January 2023 bulletin

News and updates

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The Exceptional Non-Consolidated Payment was made to all eligible staff in December 2022. Requests to process missed payments and corrections have also now been processed for January’s salary payment. 

Please note, that should you need to make any further corrections related to the payment, these requests should now be sent directly to Payroll, following your standard process for such matters. 

If you are unable to resolve your query locally you can still email reward.payment@admin.ox.ac.uk for advice.
 

We are pleased to announce the launch of a pilot for ‘Onboarding’ in PeopleXD, starting in early February. 

This will replace the current Word ‘New starter data collection’ form with an in-system online version. Three departments will participate in the pilot whose new starters will be able to complete their new starter details when logging into Employee Self-Service for the first time. 

We aim to review the success of the pilot after three months, at which stage we hope to be able to plan for a wider rollout. 
 

Removing Mindful Employer logo and references

Following the University’s decision not to continue with the Mindful Employer accreditation scheme last year, central websites and documentation are in the process of being updated, in light of this. 

Please ensure that any departmental websites or documentation which may include the Mindful Employer logo are also removed, as soon as possible.
 

 

The current Card Systems Stabilisation project is delivering improvements to the process for requesting University Cards. 

The first release of the new electronic card request form, to a small number of departments and colleges, began in December. Further rollout is planned in Trinity term 2023; please look out for communications about this in the coming weeks. 
 

The first termly Data Digest has now been published, following the successful pilot edition in August. In this edition, read about some of the key work happening across the University, to embed the Data Strategy and to improve data quality and business intelligence. For more information, visit the Data Governance website

Important and regular reminders

We would like to remind all departments of the importance of having robust processes in place for removing or updating PeopleXD access for any staff moving departments or roles, as such changes are not easily identified by us, centrally, and could compromise data integrity. 

To request an update, please complete the User Access Service Request form, which can be done directly by, or on behalf of, the system user.

We hope that you can join us for our next briefing session, which will take place on Thursday 23 February from 11.00 – 11.50. The agenda will include:

  • Explaining start dates in PeopleXD
  • Importance of timely set-up of new starter
  • Other relevant updates
  • Team news

The briefing will be recorded. If you are unable to attend, please contact us with any questions you would like answered during the session.
A calendar invitation has been sent to all system users.

HRINFO01, HRINFO20 and HRINFO21 reports

Please run the HRINFO data quality reports listed below and clear errors on a monthly basis. For guidance on making the indicated changes, please read the data quality webpage.

Report name

Action required

Required for

HRINFO01- Staff Validation 
in conjunction with
HRINFO01 Data Validation – Quals & subjects

Prioritise the clearing of staff classification errors first, by Tuesday 31 January 2023

Clear validation errors for all employee appointments active for any period of time from 1 August until 31 July the following year.

Guidance:

HRINFO01 data quality validation report
Staff Classifications
Clearing data quality errors

HESA

Medical Schools Council Survey

Athena SWAN

Financial year end reporting

HRINFO20_Casual Worker Data Quality Validation

Prioritise the clearing of staff classification errors first, by Tuesday 31 January 2023

Clear validation errors for all casual worker and casual teaching appointments active for any period of time from 1 August until 31 July the following year.

Guidance:
HRINFO20 Casual worker data quality validation report 

HESA

HRINFO21 Vacancy and applicant data quality 4 pageanated reports:

  • Step 1 Advertised Vacancy Validation
  • Step 2 Applicant Status Validation
  • Step 3 Non-Advertised Vacancy Validation
  • Applicant Data View and Export

 

Clear errors in the 2021/22 recruitment data by 31 January 2023

Clear validation errors for all vacancies posted externally on or after 1 August 2022.

Where vacancies resulted in an appointment being made, only closed vacancies with complete applicant status history (i.e. Applied; Shortlisted; Offer Made – Personnel; Offer Accepted – Personnel) are included.

Guidance: 

HRINFO21 Vacancy and applicant data quality report.

Manage Recruitment statuses and events section 4

Add applicant status history data

HESA

Athena SWAN

Race Equality Charter

This will increase the amount of 2021/22 data available for Athena Swan applications in Tableau when it is refreshed early in 2023.

To correct a staff classification error once an appointment has been activated in PeopleXD, please follow the How-To guide: Track changes and correct records

For data queries contact the HR Analytics team on  hris.dataquality@admin.ox.ac.uk. Please provide:

  • personnel No. and appointment ID, for queries relating to appointment records; 
  • vacancy ID for queries relating to clearing errors from the HRINFO21 Step 1, Step 2 & Step 3 reports; and 
  • applicant ID for queries relating to adding a missing applicant status.

