September 2008 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. Click the links below to learn more about ... PeopleSoft Release 21 Outage Information and Release Details: New Employee Data Collection Functionality and other Goodies HRMS Updates: Enhancements to CREW HRMS and Changes to Objects in the Harvard Data Warehouse (DWHRPRD) Windows Vista Not Supported for Use with Harvard's Administrative Applications Federal Work-Study Program Policy & Payroll Procedures for On-Campus Work-Study Employers & Payroll Personnel USAiways Shuttle Fares to Increase About the e-News

PeopleSoft Release 21 Outage Information and Release Details: New Employee Data Collection Functionality and other Goodies    top

Due to HR Release 21.0, PeopleSoft will be unavailable starting Friday, September 12th at 2:00pm until Monday, September 15th at 8:00am. Additionally, HIRES transmissions to PeopleSoft will not be possible during this outage.

PeopleSoft Release 21 Changes

A. HR Changes/Enhancements

1. New Pages/Uploads

On September 15th, HR departments will have the access to new PeopleSoft pages and uploads that capture employee data on:

• Licenses and certifications they hold along with expiration dates
• Native language and/or languages they have proficiency in reading, writing, and/or speaking
• Honors and awards they have received

These new pages eliminate the need for HR departments to track this data in a shadow database or Excel spreadsheet.

If you have questions on using these new pages and/or the upload processes, please contact Deb Tarini at 5-1352 or debbie_tarini@harvard.edu.

2. Additional Changes in Release

Job Data Change Form

• HR departments can now enter the Expected Return Data (optional) on the Job Data Change form when processing non-disability leave of absences. This field is informational only. It does not trigger a return action nor is it maintained by Benefits Services.
• HR departments can now enter the HIRES requisition number into the Job Data Change to tie back their PeopleSoft hiring actions (PRO, XFR, DEM) with the HIRES application.

Education Data Page

• School description (derived from school code) now displays full name of school (up to 60 characters)

B. Absence Management Changes in Release

Changes for Absence Administrators

• Balance Adjustment Inquiry page – A new page has been created that displays all balance adjustments for an employee. This page will appear within the Global Payroll menu at: Global Payroll & Absence Mgmt>Payee Data>Adjust Balances>Balance Adjustment Inquiry page. Enter the HUID and the page will return a list of your adjustments and the associated accrual calendar.
• Absence Event page - Duration has been added to the Absence Event page to assist Absence Administrators in making modifications to absence requests (see image below). Duration will now be calculated (or recalculated) when the Absence Event page has been saved. Changes made on the Absence Event page will now be reflected on the Absence Request History pages in Employee and Manager Self Service.

Changes for Absence Approvers and Adjusters

• Absences cancelled by a different manager than the one who approved the absence will now be deleted from the system like standard cancelled absences. Prior to this fix, if the absence was re-entered, the system would generate an error message that an absence already exists for the same start/end date and absence type.
• When searching by Harvard ID, Employee Record and Employee Status have been added to search results on the Manager Self Service pages.
• Retired employees will now be available in Absence Management, similar to terminated employees, allowing balance and absence request history inquiries.
• Half-Day Holiday – The half-day holiday will now be correctly reflected in the duration calculation. Employees requesting 12/24 off should report this as a full day, however when the Duration is calculated the system will automatically reflect the time as a half day.
• Employees with multiple jobs will no longer see terminated jobs show up in the search results on pages in Employee Self Service.

HRMS Updates: Enhancements to CREW HRMS and Changes to Objects in the Harvard Data Warehouse (DWHRPRD)  top

CREW HR REL 21.0 Release Notes

CREW HR Release 21.0 will be deployed into production on 9/15/2008.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the UIS Helpdesk at 496-2001 or uis_helpdesk@harvard.edu.

Thank you,
The Harvard Data Warehouse and CREW Human Resources (Information Management Services) Reporting teams.

Windows Vista Not Supported for Use with Harvard's Administrative Applications       top

It has recently been discovered that some of Harvard's Oracle financial applications will not work in conjunction with the Windows Vista operating system. Windows Vista is not supported to work with any of Harvard’s administrative applications and is not recommended for use at this time. The problem reported with Vista is that the latest Windows operating system does not support the J-initiator, the software plug-in that lets Harvard’s Oracle financial applications work with web browsers, and Oracle has no plans to develop a supported version of the J-initiator on Vista. The issue will be resolved with Release 12. Harvard is currently running Release 11i of Oracle Financials. FAD Systems Solutions and the Office for Administrative Services are investigating possible workarounds to this issue.

A reminder that the University Desktop Standards provides the list of currently supported operating systems for all Harvard’s administrative applications. Here are the current desktop standards for the University’s Financial Applications:

IT Departments and tub officials should always consult the Desktop Standards before proceeding with installation of any new operating systems in their units.

The Oracle Financial Applications are:

Please send any questions to the Help Desk (6-2001) or uis_helpdesk@harvard.edu. .

