Personnel Requests

With Personnel Requests:

• Only available for AdvancedPlus customers
• Users can request new positions
• These requests can be approved or rejected by a designated Personnel Request Approver
• When approved, the requested positions will be added to the default Personnel Budgeting Scenario.

The Personnel Requests feature is part of the Advanced Plus Subscription level.  It must be activated by Martus Support.

Some other features of the Advanced Plus level are also of interest:

• Non-Admin users such as department managers may use Personnel Budgeting features of Martus for the dimensions they are allowed to access
• These layers of privilege can be granted to non-Admin users of Personnel Budgeting so that they can:
  1. View personnel costs
  2. Update personnel costs
  3. Configure personnel budgeting
  4. Make Personnel Requests, if that feature is enabled

Setup and Configuration for Personnel Budgeting 

For clients with the Advanced Plus subscription to Martus who wish to allow non-Admin users access to Personnel Budgeting and/or plan to use Personnel Requests, two defaults must be set. These values can only be set by an Admin level user or a non-Admin user with the Config Personnel Budgeting permission.

• default Personnel Budgeting year
• default Personnel Budgeting scenario 
• Personnel Request Approver for the default Personnel Budgeting Year

Default Personnel Budgeting Year

A specific year must be set as the Personnel Budgeting Year to identify which year’s information is available to non-Admin users.

To set this, select Personnel Budgeting/Scenarios and click the Config tab. Verify that the desired year is displayed, then click the button to Set that year as Personnel Budgeting Year.

 

Default Personnel Budgeting Scenario

A default Personnel Budgeting Scenario also must be defined to determine which scenario non-Admin users may access. If privileged, non-Admin users may view and update personnel costs within that scenario.  Approved personnel requests are added to the default scenario.

Only the default scenario is visible to non-Admin users. Admin users may set any scenario as “current” to specify which scenario they want to work with.

To set this, select Personnel Budgeting/Scenarios. Click the appropriate button to set the default scenario.

 

Personnel Request Approver

If using the Personnel Requests feature, you must identify a Personnel Request Approver for each year.

• This responsibility for approving requests can be assigned to an Admin or a non-Admin user.
• This user may but does not have to have any other access to Personnel Budgeting information.
• The user assigned as the approver can approve or reject any Personnel Requests, regardless of any dimensional limitations for that user.
• This user can only approve personnel requests for the year(s) to which they are assigned.   

To set this, select Personnel Budgeting/Scenarios and click the Config tab. Use the Personnel Request Approver dropdown to select the user who is to be the approver.

 

Personnel Requests

This feature allows users to request new positions for their personnel budgets. You control what positions can be requested, and the compensation cost for those positions, by setting them up in the Position Template Scenario.  Users can only request positions that are defined in the Position Template Scenario for the dimension(s) to which the user has access.

When this feature is enabled, there is an additional selection on the Personnel Budgeting menu: Personnel Requests. It is used to manage all aspects of personnel requests:

• Request additional personnel
• Review pending and processed personnel requests
• Approve or reject requests

When a request is approved, the request status is updated and the requested position is added to the default scenario. When a request is rejected, the request status is updated. An email is always sent to the requester whenever a request is approved or rejected.

Position Template Scenario

The Position Template Scenario defines all the positions for which personnel requests can be made. These are called “position templates”. Each position template must be assigned a title, a position type, dimensions for an existing budget worksheet, and the default pay items for that position.

For positions to be requested, every combination of position type and dimensions must be unique. For example, you cannot use a generic position type (“Musician”) and then have two requestable positions in the same department with that position type, but different titles. Instead, you must have a position type for each kind of musician (“Cello”, “Violin”, “Keys”, “Vocal”).  This allows different departments to use different titles for the same position type, if desired. If you try to add another position with the same type and dimensions as one that already exists, you’ll see a message like this, if entering the template position manually:

 

Or like this, if importing a Pay Data File into the Position Template Scenario.

