Important Systems Change Coming Soon: New ASPIRE system to replace HIRES for all administrative/staff hiring University-wide

On Monday, February 8, 2010, Harvard will implement a new recruitment management system called ASPIRE for all administrative and staff positions at the University. This change will affect job applicants and hiring managers, as well as recruiters and departmental administrators who currently use HIRES to post jobs, review resumes, close out job requisitions, and transmit hiring transactions to PeopleSoft.

The Harvard HR community is actively preparing for this change. Efforts are underway to develop and test the new system, remap local hiring processes, brief managers and stakeholders, and attend end-user training. To learn why Harvard is making this change, and get a basic overview of the how the new system and process will work, review this presentation.

Cutover/Black-out Planning

As cutover to the ASPIRE system draws near, please be aware of the following deadlines and blackout dates.

1. The HIRES system will be unavailable for all actions relating to staff hiring beginning at noon on Friday, January 29. Please make every effort to post jobs, conclude searches, hire candidates, and close out job requisitions before Friday, January 29.
2. All posted jobs and applications received as of noon on Friday, January 29 will be transferred to the new ASPIRE system through an automated data conversion process.
3. Beginning on Monday, February 1st and during the rest of the "cutover," HIRES will only be available to view job requisitions for staff positions, and related candidate information. However, actions on staff positions (including the ability of applicants to apply for a job) cannot be done online in HIRES during the black-out period.
4. To process a hiring action during the cutover, use the PeopleSoft HIRE/Rehire/Addl Job Form. This can be found in PeopleSoft at Harvard Processes>Entry/Forms. Once ASPIRE goes live, there will be an automated process to transmit new hires to PeopleSoft (as HIRES does currently.)
5. Faculty/academic recruiting can resume in HIRES on Monday, February 1 and will not be impacted by the cutover to ASPIRE for staff recruiting.
6. At this writing, the project team plans to provide access to ASPIRE Recruiter (the administrative module of the system) several days before the "public" go live on February 8, so that Harvard recruiters and departmental administrators can view their converted data, do any needed "clean-up", and post new requisitions they have been holding during the cutover. Administrative users will be notified when the system is available.

In summary, this means that the transaction "black-out period" for the HR users will be from noon on Friday, January 29th to Friday, February 5th (the latter date is tentative and approximate). However, hires that need to be processed can be done directly in PeopleSoft. Please plan your recruitment activities during this week-long period accordingly.

New User Security Requests

After go-live, new user security requests for ASPIRE should be submitted to your ASPIRE/HIRES Authorized Requestor (AR). The current list is available at http://vpf-web.harvard.edu/fss/docs/pdfs/hires_ar_list.pdf.

How users will access the new system

To search for open positions and apply for jobs, candidates should be directed to Employment @Harvard. Employment@Harvard can also be reached via the Harvard homepage by selecting About Harvard>Employment.

• Once on the Employment website, candidates will have access to three specialized gateways, or portals: one for external candidates for staff positions; one for internal candidates for staff positions; and one for faculty/academic job seekers.
• The latter gateway will take candidates for faculty/academic positions to the current system at www.jobs.harvard.edu for several more months. After that, all Harvard recruiting will occur in ASPIRE.
• Links to the gateway for internal candidates will also be provided on HARVie.

Although candidates will reach ASPIRE via Employment@Harvard, recruiters, HR officers, and departmental administrators will access ASPIRE Recruiter via the HR intranet or the Recruiter's iSite.

Questions?

If you have questions about the ASPIRE implementation, please contact your Local Implementation Manager or ASPIRE Project Associate Chelsey Platt (6-1696).

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Calendar Year 2009/2010 Tax Information

The following calendar year (CY) 2009 and 2010 tax information is provided by University Financial Services:

Social Security tax wage base is unchanged; the wage base for CY2010 is $106,800.

Individuals who met the Social Security tax maximum in 2009 ($106,800) may see an increase in Social Security tax withholding effective 1/1/10. For the new calendar year, you are now subject to the Social Security tax (6.2%) until the CY2010 maximum is earned.

Massachusetts State Taxes

Massachusetts allows a deduction for Social Security tax and Medicare tax withholding. This exemption is automatically honored until an individual pays $2,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes. When $2,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes have been withheld, the exemption is turned off resulting in an increase in MA taxes withheld.

2009 Tax reporting documents issued by University Financial Services

Reminder: There were 27 bi-weekly and 53 weekly pay periods in 2009. This may result in individuals questioning their annual income posted on their 2009 W-2 or their last paycheck of 2009.

W-2 (will be issued on 1/31/10)

Address changes made in PeopleSoft after 1/8/10 may not be reflected on the 2009 W-2 mailing. Reprints will not be issued until after 2/15/10 to allow the USPS to return any undeliverable Forms. Employees wishing to request a copy of their W-2 Form should use the following link: http://vpf-web.harvard.edu/ofs/payroll/emp_w2_order.shtml.

NOTE: Employees should not submit a request for a W-2 copy until after 2/15/2010.

Please allow 3 business days for the processing of duplicate requests; any research associated with this request may extend this time.

Information to help you understand your W-2 may be found at: http://vpf-web.harvard.edu/ofs/payroll/emp_w2.shtml.

1099 MISC (will be issued on 1/31/10)

Address changes made after 1/1/10 may not be reflected on the 2009 1099 MISC mailing. Reprints will not be issued until after 2/15/10 to allow the USPS to return the undeliverable Forms. Those wishing to request a copy of their 1099 Form should contact the University Financial Services office, after 2/15/10, by calling 617.496.6800. Please allow 3 business days for the processing of duplicate requests; any research associated with this request may extend this time.