Federal Work-Study Program Policy & Payroll Procedures for On-Campus Work-Study Employers & Payroll Personnel    top

Information can also be found in the Employers section of the Student Employee Office (SEO) website: www.seo.harvard.edu

Confirming Federal Work-Study Eligibility:

Administrators hire students one of two ways: using the “Quick Hire Form” in PeopleSoft or creating an Appointment in Asperin. Neither of these systems verifies student Federal Work Study eligibility and often allows administrators to overlook an important requirement of the Federal Work-Study Program (FWSP): the referral form. Many students think they are eligible for work-study when in fact, they are not. As an employer, the referral form is your only confirmation prior to hiring them into the payroll system. The referral form verifies a student’s eligibility, as determined by each student’s financial aid office.

The On-Campus Referral Form is a federal requirement and a requirement in the University-wide audit. It is a requirement for every student hired with work-study earnings. Please make sure you have a referral form for every student for whom you hire with WST coding. Besides providing important information about the student and their FWSP award, it plays a crucial role in the annual University-wide audit. Undergraduates complete the on-campus referral form online with their employer. Upon submission of the undergraduate online referral form, the SEO will send an e-mail notification to the employer and employee verifying the eligibility status and earnings ceiling for the academic year. Graduate students retrieve the on-campus paper referral form from their financial aid office. The paper referral form for graduate students will provide the earnings ceiling and signature of the Graduate School’s Financial Aid Officer, which serves as confirmation of a student’s eligibility.

08-09 FWSP Dates, Wages & Forms

Undergraduate Students:
Dates: September 15, 2008 – May 23, 2009
Pay Rate: $9.25 -$12.15
Undergraduate On-Campus Referral Form

Graduate Students:
Dates: Determined by your Financial Aid Office.
Pay Rate: $9.25 -$17.65
On campus paper referral form available at graduate school’s financial aid office.

Hiring Procedures:

When you set up a student employee in PeopleSoft or Asperin, you are asked for a job code. For term-time, on-campus work, that code is always 700030 (HU Student – On Campus) for all students, including work-study students. Then you are asked to fill in the rest of the coding.

To ensure that students are properly placed on Work-Study and the employer's share is charged to the correct account, on-campus employers (those having access to the University payroll system) should charge 100% of the student's wages to:

Employer's Tub, Org, Fund, Activity, Sub-Activity, and Root.

The proper FWSP object code is 0139 (Term-Time) for all undergraduates and all graduate students, 0147 (Summer) (wages + fringe) for all undergraduates and all graduate students.

Please Note: When hiring in Asperin the object code will default to 6110. Refer to http://www.seo.harvard.edu/federal/payroll.html for links to PeopleSoft and Asperin hiring instructions.

Payroll Procedures:

All student employees are paid by the hour and must report the hours they work. Different departments manage time reporting in different ways, and the student's supervisor is responsible for telling students how they should enter hours for their job(s). The hours should be entered with a time type WST, rather than REG. This will flag the hours as part of the FWSP and coding will be adjusted appropriately.

At the end of each month, the payroll system automatically splits the gross wage, charging 30% (plus 8% FICA and workers’ compensation during the summer) to your department’s fund number and object code 6110 or 6120 (summer). The remaining 70% is charged to the FWSP fund number 100005.

To meet the federal requirement that FWS students make "satisfactory academic progress", the University has limited the time students may work to 20 hours a week while classes are in session and 40 hours a week during vacations. There is no compensation for sick days or legal and religious holidays. Finally, students may not earn more than their earnings ceiling which is determined by the financial aid office.

(Please note, it is the employer’s responsibility to monitor the amount that a student has earned and if he/she earns more than the ceiling, anything earned over the ceiling will be journalled back to the department).

Please note that if there is not a referral form on file, the SEO cannot use federal funds to cover the wages of a student and will be forced to journal any wages back to the departmental budget directly.

The SEO receives a monthly wage report of all students paid on work-study object codes and must determine which students are eligible for work-study. Incorrectly charged wages present many problems for financial aid offices and those responsible for federal reporting.

A wealth of information about the work-study program payroll procedures is available on the Student Employment Office website. Please do not hesitate to contact us at (617) 495-2585 if you have any questions.

USAiways Shuttle Fares to Increase   top

Harvard’s fares on the USAirways Shuttle will be increasing effective September 15, 2008. The new fares will be based on a percentage discount off the unrestricted coach base fare. In addition, we will now receive 15% off the lower priced, non-refundable shuttle fares and 20% off the first class and restricted coach fares.

While our fares are increasing, Harvard continues to have one of the lowest negotiated shuttle fares in Boston. To receive the Harvard discount, you must book through one of our Travel Agency Partners or participate in the USAirways CAPS Shuttle Discount program. Information about our Travel Agency Partners and the CAPS program can be found at www.travel.harvard.edu.

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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