Helpful Hints for ESS (Employee Self Service)

Submitted by Tonya Wallace

As Adrianne mentioned in her Friday email, we have put together a list of hints and reminders for ESS: 

• Passwords are set to expire every 90 days. Please change your ESS password when you change your Windows password to avoid getting locked out of the system.
  
  
• If you are going to be out for an extended period of time for vacation or a leave of absence, update your password before you leave. This will also help avoid being locked out of the system.
  
  
• If your password does expire or you forget your password, please send an email to Payroll and someone will reset your password as soon as possible. IT does not have the ability to reset this password.
  
  
• If you try to login and you have recently updated your password, close the browser and reopen before trying the password again. ESS will sometimes show an invalid password when the system is busy.
  
  
• Busiest times for ESS: Friday afternoons and the 15th or the 30th of the month. These are common payroll ending times and everyone (not just here at FCPL) is trying to get their time entered and submitted.
  
  
• Do not enter time worked for a new pay period until you receive an email from Payroll stating that the pay period is open. The time will be deleted by the system when the new pay period opens.
  
  
• Each activity code (pay type) should have its own line. For example, Sallie works Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday is a holiday, and then she takes annual leave for Thursday and Friday; Sallie would have 3 rows of entry under that week of the pay period.
  
  
• You can use Manage Time Entries to make changes to time that is submitted but before it is approved. Once it is approved, the time will have to be deleted and re-entered.
  
  
• Not seeing approved leave for the current pay period? Make sure you can see the button that says “Hide Submitted Time/Leave” (located under employee name). If it says "Show Submitted Time/Leave" click on it and it will change.
  
  
• Want to know how much leave you or a direct report has available? Select Leave Request Entry under the Leave Requests tab. This will show you available leave for the selected employee. Unposted leave is either a future request or leave that has been entered for the current pay period. The available balance does not include future accruals.
  
  
• TIME SHOULD BE SUBMITTED AND APPROVED BY 9:00 A.M. ON MONDAY FOLLOWING THE PAY PERIOD END DATE.

If you have any questions about ESS, please reach out to me or Nikki Watkins.