Spotlight

New information about holiday shutdown and Firefly shutdown

Please see information below about the upcoming Firefly Shutdown and Holiday Shutdown. This requires action from ALL vacation eligible employees and is different than prior years. Please be sure your time is properly reported so that you are accurately paid.

Firefly Shutdown:
The Firefly support team is working on the annual maintenance and upgrade process to our SAP applications, including Firefly. Therefore, Firefly will NOT be available on the following days:

• Thursday, Dec. 7 beginning at 5 p.m. Central Time
• Friday, Dec. 8
• Saturday, Dec. 9
• Sunday, Dec. 10

We expect Firefly to be up and running by 7 a.m. Monday, Dec. 11 and will be available during the 2017 holiday break with limited ITS Operations Center support.

We appreciate your understanding as we enhance the system for the University of Nebraska and Nebraska State College System.

Note: if you need to book travel arrangements during this time, please call Travel & Transport.

Holiday Shutdown 2017:
The University of Nebraska–Lincoln will be closed Monday, Dec. 25, 2017 through Monday, Jan. 1, 2018
All leave-eligible faculty and staff, please scroll down for important holiday closedown instructions (split between monthly paid and biweekly paid employees).

Monthly paid employees – 12-month faculty and staff – ACTION REQUIRED! Different than prior years!
Anytime a leave eligible employee does not work, the hours must be accounted for as vacation/sick/etc. Normally, vacation/sick/floating holiday leave MUST be entered by the employee in ESS Leave. The only exception is federal holidays, and those are automatically reported, so no action is needed for those days.

For the closedown period time period of Dec. 25 to Jan. 1, entry instructions for ESS Leave are as follows:

December 25: Holiday (No action needed, as this date will automatically post.)

Dec. 26, 27, 28 and 29: EMPLOYEE MUST ENTER LEAVE for the following days by Dec 18th using one of the below options:

• Floating Holiday (FLH) via ESS Leave.
• If the employee does not have enough FLH, they must enter Vacation (ESS LEAVE)
• If employee does not have FLH or enough vacation, they need to request Unpaid Leave (UNPL).
• The employee and supervisor will need to work with the Business Center to enter UNPL – Unpaid Leave. Monthly employees can NOT enter their Unpaid Leave. This information needs to be submitted to Carrie Brownyard (cbrownyard@unl.edu) in the CEHS Business Center by email NO LATER than Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, to have this entered and correct for the December monthly payroll. This information needs to be entered at that time in order for Payroll to be able to prepare the correct 2017 W-2 tax information in early January. Any corrections to December payroll may cause a delay in the preparation and distribution of your 2017 tax information.

• If you plan to work over the holiday, and therefore will not be submitting leave for these days, please send Carrie Brownyard (cbrownyard@unl.edu) an email by Dec. 15, copying your supervisor, showing you have received approval to work over the holiday.

January 1: Holiday (No action needed as this date will automatically post)

January 2: Return to work

If an employee is taking vacation on days other than during the closedown, this would follow the standard process and be submitted through ESS Leave (i.e., the week of Dec. 18-22 and/or after Jan. 1).

Please contact Tammie Herrington (472-2390), Sarah Goodrich (254-716-8252) or Carrie Brownyard (472-8674), if you have questions on your leave.

Biweekly employees and their supervisors
Dec. 8-Dec. 21 time sheets:
Biweekly employees, please ensure all time has been entered, released and approved by your supervisor NO LATER THAN DEC. 22, so that you will receive the proper pay for the Dec. 8-21 period, as payroll will finalize over the shutdown. For this two-week period, employees need to enter regular hours worked as usual, or request vacation or sick leave through the proper process of ESS LEAVE REQUEST.

Dec. 22-Jan. 4th
(time sheets should be submitted by Friday, Jan. 5)
• Dec. 22 – usual hours worked or leave request (ESS Leave)
• Dec. 25 – Holiday (ESS Time) – Permanent employees only; Temporary employees are not eligible for holiday pay so need to use Vacation (ESS LEAVE) or Unpaid Leave UNPL (ESS TIME)
• Dec. 26, 27, 28, & 29 - Floating Holiday (ESS Time), Vacation (ESS Leave), or Unpaid Leave UNPL (ESS Time)
• Jan. 1 - Holiday (ESS Time) - Permanent employees only; Temporary employees are not eligible for holiday pay so need to use Vacation (ESS LEAVE) or Unpaid Leave UNPL (ESS TIME)
• Jan. 2 - Return to work

Please contact Carrie Brownyard (472-8674), Sarah Goodrich (254-716-8252), or Tammie Herrington (472-2390), if you have questions.