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Upcoming changes to OAP Visa Request Forms

The Office of Academic Personnel (OAP), in collaboration with the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP), is pleased to announce some important changes to the H and J Visa Request Forms. Most importantly, the H Visa Request Form will be moved to a new tool at 5pm on Friday, July 31, in the same way the J Visa Request Form was updated on June 1. The H and J Intake Forms will be updated accordingly.

As part of this update, units will no longer need to create separate Deemed Export Compliance Attestations (DECAs); instead, DECA information from the new H Visa Request Form will be sent directly to OSP for immediate review. To facilitate this process, OAP has added several fields to the H Visa Intake and Visa Request Forms: purpose of stay, faculty supervisor, and grants/contracts being used for funding. If additional information is needed, you will be contacted by OSP. 

OAP is also adding “save as draft” functionality to both the J and the H Visa Request Forms. “Save as draft” will save everything except attachments; drafts will be saved for 90 days.

Here are a few other highlights:

  • Standardized country list: Country of birth, countries of citizenship, and country of residence will now all be required and will be selectable from a list of countries recognized by the U.S. government. This will reduce back-and-forth needed with the ISO team.
  • The display of “print views” used for conditional approvals will be more legible
  • The J Visa Request Form will now allow export compliance review by OSP.

Please feel free to contact ISO with any questions or feedback you have about the new forms.

Data Clean Up for Teaching Professor Track Conversion

The Office of Academic Personnel team is working hard to prepare for the implementation of the new teaching professor track, with the goal of converting eligible academic personnel to the new titles on September 16. To ensure a smooth conversion in Workday, all unit administrators should be taking the following steps:

Step 1: Run the “TEMP Report- Data Review for Teaching Professor Track Implementation” in Workday
• Review the output
• Ensure all individuals you expect to convert are on the report and all conversion indicators are “Yes”
• If any conversion indicators are “No”, make appropriate updates in Workday to ensure the individual’s inclusion in the conversion
• If you have an individual who you think should appear on the report but who did not, please reach out to Jim Ballew at jballew@uw.edu.

Step 2: Updating Academic Appointments and Positions
For anyone who currently holds a conversion-eligible academic appointment or position, please do the following:
• Make any necessary updates to academic appointments for this population
• Make any necessary updates to positions for this population

Step 3: Adding New Academic Appointments and Positions
For anyone who has accepted a new academic appointment to a conversion-eligible title, please do the following:
• Enter the academic appointment
• Enter the position
• If you have an existing faculty member who is taking summer hiatus and will be starting a new position in a conversion-eligible title in the fall, contact Jim Ballew at jballew@uw.edu.

Please be sure to make changes by Wednesday, July 15. Contact Jim Ballew with any questions.

For additional support, check out the following resources:

• Sextant, an OAP tool outlining position and appointment data for Workday (Note: Teaching professor track details won’t be added until August)
• Summer 2020 Admin Forum and the teaching professor track blog post, both which give an overview of the new track
• Add Academic Appointment Track user guide and Update Academic Appointment Track user guide, references created by the ISC for specific Workday guidance
• A complete list of Workday academic personnel data audit reports is available on the OAP blog

 

New J Visa Request Form

The Office of Academic Personnel (OAP) is pleased to announce that we’ve built an enhanced J visa request form, which is more user-friendly and allows for more efficient review. This form is live as of June 1, 2020. Here are a few of the highlights!

  • Ability to see summary information about previous requests including request number, scholar name, start date, and request status
  • More intuitive user interface
    • Appointment information now comes prior to funding information (sections 3 and 4 swapped)
    • Navigation links so you can navigate up and down through the request
    • Request numbers are standardized to always use the Request Tracker (RT)/ticket number, even for invoices
  • Better data validation, which should highlight common issues prior to OAP review
    • Checks for “short-term scholar” category only used for visits up to 6 months
    • Title-specific reminders based on title selected, such as information about the maximum appointment length
    • Warnings related to start dates, funding and salary minimums
    • Ability to submit documentation for scholars with previous U.S. visits
  • Better behind-the-scenes tools for OAP
  • Better invoicing
    • Invoices will be generated and sent out more quickly
    • Invoice file names will include the scholar’s name and request number
    • Versioned invoices will be used to track corrections, e.g. when budget information changes
    • Invoice numbers in MyFinancial.desktop (MyFD) will correspond to the Request Tracker (RT)/ticket number with line numbers and descriptions for each charge

This initiative is part of OAP’s strategic priority 3:“Get ‘Leaner’ on at least one complex process per year.” OAP reviewed common issues from past J visa requests to identify form improvements.

Thanks very much to ABC Shared Services and the College of Arts and Sciences Shared Services for providing feedback and identifying important user interface improvements.

The H visa request form is next in line for review and enhancement.

The new J-1 Visa Request form and the updated  J Visa Intake Form are now available. If you have any questions or issues with the new form, please contact acadvisa@uw.edu.