The purpose to this document is to ensure that the workflow of approvals remains intact when Oracle Approvers leave their role by providing guidance to Human Resource Partners (HRP) and Supervisors of employees that have approval roles on how to proceed when an employee leaves the University or vacates their approver role.   

• A departing approver may have pending approvals (known as “in flight”) that will need to be redirected to the new approver.
• Unlike other approvers, a project always has only one Project Manager (PM), so it is imperative that this role does not remain vacant.
• Project Managers that oversee Projects related to grants typically report to supervisors in individual departments, rather than University Research Administration (URA).  Accordingly, URA employees may not be aware that a Project Manager has departed, leaving a vacancy in the approver role.
• Although Organization Financial Managers (OFM) and Entity Financial Managers (EFM) are typically in approval groups where multiple individuals receive the approval request, it is possible an individual has claimed a transaction that will need to be reassigned back to the approval group.

 

Please keep the following mind if you have any of these roles:

• Human Resources Partner (HRP) – Make sure to remind the Supervisor that it is imperative that a permanent or interim Project Manager is assigned immediately as there are no alternative approvers for projects.
• Approver’s Supervisor - It is imperative that a permanent or interim Project Manager is assigned immediately, as there are no alternative approvers for projects.
• Project Administrator / Setup Specialist – Assign new Project Manager to Project quickly so that workflow interruptions are mitigated.
• New Project Manager – Make sure to have any pending approvals that are currently assigned to the previous PM reassigned to you (see Step 2 below).

 

When an employee leaves the University, the Termination Business Process is initiated in Workday by the HRP.  Similarly, if an employee moves positions that results in a vacated approver role, the Job Change Business Process is initiated in Workday by the HRP.

While the HRP initiates the Termination or Job Change Business Processes, the following actions are also necessary if the departing employee has an Approver role.

 

1. For all departures, supervisor notifies Human Resource Partner (HRP), who works with Supervisor to quickly hire a new Project Manager (PM).
   1. In the case of a sponsored award (grant):
      1. HRP works with Set-up Specialist to designate an interim PM if a permanent replacement has not been identified.
      2. Supervisor emails aura-help@uchicago.edu to name the interim PM for each applicable project (please provide a spreadsheet of Project that departing approver was overseeing). Email goes to URA so the updates can be made to project personnel in Oracle.
   2. In the case of an IADF:
      1. HRP works with IADF PM or Award Admin to designate an interim PM if a permanent replacement has not been identified
      2. Role Assignment Owner submits an Oracle/Orbit Access Request form to remove the departing PM from all applicable projects
      3. Role Assignment Owner submits a second Oracle/Orbit Access Request form to add a new permanent/interim IADF PM for all applicable projects
   3. In the case of Capital Project:
      1. HRP works with Capital Project PM to designate an interim PM if a permanent replacement has not been identified
      2. Role Assignment Owner submits an Oracle/Orbit Access Request form to remove the departing PM from all applicable projects
      3. Role Assignment Owner submits a second Oracle/Orbit Access Request form to add a new permanent/interim Capital Project PM for all applicable projects
2. New or Interim Project Manager (PM) must identify any In-Flight approvals that are not assigned to them.  To help with that, the new PM should run the Invoice Workflow report in the Payables Management Dashboard in Orbit.
   1. For Oracle approvals: New or Interim Project Manager submits an Oracle Approver Reassignment Request for any transactions currently assigned to the previous Project Manager.
   2. For Workday approvals: In-Flight approvals assigned to the resigning PM need to be manually reassigned to the new PM by the Workday Solutions team. Submit an Ask a Human Resources Question request to initiate this process. If a transaction requires PM approval, but there isn't a PM assigned, it will route to the Workday Solutions team where they must determine who the PM is, put the PM into the applicable Workday role, and then reassign the stray transactions.
   3. For ServiceNow approvals: In-Flight approvals assigned to the resigning PM need to be updated through a manual script ran by the F&A ITS Service Automation team.  Submit an Ask an IT Question request to initiate this process.