March 29, 2006 | In
News
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Newsflash
UNC Links, published by The University of North Carolina's Division of Information Resources, offers a bi-monthly update on IT initiatives from the sixteen constituent institutions of The University of North Carolina. The publication serves as a vehicle for information technology dialogue among IT colleagues, chancellors, and others.
The current issue (January/March 2006) is now available
online.
You may send your news for consideration in future issues to
Alfred Mays, Director of IR Affairs.
March 29, 2006 | In
This Friday, March 31, is the deadline for filing reimbursement claims on the NCFlex Health Care Flexible Spending Account and the NCFlex Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account for expenses that were incurred on or before December 31, 2005.
Claims must be RECEIVED by Aon Consulting no later than March 31.
After March 31, employees will not be able to claim any of the remaining money in their year 2005 flex account(s). The spending accounts are flexible, but the deadline is not!
Download the claim form or request a copy from Benefit Program Administration.
- Mail or fax claims forms directly to Aon Consulting for processing. The contact information is on the form.
- Save the fax confirmation statement(s).
- Keep a copy of all submitted claims.
- Direct questions to Benefit Program Administration at 962-3071 or the Aon customer service center at 800-726-3221.
March 29, 2006 | In
News
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Bulletin Board
The Hub is pleased to provide a monthly column by the ITS Accessibility Specialist,
Jason Morningstar. "Accessibility Hot Tips" will help all ITS staff members increase their knowledge of
accessibility issues and solutions. Accessibility Hot Tips are also electronically published in the ITS Teaching and Learning newsletter,
CITations.![Accessibility_For_Victory]()
OK, here's the deal: By adhering to Web standards and validating to an established grammar, 90% of your accessibility concerns simply vanish. The small extra effort required to generate standards-compliant markup will serve you well in the long run, making your pages easier to debug, troubleshoot, and modify. And the effort will probably force you to consider how your information is organized and presented, which can only make them more usable as well. So embrace Web standards and proudly include the DTD you are using in your page metadata. More on evaluation:
http://www.unc.edu/webaccess/evaluation.html.
March 29, 2006 | In
SPA and EPA payday is Friday, March 31.
For employees paid biweekly, this is the third payday in the month. Some biweekly deductions will not be taken and most employees will enjoy a higher net pay. The next third payday is Sept. 29.
Timesheets, on-call pay and shift premium pay sheets for biweekly #20 (ending Sunday, April 2) will be due to your designated boxes or to ITS–HR no later than 10:00 a.m. on Monday, April 3.
Please send all copies of your timesheet to ITS–HR.
Checklist for Completing Timesheets, Stand-By Pay Sheets and Shift Premium Pay Sheets
Did you--
- sign the forms? Computer signatures are not acceptable.
- write your PID clearly on the form? Use the space previously designated for SSN.
- write the correct biweekly number and dates on the forms? Pay period numbers and dates are available online for both biweekly schedules and monthly schedules.
- code leave clearly?
- write your department name and number on the form?
- have your supervisor sign the form?
ITS Business Office boxes are located in Giles Horney, the Undergraduate Library, Phillips Hall, Abernethy Hall, Carr Mill Annex and the Administrative Office Building.
Stand-by pay, on-call pay and shift premium pay forms are available from the
ITS–HR Forms site.
Send all forms to Melissa Harris at CB #1150. Do not send them directly to UNC–Chapel Hill Payroll.--submitted by Melissa Harris
March 29, 2006 | In
News
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Newsflash
The revised mass e-mail application was successfully implemented last Friday, March 24, as planned. Users have already submitted more than 30 messages for distribution.
