The information systems McMaster uses to perform common Human Resources tasks will change this fall when the University implements its new HR system.

As part of Mosaic, McMaster will implement PeopleSoft’s Human Capital Management system this October. This system will replace several legacy systems, including the current HR system, commonly called Mac VIP and the recruitment system, MacTRAC. It will interconnect with the finance system that was implemented this past December.

The new system will include a wide range of functions, such as:

• Time and labour entry, including time entry for part-time employees and exception reporting for regularly scheduled employees
• Time Management  tracking, including vacation entitlement and sick days for Unifor, Local 5555 Unit 1, and TMG
• Payroll
• Recruiting, including job posting and hiring
• Health and safety training tracking, such as WHMIS

The new system will include electronic workflow, allowing items such as a timesheets and vacation requests to be routed electronically for review and approval rather than requiring physical signatures. It will introduce several new employee self-service options, including electronic pay stubs and T4 slips.

McMaster has a wide variety of employees with different needs. For example, casual, part-time employees have different time reporting needs than full-time salaried employees. Consequently, the manner in which these new features are delivered will vary between employee groups.

Project Status

The HR team began user acceptance testing (UAT) this week. During user acceptance testing, super users and HR department staff will be performing  common tasks, such as entering hours worked, to ensure the system works as expected. The team has identified 300 common tasks to test. Multiple UAT cycles are planned along with a period of “parallel” testing wherein the legacy and new payroll systems will be feed identical data to ensure that the new system correctly processes employee pay.

To help McMaster employees better understand what administrative processes will change with the introduction of the new system, the Mosaic team will release a series of Daily News articles and hold a series of webinars in July and August on topics such as recruitment and time entry which are performed by users across the University.