Manager Guidelines - IT Systems
MANAGER GUIDELINES –
ACTIONS THAT A MANAGER SHOULD CARRY OUT
As a manager, there are a variety of actions in connection with the Staff Portal that you must carry out as part of your role, rather than request that IT do them, as most of them require knowledge of some information that IT will not be privy to. These are covered below:
Service Desk
In the Solutions area (accessed via the Book icon) in the Service Desk, there is a ‘Managers Related’ area, with a ‘Managers’ folder, which contains a notes about different systems, giving more details about these systems and how to correct problems and these could be very helpful to a manager.
Staff Portal:
Structure
Within the Staff Portal, the Managers icon is automatically made available to those people who are designated as Service Unit Managers (SUMs) in the Portal structure and the Authority’s Constitution (https://www.tameside.gov.uk/contactus).
There is some confusion as those people shown as Service Unit Managers in the Structure have job titles starting ‘Head of’, whilst in some Directorates, e.g. Adults, there is another managerial level who members have a job title of ‘Service Unit Manager’ but they cannot see the Managers icon on their Portal Home page.
The Staff Portal structure has to mirror the Authority’s Constitution, so whenever a change is made to the Constitution, IT are informed and the necessary amendments are done.
One of the roles that the SUMs have to do is to create new Staff Portal accounts, both for Tameside and Agency staff, as this is something that IT only do in exceptional circumstances, e.g. where a Service Unit has no ‘Head of Service’ in post and no one is acting up to cover the post.
Managers Icon
The Managers icon allows an SUM to do the following:
- Add a New Portal User – This option is used to create a new Portal account for Tameside employees only. You need the person’s Employee Number (PRN) and email address before you start. When a Portal account is created, it will be placed in the same Directorate, Service and Service Unit and the manager creating it, as they should only be creating accounts for new staff in their Service Unit.
- Add New Guest Portal User – This option gives the manager access to the Guest Portal Accounts system, which is used to generate a Portal account for Agency / temporary staff. It is also used to manage any Guest accounts created by a manager, allowing them to update an account, e.g. amend a Contract End Date, delete an account or convert an account when an Agency staff member becomes a Tameside employee (again, you will need the PRN for this option).
Please note that this system should not be used as a shortcut to create a Tameside employees Portal account as they will not have the same access rights.
- Delegate Tasks – This option allows an SUM to allow other managers in their Service Unit to be provided with permissions to authorise staff requests in certain systems, e.g. Car Mileage and Flex. See below for more details.
- Staff Profiles – This option allows the Contacts system (Online Phone Directory) to be updated by creating a Staff Profile for members of your staff.
- Mobile Phones System – This option allows you to view recent mobile phone bills from within your SU.
- MFD (Multi-function Devices) / Printers – This option produces an MS Excel spreadsheet of printing costs for a period of time.
- Car Mileage Reporting System – This Car Mileage Reporting System provides you as a Service Unit Manager or above with car mileage data for all staff in your SU.
Delegate Rights
These are normally only given by the Service Unit Manager, not IT due to Internal Audit regulations, as the SUM has a better idea of who can and cannot have these permissions and this stops anyone requesting them.
- When an SUM allocates Delegate Rights for Flex to managers below them, e.g. Team Leaders, their names will appear on the Managers List in Flex for anyone in that Service Unit.
- Whenever anyone generates a Car Mileage Claim, then an alert is sent to the SUM and all those who have been given Delegate Rights for the Car Mileage system, to authorise Claims, it does not get sent to just one person.
Flex
Within the Flex system, there are certain options that only a manager has access to. These are:
- The Admin Tab – This allows managers to see any Leave / Flex requests from staff whom they manage, or those in the same Service Unit as the manager. To authorise or reject a Leave / Flex request, simply tick the box in the relevant column (X for Reject and tick for Accept) and then click on the ‘Auth’ button.
You can also view a staff member’s timesheet from this list as well by selecting the ‘Timesheet’ entry that corresponds with the required employee name. Selecting this would display the employee’s current timesheet.
It is recommended that managers try to keep the Leave / Flex Request lists as clear as possible, by authorising any requests as soon as they are received because the system checks down all the entries looking for the Accept / Reject entries, so if there are a large number of unauthorised requests then it will slow the system down.
- Work Patterns – These MUST be created by the manager for staff who do not work full time. The manager will need to select the required name from the ‘Complete Employee List’ area and then selecting the ‘View / Edit Work Patterns’ entry on the displayed timesheet and either create or amend the relevant Work Pattern.
If a Work Pattern has to be amended, the End Date needs to be set to the last date the particular Pattern was worked. A new Work Pattern must then created for the new Work Pattern hours. If an existing Work Pattern is overwritten then the timesheet for the relevant employee will be amended as though they have been working the new Pattern all the time, which could cause problems with Leave Entitlement and Flex hours accumulated.
With Work Patterns, it should be noted that if you are unsure when a Work Pattern will end, then put in a future date such as 31 Dec 2030. This can always be amended at a later date. Also if an employee is returning to working full time hours then you only need to amend the Work Pattern End Date to the last day that they worked that Pattern. You do not need to create a Work Pattern for the standard 36-hour week as the system defaults to Full Time hours if no Work Pattern is found for an individual. Further notes can be found in the Solutions area (the Book icon) in the Service Desk.
There are also some functions in Flex that a manger cannot do, it must be the employee that carries out the relevant actions, such as adding purchased leave to their Leave Entitlement, Adjusting the Bank Holiday amounts for part-time / reduced hours staff or amending a Flex carryover.
