Navigate Chris21 – Tip 1: Exclude terminated employees from the default list

The default list you see when you login to Chris21 shows all employees, both active and terminated. Sometimes you may want to filter out the terminated employees from this list. This has two main benefits, one is to reduce the overall size of the list, and the second is to ensure that you only ever select active employees when you choose an employee from the list.

To filter the default list to show only active employees, right click anywhere on the list and click Include Terminated Staff from the pop-up menu. This option is selected by default so clicking it will deselect it.

Note: A tick next to the Include Terminated Staff menu item indicates that terminated staff are included in the default list. When the tick is clear, only active employees will be displayed.

To revert to showing terminated staff, simply right click on the list and click Include Terminated Staff.

Note: When you set this option, it will remain at the same status even after you logout of Chris21. The system remembers your setting until the next time you change it.

---

Navigate Chris21 – Tip 2: Use Save-As to create new records

When you need to enter data in Chris21 and you are looking for shortcuts to make your life easier, try this tip. Use Save As to use the data from one record to form the basis of another record.

For example, you may need to add new Position Table (PDT) records. As you might know, there can be quite a few fields that need to be updated to create each record. Therefore, this can be a time-consuming process, especially if you have many records to add.

To use the Save As functionality in Chris21 to create a new PDT record, you first need to open an existing PDT record that is similar to the record you want to create. Then click File -> Save As from the main menu.

Then all you need to do is change the Position Number to the new Position Number you want to create. At this point you can review the other fields on the form and change any as appropriate.

Then click Save to create your new PDT record.

---

Navigate Chris21 – Tip 3 : Show form identifiers on form tabs

If you have trouble remembering what the 3-character form identifier is for the form you are working with, you can show these on the form tabs. Just select Tools from the top menu in Chris21, then select Options.  Then select Interface Options. From the list of options select Show form identifier with form name. From now on, you will see the 3-character form identifier next to the form name.

I hope these tips help! If you have any navigation tips and tricks that you use, let me know and I will post them for fellow Chris21 users.

The post Try These 3 Tips to Help You Navigate Chris21 appeared first on System Logic.

The post Chris21 Tip – Get Help with Chris21 Form Identifiers appeared first on System Logic.

In a nutshell, I had an issue running an archiving process in Chris21. It was strange because I had run this same process in the Test environment when testing the upgrade and had no issues. It was only when I came to do this in the Live environment that the issue appeared. Not what I wanted to see because my testing is supposed to address any issues before the Live upgrade.

The error message didn’t help, they often don’t. It told me that the form I was trying to run the process from didn’t exist in Chris21. I know it did because I was using the form to try to run the archive process.

I got to the solution because I had received an email from the Chris21 system saying my email was undeliverable. That got me thinking maybe email security was somehow blocking the Chris21 process. It didn’t make sense how that could be the case, but I investigated anyway.

I found that my email address in the client system (on Details – DET) was not a valid email address for the client organisation, it was an ‘external’ email address. When I changed it to a valid email address (assigned to me by the client organisation) I found the archive process worked as normal.

What was happening here is the organisation had tightened up their email security and this caused the issue I have described. The explanation as to why my testing didn’t uncover this? The Test server did not have the same security configuration as the Live server.

This is something that is worthwhile remembering if you are troubleshooting issues in Chris21. I would be interested to hear if anyone has had similar experiences.

The post Chris21 and Email Security appeared first on System Logic.

Firstly let me make it clear that I am all for Employee Self Service (ESS) systems and the obvious benefits that they can deliver to organisations.

While these benefits are loudly touted and well known enough that I don’t need to list them here, there are pitfalls to success that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Recognising the pitfalls can be the difference between successful Employee Self Service implementations and mediocre outcomes. If there’s not much to view or update in an ESS system or it’s difficult to access, then employees won’t see the benefits.

Here are some issues to consider:

Will all employees be able to access the system?

In some organisations, not all employees have a personal computer or email address. This is often the case for the traditional blue collar worker.

Sure you can setup ‘kiosks’ in lunchrooms and the like, but these can have their own issues, usually related to security. I mention this later in the article.

