News and Blog
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While part-time workers are not necessarily the norm in school districts, there can be hundreds of employees that work part-time. We have one Escape Online district that has over 550 part-time assignments. If you ever need to make adjustments to those workers, it can be confusing because FTE and days are two completely different ways of computing salary. Obviously! So, we designed an intuitive way to make the entry of hours versus FTE for PTW (part-time worker) more obvious. |
Basically, you can designate what type of time you are entering: based on PTW or full FTE. If you are entering a number that is based on PTW, the number will be accepted as is. If you are entering a number that is based on FTE, you enter the number and then the word FULL (i.e., 5 full), and Escape Online will calculate your number as FTE. Let's use a PTW assignment where 3 hours equals a 0.5 FTE as an example.
To enter 5 part-time days (5 days at 3 hours/day), you simply enter “5”. Escape Online will display the PTW days entered, as well as the full FTE day equivalent: 5.00 {2.50 full days}.
To enter Adjusted Days based on full FTE, enter “5 FULL”. Escape Online will determine the PTW equivalent day count and display the full FTE day count: 10.00 {5.00 full days}.
And, as a bonus, you can see that the Days field right below the Adjusted Days field shows similar information to help you quickly recognize days versus FTE.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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Lots of districts want the best of both worlds: Admin users enter requisitions; purchasing agents determine the best vendor. But how do you do this if the Vendor is a required field in the requisition? Escape Online has the answer in the form of an interim vendor. What's that you say? Well, it is a vendor record that is set up without any "real" vendor information. Basically, it is a placeholder that allows Admin users to enter a vendor and purchasing users to replace the vendor with the one most appropriate for the request. |
Escape Online has a special vendor Id 999999 (six nines) that does not affect the numbering of other vendors and is really easy to remember: just fill up the field with nines! Here's how it works.
First you create an interim vendor record, akin to what you see below. You name the vendor something easy to remember, like "Misc Vendor" and enter the address for the Purchasing Office. (Note, we also have a customer that uses an interim vendor for the county office for payroll processing. Kind of cool!)
Then, all you have to do is train users to select this vendor. They will probably appreciate the simplicity. The final result on the requisitions looks like what you see below.
Lastly, when the requisition is approved and ready to be assigned to a buyer, the buyer can then pick the appropriate vendor. Sweet and simple!
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
What a way to start the new year…two counties going live on Escape Online 5. I previously wrote about Phase 1 of Shasta County going live but Alpine County also joined the Escape family in January.
The Alpine project was ‘fast-tracked’ and we were able to get them live in less than 6 months. Even though they are a fairly small county, the timeline was a bit challenging due to their location!
The Alpine County Office of Education is located in Markleeville,
which is 30 miles south of Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Amazingly, they went live in January following the snowiest December in the past 10 years! Carole Williams, the Escape Project Manager, would make the drive from Roseville for trainings when weather permitted, or she’d utilize GoToWebinar if the weather conditions were poor.
“The Alpine County Schools staff is excited by the progress that we’ve made with the Escape implementation process. First we’d like to extend our sincere appreciation to “those who went before,” paving the way that has made our transition so very smooth. During the Christmas holiday season, our most productive time, we worked with Arin and Jen Stahr, both very knowledgeable. We were impressed that, in the absence of our wonderful trainer Carole, such positive, cheerful, knowledgeable staff can so easily step in to cover for each other! Comforting experience, thank you so much everyone!!!”
~Janice Doyal, Business Manager
Alpine County Office of Education
Janis Doyal, Jacque Nyswonger (Chief Accountant), Dianna Stevenson (Business Office Clerk), and
Jill Adams (Business Services Technician III) happily display their new checks.
I appreciate the flexibility of Janis, Jill, Jacque and Dianna for those winter-inspired situations where we needed to complete training or setup via webinar versus in-person. Their enthusiasm and positive attitude during the entire project made the process very enjoyable.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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Terri and I share an Escape Online 5 database for training and documentation purposes. As a release date draws closer, sometimes we collide when opening records, both of us trying to edit the same thing in our mad rush to meet the deadline. We used to get a message in the status bar stating that the record was being edited by another user, but numerous customers wanted a more prominent message. So, with the latest release of software (10.05), we now get an in-your-face message that I really like and you will too. (For those of you keeping track, that was Change Request #9876. Another one bites the dust!) |
I can click OK and look at the record, or I can yell over the cube wall and ask her (politely) to get out. If she gets out (she is so sweet), then I can click OK and re-open the unlocked record. No problem.
