Electronic Personnel Action Forms FAQ

Electronic Personnel Action Form in Banner used to create employee records and to update these records when changes occur.

EPAFs are used to create or update portions of an employee’s personnel record in Banner and to ensure that the employee is paid timely and accurately.

Training documentation is located in MyFSU on the Employment > Professional Development > EPAF Training & Documentation portlet.

You may email [email protected] or call x2150 for EPAF inquiries.

There are many benefits to moving away from paper PAFs to electronic PAFs (EPAFs):

• It’s the next logical step in automating processes.
• It allows everyone to be more productive.
• It speeds up the processing time by promoting the consistent use of the correct form.
• EPAFs are stored and searchable by approves and originators anytime during the process.
• The ability to see where an EPAF is in the process in real-time.

 

Using the Electronic Personnel Action Forms has the following benefits:

• Central tracking
• Faster processing
• More efficient data entry into Banner
• Ability to approve remotely
• Ability to set up a proxy
• Ability to set up a custom routing queue

Paper versions of EPAFs will be available for use for a period of time during the transition from paper to electronic PAFs. If you have been trained on any of the EPAFs that are available, we highly encourage you to begin using the EPAF system as new personnel actions must be taken. This will ensure you are familiar with the system and how it works as more complicated EPAFs are created and implemented.

The following approval categories are defined in Ferris State University’s EPAF system.

Change in Pay – Salary: Used to change the annual salary on an existing salaried job assignment.

Change in Pay – Hourly: Used to change the hourly rate on an existing hourly job assignment.

FOAP Change: Used to change the labor distribution on an existing job assignment.

Supervisor Change: Used to change the supervisor on the specified assignment that the employee reports to (the person who supervises the performance of the assignment)

Title Change: Used to change the title of the specified assignment

Release Time FOAP Change: Used to change the FOAP at the beginning and end of an assignment with release time

Terminate Temporary Assignment – With No End Date: Used to terminate a temporary assignment that does not already have an end date. Used only for additional non-primary assignments. This does not end the employment record.

Revision: Used to revise previously applied EPAF transactions for any EPAF. The EPAF transaction number must be included in the comments of the revision.

 

The following policies apply to the EPAFs being implemented on January 4, 2016:

• Salary Increase, FSU-HRPP 2023:06
• Combined Personnel Transactions/Individual Salary Increases, FSU-HRPP 2005:16
• Advanced Degrees for Full-time Administrative and Support Employees, FSU-HRPP 2013:38

Prior to the training please test your pin for Pre-Production (PPRD) Self-Service Banner. To access PPRD log into MyFSU, select the Employee tab, select MyWorkplace in the Employee Quick Links, scroll down to Banner Links to other Instances on the right side, under Self-Service Banner (SSB) select PPRD.

Click the link that says Click here to login to Banner Services. For the User ID use your campus-wide ID (CWID = Banner ID) number, for pin try your 6 digit birth date MMDDYY. If you find you are unable to login please contact ITSC at x4822, specify that you are attempting to access the PPRD environment.

If you need to change your pin for the PPRD environment you will likely need it reset for production as well. Once ITSC provides a temporary pin for the production environment you can change it in the Employee tab by clicking Change PIN Number in the Employee Information portlet.

In order to improve security within Banner, you will need to use your PIN to access certain information such as EPAF and W-2’s. This adds an extra layer of security to ensure that personal and University information stays safe.

Your PIN is different from your MyFSU password, so if you do not know your PIN, please call the ITSC to reset it.

If you already know your PIN and wish to change it, you can do so by using the following instructions:

1. Log into MyFSU and navigate to the Employee Tab
2. In the Employee Info Channel find the Helpful Links section
3. Click “Change PIN”

If you need to reset your PIN, or have questions about when to use your PIN, please contact the ITSC at 231-592-4822 or toll-free at 877-779-4822.

Banner Gold

1. Log into MyFSU and select the Employee tab
2. Select the MyWorkplace quick link.
3. Select the appropriate link in the EPAF Notification or EPAF for Originators & Approvers portlet.

