Business Process: Manage Job Classifications and Positions

State of Connecticut

Core-CT Project

Application: HRMS

Module: Human Resources

Business Process: Manage Job Classifications and Positions

Requirement Number: HR016

Requirement Title: Ability to create and approve positions through an automated process

Module Leads: Lina Simonu, Lisa Lagus

1.  Requirement Description

Describe the requirement (gap). Include a description of the delivered PeopleSoft functionality.

The State of Connecticut currently has an automated Position Approval process that is used when creating a new position and updating certain types of positions based on the Refill Indicator and type of action, ie. Funding change, location change, FTE change. The Position Approval process ensures that appropriate approval for a position is obtained within an Agency and externally, from the Agency Personnel Officer, to DAS, and finally to OPM, before an employee is hired or transferred into that position.

The current legacy Position Approval process is as follows:

1)  The Agency HR Specialist creates a new position or updates an existing position, by completing all of the position characteristics including the Chart of Accounts.

2)  Notification of the new position is sent to the Agency Budget Officer for review. The Agency Budget Officer reviews the position and updates the status to indicate approval or rejection.

3)  If the position is rejected, a notification is sent back to the Agency HR Specialist with a status of rejected and additional comments. The position may be re-submitted if a soft rejection occurred. If a hard rejection occurs, the position may not be re-submitted.

4)  If the position is approved, a notification is sent to the Agency Personnel Officer for review. The Personnel Officer reviews the position characteristics and updates the status to indicate approval or rejection. In some agencies there may not be an Agency Budget and an Agency Personnel Officer review. There may only be one person performing both roles.

5)  If the position is rejected, a notification is sent back to the Agency HR Specialist with a status of rejected and additional comments. The position may be re-submitted if a soft rejection occurred. If a hard rejection occurs, the position may not be re-submitted.

6)  If the position is approved, a notification is sent to DAS for review. There are two levels of review within DAS; Analyst and Manager. Depending on the classification of the position, will depend on when the DAS Manager would need to review and approve or reject. DAS reviews the position characteristics and updates the status to indicate approval or rejection.

7)  If the position is rejected, a notification is sent back to the Agency HR Specialist with a status of rejected and additional comments. The position may be re-submitted if a soft rejection occurred. If a hard rejection occurs, the position may not be re-submitted.

8)  If the position is approved, a notification is sent to OPM for review. There are four levels of review within OPM; Analyst, Senior Analyst, Section Director, and Budget Director. Not all new positions and position changes require all three levels of approval. Approval level is based on the type of position change or whether a new position has been created. A position may also skip the lower levels of approval and receive only Budget Director approval. Each level at OPM reviews the position, focusing on the Chart of Accounts and updates the status to indicate approval or rejection. As each level approves the position, it moves on to the next level. If any level rejects the position, it is sent back to the Agency HR Specialist.

9)  If all levels in OPM approve the position, the Agency HR Specialist may look into the legacy system and verify final approval has occurred.

Notes on the legacy process:

·  The Chart of Accounts detail entered for the position is not tied to Payroll. It is the Agency HR Specialist’s responsibility to ensure the Agency Payroll Specialist sets up the correct chart of account values in payroll based on approval.

·  During the approval process, OPM determines whether the position budget and chart of accounts should be approved based on the Agency’s spending plan, which is maintained by OPM outside the system, and whether the position was included in the previously submitted Annual Budget, which is also maintained outside the system.

·  A Chart of Organization is included with the position for justification purposes. This is typically a hardcopy document that is faxed or mailed to each approver in the process. DAS may also require additional justification be submitted as hardcopy documentation such as: State Application form (PLD1), Duties Questionnaire, Surveys, etc.

·  Inactivating positions does not require any approval.

·  In some agencies there may not be an Agency Budget and an Agency Personnel Officer review. There may only be one person performing both roles.

