Best-practice examples
Requirement:
Administrative assistant 1 needs comprehensive signatory powers in order to cut down the budget officer’s workload in terms of the HR workflow. A PostDoc needs to manage the third-party resources project he has been given.
Solution:
Administrative assistant 1 receives BM_HR for the responsibility centre. He thus has signatory power across all financial elements for up to CHF 10,000. In addition, he can read personnel data, initiate HR workflows, enter hourly wage payments in ETHIS and view/correct ETHIS time management entries (see section 4).
The PostDoc receives BM for the SAP project. He thus has signatory power for up to CHF 10,000, but has no HR rights.
Requirement:
Two administrative assistants work on a job-sharing basis for a larger responsibility centre. Both need to be able to carry out HR activities. A PostDoc needs to manage the third-party resources project he has been given.
Solution 1:
Administrative assistants 1 and 2 are delegated BA_HR for the responsibility centre. They thus have HR authorisation across the whole RC and signatory power of up to CHF 1,500. The PostDoc receives BM for the SAP project. He thus has signatory power for up to CHF 10,000, but has no HR rights.
Solution 2:
Administrative assistant 1 receives BM_HR; administrative assistant 2 receives BA_HR. The authorisations differ with regard to the amounts they can sign for as well as the “small expense authorisation”. (PostDoc as above.)
Solution 3:
Administrative assistant 1 receives BM_HR. Administrative assistant 2 receives the combination BM and SP_HR. This means they both have signatory power of up to CHF 10,000, HR rights and a “small expense authorisation”. The difference here is that the BM authorisation (BM) can also be issued for lower levels (e.g. for PostDocs on SAP projects) and is then “suspended” accordingly.
Requirement:
A large unit (e.g. an institute) works with a pool of six administrative assistants. All administrative assistants require authorisations for each responsibility centre that uses the pool so that they can substitute for one another.
Solution:
Administrative assistant 1 receives BM_HR; administrative assistants 3 and 4 each receive BA_HR. They thus have the same HR rights, but different levels of signatory powers (CHF 10,000 vs. CHF 1,500). The other administrative assistants receive a combination of BM and SP_HR / BA and SP_HR. This ensures that they all have the necessary HR access. The signatory powers are different.
Requirement:
An institute has an institute coordinator who needs comprehensive rights for all units in the institute.
Solution 1:
The institute coordinator has a function level of 9 or above and can receive the au-thorisation “Deputy budget officer” from the head of the institution for the responsibility centre T-node of the institute (e.g. T4455). This allows him to approve the employ-ment of staff, sign for up to CHF 50,000 and approve business expenses of up to CHF 5,000 (except his own) across all financial elements of the institute (cost centres, PSP elements of all associated professorships).
Solution 2:
The institute coordinator does not have a function level of 9 or above. He receives read-only access with HR authorisation (SP_HR) from the head of the institute for the responsibility centre T-node. This allows him to read ETHIS personnel data, initiate HR workflows, enter hourly wage payments in ETHIS and view/correct ETHIS time management entries across the institute (see also section 4).
The institute coordinator can also receive signatory powers (e.g. BM or BM_HR) for each responsibility centre (e.g. institute directly, professorships of institution). This then also allows him to sign for up to CHF 10,000 and approve expenses of up to CHF 200. It is possible to delegate the same person in multiple responsibility centres.
If required, the administrative assistants of individual professorships can receive authorisations as described in example 3.
Requirement:
In a responsibility centre with 20 employees, 15 of them need to be able to order of-fice supplies directly in the corresponding ETH webshop, without having to have the purchases approved by the budget officer or the administrative assistant.
Solution:
6 of the 15 employees already have a signatory power (BM, BM_HR, BA, or BA_HR). No further authorisations are required for them. The remaining 9 employees receive EKI authorisation (Internal Shopper) for the responsibility centre.
Requirement:
The head of a service department with multiple teams would like to delegate the su-pervisor function (i.e. to hold employee appraisals and approve employees’ working time entries), but without any financial competencies.
Solution:
The head of department delegates the “Supervisor” authorisation for section X to the head of section X. The head of section is thus the Supervisor for all employees in sec-tion X. However, the head of department is still responsible for the budget of section X.