Dev 2 or PPRD

1. Log into MyFSU and select the Employee tab.
2. Select the MyWorkplace quick link.
3. Select the appropriate link in the Banner Links to other Instances portlet.

Query Date

• Auto-fills in today’s date for the EPAF field. You enter the date the transaction should occur. The query date does not affect Banner system. It is tied to the Labor Distribution screen.

Jobs Effective Date

• The date that a particular EPAF will take effect, usually in the current pay period. It can be a date prior to the current pay period, if it is an Original Appointment or appointment to New PCN.

Personnel Date

• Date meant to show when a particular employee transaction should have occurred. Since you cannot update job information prior to the Last Paid Date, you may not always be able to change it on the actual date of change. Or you may miss the EPAF deadline for the pay period. It is recommended to note there will be the calculation of retroactive pay request (RPR) or special check in the EPAF Comments.

An originator is the designated departmental personnel authorized to create EPAFs. It is your task to correctly input the necessary information within the EPAF. This is a very important role as you are the first step in making sure that an employee’s appointment is accurately set-up and maintained within Banner.

As EPAFs are processed the users will have different navigation options depending on where the EPAF is in the routing process.  The different options for Originators are listed below:

Save

• Once the EPAF fields have been populated it can be saved.  Once saved, the EPAF will move to a “Waiting” status and be placed in the “Current” tab under “Originator Summary”.  Saving will also do an edit check to ensure that all required fields have been filled out and will create an error if anything is missing.

Submit

• Once an EPAF is saved without any errors, the EPAF can then be submitted.  Once submitted, the EPAF will do a final edit check to ensure that the fields, as populated, can be updated in Banner during the Apply Process.  If any issues are found, error messages will be generated and will need to be fixed before saving and resubmitting the EPAF.  Once submitted, the EPAF will move to a “Pending” status and will be placed in the “Current” tab under “Originator Summary.”

Delete

• An EPAF that has been saved but not submitted can be deleted.  This would be used if the EPAF was created in error and/or is no longer needed.

Void

• Once an EPAF has been submitted, it can be voided by the Originator if it is no longer valid and needs to be pulled out of the routing queue.  This would also be used if the EPAF were returned for correction and a new EPAF had to be initiated.  In this case the Approve who returned the EPAF for correction would need to indicate in the comments that the EPAF should be voided and re-initiated along with the reason.

Once an EPAF is submitted, Approvers are the individuals authorized to review and approve the information within an EPAF. Often, there will be multiple Approvers required for a single EPAF as they contain information requiring review or approval from specific areas. For example, many EPAFs require approval from the Budget Office to ensure financial accuracy and compliance. Another example includes the Provost’s Office who reviews EPAFs specific to faculty. Human Resources is the final approver and is responsible for its application to Banner.

As EPAFs are processed the users will have different navigation options depending on where the EPAF is in the routing process.  The different options for Approvers are listed below:

Approve

• Once submitted, the EPAF will move to the first approver.  The approver will have the option to review the EPAF.  If the EPAF is correct and ready to move on in the approval queue, the user will click on the “Approve” button to move it to the next approver.

Return for Correction

• If an approver finds an error in an EPAF they would use the “Return for Correction” option to send the EPAF back to the originator with a comment indicating what was wrong and what needs to be corrected.  If the EPAF needs to be started over, the comments should let the Originator know to void the current EPAF and initiate a new one with the correct information.

Disapprove

• Disapprove will return the EPAF to the Originator with a status of “Disapproved”.  The Originator would generally then Void the EPAF and initiate a new one.  Determined that this would most likely not be used and the “Return for Correction” option would be used instead.

Acknowledge

• Anyone set up as an FYI will have the option to “Acknowledge” an EPAF.  While this is not required it is a way for the person to let the approvers know that they did review the EPAF.  Failure to acknowledge an EPAF will not halt the approval process.

 

All EPAFs go through an approval queue before they are applied to the system. This queue varies dependent on the position type, individual college / department policies and approval type. As the EPAF travels down the Routing Queue after submission, it will change Status as it moves from queue to queue. You will see the following routing queue statuses.