PeopleSoft Position Data has the ability to create a position, update a position, and inactivate positions. Characteristics related to the position include effective date, job code, salary plan, grade, step, effective status, position status, FTE, Regular/Temporary, Full/Part-time, etc. The Chart of Accounts are not associated with the position on the Position Data pages. The Chart of Accounts are associated with an Account Code and Position on the Department Budget tables. These tables define the default funding sources for a position on a fiscal year basis and include additional budget information such as budget amount, funding end date, and fiscal year begin and end date. Additionally, PeopleSoft delivered position functionality does not include the ability to route positions based on status, requiring appropriate approvals. Once a position is created, an employee may be hired into the position. A warning message occurs if the employee is hired into a position that has not been approved.

2.  Business Need

Provide a justification for the requirement. Include information about frequency, volume, number of users impacted, etc.

Position maintenance occurs at the Agency HR level. A position is associated with an employee and indicates the employee’s compensation and funding source within PeopleSoft. Without the appropriate approvals, Agency HR Specialists would have the ability to create and modify positions, hire employees into these positions and pay them based on the position characteristics. Post auditing of budgets in financials and position/funding information would be available to budget, but they would not have control of position creation or updates as they do in the legacy system.

3.  Required By: (Y/N)

Federal ____ Agency ____ Bargaining Unit ____

State Statutory ____ State Regulatory ____ State Procedural __Y__

4.  Requirement Priority

Medium (High, Medium, Low – please see “Requirements Prioritization Criteria”)

5.  Recommended Solution

Enter an “X” next to the appropriate category

______Process Solution

__ Option Number

___X___ Application Modification

_1__ Option Number

6.  Explanation for Recommendation

Provide reasons for recommendation. Please do not re-state the description of the solution itself.

The position approval process is currently automated at the State of Connecticut. If workflow is not implemented, the State may have to go back to paper approvals for a period of time. The ‘Proposed’ Chart of Accounts is required in the review process, even though there is currently no basis for review within the system, nor does it feed payroll. PeopleSoft will provide more capability for review of position and budget information regardless of whether the chart of accounts fields are on the Position Data record. The Refill Indicator controls whether the position requires approval when updates occur. There is currently no other field in PeopleSoft as delivered to indicate differing approval routes.

7.  Organizational Impact of Recommendation

Describe the changes to the organization that result from the recommended solution. Include a description of any role, process, statute, or bargaining unit agreement affected.

An Agency Budget or HR Specialist will be required to maintain the Department Budget Tables based on ‘Proposed/Approved’ Account Code and Chart of Accounts combination for a position.

8.  Process Solutions

Describe the possible Process Solutions. Include a description of impacts and benefits of each solution.

Option 1. Approval outside the system, prior to entry of the position. This would be a change to the current business process. Budget personnel would have access to position and payroll data for reporting and auditing purposes, however, these would be post audits.

9.  Application Modifications

Describe the possible Application Modifications. Include a description of impacts and benefits of each solution.

Option 1.

Modification Type (On-line, Batch, Interface, Report, Workflow): On-line/ Workflow

Complexity (Easy, Medium, Difficult): Difficult

Description: Position Approval Process

1)  Add the HR Account Code and corresponding Chart of Accounts fields to the Position Data record and page. This would indicate the ‘Proposed’ funding source for the position and would not link to payroll.

2)  Add Effective Sequence and Operator ID to the position data record and page to allow users to enter multiple transactions on the same effective date with a greater sequence number, and enable users to view, who performed the transaction.

3)  Add Refill Indicator to the Position Data record and page to indicate whether the position needs approval, or whether the agency has ‘blanket’ approval on the position based on the department id, jobcode, effective date, and funding source. Agencies will have the ability to refill positions over a certain time frame based on these combinations.

4)  Create an effective dated record and page to store the Department ID and Jobcode relationship for the Refill indicator.

5)  Create a batch program to update the Refill indicator based on specified criteria. This process is typically run when ‘blanket approval’ authority is withdrawn or re-established.

