Workflow 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, HR Unit Administrators can download current workflow information form EBS, indicate the necessary changes, and then send the changes to the HR Workflow Administrators along with the relevant ARM form. Below are the specific steps.

Download Current HR/Payroll Workflow Data

1. On the Workflow table display screen, enter your organizational unit in the Org Unit field, or click the search/lookup button to right of the field to browse. You may also limit by any of the other fields shown, such as EE Type (Employee Type). Make sure the Display from WF Table radio button is selected.
2. Click Submit.
3. A screen showing the existing entries appears.
4. Click Excel   to download to Excel .
5. From Select Spreadsheets Formats, choose an available format. Typically, choose either excel (in Office 2007 XLSX Format) or Excel (in Office 2003 XML Format). 
6. Click the green check.
7. Enter a file name in the File Name field.
8. Click Choose,.
9. Review information dialog for location of saved file then Choose Ok .

Change the Downloaded Data

Navigate to and open the file that was just saved. Open with Excel or any other program that can read the Excel file in spreadsheet format.

Indicate a primary approver

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

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 level 1 approver (LV) for FAS (EE_TYPE) for department 10076200 (Org ID) needs to be removed from the workflow.

In order to do this, change the end date (End Dt) for the user OAKLAND. For this example, the date used is 12/01/2010.

To add an approver to workflow

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

For example, say for GRADASST (EE_Type), an approver needs to be added at 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 12/31/9999.

Submit the Workflow Changes

It is 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 Memo (ARM).

The Access Request Memo (ARM) used to request changes to the workflow table can be found via IT Services Security Contact Resources at EBS Enterprise ARM Index . The HR Payroll Approver form is located in the Human Resources and Payroll Functional Roles Index section.

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