The Hub asked
Josh Tewell in Enterprise Applications how the revision came about.The revised mass e-mail application was successfully implemented last Friday, March 24, as planned. Users have already submitted more than 30 messages for distribution.The Hub asked Josh Tewell in Enterprise Applications how the revision came about."We run many applications, but our focus isn't usually application development," Tewell said of himself and his colleagues in the messaging group. They inherited the application in the reorganization. Many of the programmers previously responsible for the interface moved to Technology Assessment and Planning. At the same time, responsibility for approving employee messages was transferred to ITS Communications. The two groups used the learning curve to reflect on how the system worked and whether it could be updated."I liked a lot of the Web interface, so I kept its look," Tewell recalls. "But the system was using WebFocus to build its address list, and it wasn't scaling well. Combined with our knowledge that the S3 cluster was going away and that there were some other changes we wanted to make on the back end, it seemed best to just start over with the coding."Tewell had experience with PHP from working with the UNC listserver and had taken a class in programming with Perl. "That's what I like about this job," he said. "We have lots of interesting projects that let me learn things I have a lot of interest in, but don't always find much time outside of work to play with." He also appreciates being able to draw on other employees' experience. "Stephen Braswell was my Perl consultant," Tewell said. "Whenever I got stuck, he helped me out." The revision effort began in earnest about a year ago, but was interwoven with other projects. The big push came with the beginning of 2006.The Web interface of the new version is constructed using PHP with the Smarty Template Engine, HTML and some Javascript, while the back end is written in Perl. Data for the application is stored in ITS Oracle databases. "We're using a Perl bulk mailer module to manage sending the messages," Tewell observed. "It gives us lots of control--we can fine tune the sending process to work with our mail complex, so we can get these messages out efficiently. One nice part about this is being able to easily assign custom headers to each message. It gives us better reporting of actual recipients, not just sending attempts."Kathy Bryant, director of communications for UNCChapel Hill's Office of Human Resources, is very pleased with the revisions. "The feature that lets the sender know that the message has gone out successfully is excellent!" she said.
March 29, 2006 | In
News
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Newsflash
Exemplar Awards for November and December have been presented to
Scott McCall and
Doug Brown, respectively. Both were recognized for their efforts in the move to ITS Franklin.
Honorees, who are recognized in a staff meeting with their AVC and Robyn East, receive a $100 gift card to their choice of several local merchants and a framed certificate. Awards are chosen from among the nominations for On the Spot/Star Heel awards by a committee with representatives from all ITS divisions.
March 29, 2006 | In
Welcome
Kimberly Eke to Teaching & Learning as the manager of the Center for Instructional Technology, effective March 20....
Jason Morningstar, accessibility specialist, transferred from Teaching & Learning to Communications effective March 20....
Karsten Huneycutt joined Enterprise Applications effective March 27. He'll be responsible for developing and supporting authentication and authorization services in Jan Tax's Identify Management group....
Mike Jennings will transfer within EA effective April 3. He's been in Steve Seaton's HR group and will be joining Mimi Bennett's Auxiliary Services staff.
Farewell to
Juandra Williams, who left the ITRC as of March 18.
March 29, 2006 | In
News
,
Newsflash
This is the eighth 2006 edition of
The Hub, a weekly newsletter published by, for and about ITS. The goal of this publication is to provide timely information about the services and activities of our department and to support the ITS community. We welcome your comments and suggestions and encourage you to submit your story ideas and announcements to
its_communications@unc.edu by
5 p.m. Friday, March 31, to be included in the next issue.
March 29, 2006 | In
Seven positions are currently being recruited for ITS. Details are posted at
http://its.unc.edu/financial/hr/SPA_EPAjobsearch_index.html.
While candidates must apply through Carolina's
Human Resources Web site, the ITS page is a convenient location to collate all ITS jobs.
March 22, 2006 | In
The State Health Plan has announced that enrollment materials for the newly announced Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) health insurance options are scheduled to be mailed to employees' home addresses during the week of April 17. Be sure your home address is up to date so that you'll receive this information in time to evaluate all your options.
Employees who are currently enrolled in the State Health Plan (SHP) and need to update their home address to receive enrollment information can use the
SHP address change form.
Employees who are NOT currently enrolled in the SHP and need to update their home address to receive enrollment information should do so through the
online campus directory.
All employees are encouraged to include their correct home address and phone information in the online directory.
Home addresses and/or telephone numbers marked Private in the online directory will not be printed in the campus phone book or visible to others in the online directory. However, changes to the information will be automatically forwarded to Payroll and other University recordkeeping systems. Having a current address in those systems ensures that employees will receive important official mailings at their correct address.