The risk is that rather than address access issues, organisations may find it easier to maintain manual systems for their ‘blue collar’ employees and implement ESS for the rest.

How will you approach training and change management?

ESS systems may be quite intuitive and easy to use, however many organisations will have policies regarding training.

The employees in your organisation may be very savvy with newer technologies and they may embrace it. Others may resist the change and require some degree of training to adapt.

Training for ESS systems can be difficult, time consuming and costly to undertake. At the very minimum, you will need to develop training manuals and/or instructions to assist employees. At the other end of the scale, you may need group demonstrations.

What about the human error factor?

I know this can be a big concern for payroll officers, in particular about the quality and integrity of the data being entered. This is especially relevant for data such as bank details and home address details.

There can also be issues with the format of phone numbers, and whether data is entered in upper case, lower case or a mix.

You will need to consider setting up controls to counter these concerns. A good example is email alerts whenever changes are made by users via HR21. My blog Using Chris21 Email Notifications in HR21 for Added Peace of Mind for more information. Additionally, you can run reports on a regular basis to check the quality of the data.

Has security been considered?

While your IT department will ensure sufficient security from a network perspective with corporate intranets and firewalls, there are other security issues to consider.

If you do need to setup ‘lunchroom kiosks’ for employees be aware that there can be security concerns relating to the printing of payslips to a communal printer.

Or, what if an employee forgets to logout correctly? Most systems will have timeouts, these should be set to 5 minutes at the most.

Also, password resets can be an issue and this will lead to more help desk calls. Single sign on systems, such as LDAP are critical to the success of Employee Self Service implementations.

What are the barriers to successful user uptake of the system?

You’re going to all the trouble of implementing the system so you want to be sure that it will be embraced by employees. I mentioned resistance to change earlier and this will be a significant issue for many organisations.

This can happen for many reasons, for example, managers who may have traditionally passed some functions onto assistants. These functions now must be handled by the manager because the system requires them to be logged in.

Organisations who take a ‘too cautious’ approach with their Employee Self Service Implementations just may not be offering enough to their employees. Why login if there’s not much to see?

Do employees understand how to access and use the system? This comes back to the question of training.

Don’t employees still rely on face to face interaction?

Some employees will still need to talk to someone in HR or Payroll so that they can understand exactly what is required when updating some data. Of course, this avenue will still be open to employees but the employees themselves may feel that this has been removed by ESS.

This is an important message to get across to all employees in your organisation during your training phase.

In addition to these issues, I have also seen some evidence of the divide between HR and Payroll departments. I’m not saying that this happens everywhere, but I would be interested to hear opinions from anyone in the HR and Payroll fields.

I often see HR wanting to put more information into the hands of employees, while Payroll are much more cautious about this, citing risks to data integrity.

Regardless of this, if organisations aren’t willing to recognise these issues and factor them into their planning, they run the risk of failing to attain all of the benefits that Employee Self Service implementations can deliver.

The post Employee Self Service Implementations – Ensuring Success appeared first on System Logic.

Chris21 has built in functionality that allows you to do your own customisations. It’s a very useful tool and one that you have probably already taken advantage of. Chris21 customisations mean user defined changes to files, fields or forms. These changes can affect Chris21 or other interfaces, such as HR21.

Before I go further I would like to say that you do need to know what you’re doing if you want to delve into this area of Chris21. I would recommend some form of customisation training if you are not experienced.

If you have some experience with Chris21 customisations, you will understand the concept of the system and user areas of a file. I talked about this briefly in my blog Customising Chris21 – What Can Go Wrong? From my experience, it is the misunderstanding of this concept that causes the most issues with customisations. Many Chris21 systems I see have been customised in the system area of the file. In other words, existing fields are changed so that they can be used for different purposes.

It’s quick and easy to take an existing field and change some attributes to suit your purposes. Unfortunately this approach can cause you problems in the future.

So what’s the problem with this? The main problem is that if you use the system part of the file you can’t be guaranteed that system upgrades will not affect your customisations. There is the risk that a field that has been changed in the system area to suit your purposes may be overwritten by an upgrade. This could manifest itself as overlapping data or overlapping labels on forms. Even worse, if you have changed the data type of the field, say from an integer to a date, you may encounter errors when trying to update records.

