PeopleSoft Human Resources System Goes Live!

By Beth Marshall

After more than two years of planning and hard work, March 4 marked the beginning of a new human resources system for the UMass System. Many of the changes will be invisible to all but the departmental personnel action preparers and timekeepers. However, faculty and staff will observe changes in how often they are paid, now biweekly, and in the way time is accrued, now hour for hour with the balances shown on each bi-weekly paycheck. The university will benefit from the enhanced management information and reporting and analysis capabilities of this new system.

Becky Hsu, who led the Boston campus through system development and implementation, will return to UMass Boston after spending hour upon hour at project headquarters in Worcester. Her in-depth understanding of human resources and payroll in the old HRMIS system was invaluable in planning the transition from the old system to the new. She deserves a huge debt of gratitude for her tireless efforts. Also, Kevin Dolan began as a member of the development team on this campus. After a year at Salem State, in a “live” PeopleSoft environment, Dolan returned to design new on-line forms and procedures and conduct the training of key departmental and dean’s office staff. Thus, we have the perfect blend of knowledge of the old and new systems to ease our transition and maximize the benefits to be gained.

Human Resources was provided its first access to the system on March 4, and staff labored late into the weekday evenings and all weekend to be sure that two weeks’ worth of personnel actions and time worked was entered into the system for the first bi-weekly pay period. Their contributions and hard work over the entire course of this project cannot be overestimated. Timekeepers with the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Departments of Public Safety, Facilities, PeopleSoft, and Telecommunications piloted off-site timekeeping and were wildly successful, given the numbers of employees and time variants with which they had to deal.

Image: Members of the Human Resources Department. (Photo by Harry Brett)

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