TACS: Time and Attendance Collection System …

1 DRAFT TACSTACS:Time and AttendanceCollection SystemSupervisor TrainingParticipant s WorkbookCourse 31267-01 February 23, 2001 FinancePayrollDRAFT TACSUse of training MaterialsThese course materials are intended for training purposes only. They have been prepared in conformancewith existing USPS policies and standards and do not represent the establishment of new regulations 2001 by FinanceUnited States Postal Service, Washington DC 20260-5240 All rights part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission, in writing.

2 From parts of this publication may contain copyrighted materials from other sources the reproduction ofwhich for this specific training use has been interpreted not to exceed the fair use clause of the copyrightregulation (Ref. ASM).DRAFT TACS TRAININGP articipant's WorkbookiCONTENTSMODULE ONE -- INTRODUCTION3 MODULE TWO - LOGGING IN AND NAVIGATING IN THETACS APPLICATION15 MODULE THREE THE CLOCK RING EDITOR27 MODULE FOUR -- USING TACS TO MONITOR EMPLOYEEPERFORMANCE61 MODULE FIVE -- TACS AND THE ELECTRONIC BADGEREADER75 APPENDICES109 DRAFT TACS TRAININGP articipant s Workbook2 DRAFT TACS TRAININGP articipant s Workbook3 MODULE ONE -- INTRODUCTIONDRAFT TACS TRAININGP articipant s Workbook4 DRAFT TACS

3 TRAININGP articipant s INTRODUCTIONS PositionYears in positionYears of serviceDo you use a computer, either at work or at home?How?DRAFT TACS TRAININGP articipant s Workbook6 ABOUT TACSThe USPS Payroll System , supported and processed at theMinneapolis Information Systems and Accounting Service Center,currently has five applications that collect time and attendanceinformation for payroll purposes. These applications are:City T&A Processing System CTAPS Time Cards - Mainframe BasedPC City T&A Processing System PCCTAPS Time Cards - PC BasedRural T&A Processing System RTAPS Time Cards - Mainframe BasedElectronic Time Clock System ETC Automated - PC or LAN BasedPostal Source Data SystemPSDS Automated Mainframe BasedThe Time & Attendance Collection System combines thefunctionality of the ETC, CTAPS, PC-CTAPS & PSDS systemsinto one standard and automated time & Attendance System for allPostal Service offices.

4 The hardware and software of TACS arehighly reliable and similar in configuration in all sites so centralizedsupport units can maintain the application. In a later phase ofTACS, rural timekeeping will also be performed in the in all timekeeping systems, payroll data is considered sensitiveand must be secured from unauthorized access. TACS doesnot change timekeeping policies and procedures: it ratherprovides a more efficient, less expensive vehicle for the executionof those policies and TACS TRAININGP articipant s Workbook7 FUNCTIONALITY & BENEFITS OF TACS: 1.

5 System of national Improved functionality over current ETC will not support the 20 largest postal Capable of standardizing data Collection and Time & Attendance across the country. TACS will support every officein the Postal Service replacing all timekeeping Improved Security- Larger number of data access authorization levels: 110 inTACS, 49 in ETC, none in PSDS. - Badge control built in to identify employees having multipleEBR Instant deactivation of lost or terminated Authorizations for future actions ( , higher level, scheduledleave) up to three weeks in Access to Data can be input and retrieved from any Postal computerworkstation, anywhere, that has access to the postal Two open weeks on-line in the Clock Ring Editor betweenThursdays and Four weeks of information on-line, available for When transferring hours to different finance numbers, all(37,000)

6 Finance numbers are available Automated Close TACS automatically closes out the payroll In ETC, a timekeeper must manually close out the week everySaturday TACS TRAININGP articipant s Workbook85. 54 On-Demand Reports vs. 42 for Near real time reporting. PSDS reports may take hours to printdue to the nature of a mainframe Employee Leave balances current to the pay Salaries and benefits by Pay Location and Employee can only support Employee Minimize paperwork- City Time Card Entry built into TACS Ability to place employees time on hold through Monday.

7 Thiswill reduce payroll adjustments. (ETC does a final upload onSaturdays).7. Can provide real-time data to other National Applications- Activity-Based Costing requires information at the two-digitlocal unit code level. No other System can provide Commitment Management (CM-IOM) listed TACS as critical toa successful implementation of the CM application, sincePSDS cannot support CM-IOM data Improved Lower Network- Data Collector can support multiple data Smaller network with increased Better control and maintenance of the Reduced complexity.

8 MFDC has 500 modules, TACS datacollector has Reduced number of phone lines at the District Offices becausethere is no need for downloads and uploads every Current T&A Platforms are out-datedDRAFT TACS TRAININGP articipant s Workbook9- PSDS hardware is obsolete, needs to be replaced, and has ahigh cost of Increasing difficulty to support DOS-based applications(ETC) within the current Postal Maintaining 1 System instead of 3 will save about 3 milliondollars every Payroll adjustments cost the postal service about 70 milliondollars per year.

9 TACS reduces the number of FUNCTIONThe TACS System provides supervisors and managers with actualwork hour data used in monitoring their labor hours and dollars atthe local level. The System will transmit summarized data of theactual payroll hours to the Payroll System at the Minneapolis primary business function of this System is to collect andcalculate time and Attendance information needed by the PayrollSystem so city employees are paid accurately and TACS TRAININGP articipant s Workbook10 System USEThe TACS System is used by postal installations to collect cityemployee time and Attendance information.

10 There are many usersof the Time & Attendance Collection System because of thecorporate value of its data. The information collected andprocessed is beneficial for the postmasters of the smallest officesall the way to the national reports reviewed by the information systems now interface with ETC and will continue to provide information to these systems. It willallow read only access to its employee work hour information forsystems like Plant Information Management System (PIMS),Delivery Services Information System (DSIS), ManagementOperating Data System (PC-MODS), Performance ClusterFLASH, Leave Analysis Tracking (LATS) and Automated VehicleUtilization System (AVUS).