IRIS Portal

Implementing Timekeeping in Employee Self Service (ESS)

The purpose of this page is to provide agencies guidance for the steps necessary to implement timekeeping in IRIS Employee Self Service (ESS), including:

1. Department Readiness
2. Employee Home Unit Verification
3. Work Cycle Assignment Review
4. Workflow Rule Verification
5. Security/Business Roles and Worklist Verification
6. Training
7. Notify DOF Payroll Services

STEP 1 - Department Readiness

Complete the steps outlined below to prepare for implementing timekeeping through ESS. When the steps below are completed, contact your department's DOF Payroll Services Supervisor or Lead HR Tech 3 [PDF] to initiate the scheduled implementation for your department.

After reviewing the material below, please contact the DOF ESS Implementation Team to schedule a meeting to further discuss the preparation steps, or the process in general. We are here to make this transition as smooth as possible.

NOTE: The following types of employees are not good candidates for ESS TIMEI entry:

• Short-term Nonpermanent
• On-call Nonpermanent
• Interns
• Employees regularly earning multiple premium pays such as overtime, shift differential, recall pay, etc.
• Employees with complex project reporting to multiple accounting resources
• Employees working in the field without connectivity

Employees with basic timekeeping needs who have regular access to a computer are the best candidates for ESS. Even if your agency has pockets of employees for which timekeeping via ESS may not work, this does not mean that your entire agency is prevented from using ESS. Portions of a department can choose to use ESS while a division timekeeper can continue to assist processing timesheets for those groups for which timekeeping in ESS is not feasible. An employee can report through ESS for most of the time, and submit a paper timesheet to their timekeeper when an occasional complex reporting pay period occurs.

STEP 2 - Employee Home Unit Verification

Review the IRIS HRM Listing of Employees by Department and Home Unit with Work Cycle [XLSX] spreadsheet to verify the accuracy of the home unit assigned to each employee. Corrections must be submitted to the Division of Personnel and Labor Relations (DOPLR) through the Online Position Description System (OPD), finalized, and processed in IRIS Advanced prior to the creation of TIMEIs for the implementation pay period. The effective date of home unit updates must be on or before the first day of the implementation pay period.

STEP 3 - Work Cycle Assignment Review

Hours are populated in the TIMEI based on the employee’s work cycle. Review the IRIS HRM Listing of Employees by Department and Home Unit with Work Cycle [XLSX] spreadsheet to verify the accuracy of assigned work cycles. For those requiring an updated work cycle prior to ESS implementation, you will need to submit a Personnel Action Request Form (PARF) request to DOF Payroll Services for processing. A complete list of available work cycles is available here [PDF].

Within IRIS Advanced, the work cycle assigned to an employee can be viewed in the Employee Profile Management (EPM) Activity Folder, Employee Status Maintenance (ESMT) tab, Assignment Information section. If the work cycle field is blank, the employee’s work cycle defaults to the standard workweek such as 7:30 per day Monday through Friday for employees who work a 37:30 work week.

STEP 4 - Workflow Rule Verification

Review the Configured Workflow Rules [XLSX] spreadsheet for workflow configured in IRIS Advanced. Use the report filters to narrow your search to your department and the document type of TIMEI. An additional filter by division may be useful as well.

Timesheet documents submitted by employees must be approved by a Supervisor (Level 1) and then a Timekeeper (Level 2) prior to going to DOF Payroll Services for final certification.

The columns labeled “CONDITIONS LVL XX/XX” will assist you in identifying the workflow for TIMEIs submitted through ESS. The workflow condition ESS_TIME evaluates whether a TIMEI was submitted by the employee or a Timekeeper and will determine workflow based on this information.

If updates to workflow rules (routing) are necessary, these updates can be communicated via email by an IRIS Workflow Contact [XLSX] to the DOF System Security group.

STEP 5 - Security/Business Roles and Worklist Verification

It is also important to determine that the appropriate staff are assigned the necessary security and worklists (workflow roles).

Information on current role assignments can be found in the IRIS Security Role Assignment [XLSM] workbook. This is a macro-enabled workbook, so it is best to download and save this file to a trusted location on your computer. There is an macro-enabled button in the workbook to refresh the data source files. The data files that are referenced in this workbook are updated from the IRIS Production database at the beginning of each hour.

Without the appropriate security or business roles, users will be unable to interact with documents that show up in their worklists. Users must have the DEPT_TIMEKEEPER or DEPT_TIME_APRV security roles OR the MANAGER business role in order to work with Timesheet (TIMEI) documents. There is no need to assign a user the DEPT_TIME_APRV security role if they are have the MANAGER business role.

These roles can take the following actions on TIMEI documents:

• DEPT_TIMEKEEPER Security Role - Grants the assignee to Create, Edit, Submit, and Approve (or Reject All) Timesheets (TIMEI).
  • Users will need access to IRIS HRM (HRM Advanced Business Role) in order to be assigned this security role assignment.
  • This role assignment will require the submission of an IRIS Access Affidavit [PDF] and IRIS Security Request Form [XLSX]
• DEPT_TIME_APRV Security Role - Grants the assignee the ability to Approve (or Reject All) Timesheets (TIMEI) - this role is available for assignment to all users.
  • Users will need access to IRIS HRM (HRM Advanced Business Role) in order to be assigned this security role assignment.
  • This role assignment will require the submission of an IRIS Access Affidavit [PDF] and IRIS Security Request Form [XLSX]
• MANAGER Business Role - Grants the assignee the ability to Approve (or Reject All) Timesheets (TIMEI) - this role is automatically assigned to all users in a superior PCN as defined on a position record. The MANAGER Business Role is not available for manual assignment to a user.
  • The users will not need access to IRIS HRM (HRM Advanced Business Role).

Worklist (Workflow) Assignments

For the initial implementation of ESS, if there are more than 10 users who require security or worklist assignments, a list of users with employee ID, role name, and Role ID can be provided in an Excel spreadsheet to your department's IRIS Security Contact who will review and approve it before providing to the DOF Systems Security Team for processing. Individual forms are not needed unless the user needs IRIS HRM Access in which case an IRIS Access Affidavit [PDF] will be required.

After the initial implementation step, when mass update requests (less than 10 users), manager worklist assignment can be requested on the IRIS Security Request Form [XLSX] using the MANAGER WORKFLOW ROLES ONLY Request Reason.

Users with the MANAGER Business Role will find a quicklink on their IRIS homepage for the Time Worklist where they can find their HRM worklists and take timesheets into their personal worklist to review and approve or reject.

Important Note - users must have the appropriate Security Role or Business Role (see above) in order to interact with transactions in worklists.

STEP 6 - Training

Prior to implementation, encourage all employees to view the following resources posted on the IRIS Portal References and Resources page for Employee Self Service (ESS).

There are also a number of resources on the IRIS Portal References and Resources page for HRM Users.

STEP 7 - Notify DOF Payroll Services

The final step before your agency begins using ESS for Timekeeping is to notify your department's DOF Payroll Services Supervisor or HR Tech 3 [PDF] with a list of the Home Units that will be utilitizing ESS for Timekeeping and which pay period the department plans to roll out the service.

Questions?

Contact the IRIS HRM Team at iris.project@alaska.gov