Administrative Assistants Workshop
July 30, 2008 9:00 am
6-221
Topic: EPAFs
Guest Speakers: Vicki Nelson & Rachael Varady
7,618!! That’s the number of EPAF transactions that have been submitted and processed. The HR
records staff stated that the administrative assistants are doing a great job and had very positive
comments. The error rates are very low and even when there are mistakes everyone works quickly to
resolve the issues.
Four Most Common EPAF Problems:
1. Some EPAFs are not reaching the HR approval level before the deadline.
This is not usually the fault of the administrative assistants. Some instructors do not approve their
EPAFs in a timely manner. There are very few instances where the dean does not approve the EPAF.
Vicki announced that there is now a new alert system that will improve EPAF approvals. After a certain
number of hours, if an instructor has not approved their contract, the administrative assistants will get an
email notification. If an instructor has not approved the EPAF after 24 hours, the instructor will get an
email. He/she will also get emails after 48 and 72 hours. If, after 72 hours, the EPAF has still not been
approved, the originator will get an email. The notification will state that the transaction has not been
completed. Emails will be sent to everyone’s Atlas email account. You can forward your Atlas email
account to your Groupwise account if you don’t check your Atlas email regularly.
2. There is still a bit of confusion over “update” vs. “ initial”.
Most people have this down but it can sometimes be confusing. The key with choosing properly leads to
#3 below.
3. Query Date: If you don’t use the 2006 query date, you won’t know whether the best choice
is update or initial.
Make sure the query date is in 2006. Adam Carneiro has put a request into OIT that “2006” be made the
default query date.
4. Deans trying to approve overloads for themselves.
In this case the Dean has to sign as the instructor. He/she cannot sign as dean. Another dean will
have to sign on his/her behalf. Auditors don’t want a dean signing 2 levels for their own overloads.
HR Records Department Suggestions:
• It would be very helpful if administrative assistants could provide more detailed comments when the
teaching load is out of the norm. Please give as much detail as you can in the comment section. A good
example of something that is “out of the norm” would be team teaching.
• When you have multiple layers of comments in an EPAF, please add a statement stating PLEASE
DISREGARD ALL PREVIOUS COMMENTS or CORRECTED COMMENTS ARE . . . This will help
expedite the approval.
Other Questions & Answers:
Can you cancel an EPAF? If the EPAF hasn’t been applied, you can pull it out of the queue. If the
EPAF has been applied, you must notify Vicki Nelson regarding the cancellation via email.
Please Note: When Vicki Nelson returned to HR, she double checked her information and the following
is the procedure. This is not the procedure that was discussed in the meeting.
If HR receives an EPAF that needs minor changes/corrections, can HR make the change instead of
sending EPAF back? During the meeting this morning, Vicki Nelson was explaining a way that typos
made in the comments section can be corrected without the EPAF having to go through everyone's
routing queque all over again. She called me and told me the best way to do this is to pull up the EPAF
and you should have the option to ADD A COMMENT. Make your correction and remember to say
something like "Please disregard all previous comments" or "Corrected comments are: . . ." and hit
SAVE. Do NOT use the "UPDATE" method that was discussed at the meeting . . . doing that will send
it back through the entire routing queque, instead of just back to HR.
This only works for typos in the comment section, NOT the contract info at the top of the EPAF.
Additional Notes:
• HR can’t make any changes to a transaction. They can only approve it or return it for correction.
• Faculty cannot be paid before they start working.
• The History section of the EPAF will stay for up to 3 years.