St. Thomas employees are familiar with the university’s timekeeping system, whether from scanning your finger at a timekeeping machine, or going to the Workforce EmpCenter website and inputting your time manually on an electronic timesheet.

However, starting next fall, both of these options will be replaced by a timekeeping portal on the existing Murphy Online website called Banner Time Entry.

“We have gone from paper entry, to Banner, to third-party systems, to using multiple entry systems at once,” Therese Sheehan, St. Thomas human resources special projects manager, said. “We were at one point moving away from using Banner, but now we are adjusting back to it.”

Human Resources is moving timesheets to Banner to create a consistent and streamlined process, according to an article by Sheehan on OneStThomas.

“Within Banner, you would go in and record your in and out time specifically,” said Lora Gregg, benefits manager from Human Resources.

The history of the use of Banner within St. Thomas is a long one. The university adapted to using Banner in 2004, fully committed to using the site more efficiently in 2018, and have brought many aspects to student life onto the site since then.

Banner is used to hold records for students, faculty and staff along with several human resources aspects for all hourly employees. It is the program that runs Murphy Online, the self-service site for students, faculty and staff.

“One guiding principle is that so much of everything that we hope students and employees are doing, from an HR perspective, is already in Banner, which is that ‘self-serving’ piece of Banner,” Mark Shaughnessy, project manager with human resources said.

The switch to Banner Time Entry will happen by August 31 and is currently being set up for testing.

Mae Macfarlane can be contacted at macf7507@stthomas.edu.