What’s the best way to avoid this? Use the user area of the file. This area has been especially created for you for customisation purposes. The user area size is usually 120, meaning you can add fields up to a total of 120 characters onto the file. Importantly, any changes made in this area will not be overwritten during upgrades.

Keep this principle in mind when you undertake any Chris21 customisations. It will help to ensure the integrity of your database and give you less to worry about come Chris21 upgrade time.

The post Chris21 Customisations – Do it Right! appeared first on System Logic.

For example, you may need to add new Position Table (PDT) records. As you might know, there can be quite a few fields that need to be updated to create each record. Therefore, this can be a time consuming process, especially if you have a large number of records to add.

Use Save As to enter data in Chris21

To use the Save As functionality in Chris21 you first need to open an existing PDT record:

To create the same record as shown above with a different Position Number, or a similar record using this one as a template, use Save As. From the record that you want to use as a template, click File -> Save As from the main menu.

When you click Save As your PDT record will look like this:

Now you can change your Position Number to create the new position record:

If all the other details of this new position are the same as the original record, then you just need to click Save from the main menu to create the new record. You can also update any field on the form at this time, if required.

I would like to point out that this method is useful up to a point. If you have a very large number of records to create then it would be quicker and more efficient to use GTR functionality. For more information about this see my blog Increase Your Productivity Using GTR Processing.

That’s all you need to do. You can now enter data in Chris21 using the Save As functionality to save you time and effort!

The post Chris21 Quick Tip – Here’s an Easy Way to Enter Data in Chris21 appeared first on System Logic.

If your list of Chris21 reports is becoming large and difficult to search, you’re not alone. A common complaint I hear from Chris21 users is of the number of report designer reports that are written by the various users within an organisation.

This means the list of Chris21 reports can become very long over time and it then becomes difficult to find the one you are looking for. Worse still, when you do find a report and you try to run it, access is often prohibited. Sound familiar?

Of course, the problem is exacerbated because if a user can’t access a report they will usually resort to creating a new one, thus adding further to the list!

The reality is that this is a common issue because the default value for the Access Control options is Access prohibited to non-owners. So when a user creates a new report they must remember to change the Access control option to allow others to access the report. This step is often overlooked. From a user’s perspective, it would be an improvement if the default was to allow modifications.

It’s not just access issues that are the problem. Many organisations have no rules or conventions in place to create useful reports and name them accordingly. For instance, a report that a payroll user has created will most likely be useful to colleagues. Rather than each user creating their own report, it is far better for everyone to use the one report.

To add further to this issue, many users will want a report that is specific to their requirements. It is often considered easier to create a new report, rather than to find an existing one and make some modifications.

Notwithstanding these issues, it’s unlikely that you will ever get to the ideal of a controlled list of Chris21 reports that will be used regularly by multiple users. So, unfortunately, your list of reports will continue to grow.

So what’s the answer?

There are two options that I can suggest. Firstly, on a regular basis you could review the list of reports and cull (delete) those that are obsolete or duplicated. Perhaps this could be done as one of your annual pre-upgrade tasks.

Secondly, you could categorise your reports. The Chris21 report designer has functionality that allows you to group reports into categories. For instance, you could create a category called Payroll for all of your payroll reports. You could have another category for Training, and so on.

When you categorise reports, you can use a Quick Filter to show your reports list by category. This will make the list of reports much shorter and make it much easier to find the report you are looking for. You just need to remember to select a category for each report that you write. The Category field is found on the report designer Options tab.

For an easy way to manage your Chris21 reports list, try the Category feature. Searching for that elusive report will be just a little easier.

The post Chris21 Reports – How to Manage Your List appeared first on System Logic.

If you are using HR21 for leave processing then you are using HR21 workflow. The question is – are you using it to its full potential?

Even though I’ve referred to it as HR21 workflow, the setup is actually configured in Chris21. HR21 is where you use it. The Workflow Master (WFM) form in Chris21 is where you go to define a workflow process. It’s where you can setup rules such as escalations, reminders and email notifications.

