Monday, January 28, 2008
by: Shannon Rossman Allen, M.A. ’04

For Seton Hall employees, 2008 had a bright beginning — employees returned from Christmas break to learn that the most important Banner module for them is now live. The Human Resources/Payroll module, which includes the much anticipated Banner Employee Self Service, made its debut on December 21.

While the module as a whole has great functionality for administrators and staff who work within the Department of Human Resources, Stephen Landry, Ph.D., chief information officer and Banner Implementation project manager, is most excited by the opportunities that Banner Employee Self Service provides for individual employees to complete personal processes online in a more efficient manner — with less paper.

Specifically, Banner Employee Self Service allows the convenience of completely secure accessibility to personal and employee-related information online 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Employees can view and update their personal information, as well as federal tax allowances and filing status. Current benefits and deductions, direct deposit allocation, pay stubs, leave balances and job title are all viewable online. In the future, employees are expected to update their open enrollment elections, submit timesheets and access their W-2 online via Banner Employee Self Service.

“The great news about this service in Banner is that there is one record for each University employee,” Landry says. “With our past system [PLUS], paper forms were required to update personal information in many records located within many different departments. Banner seamlessly shares any edit an employee makes with all the Banner modules and systems. Thus, the information is changed — and accurate — immediately after a change is made.”

While the changes are groundbreaking, a great deal of work went into the backend process to ensure proper functionality, says Dale McLeod, Banner HR/Payroll team leader. As team leader, he was responsible for defining, managing and documenting the scope of the project in support of the development and implementation of the module. Throughout the installation, he coordinated input, support and communication with all functional offices that were impacted by the project, creating test plans and conducting user’s acceptance testing. McLeod’s team of nearly 20 were responsible for the configuration of their respective functional areas, which included payroll, benefits, compensation, employment, budget, information technology, finance, and Academic Affairs.

“The configuration and testing of rules and validation tables within the system based on our desired business processes was a key step to the accuracy and success of the system, McLeod says. “The process of translating the data from our legacy system [IA PLUS HRS] to the Banner system was the most labor intensive, as it involved extensive technical work and numerous iterations to analyze the results for discrepancies that needed to be resolved.”

To ensure this accuracy, McLeod and his team worked closely with the IT team to define the specifications of the necessary coding logic to extract, manipulate and load data. “The most critical testing was conducted by running parallel payrolls in the legacy and Banner system in order to ensure the outcome was identical,” he added. This dual report running is the preferred method to use in order to guarantee that data conversion and configured rules are correct. After working out the kinks, the legacy system was put to rest.

McLeod sees a number of benefits to this new module, especially Banner Employee Self Service. “Employees are finally able to conduct HR business online, which allows for a new level of self sufficiency,” he stresses. Employees can access and print their pay stub prior to the pay date rather than picking it up physically from the payroll office or having such sensitive information mailed to their homes.

“Information is also more readily accessible for reporting, especially due to the integration of the HR/Payroll module with the Student and Finance modules,” McLeod continues. “Students can maintain their personal data in one place, which eliminates redundancy and reduces errors.”

Because the Banner system is built on an open platform, the system allows for the modification of baseline functions and the connection of other applications. “This degree of flexibility is essential in our ever-changing world,” he adds.

Prior to the launch of the HR/Payroll module, Human Resources was paving the way for change, says Susan Basso, associate vice president for Human Resources. In September 2006, the department assumed responsibility for payroll operation. As a result, the following process changes were made over time and are implemented within Banner Employee Self Service:

• Attendance reporting for administrators is now exception reporting only;
• Online timesheets are available for all employees through the BlackBoard portal;
• Staff payroll is “normalized” in that the same deductions are taken out of each biweekly check, making income consistent from paycheck to paycheck;
• Direct Deposit stub is available and stored online;
• Pay ID number is in sync with the employee number, which is no longer an employee’s Social Security Number.
  

And the added functionality that McLeod mentions is currently underway. This October, employees will be able to select their healthcare benefits options during Open Enrollment through Banner Employee Self Service. And Basso expects Web time entry to be up and running by the end of the year. Training for both new processes will be a focus for the HR department in order to ensure that employees know how to properly use the systems and feel comfortable using them.

Another Human Resources’ process improvement that is tied to the HR/Payroll module involves the University’s hiring process. As a result of People Admin, a third-party software package, and its interface with Banner, the process for hiring and terminating employees will become even more streamlined.

Employees involved in a candidate search over the past four months have seen the benefits of People Admin first hand. “First and foremost, paper applications can no longer be submitted to the University,” Basso says. “A candidate applies for a position through the People Admin Web site by filling out an online application and attaching his or her resume and cover letter.”

Hiring managers then view resumes as a candidate applies, rather than waiting for hard copy resumes to be sent through campus mail. And the People Admin software weeds out those candidates who don’t meet the posted qualifications, and immediately sends them an e-mail notifying that they don’t meet the hiring criteria for the position.

“The system is truly helpful in that it tracks the status of a position — whether it is in progress, on hold or filled, and allows hiring managers to generate letters to candidates about that status,” Basso shares.

The interface with Banner comes into play when a hiring manager is ready to make job offer. “The hiring manager will make that notation in the People Admin system and then the system and Banner will interface and go through an online approval process with the appropriate parties. Ultimately, Human Resources generates an appointment letter after the approval process runs its course,” she says.

While the process will be paperless, Basso knows it will take some getting used to. “Even though we’ve been up and running since September with part of the system, a great deal of training was involved and is still going on to help employees understand the People Admin system and what it can do for them,” she notes. “The challenge with anything new is that it takes time to achieve a level of comfort. We will continue our training sessions to ensure that users feel at ease with the new process.”

Landry acknowledges that the University’s Banner implementation is a work in progress. “Most colleges and universities take over three years to bring up the base modules of Banner. With the ‘go live’ of Banner HR/Payroll, we’ve gotten all the base modules up in fewer than 30 months. That’s a significant accomplishment. But there’s still a lot of work left.”

The next six months will be devoted to fine tuning the Banner base modules, implementing additional features of the Banner system, and using the new technology to improve service. Teams from Enrollment Services, Finance, HR/Payroll, and IT are in the process of configuring the Banner Operational Data Store (ODS), which will enable users to run many different reports from Banner and to more easily access and analyze Banner data. In March, the University will launch a Banner Luminis portal, which will provide another easy way to access Banner data.

“While the University already has an excellent campus portal, the Banner Luminis portal will take this to the next level by providing access to Banner and other administrative systems though the portal,” Landry says. “In the Luminis portal, students will be able to view their grades, faculty their course assignments, budget managers will view their budget status, and employees will see their time sheets. The Banner Luminis portal is intended to be the place where all members of the University community log in to get their work done.” 

In May, the University will begin implementation of Banner Xtender, Banner’s document imaging and management system. “Xtender will enable Banner users to scan paper documents and attach them to Banner records,” Landry says. “Through Banner Xtender, we will move the invoice approval process online. But that’s merely one example of its many functions.” At the same time, IT will be making many changes to the back-end technology infrastructure that supports Banner. This includes implementation of the Oracle Identity Management suite (OIM), a set of tools that integrates Banner with other services, such as account management, e-mail, and the Blackboard Learning Management System.

To learn more about Banner SCT, check out the Banner FAQs or visit the web site.

For more information please contact:
Stephen Landry, Ph.D.
(973) 761-7386
landryst@shu.edu