General information about UAccess Employee, our new (Human Resources) System, and how it will be used at the University of Arizona.
UAccess Employee is our new enterprise management system for Human Resources. All employees of the University of Arizona can access this system using their Network ID and password.
Employees can perform the following processes in UAccess Employee:
Access pay advices (pay stub information). In an effort to reduce paper waste and ensure timely access to pay stub information, all faculty, staff and student workers are able to access their payroll information online from any location.
Process timesheets. All timesheets and timesheet approvals are completed in UAccess Employee.
View employee-specific benefits information. Employees are able to check the specifics of their benefits selections online, including health and life insurance information. During the open enrollment period in October, elections can be changed in the UAccess Employee system.
View and update employee-specific personal information. Employees are able to review and change key pieces of information (e.g., phone numbers, email and mailing addresses) using UAccess Employee system.
What is the new HR System?
The HR project is a part of a larger Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) product implementation that the UA has embarked upon as it advances technologically to the cutting edge. The UA chose PeopleSoft Human Capital Management (HCM) as our new system and we named the system UAccess Employee. HCM is the Human Resources system most widely used by higher education, and is also one of the leading products used across all industries. It is a proven product whose significance is demonstrated by its ability to capture and store a vast amount of information.
The UA employed a "big bang" implementation approach with multiple HR modules going live at the same time. This included Workforce Administration, Position Control, Base Benefits, Benefits Administration, Employee Self-Service, Time & Labor, and Payroll. Talent Acquisition and Manager Self Service are being implemented in Phase 2 which began in late calendar year 2009.
The basic theme for the HR System implementation was to use the delivered software to drive business processes to the extent possible instead of customizing the software to meet existing practices. Customizations are evaluated by pre-established decision-making committees formed to evaluate requests.
The software was configured using an iterative approach. This methodology allowed the introduction of user assistance into early test phases-not only getting earlier validation for its accuracy, but also supporting quality assurance testing.
Iterations not only increased our knowledge of the software, but also increased our ability to review, develop, and revise our judgments about any necessary business process changes. For example, the iterative process provided us the opportunity to test payroll production by incrementally increasing complexity to the point of running a full payroll with a result of producing accurate paychecks on the go-live date.
UAccess Student and UAccess Employee: Project Completion to Sustainment
Putting in a large enterprise system is like building a new home - the maintenance and enhancement work continues after the “move in”, or in this case implementation date. As soon as you go live with any of these large enterprise systems, the main implementation project is done but a whole suite of follow-on projects begin, in part, because until the complete system is in, it is difficult to intimately know the software or really understand all the nuances of all the business processes. All of the tweaking and tuning that ideally you’d like to do before hand can only happen after some of the basics are in. We are in that mode now and we refer to that as “sustaining mode.”
UAccess Employee and UAccess Student specifically are now implemented and in sustaining mode. In line with this new phase and a successful implementation, Co-implementation Directors for UAccess Student, Suellyn Hull and Tom Bourgeois are rolling off of the Mosaic Project and returning to their former departments. Meanwhile, University Information Technology Services (UITS) is gearing up to be fully responsible for sustaining these new systems and coordinating priorities with the campus units.
The UITS sustaining team is comprised of the people, processes, and technology to enable this ongoing support. Marcia Chatalas, formerly the Mosaic Project Implementation Director for the new Human Resources system, and Lori Shinn, Assistant Director in UITS will now lead the ongoing sustainment group for UAccess Employee and Student. This work is incorporated under the Enterprise Applications portfolio of services, though it certainly involves many campus constituents and other UITS and Mosaic staff. These services include the UAccess Employee and Student systems, in addition to many other applications and services supporting campus wide operations such as D2L, iTunesU, Web Services and logical access provisioning. This portfolio is the responsibility of Liz Taylor, DCIO and Interim Senior Director, Enterprise Applications.
What does this mean for campus?
The transition from project status to sustaining mode will essentially be transparent to campus. The sustainment group will work closely with teams within the UITS Client and Infrastructure Services group (24/7 IT Support Center, the Environment team, and Security and Access Management) to ensure that the systems are managed well and that clients receive an exceptional level of customer service. Campus will continue to use the Mosaic Community and the Mosaic website to exchange ideas and learn of system news and updates.
Over the next year or two the University will see strong and steady maturation and improvement of the systems on all sides. The teams supporting the systems will continue growing their skill levels; the user community will continue learning the new systems and becoming more comfortable with them; the systems will be modified and improved in an evolutionary way; and our user documentation will continue to expand.
Resources:
UAccess Employee (Human Resources) Online Tutorials(Log in with Netid and password)
Mosaic Community http://mosaic.community.arizona.edu/