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| Faculty & Staff Information System | January 2011 |
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Dear NU Faculty & Staff,
The
first FASIS subcommittees have completed their work. The FASIS Manual
has been updated with the definitions that these subcommittees helped
produce and approve. An expanded Quality Assurance Team is busy ensuring the integrity of the FASIS system. The FASIS data mart is making significant progress.
Please visit the FASIS web site to keep up with this important initiative. There you can access the ever-growing FASIS Manual, sign up for the FASIS listserv, read all the previous Newsletters, and see slides from the Town Hall Meetings.
Join us for our upcoming Town Hall Meetings in February (details to come in e-mail). We'd like your feedback. Send us email: fasis@northwestern.edu or let us know that you want to join one of our focus groups (fasis@northwestern.edu). |
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FASIS Manual-Major Revisions
The FASIS Manual
has recently undergone a major set of revisions and additions: the
definitions from the Salary/Salary History subcommittee have been added.
Please see the section entitled Compensation. Basic salary-related definitions are also included in the section on Basic Terms.
The definitions for new terms or fields to be used in FASIS will
show up in the Manual as soon as the technical implementation
of these fields is complete. As is clear whenever salary records
are discussed, there are many ways to describe total compensation for
individuals who have multiple appointments or have appointments of
differing lengths. The FASIS system will have clearer and more
comprehensive displays of this information, for both current and
historical appointments. When in doubt, check the FASIS Manual for the most accurate definition of the relevant terms. The relatively new appointment indicator for academic full-time
employees has been updated regarding the definition and the attribution
of percent full-time. If this is an attribute of interest to you,
please see the entry for this indicator in the Manual.
The Faculty
and Staff Information System (FASIS) Manual is a compilation of Data
Definitions, Procedural Descriptions, System Enhancements, Policies, and
Training Materials. The Manual is available in PDF format, and as such,
is easily searchable and is printable in part or in full.
Each
entry in the Manual is marked with both the "Effective Date" and the
"Last Update" date, as this is a work in progress with continuous
revisions. There will be notifications and descriptions in
the FASIS Newsletter when major changes have been made to the
Manual.
The material in the Manual has been developed and
vetted within the Data Definitions and Process Redesign Team and the
Functional Academic/IT School Administrators Task Force.
If
you have a mobile device with a browser, you can easily view the manual
wherever you are. On the iPad, iPhone, or iTouch, you can use the links
if you've installed GoodReader or a similar full-featured PDF reader.
For complete directions about how to get the most out of the Manual, see
http://www.northwestern.edu/hr/hris/fasis/fasis_manual_index.htm. |
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Salary/Salary History Subcommittee
As one of the first two
subcommittees of the Functional and Academic Task Force, the
salary/salary history subcommittee was formed to advise and assist
with related salary functionality in FASIS. This subcommittee included
members from every NU school, the Office of the Provost, and HRIS.
Thanks to the members of this subcommittee for their careful and very
helpful work.
The salary
subcommittee identified the salary fields needed for the proposed
new FASIS salary pages. The design of the salary pages has been approved
by the Functional and IT Task Force. Definitions for existing salary
fields are now available in the FASIS Manual. As they are implemented,
definitions for new fields agreed upon by the subcommittee and task
force will be available in the FASIS Manual.
The new salary pages will
provide a concise and informative picture of staff and faculty salary,
both current and historically. The focus will be on providing those data
elements that are most frequently needed by the administrative staff
throughout the University without needing to drill into less
user-friendly parts of the system. |
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The Quality Assurance Team
The QA Team has been expanded to include Maureen O'Toole and Karen
Marie Koehler-Davis, both from HRIS, as well as Debbie Crimmins and Paul
Schantz from Institutional Research. The committee meets weekly to discuss
data issues and corrections of those issues. Karen is the dedicated resource
for making corrections in HRIS, working closely with HR Payroll and the
Office of the Provost. Maureen is coordinating the weekly meetings and
developing procedures for the Payroll Department in order for the data to
remain clean. Debbie and Paul are inspecting the data closely with the rest
of the team to ensure consistency.
At the bottom of many HRIS pages, a yellow Notify Button
is available to alert the Quality Assurance Team of any existing data
within HRIS which is questionable, incorrect, or confusing.
For questions regarding the QA process for faculty appointments,
please contact Laura Koepele-Tenges, Manager of Faculty Records and
Business Operations in the Office of the Provost, at 1-7042 or lkt@northwestern.edu. |
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HRIS Data Mart Update
We have been busy
developing and reviewing report requirements for the Office of the
Provost and the Office of Institutional Research. Reports include
faculty demographics, counts of tenure-line and full-time faculty as
well as faculty appointment activity. As part of this process
we'll be reviewing key reports with the FASIS reporting subcommittee and
the FASIS functional task force. In conjunction with the NU
Business Intelligence team we have identified the fields needed in the
data mart. The BI team is developing the monthly load process that
will add, update, and transform HRIS data into the data mart. The
data mart will be the source for FASIS reporting on both faculty and
staff. |
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Status of the Training, Reporting, and Student Data Subcommittees
Training
The training subcommittee surveyed the HRIS user community for feedback on
current training and communication methods. The responses were from a
broad range of HRIS user types and system sophistication. The subcommittee's
next goal is to tailor the FASIS training plan using the results and
suggestions from the survey. In addition to the survey, the FASIS team has
begun weekly internal sessions with the HR Payroll Division and the HRIS
helpdesk to ensure the data quality and procedures used.
Reporting
The first reporting
subcommittee meeting was spent reviewing the HRIS data mart and
phase 1 reporting. Each subcommittee member was asked to provide
reporting examples from their respective schools. At the next
meeting the subcommittee will review report samples, spreadsheets and
documents used to provide faculty information and reports in each
school. The next steps will be to collate
documentation and finalize questions for discussing reporting
requirements at individual schools. Visits to each school and to
all administrative departments will then be scheduled to gather
comprehensive reporting requirements.
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Student Data
The student data
subcommittee is examining the use of student data as it pertains to
faculty appointments and profiles, attributing responsibility and credit
to faculty, and tracking faculty-student relationships.
It is looking at who is
involved and how these data are used: courses, types of students,
faculty teaching loads, teaching evaluations, undergraduate and graduate
advising and oversight, and reporting (reporting issues will be passed
to that subcommittee).
Preliminary meetings
have been held with each of the academic schools and TGS to gather their
needs as they pertain to connecting faculty and student data. An
analysis needs to be done to determine which data are in SES, which are
in, or need to be in FASIS, and which might reside in the data mart.
These discussions are being coordinated with SES and the Office of the
Registrar.
The first two
subcommittee meetings identified several points of needed coordination
between FASIS, SES, and TGS concerning graduate programs, clusters and
other faculty groupings.
Also identified is the need to compare the expected teaching load with the actual teaching activity.
The focus of the next
meeting will be the definition of adviser, both at the undergraduate and
graduate level, coordinated with SES, to identify gaps, overlaps, and
differences in definitions.
The focus of a future meeting will be the data needed for a faculty teaching roster. |
Upcoming Town Hall Meetings
Town Hall Meetings will be held in February. Please watch for an invitation by e-mail.
Following the meetings, you will be able to access the slides on our web site. |
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