This video is an introduction to Human Resources data in SAP.
It explains what data related to employees and employment positions is stored in SAP, and how that data is organized.
Understanding how SAP is organized will help you to efficiently access information about employees and positions at UNL.
Master Data is the largest data set related to an employment position.
Each position at the University is represented by a position number.
Master data includes the position title and job class;
the Employee Subgroup,
if the position is paid hourly or salaried;
and approver relationships for the position, including supervisor; and time, leave and travel approvers.
Each position is assigned to a department, which is called an Org Unit, short for Organizational Unit.
Org Units are structured in a hierarchy.
For example, each academic position is assigned to a department,
which is assigned to a college,
which reports to Academic Affairs,
which reports to the Chancellor.
This hierarchy makes it easy to analyze HR data related to any part of UNL.
The last part of data related to position is budget.
Before anyone can be hired into a position,
UNL identifies funds from which to pay future wages.
The source of funding is known as a cost object.
It is worth mentioning that some positions at UNL are “individual positions,” meaning only one person is assigned to a single position number.
There are also “pooled” positions, in which multiple people share the same position number.
Pooled positions provide a way to budget for multiple people who have short-term assignments
to perform similar duties, for example, student workers, grad assistants and lecturers.
When a person is hired by the University, information specific to that individual is entered into SAP.
The personnel number is the unique identifier for the person.
Personal data includes: Important addresses, emergency contacts,
banking information to allow direct deposit of the person’s paycheck,
tax withholding information, information about the person’s education and professional certifications,
and the employee’s benefits selections.
When talking about information related to positions and people, a common term used at UNL is “P-A-F.”
A PAF or Personnel Action Form is the method for adding or changing an employee’s appointment information in SAP.
When someone is hired and a PAF is keyed, the PAF action ties the position information to the person.
The PAF also adds new information including the actual salary or hourly rate the employee will be paid;
the actual cost objects from which the employee’s salary and benefits will be paid;
and significant employment dates will be entered.
In SAP, these pieces of data form the beginning of the person’s employment history with UNL.
It is helpful to understand a few ways that data is sorted and grouped in SAP.
Generally, employees are categorized in four major groups:
Faculty, which are academic positions; Staff, Student Employees and Unpaid people.
Within each major group, Employee Subgroup, or ESG, identifies each position type in finer detail.
The Employee Subgroup is part of the position’s master data.
First, let’s take a look at the Employee Subgroup’s naming method.
Each ESG has a two character identifier that provides information. For each ESG, the letter identifies the type of position
and the number identifies how the employee is paid.
A “one” indicates the employee is salaried and therefore paid monthly,
and a “two” indicates the employee is paid by the hour and will be paid on a bi-weekly schedule.
Now let’s take a closer look at the meaning of each ESG.
Academic administrators are administrators in academic units, for example the dean of each college is an academic administrator.
Tenured Faculty are faculty whose appointment is protected and lasts until retirement. This is known as tenure.
Tenure Leading Faculty are faculty who are hired into a position that will be evaluated for tenure in the future.
Regular Special Faculty are various types of faculty hired into non-tenure track positions but who have contracts longer than a single semester.
For example, Professors of Practice, Research Faculty and some Lecturers are Regular Special Faculty.
Temporary Academic Faculty are faculty hired for a single semester, known as a “Lecturer/T” or temporary lecturer.
Post Docs - A1s and A2s are Post-doctoral researchers and are hired for a specified contract length not to exceed 5 years.
In staff positions, Administrative staff are high level administrators in non-academic areas,
for instance the Vice Chancellor of Business and Finance.
Managerial/Professionals, B1s and B2s, are regular staff positions classified as managerial/professional by Human Resources.
Office/Service positions are regular staff positions classified as office/service by Human Resources.
C6 is specific to agricultural workers, who have special overtime rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The remaining staff subgroups identify temporary employees.
Ys and Zs apply to temporary and on-call employees. Temporary employees are appointed for 2 years or less.
On-call employees are hired for sporadic employment as needed during peak times and are limited to 693 or fewer hours per year.
Ws include students who attend educational institutions other than UNL including high schools and other colleges or universities.
The last two general groupings of employees are student employees and unpaids.
Graduate Assistants, or D1s, are graduate students who have been awarded a teaching or research assistantship as part of their financial aid
Student Workers are registered students who work on campus.
Student workers who have a work/study position as part of their financial aid package are paid
90% from financial aid funds and 10% from departmental funds.
Non-work/study positions are paid 100% by the department.
Volunteers are people who perform work for UNL under the supervision of a UNL employee but receive no pay.
Examples are unpaid faculty, museum docents and ushers at the Lied Center.
Affiliates are people who are not on UNL’s payroll, but are on campus and need campus services.
These people are NOT being directed by UNL employees.
Examples are contractors, vending machine workers and campus pastors
who may need access to buildings or other services but who don’t work for UNL.
Thanks for taking time to learn the basics of how HR data is stored and organized in SAP.
This information should help you to access efficiently SAP information about employees and positions at UNL.