January 20, 2005

Time sheets are now online

The Electronic Time Entry System (ETES) — the Web-based system that allows employees to electronically enter hours worked for pay periods — is expected to be fully implemented by summer.

The system, which replaces the need for paper time sheets, gathers information on hours worked for all biweekly regular, temporary, and work-study employees and interfaces with Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS).

Employees and supervisors will access the system using their NetID and password or through badge readers in areas such as athletics or the library.

ETES has been designed to allow employees to enter their daily hours worked as well as paid time off in an electronic timesheet. The system calculates their overtime based on the hours entered into the ETES, avoiding any manual calculations. Employees can also view their vacation and sick leave accrual and change their home address online in ETES. 

Supervisors will no longer need to sign a paper timesheet and will be able to approve the employees’ electronic timesheets online. Supervisors have access to the system for approvals and for viewing reports to help analyze issues such as labor distribution, overtime usage and patterns of time off.

“With ETES, supervisors and employees can see current and past payperiod information. They can view leave accrual balances, overtime hours and time usages immediately because the system summarizes the data as it is entered,” said Kathy Tessendorf, director of HRIS.

Since September 2003, approximately 3,000 employees are using ETES. A revised rollout schedule has been created.

To see when your department will be added to ETES, go to www.northwestern.edu/hr/hris/hris/development/etes/rolloutschedule.html.