1042-S Forms (will be issued 3/15/10)

Address changes made after 2/15/10 may not be reflected on the 2009 1042-S mailing. Reprints will not be issued until after 3/22/10 to allow the USPS to return the undeliverable Forms. Those wishing to request a copy of their 1042S Form should contact the University Financial Services office, after 3/22/10, by calling 617.496.6800. Please allow 3 business days for the processing of duplicate requests; any research associated with this request may extend this time.

The above tax reporting documents will not be available prior to the dates listed above. The dates listed are mandated deadlines for issuance by the IRS (Internal Revenue Service).

It is possible for someone to receive multiple tax reporting documents from Harvard University in one tax year.

The Harvard International Office (HIO) has developed web sites to assist foreign nationals in filing their U.S. federal and MA state income tax returns (an HUID is required). The links can be found here: http://www.hio.harvard.edu/taxesandsocialsecurity/.

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New PCard Policy Available February 1

The University's new Purchasing Card (PCard) policy will be posted on the Office for Financial Policy website by February 1, 2010. The new policy will replace the existing PCard manual, and will become effective on April 1, 2010. The policy has been through the University's formal policy-development process and has been reviewed by PCard local administrators and financial managers from across the University.

Most PCard policy and procedures will remain unchanged, though there are important differences between the existing PCard manual and the new policy. The most significant change for PCard holders and reviewers is that, under the new policy, all PCard transactions will require a detailed business purpose and must be reviewed in the PCard settlement system by someone other than the cardholder.

Cardholders, reviewers, and administrators must read and understand the new policy after it is posted on the Office for Financial Policy website on or before February 1. If you are a PCard holder or reviewer and you still have questions about the new policy after reading it, please contact your local PCard administrator. A list of local administrators can be found on the PCard iSite.

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January 2010 CREW Human Resources Release Items

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

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HUBS: FAS Go-Live/10.1 Release/Upcoming Outages

January is another exciting month for HUBS with two upcoming releases:

1. Friday, January 15: FAS goes live with HUBS! As of this date, all planned releases of the Harvard University Budgeting System (HUBS) to schools, centers, and allied institutions will be complete.
   
2. Friday, January 22: HUBS release 10.1. The following new reports will be available to HUBS users:
• FROC027f Budget Analysis by Object and Root
  This report is another variation of the Budget Analysis reports detailing both the root and object segments in the rows.
• FRBE035b Monthly Salary Expense Totals
  The report provides a method to verify and monitor the total employees and positions by code combination for all the salary and benefits object codes for the selected year - scenario - version.
• FRBC140b Scenario - Version Comparison Detail
  This report is a variation of the scenario - version report displaying the object detail in the rows including the fund balance.
• FRBC143 Budget Variance Summary with Fund Balance
  Similar to the standard Budget Variance reports but it includes an estimated ending fund balance at the end of the two year comparison. Budget Variance reports provide three sets of variance calculations. The user selects the base year and the scenario - version of the report. It will display the base year minus 1 for actual and budget and then the base year actual and budget with the additional selected scenario - version.

Please also make note of the following outage information:

• In response to Tub requests for earlier daily availability, we have shifted the start of nightly batch processing from midnight to 10pm (M-F). This shift allows HUBS to be available each morning by 8am.
• Please note that end user support via the UIS HelpDesk (6-2001) is available only M-F 9am-5pm.
• There will be an HUBS outage Saturday, January 30 - Sunday, January 31 for routine maintenance.

Lastly, make sure to check out the HUBS section on Eureka, the Center for Workplace Development's Learning Management System. Found under the Financials drop-down menu, the HUBS section contains online courses, work instructions for webforms, reports, business rules, and SmartView Analytics.

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Upcoming Releases

FY2010 FINDINI Release Schedule

A software release to the Oracle Financial Applications, known as a "FINDINI release", is done every two to four months. Each upgrade introduces needed bug fixes, enhancements, and technical upgrades into Harvard's financial systems. Generally, releases are performed on weekends to assure maximum availability during the business week. Most outages occur from 6 pm Friday evening-6 am Monday morning.

The next FINDINI release, 3.2.10 is scheduled for March 2010.

The Oracle Financial Applications are:

CREW FIN Releases

The next CREW FIN release, 3.2.10, is scheduled for March 2010.

HR and CREW HR Release 26

The CREW HR 25.0 Release is scheduled for May 2010.

CREW Reports

In addition to the CREW Financial and CREW HR releases which correspond with the FINDINI and HR releases listed above, changes and enhancements to new and existing CREW reports are also released monthly.

• The CREW RPT 6.1 Report Release is scheduled for the night of January 21. See article 4 for details concerning report enhancements.

GMAS Releases

• As a follow up to the 1_23 GMAS release, there will be an exception release in late January to include the following enhancements:
• The question 'Is this application being submitted to other agencies?' will be included in the preview for the new SF424 form
• In certain scenarios, the validation on the historic site question on 'RR Other Project Info' will no longer generate
• Department Administrators will be able to initiate internal review for requests with pending IACUC or IRB approval
• Revise to resubmit will now require that you re-validate the grants.gov opportunity number
• The next GMAS release is currently in development, the anticipated release date is scheduled for late March 2010.

HUBS Releases

Release 10.1 is scheduled for January 22. Please see the HUBS article above for more information.

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About the e-News

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.

For information about subscribing or unsubscribing to the eNews notifications, visit our who gets the eNews page.

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