Here are a few tips to help optimise your HR21 workflow:

1. Use escalations and reminders

Fortunately, you have a lot of scope when creating workflow definitions. They can range from simple to quite complex so you will be able to create one that suits your organisation’s needs. As a minimum, you should have at least one level of escalation. This will move the leave request to another manager if it hasn’t been actioned within a specified number of days. Without this, a workflow record could sit in the system for too long, perhaps waiting for a manager to return from an extended absence.

Some organisations will create a reminder so that an email is resent to the manager after a few days. This is a good idea and will often do the trick. But as added insurance, create an escalation to the next manager in the organisation structure, just in case the reminder doesn’t help.

2. Keep your organisation structure up to date

HR21 uses Relationships (REL) to determine the manager for leave requests. If REL is not right then you will either have a broken workflow or the request will go to the wrong manager. If the workflow is broken, then the system will alert the Fallback Manager. This is often someone in Payroll who will determine what to do with the request.

3. Run the Workflow Forwarding (WFF) process on a regular basis

This process looks for reminders and escalations that have reached their due date and then either sends a reminder email or re-routes the request to the next manager. This is a quick process so you could create a schedule and set it to run daily. See my blog for help scheduling reports.

4. Create a schedule for the Load Position Tree (RTR) process

This process refreshes your reporting relationships. As new positions are created or existing positions updated, you will need to run RTR to ensure reporting relationships are kept up to date. If you don’t run RTR then a manager’s Staff List may not appear or it may appear to be out of date. Workflow records can also be broken as the system may be looking at a closed position, if one has recently been updated.

Make sure you run RTR before WFF otherwise you may be forwarding out of date records.

5. Rebuild the Staff List

The Staff List Rebuild (WFR) process is used to ensure that the staff lists in HR21 are kept up to date. This will refresh the lists when new employees start or when employees move between positions. You can create a schedule to automatically run this process on a regular basis.

6. Create different workflows for specific leave types

Some leave types may require a different workflow process. You don’t need to leave these leave types out of HR21. For instance, Study Leave may need to be approved by the manager but then also by someone from the HR department. You can configure your master workflow record so that other leave types can be treated differently to your standard annual or sick leave process.

7. Monitor workflow records using the Workflow Control (WFC) form

This form shows you the status of all of the workflow requests in the system. It’s a good idea to create a report and schedule it to run on a regular basis. This report can be automatically emailed to a relevant person for review. This will tell you how many requests are waiting to be processed and especially those that are past the due date. It’s also a good place to start looking if you need to do some troubleshooting.

8. Include a link to HR21 in the workflow emails to managers

It’s easy to do and makes it that bit easier for managers. You can even go an extra step and make the link go directly to the leave approval page. To do this just add ?form=SS5 to the end of your link as shown below:

“Please go to HR21 http://yourserver/HR21/interface/login.aspx?form=SS5 to review and process this leave request.”

When the manager clicks this link and then logs into HR21, the first page to open will be the Leave Requests page.

I hope this article has demonstrated how workflows can be improved to make the process simpler and to reduce the chance of problems occurring. You may already be using some of these tips in your HR21 workflow setup or you may have some different methods that work well. If so, feel free to leave a comment and share your ideas with the other readers.

The post 8 Ways to Optimise Your HR21 Workflow appeared first on System Logic.

For background information see my blogs The Benefits of Generating Emails from Chris21 and Use Workgroup Reminders to Manage Expiry Dates in Chris21.

It’s important to understand that Workgroup Reminders and Email Notifications are two distinct functions and therefore both have their specific  uses. Given this, how do you decide the best method to use when you want to generate Chris21 email alerts?

When to use Email Notifications (MMN)

You use Email Notifications when you want to be alerted whenever an update is made in Chris21. This update can be made either directly from Chris21 or from an interface to Chris21, typically HR21.

One good example to help you see where you can benefit from Email Notifications is changes to Bank details from HR21. If you are considering allowing users to do this then setting up an Email Notification will ensure Payroll is kept informed whenever a user makes a change to their bank details. Commonly, clients will direct these emails to a generic payroll email address that is monitored, rather than to an individual.

This of course will be very useful if an incorrect entry is made and the employee’s pay is misdirected. The email can even be setup to specify what the old bank details were and what changes were made.

