PSB (Position System/Budget) is a sophisticated BASIS application which is integrated with many other systems, including HRLY-TS, LEAVE, LABOR, Payroll, DART and General Ledger. To the general user, however, it replaces the paper personnel action form process by placing these actions on-line (with the exception of Summer School teaching). PSB also includes a budgeting component and is used for the annual budget cycle.
PSB allows the Department of Human Resources to create positions as authorized by the State Legislature, and to allocate those positions to campus units. Departments are then able to manage their positions through such things as:
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Each change processed creates a distinct, "effective-dated" record which is kept for historical audit purposes. With PSB, perusal of past changes, planned future activity and current status is as easy as bringing up data on a list function. This history may be easily viewed chronologically for a position or for an employee -- providing a powerful tool for viewing an individual's employment history at the University (at least since PSB's implementation in July, 1997). One of the goals was to provide historically accurate data, since changes can be recorded before or after they have occurred. With PSB the record of activity for a position is kept up-to-date even for historical changes. In this way campus management has access to the true picture for the past, the present, and for what is currently planned in the future.
One of the first things to understand is the meaning and usage of a "position number." A position number in PSB is a unique number assigned by the system at the time that the Classification/Compensation department creates the new position. While this will result in departments (BUs) having positions with numbers which bear no relation to one another (e.g., a Secretary II numbered 3214 and a Project/Program Manager numbered 138) it will also eliminate any confusion regarding the characteristics of a particular position, including the employee in the position, appt. pct., salary, the BU "owning" the position, etc.
It is important to understand that every activity/change processed in PSB is associated with a two-character reason code. These codes allow you to track different types of personnel changes, and to maintain a coherent and accurate audit trail. As a transaction initiator or reviewer, you need to understand how these codes are used and paired with certain types of changes so that you can use the system efficiently. For example, you need to know that hiring a new employee requires the use of the reason code "NH" (New-Hire) on the PACT (Personnel ACTion) command. The charts available in the documentation outline some of the most common combinations of reason codes and commands.