But what if Terri left on vacation while she still had the record open? It’s okay because she is entitled to some vacation and the lock is only for 30 minutes from the opening of the record (although your system may have been set up with more or less time). All I need to do is wait out the 30 minutes and then open it for editing.
Either way, this is a great feature. If someone is editing the record, then I know right away. If someone has left the record open and left for the day/week, then I have a way to get into that record without waiting for their return or getting a system manager involved.
NOTE: For you system managers, the controlling parameter for the number of minutes a record is locked is the LockExpireMinutes parameter in the EscapeTech.OnlineCoreService.exe.CoreServicesConfig file in the OnlineSystemServices directory. The default is 30 minutes, with a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 1440 (24 hours).
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
Yesterday, I happily announced the first AP run at Shasta COE. Today, I’m happy to announce that the first Payroll run went just as well. Again, many thanks go to Kelli Roberts and her team from the County Office for working so hard to ensure Phase 1 went live on time. No rest for the weary, though, as the team is continuing their efforts with Phase 2 and Phase 3. Keep up the good work!
Kelli Roberts (Director of Business Applications), Stacy Bogdan (Payroll Technician), and Michelle Vanderpool (Payroll Accountant) gladly show off their payroll checks.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
I’m happy to announce that Shasta County Office of Education completed their first AP run on Escape Online 5 in early January. This first phase of the project includes five districts. Many thanks to Kelli Roberts and her team from the County Office for working diligently to complete all the necessary setup, testing and training.
Michelle Vanderpool (Payroll Accountant), Kelli Roberts (Director of Business Applications), and Julie Bartlett (Accountant Asst II) were key to the successful printing of AP checks.
Kathy Carlson, the Escape Project Manager, and Tom Henzie, the Escape Data Technician, have been working closely with Shasta County since early August when the project kicked off. The project calls for all districts within the county to go live in three phases. The second phase will go live in early April, and the final phase will go live in July.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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I like information to be right in front of me. So when I heard that you could make your payroll errors display in the Payroll Status activity, I was intrigued. It is a very simple, system-wide change that I think payroll technicians will find incredibly useful. Here is the scoop. At the beginning of the payroll process, technicians rely on the Adjust Pay screen and Pay22 to catch errors (like accounts, retirement, labor, etc.) at the employee level. But, when you are ready to submit, you need to double-check again. Here is where this feature is so fabulous. In addition to running the Pay22 report to see all of the labor errors (the most difficult to fix after-the-fact), you can request these errors to be displayed on the Payroll Status activity. |
Look at that, right on the form! Too cool. We have allowed for this window to be custom for each system. The form can be set up to show whichever errors you would like. You can display labor errors only or all payroll errors. (Here is a PDF of all errors so you can decide for yourself.) Your Customer Care rep will work with you to set this up exactly to your liking. Remember, like I said, this is system-wide, so if you are part of a County-implementation, you will need to coordinate with the County.
Displaying these errors on the Payroll Status is a real time-saver, and it is easy to implement at any time!
NOTE: You probably noticed that the error section is labeled “Fatal Payroll Errors.” That is a misnomer. They are not really fatal; you can still process payroll. After all, people must be paid and errors can be resolved after-the-fact. But still, that is disconcerting, so we created CR #10279 to change the label to “Critical Payroll Errors.”
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
 Cupertino USD |
We are delighted to announce that Cupertino USD has begun the implementation process for Escape Online 5's Finance/HR/Payroll modules. Their LIVE date is scheduled for July 2011. With over 18,000 ADA, Cupertino is the third largest district in Santa Clara County.
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Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Cupertino joined the Escape Family in 2000, going live on Escape-Classic Finance, Personnel and Payroll. We are pleased this long-term partner is moving forward with Escape Online 5.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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