Gulfline Version

March 2009

The electronic personnel action form (EPAF) function of Gulfline allows the University to process paperless personnel actions (Approval Categories). EPAF’s are simple, concise, and allow many values or data elements to default into the document without manual data entry. The forms enable the University to achieve our goal to process personnel actions rapidly, through an electronic approval process, providing an audit trail of all approval/disapproval history.

Departments will use the EPAF process to provide the data elements necessary to process the following EPAF Approval Categories:

· All Summer Faculty Appointments

· All Overload Appointments

· All Labor Distribution Changes

· All OPS Hourly Job Terminations

· All OPS Hourly Pay Changes

· All New OPS Jobs- Fixed Amounts **

· All Adjunct Faculty Appointments **

· All Graduate Teaching Appointments **

** These EPAF transactions can only be completed for a rehired employee who has previously completed their payroll sign-on with Human Resources and received a paycheck within the last three (3) years.

The completed EPAF is then submitted through a pre-determined approval queue (routing). If approved, the EPAF will be applied to the Banner database by Human Resources.

Some efficiencies that will be realized from using EPAFs are:

· An EPAF is never lost in campus mail or in somebody’s “inbox”.

· An EPAF is created online and applied online so the information is keyed only once, lessening the chance for keying errors.

· An EPAF is routed online so there is never any question regarding the location of the EPAF.

· An EPAF is available for viewing via Gulfline so various people can view it simultaneously.

· Once the EPAF has been submitted, you can see who has approved it, disapproved it, made remarks about it or returned it for correction.

Gulfline - Logon Procedures

To Logon to Gulfline, type gulfline.fgcu.edu in your Browser’s address line and click “Go”.

Gulfline Menus

EPAF Approver Summary

From the ‘Queue Status’ drop down menu, select ‘Pending’ and click on the ‘Go’ button.

Click on the first employee name to review the EPAF details.

EPAF Details Review

Review the information provided for accuracy.

There may be some comments you wish to make in order to give more information to the originator or other approvers. Adding transaction comments can be invaluable for the originator or other approvers in the routing queue. Comments explain in further detail what is occurring with the EPAF action.|

Click the ‘Add Comment’ link to enter your comments.

Add Comments

Click the ‘Save’ button to save your comments

Click on the ‘EPAF Preview’ link to return to the EPAF details page.

Approver Actions for EPAF Transactions

An Approver can take the following actions on an EPAF transaction in their queue.

Approve / EPAF is approved as it appears and can go on to the next level in the routing queue.
Disapprove / EPAF is not approved. The transaction is removed from the queue and will not be applied the Banner database.
More information / The transaction has been reviewed but is not being approved immediately. You are gathering more information before making a decision. We suggest you add comments explaining why the transaction is not being approved immediately.
Return for Correction / An approver is requesting a change to information submitted on the EPAF transaction or requires additional information to approve the transaction The transaction is returned to the originator for corrections to be made. You must document the corrections required in the transaction comments so that the originator will know what to correct and for others in the routing queue to see. After the corrections are made by the originator, the transaction is resubmitted and starts over at the beginning of the routing queue.

Click on the applicable button. A ‘Transaction Successfully Completed’ message should display.

Check the ‘Next’ box to review the next EPAF in your queue. Repeat previous steps.
EPAF Proxy Setup

There may be times when you will need to designate an individual (a “Proxy’) to take action on pending EPAFs in your absence (vacation, illness, etc.). The person designated as your proxy assumes your Banner security role and can view the same information and approve the same actions that you would normally view or approve.

To designate a Proxy, click on the ‘EPAF Proxy Records’ link from the EPAF Menu.

From the pull down menu, select the Approval Level for which you are assigning a proxy.

Click the ‘Go’ button.
EPAF Proxy Setup

Select the user to whom you are assigning proxy privileges.

Click the ‘Add’ and ‘Save’ buttons.

Repeat to assign multiple proxies.

To remove an individual proxy, click on the ‘Remove’ and ‘Save’ buttons.

EPAF DATA DICTIONARY

Field Name

Description

Account

Represents an individual asset, liability, revenue, and/or expense account (e.g. 6100 salary and benefits).

Accrue Leave

An indicator which identifies if an employee will accrue leave on a specific job.

Approval Category

The purpose of the personnel transaction being created. The categories of EPAF actions available for use (e.g. EMPADR – Rehire Adjunct).

Approval Level

Levels of approval required to complete a transaction.

