News and Blog
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With search pages that allow you to mix and match dozens upon dozens of parameters, it doesn’t seem like Escape Online really needs to expand your ability to search. Yet, we do. We allow you to enter very complex, multi-layered search criteria so you can build just-the-right-list. One option you might not be aware of is fairly new: the ability to select multiple occurrences from a lookup. For example, say I want to find all employees that work at three distinct locations. That’s it. That is my search criteria and nothing else. I don’t care about job category/class or bargaining unit, just these three locations. That is not a problem with the new multiple-lookup feature. Now you can select multiple codes from the lookup using standard Windows selection keys (Ctrl for non-contiguous and Shift for contiguous entries). If I change my mind and start to care about job category/class and bargaining unit, I can add those too! Check it out. Notice how Escape Online automatically enters the location codes (comma delimited) into the field for you. Of course, you could do this yourself too! |
This awesome capability is already available in many fields in HR/Payroll* and in our next release will be available for the rest of the fields in HR/Payroll and for the location field in Finance activities. Soon after that, you will find it in all of the Finance fields.
* Currently, the only fields that allow you to select multiple items from a lookup are in the HR/Payroll activities. Fields include Academic Dept, Addon, Addon Salary Schedule, Assignment Salary Schedule, Assignment Status, Assignment Type, Bargaining Unit Id, Bargaining Unit, Calendar, Contribution Id, Custom 1, Custom 2, Deduction Id, Employment Status, Employment Type, Holder Status, Job Category, Leave Group, Note Category, Pay Cycle, Pay Schedule Type, Person Type, Race, Retire Plan Code, Retire Status Code, and Status.
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What a great time we had at CASBO this year. Even though our flight was delayed and we had to rush, rush, rush, it was all worth it. We caught up with a lot of old friends, like Bill Boardman and Karen Huddleston, and had a chance to chat with some our our newer friends like Bambi Weinberg and Debbie Towne.
With a constant flow of people, our booth was hopping with action. We had some informative one-on-one sessions and some demos that were very educational. Even Ramona was giving demos and handling questions. Escape CEO Bob Towery enjoyed chatting with people he has now known for over 20 years, along with the new friends too, of course. (He’s our photographer by the way.)
It was a great learning experience for us, getting to know more about what our customers need, and a great giving experience, where we could show new software and fulfill many of those needs.
Hey Bill Boardman! Bill is one of our earliest customers, from back in the San Lorenzo days.
Now we are back in the office putting that new knowledge to work and preparing for year end. Thanks to all of you who stopped by the booth. It was great to see you, and we hope to see you again next year!
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My husband and I save for everything. We save for vacations, college expenses, retirement, Christmas, braces, and rainy days. We build our savings through direct deposits of our regular pay checks with some money going to checking and some going to savings. This is great for our “primary” pay, the money we get month after month for doing our job. But what about overtime pay? For example, if I work an extra three hours, I don’t receive that extra money with my primary pay, I get it separately on a “supplemental” pay day. Wouldn’t it be great if I could set up my direct deposits to send ALL of the “extra” money directly to savings without any going to checking? |
In Escape Online you can. First, you can set up as many direct deposits as you like using percentages or exact amounts. Then you can designate those percentages/amounts as applying to all pay or to “primary” pay only.
Let me explain. There is a flag in the setup for direct deposits (also known as ACHs) called the Primary Pay Cycle Only flag. If this flag is set to Yes, then the ACH record will be ignored on any pay cycles that are not the employee's primary, defaulting all of the pay to the other ACH records. (If there are no other ACH records, the non-primary pay will be processed as a check.) Let’s look at an example.
See how the employee has two setup records, one for checking and one for savings. Look at the fields circled in red: the savings is set to $200 and the checking is set to 100%. This means that $200 will automatically go to savings and the balance will go to checking.
Now look at the field highlighted in yellow: the checking account has the Primary flag set to YES. That means if the employee works overtime, 100% of the pay received on the supplemental pay cycle will go to savings, instead of only $200.
That kind of automation makes every day feel sunny.
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Spring is in the air and weddings are everywhere. Now spring weddings may not seem like something Escape Online needs to track, yet it does because of name changes. Ask any woman who has changed her last name, and she will tell you that it is a long laborious process. You have one name on your driver’s license, another on your social security card, and then back again on your pay check. And, that is where Escape Online gets an invitation to the wedding festivities. In a nutshell, the employee now has two last names: one being used currently, and one used previously. How do you connect these records? The answer is simple: by using the Previous Name field in the Employee record. |
This handy-dandy field holds previous names (more than one, separated by semicolons, if necessary). But, like a good wedding planner, Escape Online keeps track of all names, allowing you to include previous names in your searches by last name.
Now if I change my name from Leslie Bailey to Mrs. Pierce Brosnan, payroll and HR technicians can find all of my records, regardless of my current last name. This searching capability is as prevalent as well wishes for the happy couple. You can find it in Payroll History, Adjust Pay, Employees, Employee Pay Management, Employee Payroll Setup, Employee Benefits, and the Employee Information report.
