Community fund drive

Thank you for the more than 100 ASR staff that enjoyed Milk & Cookies in Bruininks, Fraser and Williamson Halls while raising money for the Completion Funds Scholarship. You voted for your favorite pet, or sabotaged another, and in the process donated more than 6000 pennies and raised $327. Visit the website to see point and fund totals for each pet. There is still time to cast your pennies for your favorite pet, or your dollars to sabotage the others! Collection jars will be out in the buildings until Monday, October 31.

New One Stop website launches for U of M students

A redesigned One Stop website launched at the end of the day Thursday, October 20. The new design emphasizes mobile delivery, aligns with MyU, and will ensure that students can find relevant, timely information using their preferred device.

The website will continue to evolve with various refinements and content updates as needed. We want your feedback. There is a form available on the One Stop homepage. If you submit feedback, please include your name, select "other" as your primary affiliation and indicate that you are from ASR. Please also direct non-ASR staff and students to submit feedback through this form.

10th annual Student Veterans Appreciation Day

Come one, come all to the 10th annual Student Veterans Appreciation Event on Tuesday, November 15, 2016, from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. in the Great Hall at Coffman Memorial Union. Say “thank you” to student veterans, grab a slice of pizza, and participate in some carnival games. The event is free and open to the public; no RSVP is required.

Degree Progress tab on MyU

On October 23, the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities and Rochester campuses launched a new tool in MyU to help undergraduate students better track their degree progress and plan for timely graduation. Thus far, approximately 1,800 students have interacted with the new tool.

On November 1, 2016, the Student Degree Progress and APAS teams will be hosting an event for advisors and staff that demonstrates the tool and it's capabilities, how it personalizes information for student scenarios, and answer questions. If you're interested in attending, find out more and make sure to RSVP.

• When:  11:10 a.m.-12:00 p.m. on November 1 (Add to your calendar)
• Where: 45 Rapson Hall (View campus map)
• What: Demonstration event for advisors

ARFs moving to ServiceNow workflows

The Provisioning & Request team has been working towards converting all of our Access Request Forms (ARFs) that are PDFs into ServiceNow workflows. View the current list of forms that will be or are already updated. If you would like to see an example of a converted form, the "HR PeopleSoft" form in the central part of the page has been completed.

UMN’s Windows 10 update timeline

The University Office of Information Technology is planning to release the most current upgrade for Windows 10 to the University community on November 14, 2016. There is an increased installation time over traditional monthly updates which usually take up to 15 minutes to install. OIT expect that these larger updates to occur every six months going forward. These updates are required to maintain a supported version of Windows 10.

Upcoming Project Management courses

The new ASR Project Management Course, PM 102: Business Cases & Project Initiation, is now open for registration.  The following 2016-2017 sections are available:

• Tuesday, November 15th 9a-10a

• Tuesday, January 17th 1p-2p

• Thursday, April 20th 10a-11a

Register Here

Upcoming professional development events

ASR Project Management Courses - Upcoming Sessions (Ryan Ceresnak)

• PM 201: Supporting Effective Project Teams - 10/28/16 10:30a-12p
• PM 202: Developing & Managing a Project Plan  - 11/14/16 1p-2:30p
• PM 301: Evidence-Based Portfolio Management - 12/8/16 10a-11:30a

PCMC October Panel Discussion: Have You Been Thrown in the Project Deep End?  Techniques, Advice, and Stories for Staying Afloat

The Project & Change Management Collaborators have put together a collaborative panel to connect professionals across the University, create opportunities to share and learn with each other, raise awareness of existing resources, and how to survive the project deep end.

When: Tuesday, October 25th - 1:00p-2:30p
Where: Walter Library 101

New form for mid-year performance appraisals

A new version of the mid-year appraisal is now available for ASR staff. The updated mid-year form was created to be consistent with our new annual performance appraisal form, but provide a condensed format. The form gives supervisors and employees the opportunity to reflect on the previous six months and address development opportunities prior to the annual reviews.

The new form is now available. Self-evaluations are due to supervisors November 14.

ASR staff should download a copy of the Mid-Year Appraisal form. On some versions of Microsoft Word, you will have to click View > Edit Document before being able to enter your responses and in some cases you will need to highlight and replace existing text. Once completed, submit the form to your supervisor Supervisors will complete and upload a final copy of the form to the IDP/PA folder. If a staff folder has not been created, please contact Mara Schneider.

2016 Mid-Year Appraisal form >>

2016 Mid-Year Appraisal form for Mac and older versions of Word >>

Timeline:

• Staff: Self-evaluations due to supervisors by November 14
• Supervisors: Complete written evaluations and meet with employees by December 9

Review the “2016 Mid-Year Performance Appraisal FAQ” for answers and solutions to common questions or concerns.