For technical help with the reports or PeopleXD contact hr.systems@admin.ox.ac.uk.

Target End Dates should only be used to record the end date of a fixed-term contract. Planned return from any form of leave or secondment should be recorded off-system. See: Managing and ending fixed term contracts.

Thank you to departments who have cleared all these errors from the HRINFO01 Data Validation report. If you have not yet completed this exercise, please do so by 31 January 2023. Clearing these errors will enable accurate reporting and smooth year-end processing. Visit Data quality clearing errors for guidance.

As at 4 January 2023, we identified the following error counts across the University:

Data quality issue Number of appointment records
Casual Teaching appointments open for > 12 months 2086
Casual Worker appointments open for > 12 weeks 1748

 

Action required: Close casual appointments that are no longer active by 3 February 2023 (see End Appointments and Recording start and end dates). 
Before ending casual appointments run the HRINFO20 Casual Worker Data Quality Validation report (2022-23) using the Person Reference and correct any errors; see: Track changes and correct records how to guide.
 

In August 2022, we launched a new Person UDF 'Discipline taught/researched' - see previous bulletin item. This UDF must be used to record the Academic Discipline taught and/or researched subjects and not the ‘Qualifications’ screen under ‘Learning and Development’ in People Management.

The ‘HRINFO01 Data Validation Qualifications and Subjects’ report will identify appointments with missing UDF data.

See: 
Scenario factsheet: New starter UDFs (p4)
Data Quality HRINFO01 Error Clearing

The Athena Swan staff data Tableau dashboards are in the process of being updated for 2021/22. These can be found at: https://bits.uas.ox.ac.uk/#/workbooks. Please check the welcome page for details of the recent updates.

If you require access to the Athena Swan data in Tableau please follow the user access process.  If you have Athena Swan data queries please contact athena.staffdata@admin.ox.ac.uk.

Clear errors in the 2021/22 recruitment data by 31 January 2023

Where vacancies resulted in an appointment being made, only vacancies with complete applicant status history (i.e. Applied; Shortlisted; Offer Made or Offer Made – Personnel; Offer Accepted or Offer Accepted – Personnel) are included. Therefore, any vacancies set to 'appointment made' where a mandatory stage of applicant status history is missing are not included. Please continue to run and clear errors from Step 1 and Step 2 of the 2021/22 version of the HRINFO21 report by the end of January. This will increase the amount of 2021/22 data available for Athena Swan applications in Tableau when it is refreshed early in 2023.
 

Please remember to direct new starters to HR Self-Service for gathering equality and diversity details.
An equality and diversity data collection form must only be used in exceptional circumstances, where the staff member won’t have access to HR Self-Service.

The HR Self-Service welcome email sent to new staff, instructs them to check and update their personal details, including diversity. Having this data enables us to uphold our commitment to fostering an inclusive culture which promotes equality, values diversity and maintains a working, learning and social environment in which the rights and dignity of all staff and students are respected. We also require some of this data for reporting purposes, eg the University’s annual Equality Report, and the HESA and Athena SWAN submissions.

Updated reports

Report Changes
RECDEP41 Applicant and Vacancy Details report An additional report is now available within the RECDEP41 suite - Vacancy Summary by Applicant Status, Grade and Legal Sex (Date Parameters).
This is the same as the original RECDEP41 report, but with the addition of date parameters, to enable the user to narrow down to a particular recruitment open date range.
PERDEP01 Staff in Post report The PERDEP01 Staff in Post_Limited Data Set with Cost Allocation report now includes two additional fields ‘Workgroup Name’ and ‘Workgroup Manager’. 
The PERDEP01 Staff in Post_Summary Totals By Division report now includes an Employee_Status search parameter, which defaults to Permanent, Fixed Term, Open Ended Externally Funded and Self-Financing statuses.
PERDEP40 Probationary Dates Due New fields have been added to the following reports to display Work Group Name and Work Group Manager: Probation Expiry Date or Extension Dates, Review Date 1, Review Date 2.
PERDEP20 Monthly Personnel Changes and PERDEP21 Monthly Data Input Check New fields have been added to both reports to display Work Group Name and Work Group Manager.
(except PERDEP20 Person Changes as adding additional fields will significantly affect performance.)

 

This month's deadlines

Monthly payroll dates are now available from the This month's Payroll deadlines webpage.

Please bookmark this page, which is updated monthly.