[MU-PR-6-A] [MU-PR-11-B]

ESS Timesheets: Beyond the Basics Munis: Payroll

CLASS DESCRIPTION

The ‘ESS Timesheets: Beyond the Basics’ concept was conceived on the heels of the 2015 Tyler Connect conference in Atlanta where we introduced our EverGuide philosophy with the hopes of closing the consumption gap between our growing product and our client base. EverGuide is Tyler’s continuous improvement initiative, which features training to ensure users are getting the most from their investment, in this case from ESS Timesheets. After reading ESS Timesheets: Beyond the Basics, users will hopefully feel empowered to take full advantage of all the functionality that ESS Timesheets has to offer, of which, there are 3 major areas we’ll discuss in the following document; Using ESS Timesheets to create Work Order labor records and integrating our Supervisor by Position functionality for Time Entry and Accruals, so that an employee working 2 different jobs, can have their time approved by each job’s Supervisor.

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Using ESS Timesheets to create Work Order Labor records:

Have you ever thought to yourself while creating a work order that it would be helpful if public works employees could report their own labor/time after performing a specific task, rather than them having to punch onto a timecard, or write it in a log book, which then needs to be entered into a work order in Munis? Cause you can…

NOTE/TIP: the following instructions are based on the assumption that sites are using Munis Work Orders and thus have all the necessary work order codes and settings already configured.

The first step towards achieving increased Payroll/Work Orders relationships is to configure Work Order Settings to Post ‘From Payroll’ to Work Orders. This means that Timesheet records will be posted to the Work Order Labor records from payroll. It’s important to keep in mind that posting can only occur in one direction. If this parameter is set to post ‘From Payroll’, you won’t be permitted to key information into Work Orders and post it into a Time Entry batch (‘To Payroll option’).

The Post to/Post from Payroll setting is housed in the Work Order settings program; and needs to be set to ‘From Payroll’.

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The Work Order needs to exist in order for Payroll time entry records to post to it, so if one is not already created, this will be the next step. Work Orders need to be created so that it can be tied to Time Entry Activities records, which is what the payroll identifies with.

What we have here is a work order for the Public Works Department to fix some broken fencing at City Hall after a storm.

NOTE/TIP: the following instructions are based on the assumption that sites are using ESS Timesheets and Munis Time Entry and thus have all the necessary Timesheet and Time Entry settings already configured.

Moving over to the Payroll module, we need to configure our Public Works employees with the appropriate settings in order for them to be able identify with this work order.

Within ESS Timesheets, the activity codes are going to pull from the Time Entry Activities program and consist of Activities that are attached to the Department that is represented on the Employee Master record.

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In our current example, John Williams is a Street Crew Worker who has been assigned to fix the fence at City Hall. His Employee Master record states that his Department is PW – Public Works.

His Employee Master record also states that his Location is 172 – Public Works Department. Location is important because it’s at this level that the ESS Options are defined. By ESS options I mean this is where you define whether or not Timesheet users have access to enter Work Order/Task or Activities values when entering their time. Locations program has an ESS Options tab,

Ensure that Activity and Work Order/Task settings are flagged.

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The next configuration step is to make sure that Time Entry Activities identify with the Work Order/Task created at the beginning of these instructions. The Time Entry Activates program is housed under the Payroll Processing menu, under the Time Entry Processing submenu,

This is where we create the link between the Employee’s Timesheet and the Work Order we want to post labor records to. The Time Entry Activities will state the Department, Activity, Description of the Activity, then the Work Order and Task associated with the Activity.

NOTE/TIP: You can go even further here and assign a specific pay type to this work order, so that employees can only add labor records under a certain pay type. To do this, you would simply populate the ‘Pay’ field under the Pay section. Then no matter what pay type employees key their time under on the Timesheet it will always revert to the pay type defined here.

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At this point we have all the necessary pieces in place for the Employee to be able to tie his timesheet to the work order labor records.

The Employee would use the pay record detail to key in the appropriate hours, work order, task and Activity, then ‘add line item’. At the very least they need to key in the Activity Code, this will find the appropriate work order/task if the employee leaves those fields blank. Since there is a 1-1 ratio for Dept Code and Activity Code, and Dept/Activity code to Work Order, Munis knows which work order/task to select when choosing the Activity code via pay detail in ESS.

Which then records all the necessary information to take over to the Labor Records program within the Work Order, however this doesn’t happen just yet.

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From here the time would be submitted, and if ESS Timesheet workflow is active, need to be run through the approval process (Workflow Business Rule EST). After it has been full approved through the appropriate workflow channels, it will be available to make its way into a Time Entry batch. This is done using the same process you are currently used to, there is absolutely no difference in process here. Looking at the Employee Pending Time Entry record, we see that work order and task information are present.

At this point, we pull this record into a Time Entry batch, which we have created for the Department/Location involved in this work order. There might be some business process conformity at this point with regards to how payroll departments want to collect these records however that will be decided per site. At this point here we want to get the pay record into a batch and post that batch to a payroll warrant,

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The last step is to Proof and Post the Time Entry batch with the labor records included. It’s the Posting of this Time Entry batch to payroll that creates the labor records on the Work Order.

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Integrating Timesheets and Supervisor by Position:

Incorporating Supervisor by Position functionality within timesheets will give sites a more appropriate and streamlined timesheet approval process, where Supervisors only approve time for jobs that they are Supervisors of. Prior to this Supervisor by Position, if an employee posted timesheet records under 2 different jobs, both sets of time were going to one Supervisor, or Business Rules were having to be unnecessarily created in order for sites to get pay records approved by the appropriate Supervisory personnel.