New student degree progress tool will be made available in MyU

On October 23, the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities and Rochester campuses will launch a new tool in the MyU: Academics > Degree Progress tab to help undergraduate students better understand their degree progress and plan for timely graduation. This tool utilizes data from APAS to calculate a student's progress of completion within their degree program. Students will receive recommendations, based on their individual progress, to help guide them toward four-year degree completion (for fall NHS admits) and timely completion (for other admit types).

An interpretation guide for this new tool will be made available in the Advisor Toolkit. At launch, only students will have access to this tool.

If you have additional questions, please contact the Student Degree Progress team.

New One Stop website brown bag session

ASR staff are invited to bring their lunches to a brown bag session that will tour the new One Stop website.

When: Tuesday, October 18 from 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Where: Fraser B20

PeopleSoft HR will be unavailable October 15 &16

The PeopleSoft HR will be unavailable beginning Saturday, October 15 at 6 p.m. until Sunday, October 16, 12 p.m.

The Human Resources Management System (HRMS) group will be installing an important PeopleSoft update to improve the system, add new features, and fix bugs. Some of the improvements are in recruiting solutions, position and appointment entry, time and absence management, and other areas.  

Specific Impacts and Schedule Changes:

• Saturday, October 15, 6 p.m.: The PeopleSoft HR system will become unavailable. This includes job search capabilities and HR self-service functions.  HR information will not be available on MyU tabs My Time, My Pay, My Benefits, Manager Info and My Info. Also, HRMS queries will not be available in the Reporting Center.
• Sunday, October 16, 12 p.m.: The PeopleSoft HR system will come back online according to the normal maintenance schedule.
• Data warehouse tables and PSSNAP will not be refreshed on Sunday October 16 at 12 a.m. and will resume on Monday October 17 at 12 a.m.

Please plan your work around those hours and hopefully this extended down time will not cause an inconvenience.

For more information on the project, ServiceNow users can reference CHG0039071. During the weekend, updates will be available on the University’s Service Status page.

Milk and cookie breaks for the Community Fund Drive

One, two, three, four, we declare a PENNY WAR - with a twist!

From October 14-31, 2016 ASR will engage in a Penny War to raise money for the Community Fund Drive!

In a penny war, two or more groups compete to win a fundraising competition. This year instead of competing by building or department, ASR's Community Fund Drive Penny War will involve several ASR staff members’ pets that have been featured in News and Notes. ASR staff will have the opportunity to 'vote' for their favorite pet, each penny being a vote. If you're not familiar with how a Penny War works here's the low down: the value of pennies collected count positively toward the point total, while the value of other coins or dollar bills are subtracted from the point total. All funds ASR collects will be given to the U of MN Foundation to be added to the Completion Fund Scholarship.

Our featured pets for the Penny War are: Tonks; Bears; Snickers and Meep; and Newman.

To encourage ASR staff to participate, there will be three different Milk and Cookie breaks throughout the month of October. These breaks are scheduled for: October 14 from 1:00-2:00 p.m. in 160B Williamson Hall; October 18 from 2:30-3:30 p.m. in 312 Bruininks Hall; and October 26 from 1:00-2:00 p.m. in 220-D Fraser. Come for a cookie, meet ASR staff who work in different buildings, and bring your pennies (or other bills to sabotage). Staff are encouraged to attend any and all of the milk and cookie breaks if their schedule allows.

Collection jars with photos of the ASR pets will be available in these buildings: Fraser, Bruininks, and Williamson.

Early FAFSA submission stats

Starting this year, students and families could submit their Free Application for Student Financial Aid (FAFSA) starting on October 1 instead of January 1. Most of the OSF staff thought there would just be a trickle of FAFSAs submitted in the first few days of early submission. However, to OSF’s surprise, in the first import of FAFSA data there were 2,464 files for the Twin Cities campus (of which we were able to load 389). As a matter of practice this data is only loaded into PeopleSoft once the student has been admitted to the University. If students are never admitted, their information remains in a suspense file.

Along with having FAFSA data earlier than in years past, staff are busily working on getting all the associated financial aid packaging documents and processes updated to allow for earlier estimated financial aid awards for incoming new freshmen.

Engagement team begins review of ASR’s knowledge, skills and abilities

The Engagement team has begun a review of ASR’s knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) related to career families to assure they support our current initiatives and evolving changes in ASR’s work. We’ll start with sampling job descriptions by career family followed by interviews with staff. For more information contact: John Vollum.

Don’t forget to take the ASR Fall Staff Event survey

Thank you for participating in this year's ASR Fall Staff Event and to the Development team for all their planning and effort. If you have not done so already, take a moment to share your feedback. All responses are anonymous. Your input is valuable!