One thing to note about Email Notifications is that they don’t differentiate between interfaces. In other words, Chris21 will send email alerts even if the change is made by a Payroll officer directly in Chris21. But to overcome this to some degree, you can specify the email to be triggered by changes only to specific fields. So in the example of Bank (PYD) changes, you could specify to only send the email when a Bank Account Number is changed. This way, any changes made by Payroll staff in Chris21 to other fields in PYD won’t trigger the email.

When to use Workgroup Reminders (ADE)

The key difference with Workgroup Reminders is that they are triggered by an event, the event being a date on an employee based record. When this date is approaching the system will send an email to reminder relevant parties (the employee and manager) that action needs to be taken.

Chris21 uses the concept of an ‘offset date’ to determine when the email is to be sent. For example, if you wanted to trigger an email alert to be sent two months before the date of the event then you would enter the offset as -2 months. The offset can be any time-frame you require.

An example where a Workgroup Reminder is useful is employees returning from leave without pay. If an employee has been on leave without pay, Payroll will want to know when the employee is returning to normal duties so that they can make any necessary adjustments to ensure the employee is correctly paid.

These email alerts are sent to the employee or the employee’s manager or both. In addition to this, a Diary Reminder can be directed to a Workgroup. A Workgroup is setup and assigned to Chris21 users, eg Payroll, HR, Training, etc. Diary Reminders are not emails, they are listed in Chris21 for users in Workgroups.

Please note, if you setup a Workgroup Reminder it will only begin sending email alerts when the key date is entered in Chris21. The updating of the date is what triggers the email. What this means is that if you already have dates in the system prior to the Workgroup Reminder being setup, then these dates will have to be taken out and re-entered to set the trigger. Of course, this is only necessary for future dates.

On this point, you can use GTR functionality to remove and reload these dates. For information about GTR see Increase Your Productivity Using GTR Processing.

I hope this blog has helped you understand the key differences between these two methods of generating Chris21 email alerts. The setup of each is quite different so please feel free to use the Comments to ask a question if you need more information.

The post Chris21 Email Alerts – What’s the Best Method? appeared first on System Logic.

There are many instances where you may want to automatically send emails from Chris21. For instance, emailing payslips, workflow emails or workgroup reminders. These are common examples of how emails can be used to great benefit by providing messages and alerts to employees.

Emailing Payslips

The days of printing payslips and physically delivering them to employees are very much in the past for many organisations. Although I am aware that some organisations still do this for various reasons.

One efficient method of delivering payslips is via email. As long as an employee has an email address then this can easily be achieved. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a work email address, it could be a private one. The private email address would, however, have to be specified on the employee’s Details (DET) form.

You can even email the payslips in PDF format so that they can’t be altered. And they can be password protected so that only the intended recipient can open them.

Workflow emails

If you are using HR21 for leave requests then you are already be using workflow emails in Chris21. These emails are purely alerts that tell a manager that an employee has requested leave and also tells the employee when the manager has responded to the request.

This is a very useful way to keep all parties informed as to the status of workflow requests. Bear in mind that workflow requests do no just refer to leave, it’s just that leave is probably the most popular one. Other forms of workflow can include such modules as training, expenses, performance management.

It’s also worth noting that workflow emails are simply alerts and have no bearing on the actual workflow process. This means that the workflow process will continue as normal even if the email functionality stops working.

Workgroup Reminders

These are very useful and lend themselves very well to email alerts. Please read this blog for further information about workgroup reminders, Use Workgroup Reminders to Manage Expiry Dates in Chris21. This gives a good example of how you can configure and use workgroup reminders.

Essentially, workgroup reminders are emails that are sent to interested parties to alert them that an important date is nearing. In my blog example you can see that there are many ways to use this functionality to your advantage. For instance,  payroll could set up a workgroup reminder if a position has an end date that is approaching. This could be sent to the employee’s manager as an alert that the contract may need extending.

You may not be using the emailing feature of Chris21 to its full advantage. If that’s the case, consider some of the ideas mentioned in this blog. With a few configuration changes you can achieve significant efficiencies by auto-generating emails from Chris21.

The post The Benefits of Generating Emails from Chris21 appeared first on System Logic.