Approval Type

The most basic type of action, such as establishing a new job assignment for an employee or terminating an existing job assignment for an employee.

Contract Amount

For fixed amount appointments, represents the total amount to be paid for the job assignment.

Contract Type

Identifies whether the employee's job assignment is Primary, Secondary or Overload. An employee may have only one Primary active job, but may have multiple Secondary or Overload jobs.

Distribution COA

Distribution Chart of Accounts is a unique identifier of the University's Accounting Structure. FGCU has one chart of accounts - 'L'

Distribution Orgn

The organization code identifying the employee’s check distribution department.

Earnings

A code that represents a type of earnings.

Effective Date

The date on which the job assignment became effective for payroll purposes.

Factor

The number of pays between the Job Begin Date and the Job End Date based on the Payroll Calendar. Each pay period has 10 work days- each work day is .1 of the pay period. Therefore if an employee job covers 84 days, the factor to be used is 8.4.

FOAPAL

A unique accounting string that defines a cost center. Fund Code; Organization Code; Account Code; Program Code; Activity Code; Location Code.

FTE

Full-Time Equivalent; The percentage of full-time appointment. 1.00 represents a 100% appointment; .50 represents a 50% appointment; etc. Please refer to the FTE calculators provided on the HR website for additional information.

Fund

Represents a fiscal and accounting entity. (e.g. Education and General Appropriations -10001 or Auxiliary -14016)

Field Name

Description

Home COA

Home Chart of Accounts which is a unique identifier of the University's Accounting Structure. FGCU has one chart of accounts - 'L'

Home Organization

The organization code identifying the employee’s home department.

Hours Per Pay/Units Per Pay

Calculation of FTE * 80 hours. (e.g. if FTE is .375, multiply by 80 to determine that hours per pay is 30.)

A nine digit Banner employee identification number (aka University Id number or UIN). All IDs begin with an ‘8’.

Index

A unique identifier for a particular fund-orgn combination. (e.g. index 200400 identifies the unique fund- org 10001-200400 and index 200450 identifies the unique fund-org 14016-200450.)

Job

Also referred to as an assignment or appointment. The assignment of a position and suffix to an employee ID. Employees may have more than one job assignment..

Job Begin Date

The start date of a job assignment,

Job Change Reason

A code that represents the reason for a specific job assignment transaction.

Job Status

The current status of the job assignment. (e.g Active (A) or Terminated (T).)

Jobs Effective Date

The date this action will affect payroll. If the action is for a future payroll, use the actual date in the future that this action will be effective. For a retroactive action, use the first date of the current payroll to be affected and refer to personnel date.

Labor Distribution

The FOAPAL to which payroll expenses are to be charged.

Last Paid Date

The last day of the pay period in which the employee’s most recent paycheck occurred. If the employee is paid on multiple jobs, then this date is defined as the maximum last paid date for all jobs.

Organization

Represents a departmental/budgetary subdivision within the University (e.g. Human Resources -200400)

Originator

The person who initiates the Electronic Personnel Action Form (EPAF).

Pays

Same as Factor.

Personnel Date

In the case of a retroactive action, this field reflects the actual date the action happened. For all other actions, this field is the same as the jobs effective date.

Position

The defined Position Code of the job assignment. The position code may be numeric, alpha or alpha/numeric. Please refer to Appendix B for a list of OPS position numbers.

Field Name

Description

Proxy

Individuals authorized to approve an action in the absence of the approver. Proxies can only be set up and ended by the approver.

Query Date

The effective date of the transaction being processed. For a new job assignment, this is the actual begin date of the job. For a change to a current job assignment, this date must be after the employee's last paid date.

Regular Rate

The employee's hourly rate of pay.

Required Action

Action required of the approval level in the routing queue.

Routing Queue

Defines the approval levels and associated users associated with an EPAF transaction. There is a predefined mandatory queue for each EPAF Approval Category; however, additional approvers may be added to the routing queue based on department need.

Step

Salary Step - not currently used by FGCU but required by Banner. Default value is '0'.

Suffix

A two digit identifier associated with the position number of an employee's unique job assignment.

Superuser

A person authorized to approve any transaction at any time during the EPAF approval process, bypassing the people in the approval queue who have not yet taken action on the transaction. A superuser cannot disapprove an EPAF, but can void or return the transaction for correction.

Timesheet Orgn

Organization associated with the index code to which payroll expenses are to be charged. If an employee is paid from multiple orgs, select the employee’s primary org.

Title

Employee's position classification title or working title.

User Name

Banner user name.