New approach to Appointment Data will transform HRMS

It’s mid-afternoon, and HRMS business owner Kelly Krattiger is presenting a proposal to restructure the U’s appointment data to a full conference room. The discussion could be dry and technical -- a bad combination after lunch -- but Krattiger begins by clicking through a simple model of the current system, built in PowerPoint. In this simulation, Krattiger is an HR professional looking up an employee’s salary. In this case, the employee in question has six appointments in HRMS, and it’s not clear which will include the employee’s actual salary.

The maroon boxes represent six active appointments, some paid, some unpaid, and
none identifiable until you click into them; the gold bubbles represent multiple pages,
windows, and clicks required to reveal this faculty member's job and pay.

Click. Click. Click. Heads nod, and several people in the audience chuckle knowingly. One by one, Krattiger deciphers each appointment. Once he has the full picture, he’ll need a calculator or scratch paper to add up the pay associated with each appointment. The process can take many minutes.

Nancy Casey is an HR specialist in the School of Public Health’s dean’s office and one of the subject matter experts consulting on the HRMS upgrade. She can vouch for the challenges posed by the current system and structure.

“On the AHC side, there are always multiple records and multiple appointments -- UMP, AHC, school or division, et cetera,” Casey says. “Verifying an actual base salary for grant purposes is an adventure. Condensing and simplifying the appointment process would help us verify accurate base salaries.”

Simplified structure and processes
In the current system, users click through multiple appointment records on multiple screens to access even basic appointment information. In the new system, most U employees will have a single appointment record, with all of their key data and information only a click or two away using delivered PeopleSoft functionality.

Krattiger shares examples of the new structure for various types of employees. The visual is still complex, because the relevant information is still detailed -- but it’s clear the process of accessing that information is significantly simpler and quicker. PeopleSoft’s Components of Pay functionality makes it possible to enter multiple types of pay for a single appointment, eliminating the need for multiple appointments to record base salary, administrative augments, and awards, for example.

Single appointment record using Components of Pay functionality --
relevant information is only a click or two away

Fewer multiple appointments
This new approach to appointment data enables the University to significantly reduce the number of multiple appointments in the HRMS system.  The University will still use multiple appointments for U doctors who are also part of University of Minnesota Physicians (UMP), retirees who return to work, individuals who have separate 9- and 12-month appointments, and employees who work two distinct part-time jobs.

The U will also take a consistent approach to its 300-plus academic administrators, such as deans, department chairs, and directors with faculty rank.

• Chancellors and deans, as well as vice chancellors and associates and assistants in both categories, will be considered primarily administrators and will have an administrative appointment, with their salary broken out using Components of Pay functionality.  
• Department chairs, department heads, and directors with faculty rank will have a faculty appointment, with their salary broken out in the same way.

“This is a big deal,” says HRMS project manager Kris Hause. “This new approach to appointment data lays the foundation for a number of other important changes to our system and business processes, which will simplify and streamline the way we work and improve data quality and consistency.”

Krattiger acknowledges the work to get to this point has been highly collaborative but also challenging.

“Some appointment data issues, such as recording tenure, were simple, because the functionality is delivered in PeopleSoft version 9.2,” he says. “Others, such as how to handle without-salary appointments, were more complex, but doable. But handling multiple appointments was the big one. I believe we’ve come up with a consistent approach that people can understand and live with.”

Restructuring appointment data enables and supports significant changes to payroll accounting and other key business processes. Check back for more information on these changes and the strong collaboration between work streams in the near future.