In Queue

The EPAF is waiting for the next person to approve. You’ll see all those in the queue by those that have In Queue as their status.

FYI

• This is for those that have no approval but need to have this for their information.

Pending

• The EPAF has been submitted and is in the approver’s queue.

Approved

• The EPAF has been forwarded to the next approver in the queue.

Applied

• The EPAF has been applied to the system.

The Transaction Status indicates the status of the transaction created by the Electronic Personnel Action (EPAF).

An EPAF can have any of the following transaction statuses:

Waiting

• Transaction is being created, has not been submitted.   Transactions with “waiting” status cannot be seen on the Approval Summary Form (NOAAPSM) or the EPAF Approver Summary page in Employee Self-Service until submitted to the approval queue.
  
  A Waiting status transaction can be deleted by selecting the Delete PAF from the Electronic Personnel Action Form (NOAEPAF) or the Delete button in Employee Self-Service.

Pending

• The transaction requires positive action by the approver(s).

Return for Correction

This status allows the transaction to be returned to the originator for correction when an error is detected prior to final approval or application to the database. If the transaction is resubmitted, all individuals in the queue must take action on the transaction again.

Approved

• The transaction is approved when each person in the approval queue has approved the transaction. The transaction remains at this status until the person with apply privileges applies the transaction to the database.

Partially Completed

• This status indicates that a portion of a transaction has been applied to the database. The apply person has indicated that the remaining portion of the transaction will be applied at a later date.

Complete

• The transaction becomes Complete when the entire transaction has been applied to the database.

Disapproved

• The transaction has been disapproved by a person in the approval queue. Individuals following the “disapprover” in the queue don’t need to take action on the item.

Void

• The transaction has been voided; it is no longer a valid transaction. Only the originator or superuser may void the transaction at any time during the approval process.

Cancelled

• This status will be used when you opt to cancel an entire transaction after it has been applied to the database.

Supporting documentation for an EPAF should be emailed to: [email protected].

Your Banner ID is an 8 digit number. It is also known as the Campus Wide ID. This number is unique for each employee and student at FSU.

A “P” overload assignment is any assignment in addition to a primary assignment.

A “J” overload assignment is an assignment that produces credit hours more than 1 FTE for faculty.

From MyWorkplace on MyFSU select EPAF Default Routing Queue.
On the Default Routing Queue;

• Select the Approval Category and click the GO button
  
  • You will need to set Defaults for each Approval Category individually
• Set the Approval Level and User Names
• Set the Required Action for each Approver
  • Approve – EPAF will stop and wait for approval at this level
  • FYI – A copy of the EPAF will go to this level but will not require approval to proceed in the process
  • Apply – Final step when the change is applied
    (For Position Control, please select Charlotte Bongard)
• Click Save to complete

 

EPAFs can update the following Banner forms:

• PPAIDEN
• NBAJOBS
• PEAEMPL

Approvers have the ability to assign another person as a Proxy that may respond in their absence. This document explains how to set up a proxy designation and how to see and respond to EPAFs on someone else’s behalf.

It is recommended you notify the proxy of the dates you require their assistance for times when you are out of the office and unable to respond to EPAFs. As you will see, there is a special process to view EPAFs as a proxy. They will not show up in your EPAF queue.

Setting up a Proxy

In order to set up a Proxy for EPAFs, go to MyFSU > Employee > My Worksplace > EPAF for Originators & Approvers. Select “EPAF Proxy Records”.

Next, select the appropriate approval level for that person.

After selecting the appropriate “Approval Level,” select from the drop down the person to assign proxy access too.

NOTE: Proxy must have access to the EPAF Notification and EPAF Administration portlets in MyFSU in order to access EPAFs. The proxy needs to complete the EPAF 101 training to receive this access. Contact Human Resources at X2150 if there are any questions.

You may be asked to act as a proxy on someone’s behalf within the EPAF system. This document explains what you need to do to see and act on EPAFs as a proxy.

Log into MyFSU and go to Employee > My Workplace > EPAF for Originators & Approvers. Select Act as a Proxy.

Type in your Pin. Select Submit.

Select the person you are acting as a proxy for. Select Go.