May 2007 #2 previous issue back issues index by topic e-News home Contact us at: admin_systems_enews@harvard.edu or via the UIS Helpdesk at 6-2001 The Administrative Systems e-News is a monthly electronic newsletter for users of Harvard's financial, human resources, and reporting systems. Special Issue: Absence Management Click here to view the FY2007 Year-End Closing Details from the previous issue. Click the links below to learn more about ... Absence Management:       What is "Absence Management?"         Who will use Absence Management?         Why do we need Absence Management?         How will Absence Management work?         Absence Management High Level Timeline         Vacation Assessment         Web Resources         Absence Management Frequently Asked Questions Upcoming Financial and Reporting System Upgrade Outages Central AR Bad Debt Reserve Policy Changes to the Accounting Section of the General Records Schedule About the e-News

What is "Absence Management?"      top

Beginning June 4, 2007, all administrative/professional staff and clerical/technical staff will begin to use a new online tool in PeopleSoft called "Absence Management" to request, record, and track paid time off. Managers will use this Absence Management tool to approve time-off requests and review their staff's paid-time-off banks. All staff will also be able to see their paid-time-off balances in PeopleSoft. Access to online vacation and other paid-time-off balances ranks among the top HR systems requests from staff and managers, so we are delighted to introduce this new tool for employees.

• Staff will use the new Absence Management to track various kinds of paid time off, including:
• Vacation
• Sick days
• Personal days
• Longer-service bonus days
• Bereavement time
• Jury duty
• Excused absences
• Training/conferences

Who will use Absence Management?      top

The following types of employees will use Absence Management to request and record time-off:

• Administrative and professional staff – both exempt and overtime-eligible
• Clerical and technical staff – both HUCTW and nonunion

The following types of employees will NOT use Absence Management to request and record time-off

• Extended part-time employees (EPEs)
• Postdocs
• Service/trades employees
• Less-than-half-time employees (LHTs)
• Interns

Why do we need absence management?      top

While getting used to a new system will take time, and implementing a new University-wide system will inevitably entail a few bumps in the road, there are a lot of real benefits associated with Absence Management for staff, departments and the University as a whole.

In fact, access to online vacation and other paid-time-off balances has for years ranked among the top requests from staff and managers. The recent upgrade to PeopleSoft version 8.9 provided the necessary technical foundation for this new tool to be implemented.

Employees will be able to view current, accurate time-off balances on demand via the web; they will have a more clearly defined and timely process for requesting and receiving approval for taking time off; and a timely, quick and easy way of reporting absences – no more trying to remember paid time off taken weeks or even a month after it has occurred.

Managers will be able to easily review time-off requests, track staff time-off balances and see a consolidated overview of planned absences for a work group. This online tool will help managers to more easily review and grant PTO requests. Absences will now be entered once, via employee self-service, eliminating duplicate data entry or the need to maintain other paid time off tracking methods. In addition, Absence Management automatically awards time when it is earned and enforces all paid time off maximums. As most people know, effective May 1, 2007, Harvard changed the vacation bank maximums for administrative and professional staff and non-HUCTW support staff:

- those with less than five years of service may bank up to 30 vacation days, and

- those with five or more years of service may bank up to 40 days.

The new tool will also allow the University to improve its recordkeeping and financial accounting for paid time off (staff vacation alone is a $58 million benefit) while ensuring that benefits are equitable across all units. And, by making our record-keeping practices more rigorous and consistent, we can recover several million more dollars annually from our research sponsors.

How will Absence Management work?      top

Basically, absence reporting is a three-step process

Absence Management High Level Timeline      top

While Absence Management will go live on June 4, 2007, the time line for implementation is as follows:

May 2007 - Training (online and classroom) for staff; You should have received an e-mail regarding the training offerings for your role and school. To access on-line courses or learn more about the training visit http://harvie.harvard.edu/ess/absmgmt/.
June 2007 - New system is stabilized; time off balances will be adjusted to reflect final actual time off in May.
July 1, 2007 - New vacation assessment begins.

Detailed Cutover Timeline with Systems Outages

Vacation Assessment      top

Beginning on July 1, Harvard will institute a new assessment on salaries paid to administrative/professional and support staff; the rates will be 10.5% and 9.8% respectively. Proceeds from the assessment will be put into a Central Vacation Fund. When absences are reported and approved online in PeopleSoft, the employee’s salary costing string will receive a credit equal to the salary and benefits for the paid time off. In this way, Harvard will recognize the vacation liability when it is incurred, and reduce the liability when staff take time off. If departmental staff take as much paid time off as they earn in a given period (a month, a quarter, or a fiscal year, for example) there will be no net financial impact on departmental operations. More information about the financial implications of the vacation assessment for departments can be found in these FAQ’s.

Web Resources      top

Still have questions or wondering what to do? Check-out these links on HARVie:

Absence Management Frequently Asked Questions      top

Aside from logging time into a new system, will any policy changes accompany the new tool (Absence Management)?

The major change will be that once employees hit the maximum limit on vacation balances, they will accrue no more vacation until they take enough time off to fall below the maximum. While the University has always prohibited vacation accruals above the maximum, the practices have varied from unit to unit. Harvard will use the new system to standardize the practice across the University. And, as most people know, the vacation bank maximums were reduced on May 1.

What other policy changes will people notice?