Please note that instructions relating to the various manager functions, along with other Flex related notes, within Flex can be found in the Solutions area (the Book icon) in the Service Desk, which give more details and will be very helpful to a manager.
New Permanent Staff Portal Accounts and Flex
A problem can arise with new permanent starters whereby they can access Flex but only up to the ‘Settings’ screen where they select their manager. The cause is usually that their Payroll record has not yet been finalised and some data elements are missing, e.g. their Spinal Column Point.
Every morning various automated jobs run and recreate various data Tables for the Portal and related systems and some of the data items are used by Flex to calculate things like an employee’s Leave Entitlement using their SCP entry. If any of your new starters get this then please get them to check the following morning rather than try repeatedly on the same day. Once the missing data items have been extracted, they will then be able to see their Flex sheet.
Guest Portal Accounts
Guest Portal accounts should not be used as a quick way of generating a Portal account for Tameside staff, as it will not give the same permissions as a permanent account.
When creating a new Guest account, please ensure that the names go into the correct fields, i.e. the forename goes into the ‘Forename’ and the surname into the ‘Surname’ areas. There have been instances where these entries have been transposed when being typed in and this has caused problems for the Guest user when they try to access the Portal.
Whenever a Guest Portal account is created, the details of the manager who created the account are stored as part of the procedure. The Contract End Date is checked by a scheduled job and if it expires, then the account is automatically deleted.
The scheduled job mentioned above checks each month to identify any Guest accounts that are due to expire the following month. When an account is found, the system sends a warning email to the account creator informing them that the account is about to expire and giving instructions on what actions need to be carried out if the Contract End Date needs extending. If the account will no longer be needed then nothing further needs to be done.
Upon receipt of an alert email, it is imperative that it is dealt with quickly, as failing to do so will mean a loss in work, time and money for the person whose account it is, and IT staff having to resurrect accounts. This is because the employee will lose their Staff Portal access and they (or a colleague) will need to log a Service Desk call to get the account reinstated so there will be a loss in productivity until the account is re-instated, which may take over 24 hours.
If you do not know what the Contract End Date is but the person is going to continue working with the Authority for a while longer, then please use a date in the future, e.g. 31 Dec 2025, so that it is not auto-deleted again. This can always be amended once the actual Contract End Date is known.
Guest Accounts System – Agency Staff Becoming Permanent
In cases where Agency staff start working for Tameside, i.e. become ‘Permanent’ staff, their Guest Portal accounts should be converted, via the Guest Accounts system, so that it is linked to their Tameside Employee Number. If required, this can be done by any manager with access to the Guest Accounts system and be done quickly, as doing this will help cut down on possible Service Desk calls being generated by staff who do not have full Portal access, e.g. they cannot view their payslips because their Portal account is still set as a ‘Guest’ account.
Further details about the Guest Accounts system can be found in the Staff Portal - Guest Accounts document in the ‘Managers’ area in the Solutions area of the Service Desk.
Portal Accounts General
In some cases, the Head of Service for an area (seen as the Service Unit Manager in the Portal structure) have requested that nominated managers in their area are delegated permission to be able to create new Portal accounts, both permanent and Guest ones. This takes the task away from the HOS and can be helpful as the nominated manager will have a better idea about new portal accounts required in their immediate area, especially concerning Agency staff and Guest Portal accounts and their Contract End Dates.
If, as a Head of Service, you would like to do this, then please log a Service Desk call giving details of the nominated managers that you want to delegate this responsibility to and this can be set up.
Car Mileage
It will be an idea for managers to encourage their staff to input their Mileage Claims in a timely fashion and not leave them until the last few days of the three-month limit before inputting them.
When an employee submits a Car Mileage Claim, an alert is sent to the Service Unit Manager, as indicated in the Authority’s Constitution, along with any managers in the Service Unit who have been given Delegate Rights to authorise Car Mileage Claims.
The system will only allow a Claim to be processed electronically if it is within three calendar months of the current month, e.g. for August, only Claims back to June can be processed by the system.
With this in mind, it is recommended that any requests be dealt with as soon as possible, so that if either the manager or the Payroll section rejects a claim, then there is enough time left for the employee to review and correct the Claim before the three-month time limit expires.
If a Claim goes over the three month limit without having been processed or authorised, then the employee in question will need to contact the Payroll section and request that they are allowed to submit their Claim on a paper form (available on the Staff Portal, under ‘C’, Car Mileage Claim Form).
Portal Contacts System
The Portal Contacts system is created from an employee’s Active Directory (AD) account, also termed PC Login account. An entry on this system does not mean that an employee has a Portal account, only that they have a PC Login account.
The Contacts system is generated each morning by a scheduled job so that it is up to date with any changes done within the last 24 hours.
The contents of an employee’s Contacts entry is used to create their email signature block, but again this can take up to 24 hours to filter through.
Leavers
Whenever someone leaves the Authority, a Leaver Service Desk call must be logged by their manager so that IT can ensure, for security purposes, that all the various accounts held by the leaver are disabled.
Where possible, if the leaver had any managerial responsibilities then a note should be included as to who is taking over those responsibilities, even on just a temporary basis, to ensure that any Leave or Flex requests and / or Mileage Claims are authorised on time.
Alerts
Whenever a member of staff whom you manage creates a Flex / Leave request, an alert informing you is generated. The same happens when a Mileage Claim is created.
These alerts can be viewed by using the Alerts icon on your Staff Portal Home page.
If you lose an alert, you can still see any outstanding requests by selecting the ‘Admin’ tab in Flex or the ‘Authorise’ option in Car Mileage.