Position requests cannot be deleted if they have pending requests that are based on them:

The Position Template Scenario, and the positions in it, can only be edited or updated by an Admin user or a non-Admin user with the Config Personnel Budgeting permission.

To create a Position Template Scenario, select Personnel Budgeting/Scenarios. Enter the name for this scenario and click Add.

 

 

When ready to work with the Position Template Scenario, set it as current. Then, the Positions, Detail, and Summary tabs are available to add positions, review them, and update them manually. You can also add and update positions by using the Pay Data File and the Pay Items Grid.

The name of the Position Template Scenario can be edited when the scenario has been set as current. (To do this, use the Edit icon next to the template name on the Scenarios screen.)

There is only one Position Template Scenario per year. The Position Template Scenario cannot be copied. When ready to transition to a new year, the Position Template Scenario can be exported and imported into the new year.

Adding Positions to the Position Template Scenario

You can add positions to the Position Template Scenario manually via the Martus user interface or by importing a Pay Data File. Positions in the Position Template Scenario never have an employee name. (These are only template positions!)   As with all other positions, the Position Name is filled in automatically by Martus and cannot be changed.

• To add positions manually, set the Position Template Scenario as current, then select the Positions tab. All existing positions in the scenario will be listed. Click the Add New Position button to add a position.
• Positions and their pay items can also be added to the Position Template Scenario by importing information from the Pay Data File and the Pay Items Grid. We recommend that this be done in two steps:

1. Add positions, using the Positions page of the Pay Data File.
2. Add Pay Items, using the Pay Items grid.

The Pay Data File and Pay Items Grid for the Position Template Scenario

The Pay Data File for the Position Template Scenario only has two pages: Positions and Pay Items. You will use the Position page to add positions. You can use the Pay Items page to add pay items, but it is recommended that you do that with the Pay Item Grid, which is easier to fill out and more efficient to use.

When adding positions, provide the Title, Type, whether the position is taxable, and the dimensions where the position will be permitted to be requested.  Do not enter anything in the Id, PositionName, Employee, and Start/End Date columns. For reference, here is a sample of the Positions page of the Pay Data File:

 

Sample of the Pay Item Grid:

When completing the Pay Item Grid, remember that the column PositionName is reserved for Martus and should not be changed in any way. For more info about completing and importing this file, see Using the Pay Item Grid in the Martus Knowledge Base.

 

Making Personnel Requests

To request additional personnel, select Personnel Budgeting/Personnel Requests. Any pending requests will be displayed at the top of the screen. Scroll to the Create New Request portion of the screen and click Select Target.

 

A list of worksheets for which positions can be requested will be displayed. Select the desired worksheet.

Select the position type to be requested. The Position Type dropdown will list only the position types available for this budget area, based on the information in the Position Template Scenario.

Then, enter the quantity requested for this position, along with a starting month and number of months, if applicable. Leave the Number of Months blank if the position is to be open-ended.

 

 

 

 

 

Reviewing the List of Personnel Requests

As positions are requested, they’ll be listed at the top of the Personnel Requests page. Use the filters at the top of this list to view pending, approved, rejected, or all requests. Personnel requests are visible only to the requester, an Admin user, and the user designated as the Personnel Request Approver.  This list is used to delete pending requests; only the requester can delete pending personnel requests.

 

Approving and Rejecting Personnel Requests

The Personnel Request approver can approve and reject personnel requests. Select to approve, reject, or ignore the pending requests. Add comments as necessary, then click Save. An email will be sent to the requester to inform them of any approvals or rejections. The comments will be included in the email. Any requests that are set to be ignored will remain pending for later review. Whenever a request is approved, that position will be added to the default Personnel Budgeting scenario.

 

Reviewing Approved Personnel Requests

Approved personnel requests are added to the default Personnel Budgeting Scenario. They are listed on the Position, Detail, and Summary screens, and personnel allocations could be applied to them, just like all other positions.  In addition, the Summary has a special filter to limit the display just to approved Personnel Requests.