rather than PeopleSoft, to perform these functions. Please consult local resources for more information, including:

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~fasasap/asperin.html
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hr/Wasabi.htm

The Importance of the I-9

As most people know, the federal I-9 form substantiates the citizenship and work eligibility of new hires. Even in the new Quick Hire process (which is electronic), completed I-9 forms will still need to be submitted to FAD Payroll for all new hires.

A person cannot be hired in PeopleSoft — that is, the submitter cannot submit the Quick Hire form to the PeopleSoft database — until the I-9 has been received and entered by FAD Payroll. Payroll has promised a 24-hour turnaround on all submitted I-9s, and will be working with schools to collect I-9s at student registration this fall.

A key change that should make the process work more smoothly is that a new hire can submit an I-9 to Payroll in advance of the actual hire transaction. The data will be entered and stored in a temporary table, awaiting the rest of the steps in the process to be taken.

In order to make the student-temp hiring and payroll process more efficient, the following additional steps will also be taken:

• A direct-deposit marketing campaign, aimed at Harvard student employees, will be undertaken at registration and via direct mail. Harvard will partner with Fleet Bank to provide incentives and make the process very easy for students.
• Checks and advices for student temps will be mailed to their local residence addresses.
• Checks and advices for non-student temps will be to their primary office addresses, unless otherwise requested.
• The comp rate will be added in the Time and Labor record to make it easier to differentiate between otherwise identical-appearing jobs. Cross-reporting of hours to the wrong job was a significant problem last fall.

Training

All users are urged to attend training at the Center for Training & Development, 124 Mount Auburn Street, 3rd floor. Training dates are August 21, 25, 28 and September 3. Coffee will be served at 9:15, class starts promptly at 9:30. Contact your local training registrar to sign up.

Beginning in early September, hands-on labs will also be offered to allow users to get help while processing their actual work.

HR Release 4.0   top

As noted in the previous article, the next major release to the PeopleSoft HR system (HR Release 4.0) is scheduled for August. Please review and take note of the following schedule changes:

• The PeopleSoft system will be down from 5 p.m. on Friday, August 22 until 8 a.m. on Monday, August 25. No transaction processing, queries, or reports can be run during this total system blackout. The Time and Labor modules will also be down, resulting in earlier-than-usual deadlines for time entry and approval.
  
• Specifically, time for the workweek ending Saturday, August 23 must be entered by 5 p.m. on Thursday, August 21. Time administration will be run Thursday night, and time approval must be completed by 5 p.m. on Friday, August 22.

In addition to the new Student / Temp Quick Hire forms, here are the new functions users can expect to see.

• Time and Labor access will be inactivated when an employee terminates. Currently, employees who have terminated can still enter time, though they don’t get paid for it.
  
• Benefit Summary (view only) under employee self-service. This will be available to support Open Enrollment, which runs October 31 through November 13.
  
• Four new reports:

• A set of enhancements to the PeopleSoft-enabled Personnel Action forms:

Financial Administration Offices Closing Early
on July 31    top

On Thursday, July 31, 2003 the Financial Administration offices will be closing at 4 p.m. to allow the employees to attend their annual summer event. As in past years, limited staffing will be present in some departments where emergency services will be available. If you anticipate a special need (or if any emergency arises) please phone the appropriate number listed below no later than 3 p.m. on July 31.

Closing at 4 p.m.
Accounts Payable, 5-5200
Accounts Receivable, 5-4182
Applications Administration, 4-7379
Benefit Payrolls and Reporting, 5-8032
Budget Office, 5-3511
Cash Management/Cash Receipts, 5-1647
Debt Asset Management, 6-6130
Faculty Loans, 5-8858
Financial Data Control, 5-3221
General Accounting, 5-4592
Insurance Office, 5-7971
Risk Management Audit Services, 5-3642
Office for Technology & Trademarks Licensing (Trademark Program), 5-9513
Office for Technology & Trademarks Licensing (Tech Licensing), 5-3067
OSR - Financial Services, 6-2514
Procurement Management (Purchasing), 5-4441
Scholarship Office, 5-3284
Student Loans, 5-3782
Student Receivables, 5-2739
Tax Services, 6-5224
Travel Department, 5-7760
University Financial Aid Liaison Office, 6-2372
University Identification, Data and PIN Services, 5-3322

Limited staffing (until 5 p.m.)
Accounts Payable (Customer Service counter only), 5-5200
OSR - Awards Management, 5-5501
Payroll (Customer Service counter only), 5-9045

Harvard's New Virtual Travel Agent:
Expedia Corporate Travel   top

The Travel and Reimbursement Office has recently formed a partnership with expedia.com to use their online booking product, Expedia Corporate Travel (ECT), which is specially designed for business travel.

Harvard’s exclusive ECT site provides business travelers

• direct access to web fares, published fares and Harvard’s own negotiated fares
• thousands of “Expedia Special Rate” hotels, which may save 20-70% of the standard rate (often a greater discount than the Harvard-negotiated rate), and
• confirmation of the negotiated rate when you reserve a car with one of Harvard’s preferred vendors (Hertz or Avis).

To use the Expedia site, go to www.expedia.com and click on the Corporate Travel tab in the upper-right corner. American Express Corporate Card holders have been pre-registered for the site. Log in using your Harvard e-mail address, excluding everything after the @ sign. The password is "travel." Users will be required to change the password immediately.

If you have not already been registered to use this site, send an e-mail request to fad_travelmgr@harvard.edu. Access to the site is for Harvard employees only. Your login and password should not be given out to a non-employee under any circumstances.

