Water Resources Division ITAC Home Page

A new addition to the Domino Directory is an employee id that will be assigned to every person by populating the "User ID" field on the Work/Home-Work tab in the person document in the Name and Address Book (NAB). Persons certified under the TEST and NONPERSON CERT will be excluded and will have a "00000" value added to their "User ID" field. After the initial Friday run, If you have TEST user in the NAB that has been assigned a number other than "00000" please notify me and I will zero that value out. The User IDs will start at 32,000 and will never be reused. For all federal employees, their User ID is recorded in a separate table. The program searches this table for all new entries to see if there is a match and if so reassigns their old User ID. This will provide a unique and unchanging id that will then be used as a key for programs such as BASIS+ and Active Directory to uniquely identify each employee. This can also be used for new users to set their Unix userid number.

The Employee_ID program will do its first run, Friday, April 26, 2002. This should result in a fairly small replication update although you may advise your users that have a local replica of the NAB on their desktop that this is occurring this weekend. The program will run every night and assign a number to anyone in the NAB that does not have a value in that "User ID" field. The program will run at 11:00 PM ET in order to try and get all of the users that have been registered for the day.

If you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email and I will be happy to answer them.

--Daphne

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Hi,

The field will be cleared tonight (only time) and a new will be put in the field. That number will stay for as long as you are with the Survey.

Daphne

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Are the following two statements true?

1. the new value will not be our existing Unix id.
2. the existing unix id range (already in use by WRD) will not be used when generating the new lotus user id numbers.

Jessica

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yes to both questions.

Daphne L. Chinn

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Hi Tammy,

I have been meaning to ask someone these questions about TNA and thought you would be a good start.

1. There are two ways to access TNA: via the TNA web client ( supported by most common internet browsers) and via a non-web TNA client that runs on Unix, Windows or Novel hosts. WRD Science Centers (SC) currently use the non-web TNA client (some running on Unix others on individual PCs). In some offices the time and attendance is entered by one person, in others all employees enter their own. Is the plan to have SC continue to use the non-web TNA client or the web TNA client? My guess is the web client.
2. TNA is currently linked to Water's Administrative Information System (AIS). Data is exchanged between these two applications to provide more effective budgeting. Water would like to maintain these links alive until BASIS can interact with TNA. Any idea when that may happen?
3. At the National Center users use the web TNA client while timekeepers use the TNA client available from a Novel server. The web client is very easy to use BUT when I was first setup I was under the impression that in order to charge two separate accounts, both accounts had to be entered into my profile. On the non-web TNA client when the timekeeper enters an account, it is available to all employees. Will this work the same on the web TNA client or will timekeepers have to enter an account number repeatedly for each individual user?
4. This one is more of a suggestion. At SC employees normally charge ~5 accounts per week. Especially illustrators and field techs who jump from working on one project to another on a daily basis. The non-web client makes it easy to enter the hours worked for multiple accounts. The web client does not. It requires jumping back and forth between 2 to 3 web pages before the hours finally show up as charged to another account. Entering multiple accounts would really be simplified if users could just enter data directly onto the "View as Payroll" page which looks more like the non-web TNA interface that they currently use.

Thanks for your help,

Jessie

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Jessica,

I'm going to address each of your questions individually.

1. There are two versions of the T&A system currently in use. The version we use at the National Center (web for employees, and client/server for timekeepers and certifiers) is the latest version. The client/server version used at the science centers is one version older. The reason everyone hasn't been moved to the latest version is because it's not equipped to handle that many employees. It's pretty much running at the max. There is a new version of the T&A system under development which is entirely web-based ... even for timekeepers and certifiers. This system will be used by everyone at USGS. The implementation has been pushed back many times. The latest I heard was pilot testing in some offices would begin in 1/2003. I wouldn't count on that happening because from what I understand the USGS doesn't even have the software yet.
2. I know nothing about BASIS or AIS data exchanges. You may want to talk to Greg Huttman in Headquarters Personnel about this.
3. The account numbers work the same on the web and client/server version of T&A. When a timekeeper enters an account number, it is available to everyone that timekeeper is responsible for.
4. The web version can be set-up to enter data on the payroll screen instead of the sign-in/sign-out screen. There is a new Survey Manual Chapter in draft about T&A accounting. It states that use of the sign-in/sign-out screens are strongly encouraged instead of the basic payroll screen if employees are on a flexible or alternate work schedule. Almost everyone at USGS is on a flexible or AWS schedule. If you use the payroll screen, the employee will have to use a paper sign-in/sign-out sheet and these will have to be kept by the office for three years. For maxiflex employees, it's really hard to report on the payroll screen if you earn credit. Credit can only be earned at the end of the pay period for maxiflex employees, so you have to keep track (usually on a sheet of paper on the side) of your work and leave until they add up to 80, then you start earning credit. The sign-in/sign-out screens calculate all of this for you. I understand that there are multiple steps involved in reporting hours to different account numbers, but hopefully after a few pay periods employees will fall into a routine and it won't be as difficult as it looks now.

I hope I answered all of your questions. Please let me know if you need any more information.

Tammy Mitchell
U.S. Geological Survey
Eastern Region Personnel
157 National Center
2201 Sunrise Valley Drive
Reston, VA 20192
703-648-5766 (phone)
703-648-4113 (FAX)

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Below Tammy addresses some of the questions I have had since I started using the web-based TNA system. I'm sure once you read this email other questions might arise, feel free to send them to me so that I can compile them and work on getting the answers for you.

Jessie