6)  Add a new page and record where the Position Status field is grayed out and defaults to ‘Proposed’ if the effective status is ‘Active’. If the effective status is ‘Inactive’, default the Position Status to ‘Approved’. (Inactivated positions do not require approval.) Agency HR Specialists would have access to this page for creating and updating position characteristics. They would not have the ability to change the Position Status field. All other approvers would have access to the original Position Data Work Location page, and would indicate the appropriate status based on their role in the approval process, ie) Agency Budget, DAS, OPM – Analyst, OPM – Budget Director.

7)  Create Position Status’ to indicate each step in the approval process.

·  Approved – Agency Budget, Rejected – Agency Budget

·  Approved – Agency Personnel Officer, Rejected – Agency Personnel Officer

·  Approved – DAS Analyst, Rejected DAS Analyst

·  Approved – DAS Manager, Rejected DAS Manager

·  Approved – OPM Analyst, Rejected – OPM Analyst

·  Approved – OPM Senior Analyst, Rejected – OPM Senior Analyst

·  Approved – OPM Section Director, Rejected OPM Section Director

·  Approved – OPM Budget Director, Rejected OPM Budget Director

8)  Configure workflow to route the position to the appropriate approving authority based on Position Status, Refill Indicator value, and type of transaction. Not all positions follow the same approval path. The new Refill Indicator field and type of transaction will indicate where the position needs to be routed based on the Position Status. In addition, if a position is rejected and remarks are entered, the position should always return to the originating agency.

9)  Modify Job PeopleCode to produce a hard error to ensure employees may NOT be hired or transferred into a position that has not received final OPM approval.

10)  Create a new report to identify discrepancies between the Position Data Account Code and corresponding Chart of Accounts combination that were proposed, and the actual Account Code and Chart of Accounts combination defined on the Department Budget Earnings table for the position, once the position has been approved.

Notes on Option 1:

·  Maintenance of the Department Budget Tables needs to be determined. An owner has not been identified. If the Agency Budget or HR Specialist is responsible for maintenance, they will have the ability to enter any Account Code and Chart of Accounts combination whether it was approved by OPM or not. The new report would need to be run by OPM, to identify these discrepancies. If Central OPM maintains the table, the approved Account Code and Chart of Accounts combination should be entered and Agency Budget Specialists would have access to view the information.

·  Agency HR Specialists are responsible for identifying and entering the appropriate Account Code and Chart of Accounts combination on the Position Data page.

·  Agency HR, Payroll, and Budget Specialists will need to be trained to use the Department Budget tables when trying to identify where the position’s default funding source is, as the Position Data table may not be in sync and does not impact payroll.

Option 2:

Modification Type (On-line, Batch, Interface, Report, Workflow): On-line/ Workflow

Complexity (Easy, Medium, Difficult): Difficult

Description: Position Approval Process, no Refill Indicator

1)  Add the HR Account Code and corresponding Chart of Accounts fields to the Position Data record and page. This would indicate the ‘Proposed’ funding source for the position and would not link to payroll.

2)  Add Effective Sequence and Operator ID to the position data record and page to allow users to enter multiple transactions on the same effective date with a greater sequence number, and enable users to view, who performed the transaction.

3)  Add a new page and record where the Position Status field is grayed out and defaults to ‘Proposed’ if the effective status is ‘Active’. If the effective status is ‘Inactive’, default the Position Status to ‘Approved’. (Inactivated positions do not require approval.) Agency HR Specialists would have access to this page for creating and updating position characteristics. They would not have the ability to change the Position Status field. All other approvers would have access to the original Position Data Work Location page, and would indicate the appropriate status based on their role in the approval process, ie) Agency Budget, DAS-Analyst, DAS-Manager, OPM – Analyst, OPM – Budget Director.

4)  Create Position Status’ to indicate each step in the approval process.

·  Approved – Agency Budget, Rejected – Agency Budget

·  Approved – Agency Personnel Officer, Rejected – Agency Personnel Officer