Several longstanding University policies/guidelines will become more visible in the new system, including:

• Minimum increments of time that staff can report are ¼ hours for non-exempt (hourly) staff, and ½ days for exempt (administrative and professional) staff. So if you are exempt and you take time off that is less than a half day, it does not need to be reported in the Absence Management system. You will not be ‘charged’ for this time off, just as you are not paid more for time you work beyond 35 or 40 hours per week.
  • One apparent contradiction you will see is that time for both nonexempt and exempt people is displayed in hours. While time will not be tracked in hours for exempt staff, we needed to use the lowest common denominator of time across both kinds of employees in the system.
• Monthly vacation time will be awarded (and show up in Absence Management) on the 16th of each month. Personal time is awarded as a lump on Jan. 1.
• Requests for vacation time should be made in advance and need to be approved by a manager/supervisor

Will I be able to see our vacation, sick, personal day balances on June 4?

May 31st balances will be in the system when the system goes live on June 4. However, because that information had to be loaded into Absence Management for every staff member, the cut-off for local units to submit the data was mid-May. Therefore, any paid time off that you took in the last half of May might not be included. Your paid time-off balances should be adjusted and correct by June 30, 2007. Aside from this late-May lag time, the balances should otherwise be accurate; if you see something that is seems seriously inaccurate, contact your manager or local HR officer.

Why is it important to enter vacation, personal, sick time, etc. quickly? I used to just log it once a month (or less).

Employees should report any absences in advance (if planned) or as quickly as possible after the fact, and within the deadlines described above. While there will not be any adverse pay effect on an employee for late reporting of absences, it can adversely affect a department’s budget by delaying the timely reimbursement of funds from the vacation fringe pool.

Timely reporting is even more important for employees paid through sponsored grants, where late reporting of absences is not consistent with the terms governing Harvard’s new agreement with our federal research sponsors about how these costs will be tracked.

What if an employee puts in their absence weeks or months later?

If an employee enters an absence weeks or months later, it has no impact on his/her pay. The employee gets ‘regular’ pay instead. However, the department does not get a “credit” for the time taken, so the budget is not relieved. And, on sponsored accounts, we will be violating our agreement with federal research sponsors about how we will account for employee vacation costs.

Once the time has been entered and approved, the accounting will be adjusted with no impact to the employee’s gross or net pay. If submitted months later, however, the financial reporting period has likely closed and expenses have already been charged. Late reporting has an impact to department’s financial reports as well as the accuracy of the employee’s balances.

What if I forget to enter a vacation or sick day?

If you did not report an absence for a prior week (or a prior month in the case of exempt staff), please contact:

• Your Absence Adjuster for absences that occurred less than 60 days ago.
• Your Absence Administrator for absences that occurred more than 60 days ago.

If you are unsure who this is for your department, contact your manager or local HR officer for assistance.

What if I need to change an approved absence request?

If you have submitted an absence request for a future week but now have decided you will not be taking the time off:

• Future Week Request: Cancel the request in Absence Management.
• Current Work Week Requests: Only your manager (Approver/Adjuster/Administrator) can cancel request for the current work week. Please contact your manager by no later than 12 noon on Friday to cancel your submitted request.

What are the desktop standards for using Absence Management?

To view the desktop standards for using Peoplesoft applications including Absence Management please visit http://able.harvard.edu/other/DesktopStandards.pdf. If you encounter a problem on a computer that does not meet the desktop standards, we may not be able to help you. Your computer may not be powerful enough to use the systems easily, or your operating system or browser may be in conflict with the applications themselves.

What if I need further assistance?

Upcoming Financial and Reporting System Upgrade Outages      top

Due to a scheduled upgrade to University financial and reporting systems, users should expect the following systems outages during the month of June 2007.

• Oracle Financials will be unavailable after close of business on Friday night, June 8 until 6 a.m. on Monday, June 11
• CREW Reporting Application and Ad Hoc environments will be unavailable as follows in order to install the scheduled CREW APP 1.4.4 & CREW FIN 3.2.2 releases.
  • Unavailable from 5:00pm, Friday, June 8 to approximately 11:00 am on Monday, June 11
    • CREW Financials, Grants Management, Student Data Warehouse, & CAPS reporting, and DWCENPRD & HDWUTS ad hoc reporting.
  • Unavailable from 5:00pm, Friday, June 8 to 7:30 am on Monday, June 11
    • CREW Human Resource reporting only; ad hoc on DWHRPRD unaffected.

Details on the release will be covered in the upcoming June eNews.

Central AR Bad Debt Reserve Policy      top

The bad debt reserve contribution will be calculated by using the bad debt expense, less any recoveries received, for each of the prior three fiscal years. These numbers are then divided by the net sales for each year. The average bad debt expense ratio for the prior three years will then be multiplied by the tub's current year June 30th receivables balance. Starting in FY07 only reserve contributions of $5,000 or more will be posted to the General Ledger. Any balances less than $5,000 will be returned to the tub.

Changes to the Accounting Section of the General Records Schedule      top

The Finance section of the General Records Schedule (GRS) has been significantly revised.  This revision includes the addition of new series governing the retention of sensitive credit information and associated revision of existing series.  The revised section will also better address the University accounting system. These changes are designed to reflect new information security regulations protect the University and those who do business with it.  Please refer to the on line version of the General Records Schedule at http://grs.harvard.edu/0400.shtml to view these changes.   A pdf version can be found at http://hul.harvard.edu/rmo/restricted/GRS_New_Finance_Section.pdf  Users of the hard copy version of the General Records Schedule should print this section and include it in their copy of the schedule.

About the e-News   top

The Center for Workplace Development publishes this electronic newsletter for users of Harvard University's financial, HR, and reporting systems, policies, and procedures. The e-News is generally published on or around the 15th 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: admin_systems_enews@harvard.edu.

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