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It’s not too late to register for a Fringe Benefit Pool Overview session

Taught by a panel of subject matter experts from the Office of the Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Finance and Accounting, and Human Resource Services, these overview sessions will review the policy for implementation of the new fringe benefit pool and the impact on the university's ePAF and payroll distributions procedures. Reporting and other notable changes will also be covered.  

Classes will take place from June 9 to June 17; to register, login to myUFL and navigate to: My Self Service, Request Training Enrollment, Search by Course Number PST095.

All those who deal with HR, payroll processing, distributions, and related reporting are encouraged to attend these workshops. Questions about the training?  Please contact UF Training & Organizational Development at (352) 392-4626, training@ufl.edu.  For additional information about the fringe benefits pool, please reference the Benefits section of HRS's web site.

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Knowing your business model can smooth transition to myUF Market

Sara Keith, senior fiscal assistant for the Department of Physiological Sciences, says knowing her area’s existing business model and what was needed from it helped her trust her instincts in adapting, deleting from, and adding to that model to best suit the changes brought by the myUF Market. Although business models will vary from department to department, Keith’s experiences help illuminate the issues each area faces when integrating a new system into its work process.

One of Physiological Sciences’ biggest concerns was the “third touch” the shopper role introduced to P-card processing in the myUF Market for its department. Keith says to prepare for the challenge this would pose, she analyzed six months of the previous fiscal year’s expenditures to identify those faculty members and vendors who would be most impacted by the transition.  Knowing in advance which faculty needed to be classified as "Shoppers" and which should have the "Requestor" role enabled the department to identify and immediately train additional staff who would function as requestors.

Keith also adapted the way she communicated with PIs in her department.  Because shoppers can go into myUF Market to track purchase orders themselves, she no longer needs to send regular updates to them about their order status.  For this reason, Keith emphasizes that having shoppers set up their profiles accurately from the beginning helps reduce frustration for both fiscal staff and the shoppers themselves—and illustrates one of the benefits of the new system.  She also says the speed with which POs are processed has been reduced from 24 to 48 hours down to fewer than 24 minutes.  For this reason, she is taking her time to think about how to handle her master list used to track PO activity.

Although many of the shoppers in Keith’s department were resistant to the new system, she has found that once they use it once or twice, they begin to see the benefits of it.  All are especially grateful for the reduction in paperwork required and paper consumed by the old processes.

“I am really grateful to those who jumped in and tried it and to those who are just now getting their feet wet,” Keith says.  “They have all helped me uncover issues, practices, and concerns that are now avoidable for them and for others in the future.”

Keith says the best advice she could give other departments is to point shoppers to the information available online, like the Instruction Guides and FAQs.  The one thing she wishes she had done differently was to have reserved a computer lab for an hour to sit the shoppers down and walk them through a profile set-up.  Some shoppers have gone straight to making an order without creating a profile, she says, and that has created extra work for her to fix things and take one-on-one time with the shopper to ensure the profile is created correctly.

From the fiscal side, Keith says the most helpful resource for her has been the UF Purchasing staff itself.  She has found the staff to be willing to answer questions as quickly as possible and resolve problems as best as they can.

The myUF Market web site also serves as an excellent resource for shoppers, purchasers, and approvers alike.  The site provides a wealth of resources, including instruction guides, simulations, workflow diagrams, and much more.  In addition, UF Purchasing recently added some sample business model diagrams that can help departments as they transition to the new system.

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2008-09 personal days must be used by July 9

Eligible employees have until the end of the pay period in which June 30 (the end of the fiscal year) occurs—in this case, July 9—to use unused personal holidays (if USPS) or personal leave days (if TEAMS or eligible faculty). 

Employees can determine whether they have personal leave time to be used by following this navigation in myUFL: My Self Service>Payroll and Compensation (Home)>View Leave History. They should select the most recent pay period end date by clicking on it in the drop-down box. USPS employees should look for an ending balance for USPS Hol to determine if they have the 2008/09 personal holiday available to them. TEAMS and Faculty employees should look for TMSFacPer and check the ending balance. If there’s a balance, it should be used by July 9.

If you have questions please contact Leave Administration at (352) 392-2477 or central-leave@ufl.edu.

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New regulation ensures accurate appointment periods

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Submit perquisite renewals this month

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©2009 University of Florida Office of Human Resource Services
The InfoGator for Department Administrators is a monthly e-publication produced by the University of Florida’s Office of Human Resource Services. It is distributed electronically to UF faculty and staff and is available online. Please direct questions or comments to its editor, Angie Brown; Human Resource Services; P.O. Box 115006; (352) 392-4626; TDD 800-955-8771. The InfoGator is available in an alternative format upon request.