Workflow Org Routing

Unit Administrators request changes to HR/Payroll Workflow Routing based on Organizational Unit and Employee Type.

HR/Payroll Workflow Process

 HR/Payroll approvals are based on organizational unit and employee type. The employee types are:

FAS: Faculty and Academic Staff

GRADASST: Graduate Assistants

SS: Support Staff

STUDENTEE: Student Employees

TOC: Temporary and On-Call Employees (Temp/On-call)

UNDERGRAD: Undergraduate Professorial Assistants

NOPAY: No Pay

Funding approval is based on the organizational unit that the fund belongs to. Each combination of organizational unit and employee type can have up to five levels of approval with up to five approvers at each level. You do not have to use all levels, but you cannot skip a level.

Approvers can be designated as primary approvers. This serves two functions: 

• It identifies, in the Inbox, who the primary approvers are for that org unit and level.
• It prevents primary approvers seeing an action again once they have approved it.

Once an approver approves an action, if that approver is a primary approver elsewhere in workflow, the system enters an implied approval where they are designated as primary. Other approvers at that level for that org do not need to approve, due to the implied approval. Because the action briefly stops so that the implied approval timestamp can be applied, approvers may see the action in their Inbox for a few seconds while the timestamp is applied.

In the example below, when approval is given and that approver is primary for the other orgs and at level 4, implied approvals are applied.

 

Ground Rules for Changing HR/Payroll Workflow

HR Unit Administrators make changes to their HR/Payroll workflow by communicating those changes to central HR Workflow Administrators as described in this document. Users designated as HR Unit Administrators in each department can see the existing routing for their respective departments and request changes.

The following ground rules apply:

• Up to five levels of approval are allowed for each combination of org unit and employee type.
• Up to five approvers are allowed in each approval level.
• Any number of approvers can be designated as primary approvers.
• Approvers must be active employees. HR Workflow Administrators monitor entries in workflow routing table for any employees or NetIDs that are not active in the system and communicate those NetIDs to the respective departments.
• Approvers are never deleted. If an approver needs to be removed, please submit an end date, which should be the last day that the person can approve actions.
• Retro-active changes to workflow are not allowed. Any changes submitted must be effective with a begin date or end date that is the current date or later. If a change is submitted with a begin date or end date that is earlier than the received date of the change, the change will be put into effect as of the day received by the Central Workflow Administrator.

Communicating HR/Payroll Workflow Changes

To request changes to the HR/Payroll workflow, from My Approvals & Workflow, select Approvers' and Initiators' HR Security Roles.

1. Enter the filters to find the person whose workflow routing you want to change or mimic.
2. Click Go button. 
3. Click on "Download to Request Changes" button.
4. From the exported Excel Spreadsheet, make the necessary changes and save to your computer. (see Change the Downloaded Data, below)
5. Complete the relevant Access Request form and attach saved Excel Spreadsheet with changes.

Change the Downloaded Data

Indicate a primary approver

To indicate someone is a primary approver, change the N in the far right column to Y.

To REMOVE an approver from workflow

To remove an approver at any level, enter an end date which is any date higher than the current date.

For example, in the following table, user OAKLAND (NETID) who is a Workflow Approval Level 1 (LV) for Employee Type FAS (EE_TYPE) for Authorized Org. ID 10076200 (Org ID) needs to be removed from the workflow.

 

In order to do this, change the End Date (End Dt) for the MSU Net ID user OAKLAND. For this example, the date used is 06/30/2024.

 

To ADD an approver to workflow

To add an approver, add a new line, filling in all columns.

For example, say for Employee Type GRADASST (EE_Type), an approver needs to be added at Workflow Approval Level one.

Enter a new row in the spreadsheet, making sure the begin date is the current date or later. For this example, the begin date used is 07/01/2025.

 

To CHANGE an approver in a workflow

If it is necessary to change something about an approver, for example, the Employee Type because of a change in responsibilities, Authorized Org. ID due to a restructuring, or workflow level, the spreadsheet must contain two rows. One entry has an end date that ends the old record, and the second entry has the begin date to start the new record. For example:

Authorized Org. ID	Employee Type	Workflow Approval Level	MSU Net ID	End Date	Begin Date	Primary	Email Option
10070642	STUDENTEE	1	SPARTY	06/30/2024	01/01/2012	N	D
10070642	TOC	1	SPARTY	12/31/9999	07/01/2024	N	D

 

Note that approvers can change their own Email Options in the "Email Preferences for Workflow" tile. If set her, email Options are:

• I = Immediate email
• N = No email
• D = Daily summary

Submit the Workflow Changes

It is HIGHLY preferable to send only the rows with changes. However, if it is easier to send a spreadsheet with all entries, existing and new/changes, that is fine too.

All workflow change requests must be accompanied by an Access Request.

You can attach the spreadsheet to your Access Request. Table changes cannot be completed without an accompanying Access Request submitted to IT Services Help & Support.