Now those are fields made for the sweet sound of ringing bells.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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Since February 2009, I have been writing a weekly blog called Friday Features. It has been a joy. Writing is one of my favorite activities and talking up all of the fabulous features of Escape Online is great fun. I have to admit that I would write even if no one was reading it, but it is always wonderful to hear that people are reading what you write and they are making use of the tips and tricks you impart. |
I want to give a heartfelt shout-out to Anne Mercer, Business Systems Manager at Ventura County Office of Education, for her steadfast readership and promotion of the Friday Feature. Since the beginning, she has been an avid reader of the weekly feature.
Anne’s department holds regular meetings for district users, separated by function. At these meetings, she hands out printed versions of the Friday Features and they discuss them. In fact, when Carole and Ramona attended a Ventura district user group meeting a few weeks ago, they were surprised and pleased to see that Anne not only printed up copies, but organized them by user group. Way to go Anne!
When Carole and Ramona told the story to me, they suggested that maybe I could help out the Anne’s of the world by organizing the Friday Features in the Online Resources activity by module, like the tutorials are organized. So last week I did just that.
The current Friday Feature is at the top of the list and then by module and date posted. It sure is satisfying to know that I am not the only one that thinks Escape Online has cool features that everyone should know about. Thanks, Anne, for spreading the word.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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Benefits are an integral part of an employee's compensation package. Identifying the setup by employee, provider, bargaining unit and other factors is very important to HR personnel. When you have a question about benefit setup, the Employee Benefit Setup (Benefit02) provides the answer. This report, which was introduced in September 2010, shows the effective benefit provider records for selected employees. The report has both detail and summary options. It is really awesome for those charged with overseeing employee benefits. |
Click to see a PDF of the Employee Benefit Summary report.
And it has a ton of options, including change dates, eligibility dates, COBRA, and bargaining units. So you could run this report by bargaining unit and choose the summary option (like the example) or you can run it with detail and get a line item for every employee!
But, wait, there's more!
You can also run the report to get a summary report by provider, or provider and level, showing the employee count within each. This is very helpful for negotiations support and forecasting the cost of benefit increases and how it will affect the employer and employee.
And, as an added bonus, in a future release we are going to add an FTE grand total for each provider level (CR#10555).
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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I’m happy to announce that we have recently signed a contract with Chico Unified School District and they will be joining the Escape family! With an ADA of over 12K, Chico USD is located in California's lush Sacramento Valley, covering 322 square miles and includes all of the city of Chico and adjacent unincorporated areas of Butte County. Not wanting to lose a spare moment, we are officially kicking off the project today with our first team meeting. We will be reviewing the project charter, communications plan, draft milestones, system requirements and discussing the conversion process. What’s the hurry, you ask? Their goal is to be live by January 2012 so we’ve got to get moving. Carole Williams (pictured at left) is one of our seasoned implementation experts. She will be leading the project from Escape and working closely with Maureen Fitzgerald, Assistant Superintendent of Business for Chico Unified over the next several months. Please join me in welcoming Chico Unified School District to the Escape family. |
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 Gayle Lucas, Robert Jong, and Mike Long |
Last Friday we were visited by Robert Jong of Cupertino USD as a prelude to their conversion from Escape Classic to Escape Online 5. Robert came to Escape Headquarters for some one-on-one system manager training.
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A whirlwind day, Robert started out with Mike Long and John Rhoadarmer learning about system management, including reading event logs, understanding the Escape Online directory structure, and troubleshooting. Robert also met with Tom Henzie to discuss and schedule Cupertino's specific conversion requirements.
He capped off the day with Susan Dickinson, where they did some customization required for their AR invoice, and Susan showed him how to customize reports on his own.
As the Project Manager for the finance portion of the Cupertino implementation, Gayle Lucas was also on hand to oversee the training and answer any software related questions Robert had.
It is always great to have customers see our operations and get to know us personally.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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Everyone knows that if you really want to remember something, you write it down. I have little post-its notes all over my desk, in my purse, and on the fridge, reminding me of everything from calling the dentist to when the next release of Escape Online is due to customers. Notes are a way of life for productivity hounds and that is why almost every single record in Escape Online includes a Notes tab, giving you one huge post-it note of almost unlimited length where you can record any information you want. |
For example, from the Approve Requisitions activity, you can write a note to the requisitioner explaining why you are denying the requisition. From a fixed asset, you can record crucial information about a stolen truck. From the employee record, you can enter important information about leaves.
In fact, you can add a note to any primary record in Escape Online. And, once you write a note, all users can read it, but only you can edit it. Nice! This is true, regardless of the status of the document (e.g., even if the requisition is complete, users can still add or edit their own notes.).
But not all notes are made the same. While notes about requisitions and fixed assets are pretty basic, notes about employees are a whole other topic. Take that last example I gave about adding a note to the employee record. What if you want to write a note that contains personal benefit information that HIPPA requires you to keep confidential.
Escape Online has you covered there too. Permissions to notes are given through categories defined in the user record. The persons allowed to see an employee note are specifically given permission to that category of notes. So you can set up users to only see the STATUS notes, but not the BENEFITS notes. (If you have lots of categories, you can specify as many as you want, separating the list with commas.) This keeps that productivity going without sacrificing privacy.
So, go ahead and use the Notes tab like your own private post-it and increase your productivity, writing down what you need to remember and what other users need to know.
Remember that you can see Friday Features any time you want from the Online Resources - Friday Features activity in Escape Online 5. Plus, we just re-organized the list of articles by General, Finance, and HR/Payroll so you can find the feature you want even faster!
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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