February 2025 bulletin

News and updates

Details of upcoming Main and Casual payroll deadlines can be found on the Payroll website.   

Visit the Payroll deadlines and cycles page to learn more about the monthly payroll cycle, including the key monthly payroll dates for People Management users. 

Visit the Payroll website

We are currently preparing for the annual tax year-end updates in PeopleXD. Each year this requires software to be tested and applied to the system to ensure that the University can fulfil its statutory payroll reporting obligations. 

To achieve this, we need to schedule a period of system downtime as follows:  

Date     Activity
Monday 24th March

Standard 'no user input' period for People Management users

17:00 - System downtime begins - PeopleXD will be unavailable
Tuesday 25th March System downtime continues - PeopleXD will be unavailable
Wednesday 26th March

System downtime continues - PeopleXD will be unavailable

We will let you know as soon as PeopleXD becomes available again

Any activity undertaken in the Portal will be impacted. HR Self-Service will therefore be unavailable during the full system downtime, which will be noted on the Staff Gateway page. 

Reporting will still be available and Recruitment (the applicant portal) will remain live for the entire period so applicants will be unaffected by this work. 

As always, we will aim to keep the duration of any downtime to an absolute minimum.
 

As part of this years approach to the HESA staff data return, we'd like to ensure we have the correct person listed as the key departmental contact responsible for ensuring that data quality monitoring tasks are promptly actioned. As we did last year we will contact these particular individuals for HESA-related data quality queries. Please complete the form to submit your nominated key contact, by Friday 21 March.

For any departments we have not heard from by Friday 21 March we will assume that the key contact details will remain the same as last year.

The Athena Staff Data workbook's Ordinary Paternity Leave and Shared Parental Leave dashboards now include 2023/24 figures. The maternity leave return rates and longevity calculations at 6, 12 and 18 months after return are being worked on.

The Athena Swan recruitment dashboards are to be updated late February/early March to include refreshed recruitment data for 2023/24. Thank you to those who made data updates and corrections to vacancies/applicants for vacancies posted externally on or since 1 August 2023.

For Tableau access, please follow the user access process. For user guidance, refer to the Athena SWAN Tableau Manual. Further information is available from: Athena SWAN webpage 

If you have Athena SWAN data queries, please contact the Athena Swan Staff Data mailbox.
 

As recently communicated the University’s HR Department has changed its name to ‘People Department’, reflecting the breadth of services and advice delivered, with an emphasis on culture, inclusion and employee experience.

  • 'HESA special' briefing - 10am - 11pm, Tuesday 25 February
    • Focusing on readiness for the 2025 submission, and also an overview of HESA staff return consultation
  • System downtime for Tax Year End: Monday 24th - Wednseday 26th March 

Reminders

As per our system user guides, when manually ending appointments for staff and casuals, in no circumstance use either the ‘Process As Leaver’ or the ‘End All Contracts’ options.  If either of these are selected it will result in appointments outside of the user’s system security also be ended.  

Please follow the guidance that instructs users to select the ‘End Contract’ option.
 

Please explore the tabs below to see the essential reports that should be run monthly.

Queries relating to data quality reports should be addressed to the Data Quality mailbox.

Report When to run Purpose Guidance/Further information
PERDEP41 Immigration and right to work At any point in the month  To manage visa/RtW processes, to comply with Home Office rules/immigration law. Please remember to also run this for casual workers.  
PERDEP10 Cost allocation (funding) end dates At any point in the month  To identify funding end dates/records with missing cost allocations.  
HRINFO01 Data quality validation At any point in the month  To maintain data quality and assist with HESA data submissions and other statutory reporting.

Clearing data quality errors

Staff classifications

HRINFO20 Casual worker data quality validation At any point in the month  To assist with HESA data submissions and other statutory reporting. Clearing data quality errors 
Staff classifications
PERDEP06 Agency workers At any point in the month  To comply with 12-week service rules   

 

The Clearing data quality errors page is currently being updated to include guidance on clearing errors for the 12 additional data validations. 

Report name When to run Purpose
PERDEP02 FTC end dates  For casual worker records: prior to casual payroll deadline 
For FTC employees: prior to main payroll deadline		 To ensure that FTC and casual appointments are ended in a timely manner and maintain accurate expected end dates
PERDEP20 Monthly personnel changes  Prior to main payroll deadline  To review data updates in PeopleXD are as expected for the month, and to monitor data updates made by staff in HR Self-Service. This report will return results based on the effective date of change.
PERDEP21 Monthly data input check Prior to main payroll deadline To review appointment data has been input and it is correct or to help pick up anomalies 
PERDEP01 Home address and contact details  Prior to main payroll deadline  To check address updates and monitor SSO/HR Self-Service account creation/issues, to ensure compliance with timely access to payslips. Please remember to run this for casual staff too.
Onboarding: 'Completed checklist items'  Prior to supplementary payroll deadline - for NI number only  To extract NI numbers prior to the supplementary payroll deadline. All other data can be entered into PeopleXD outside of the Payroll deadlines.
Report When to run Purpose Guidance/Further information
RECDEP40 Vacancy details At any point in the month  To ensure vacancies are updates and closed in a timely manner   
HRINFO21 Vacancy and applicant data quality report At any point in the month  To maintain applicant status and vacancy management (useful for Athena Swan data)  Making changes to recruitment data 

Project updates

Details of current, in-scope projects under the HR Systems Programme can be found on our dedicated webpage. This includes latest updates and timelines, where available. Note: These pages are updated regularly.

HR Systems Programme projects

Departments currently using Workforce Management for Leave and Absence were contacted on 13 February regarding the new absence types and reasons. The guidance has now been updated to reflect these changes.

As a reminder these were the key changes:

  • The ‘Leave Type’ drop down menu has been reduced from 14 to five
  • Revised absence ‘Reasons’ updated to include multiple scenarios which correspond to the selected ‘Leave type’
  • Time of in Lieu (TOIL) can be recorded by Work Group managers and HR
  • A new report ‘TIMDEP04 Absence Reasons’ has been created. This report provides details of all absences recorded in HR Self-Service and those added by HR staff via the Absences tab

Please note: This enhanced process for recording more absence types does not replace the existing processes where absences are recorded by HR staff on an individual’s appointment record, eg maternity leave, secondments, unpaid leave etc. HR staff must continue to follow the Make Appointment and Salary Changes guide, which details which scenarios require the appointment, and in some cases the salary, to be updated. This enhanced process is encouraged but it is not mandatory.

New and updated guidance

Guide(s) Update
Make appointment and salary changes Updated to reflect the introduction of Additional Paternity/ Partner leave
HR Self-Service – staff and managers Reviewed and updated in line with user feedback.
WFM participating depts only:

Booking annual leave – Employee HR Self-Service

 Minor update to reflect change half day bookings from Morning and Afternoon to AM and PM

Guidance for Managers: Manager Self-Service - record annual leave, sickness and other absences

 See item above
Guidance for HR: Record annual leave, sickness and other absence

 

Report Update
For participting departments: TIMDEP04 Absence Reasons A new report ‘TIMDEP04 Absence Reasons’ has been created and added to the TIMDEP suite of reports.  This report provides details of all absences recorded in HR Self-Service and those added by HR staff via the Absences tab. This includes the dates of absence and reasons.  
Staff in Post Report Description Wording has been reviewed and updated to provide clearer definitions of all service dates and durations.
Reports index  New report index created to enable users to easily search for the report they are looking for.