In the following example, Joe Small is a High School History Teacher, he is also the Head Football Coach at Tyler High. By using the new Supervisor by Position integration, when Joe enters time for his teaching job, it will be appropriately directed to the Principal for approval. When Joe enters time for his Football Coaching job, it will be appropriately directed to the Athletic Director for approval. This functionality gets on so well that only the Principal will see the Teaching time to approve, and only the AD will see the Coaching time to approve. They will not see time entered for the Job they are not the Supervisor for. We accomplish this through a relatively complex configuration, of which is outlined in the steps below.

NOTE/TIP: Supervisor by Position functionality is explained in its entirety through the Exploring Supervisor By Position document, which can be found on the Knowledgebase.

There are 2 global settings that will allow for Employee’s supervisors to be determined by their position. The first are the Payroll Control Settings > Category: Supervisors.

As I mentioned before, there are other areas where Supervisor by Position functionality is integrated, however for our example here we are going to be focused on 1 specific setting.

The Supervisor by Position (Time Entry) setting, offers a variety of options with regards to how the Time Entry process resolves who sees what with regards to Pay detail records. In our example here, we are

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going to use the “J” option to determine Supervisor by Position and Job Class. This will make it so Supervisors will only see time for which they are in charge of (teacher time entry records only seen by the principal, football coach pay records only seen by the Athletic Director).

The other possible global setting is housed in the Personnel Settings program, under the Position Control tab. I say possible because you have a choice on how you want the Position Control record to house the Supervisor value. Do you want to identify the Supervisor on the Position Control record as an Employee Number, or as a Position Number? In order to feature the most nuanced functionality in this document, we’ll choose the “Use Position Number in the Supervisor Field” option, because I feel this gives us the most dynamic view.

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If the Use Position Number in Supervisor Field setting was not selected, the Supervisor would still be resolved on the Position Control record, however it would be an Employee Number in the Supervisor field, not a Position.

Now that we have turned the Supervisor by Position functionality on, its time to take a look at the Positions involved in our example. As mentioned before, Joe Small is a Teacher and a Coach. His primary job is to teach, secondary job is to coach. Looking at Joe’s position control records,

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We see that the Supervisor value is pointing to a Position, the Supervisor is thus determined by whomever is in that Position at the time. Which would be the Principal Richard Allenach, and Athletic Director Elizabeth Nelson, respectively.

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NOTE/TIP: Because we are integrating with Time Entry, it is possible for there to be up to 5 layers of Supervisor approval here. So although we only have SUPERVISOR1 resolved, if these positions were to have Supervisors, and their Positions were to have Supervisors, you could be making us of that 5 level ESS Timesheet workflow hierarchy for Business Rule EST.

The basic EST workflow business rule used for our example is pictured below,

Now that Supervisors have been sorted out, we’ll take a look at Joe Small’s Employee Master record, where we see that the Supervisor value is displaying the Employee that holds the Primary Job Class Position Control record, which in this case is Principal Allenach, however if we look at the ‘folder’ to the right of the Supervisor field, we will see all of the employee’s supervisors.

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Joe Small is ready to add pay records via ESS Timesheets. Looking at his timesheet, we see that he does indeed have both jobs available for time entry,

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After successfully submitting time, we then log in to Employee Self Service as Principal Richard Allenach. What we appropriately find is that ONLY the time related to Mr. Small’s teaching duty is available for approval, since that is the only time that Principal Allenach is Supervisor of.

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And if we log in as Athletic Director Elizabeth Nelson,

We only see the time for the Job Class that she is Supervisor of.

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Integrating Accruals and Supervisor by Position:

To go along with the Time Entry Supervisor by Position integration, it is important we point out that the Supervisor by Position (Accruals) can also be implemented through the ESS Timesheet. So long as you have your pay types set to R – Accrual Request on the Pay Master ESS Time Entry value, and you are using Job Based Accruals, you can submit Accrual requests through the Timesheet to the appropriate Supervisor. In this case here Joe Small has Vacation and Sick PTO for both his Teaching and Coaching jobs,

Supervisor by Position (Accruals) has 4 different configuration settings, for this particular example we want each Job’s Accrual request to only go to the Supervisor of the Job Class they are requesting the time for. In this case we are going to use option J – Determine Supervisor by Position and Job Class

Using the same set up as the Supervisor by Positon (Time Entry) integration previously mentioned. Mr. Small requests Vacation time from his Teaching job at Tyler High,

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He also puts in a Sick day from his Coaching position,

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What we find here is that Vacation time (and vacation time only) is being routed to the Principal, who is the Supervisor of the Teaching job class,

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And that the Sick PTO (and sick time only) is being routed to the Athletic Director, who is the Supervisor of the Coaching job class,

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Final Thoughts

Our Evergreen philosophy was introduced with the hopes of closing the consumption gap between our growing product and our client base. It is Tyler’s continuous improvement initiative and our commitment to get client’s new features training, existing features training, or integration enlightenment to ensure users are getting the most from their investment. In this document here we talked about 3 new ways that sites can maximize their investment in the Employee Self Service Timesheet, hopefully these are things that can be implemented to make day to day production more efficient for your users and more cost effective for your organization.