If you have questions, contact us at 496-1321 or fad_travelmgr@harvard.edu, or see the training materials on the Travel Office web site. Trained agents are available at Expedia by calling 1-866-444-4947.

Service fees

Online booking: domestic / international: $5
Agent-assisted booking: domestic $20; international $30

The new Expedia partnership is not intended to replace our four local preferred travel agencies — HTC WorldTravel BTI, Oriental Tours & Travel, Great International, and Travel Collaborative — but rather to provide another low-cost, internet option for Harvard travelers.

New Salary Proration Method to Be Used
for Monthly Paid Employees   top

We are changing the way salary is prorated for employees paid monthly (faculty, postdocs, and teaching fellows and assistants in paygroups MFC, MEP, MIP, and MTF). Beginning with the August paychecks, salaries for these groups will be prorated by calendar days rather than work days. This change will affect people who are hired or terminated in the middle of the month.

Example: The employee is hired on June 16 at a salary of $2,000 per month.

• Under the old workday-based method, the employee would receive $1,047.62 for June using the formula ($2,000 / 21 work days ) x 11 days.
  
• Under the new calendar day-based method, the employee would receive $1,000 for June using this formula ($2,000 / 30 days) x 15 days.

This will affect the way retro amounts owed should be calculated, if new hires, transfers, or salary change data are submitted late.

New Time Types Are Now Available to Record
Comp Time Balances in PeopleSoft   top

Time and Labor administrators were notified on July 18 of two time types that should be used to report comp time balances for overtime-eligible staff as of October 1, 2002 (PeopleSoft go-live).

When PeopleSoft went live in October 2002, employees were able to report comp time earned and taken from October 2002 forward. However, some employees had balances when the system went live.

In order to get accurate balances online in PeopleSoft, two new time types have been created.

• CMPBP (Comp Time Balance Positive) will add to an employee's current PeopleSoft comp time balance
• CMPBN (Comp Time Balance Negative) will subtract from an employee's current PeopleSoft comp time balance

Hours entered using these codes:

• Should be in positive numbers:
  • Negative numbers cause Time Admin to fail.
  • Enter positive numbers for either code, and behind the scenes PeopleSoft will either add the amount to or subtract the amount from the balance that’s been created by time accrued and taken in PeopleSoft.
    
• Will require approval.
• Will not add to overtime, but will only affect comp time balances.
• Can be reported by time reporters, keepers, and adjusters.
• Should not result in more than 24 hours being recorded in a single day. Reporting over 24 hours in a single day can cause Time Admin to fail. If an employee's comp balance is greater than 24 hours, please split the time across multiple days.

Local time administrators should determine the business process for bringing comp time balances up to date. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Tubs need to decide what date to use for reporting the time. The date will have to be on or after Sunday, July 20, 2003, since that is the effective date that the codes were made available in the system. Try to use the same date or range of dates for all employees in your tub to make it easier to keep track of and report on and the hours that have been entered.
  
• If employees have accrued balances in a local shadow system, these balances should be compared and reconciled to the balances in PeopleSoft. Adjust the PeopleSoft balance using CMPBP or CMPBN to make it correct. Then, begin using PeopleSoft to report comp time earned and taken from this point forward to keep the balances up to date.
  
• Existing comp time balances can be viewed through the navigation path Self Service > Manager > View > Compensatory Time Balance. Time adjusters, approvers, keepers, and administrators all have access to this page, and can see balances for any employee in their Group ID.

New Reported Earnings for External Postdocs   top

Beginning with the July 2003 paychecks, many external postdocs became eligible for health and welfare benefits and may see deductions for these on their checks. (For background, read this earlier e-News article.) This has several implications that have been communicated directly to affected employees, but they are provided here for your information.

New and Reorganized Information Available on
HR Reporting   top

HR reporting details merged

The reporting information on the HR Admin page, which had previously been spread across all four tabs, has now been consolidated into a single, unified reporting area. The Reporting tab now contains information on all payroll, Time and Labor, and general HR reports in AWS3 and PeopleSoft. This new arrangement should make it easier to find details on reports and instructions on how to run them.

Understanding HR Data now an Online Class

Another recent change is the addition of the new Understanding HR Data and Terminology online class. Accessible under “Related Resources” on all tabs, this presentation replaces the instructor-led class that introduced the basics of working with HR data in PeopleSoft.

The class covers basic information about the job, personal, and employment records maintained in PeopleSoft, as well as explaining key concepts like action/reason codes and effective dating. This information is still a prerequisite for most of the other HR classes, but it can now be taken at a time and place of your choice, rather than having to wait for a scheduled offering.

Recent Report Enhancements

Reminder on Temp Auto-Termination   top

Don’t forget that the new auto-termination process for temporaries (student and other) will begin August 1. Any student or temp job that has had no hours reported to it over the past six months, and which does not already have an appointment end date, will be given an end date of 30 days in the future. The nightly auto-term process will then terminate these jobs on their scheduled term date. (Any jobs that already have an appointment end date will retain that original date, regardless of how long it has been since hours were worked in it.)

Tubs can review the Term Appointments report and extend an employee’s appointment themselves, if desired.

About the e-News   top

The Financial Administration publishes this semimonthly electronic newsletter for users of Harvard University's financial, HR, and reporting systems, policies, and procedures. Generally, the e-News is published on or around the 12th and 26th of each month.

It contains:

• updates on projects underway to build or improve University administrative systems;
• information about new University policies, procedures, and forms;
• reminders about upcoming deadlines and cut-over dates;
• tips and tricks for working more easily or productively.

We welcome questions and suggestions for improvement from readers. If your questions are of general interest, we will answer them in future issues.

Please send comments, questions, or suggestions for improvement by email to us at: fad_communications@harvard.edu