The Research Foundation is very pleased to announce the launching of a new and significantly improved Payroll Authorization System (ePAS) Monday June 12th at 7:00 PM. This new system is a significant step-forward in our ongoing efforts in the Foundation’s mission of providing responsive and cost-effective support to the University’s research community. ePAS was developed to replace the legacy paper “108” forms with an integrated web-based system which will assist you with the necessary requirements for capturing, validating and routing payroll authorization submissions. All active and pending 108 payroll authorizations in the current system will be imported into ePAS.

Input from PI’s and current users of the 108 process assisted us in completing ePAS as a sophisticated, database system. New functionality includes automatically populating a significant amount of information directly from the Foundation General Ledger and Human Resources systems into an employee payroll authorization. The new system has a significant number of business rules programmed that will provide checks and verification for items such as project start and end dates, budget funds available as well as semester pay period date parameters. One of the most significant enhancements is the system’s ability to calculate payroll funding information based upon the input of “Hours Per Week” to calculate the individual’s “Budget” or the input of “Budget” to calculate “Hours Per Week”. The initial test groups of users have found ePAS to be intuitive and easy to use.

ePAS will be accessed via the Research Foundation’s PI Portal. A secured hierarchal reporting structure based upon faculty member, department and college allows for both the ability to access employee and project information authorized for the specific user and the appropriate automatic routing of the payroll authorization for approval. The ability to assign a “Proxy User” is also incorporated into the system requiring minimal action form the PI.

Foundation Human Resources staff will be offering additional training sessions at the following times and location:

• Wednesday – June 14, 2017 at 2:00 – 4111 Monarch Way, 2nd Floor Conference Room

• Tuesday – June 20, 2017 at 2:00 – 4111 Monarch Way, 2nd Floor Conference Room

Human Resources staff welcomes the opportunity to provide departments or individual one-on-one meetings for training. If interested please contact Hope Fowler, hfowler@odu.edu or 683-7238. An ePAS User Guide will be available on the Research Foundation web page.

As with any new system implementation of this magnitude we anticipate a few initial challenges. The existing e-108 system will not be available after the “go-live” date; however, a report is available to provide information from prior assignments. The Research Foundation will continue to accept paper 108 Forms for the next two pay periods to accommodate anyone needing assistance with ePAS. We look forward to your feedback and believe you will see this as a significant enhancement of our support of the research community

Julian F. Facenda, Executive Director