Prior to summer 2020, Leslie Chenoweth with the Department of Chemical Sciences had been spending up to 12 hours per payroll period manually entering timesheets. That now has been reduced to roughly two hours since starting to use an application that can feed information from ENGR Time Tracker to Banner. The partnership among IT Units and Departments and resulting efficiencies are a prime example of what the Business-IT Collaboration was designed to make possible.

Gabe Gibson, a co-lead of the Business-IT Collaboration effort, explained that the School of Chemical Sciences had been using ENGR Time Tracker but without a mass payroll feeder to Banner.  A small task force met to tackle the problem and determined that using an established application already approved and available elsewhere on campus was the most efficient solution. 

“SCS was already using Time Tracker–an established application part of the ENGR Portal–and has a tested and verified process to upload to Banner for time. Leveraging the ENGR tool reduced duplication, saved programmer time, and it shorted the time the client could get a working solution,” Gibson said.

Chenoweth is pleased about the transition to the Time Tracker system.

“It has saved us a lot of time and I don’t’ have to worry about sitting at my computer for a day and a half and entering time sheets,” she said.

Chenoweth also pointed to additional benefits beyond the time savings. Time Tracker has features that were not available to her in the previous system.

“There are error screens to help show what did not process. Then you can work to fix the error,” she added.