University of Utah Eliminates Over 200 Hours of Manual Data Entry Per Pay Period with GT eForms
Executive Summary
The University of Utah, a top-ranked public university with over 47,000 employees, faced overwhelming administrative complexity with its paper-based additional pay and leave request processes. By implementing Gideon Taylor’s eForms solutions—including additional pay, multi-pay, and FMLA leave request forms—the university eliminated over 60,000 manual transactions per year, reduced transaction processing time by 70% (from two weeks to three days), and cut their error rate by 94%. The payroll team alone saved over 200 hours per pay period in manual data entry.
The Challenge
Manual Processes Created Bottlenecks
The University of Utah’s paper-based additional pay process was highly manual and time-consuming. Paper forms required extensive time to complete and gather the necessary approvals before reaching the payroll team. According to Stacie Rigby, Senior Business Systems Analyst, the process suffered from several critical issues:
Signature inconsistencies and validation problems: “The signatures were not consistent between the departments. At times, we had missing signatures. And since it was on paper, there was no way to validate if the signature was the approver that was needed for that specific additional pay.”
Overwhelming manual data entry: The payroll team was manually entering data into the PeopleSoft additional pay component, which consumed over 200 hours each pay period. This represented a significant operational burden that pulled the team away from more strategic work.
Access and security complexities: Prior to the eForm solution, the university had created a custom CIP page that certain departments could access. However, this access had to be granted and managed by the security team, creating additional administrative overhead.
Leave Management Equally Problematic
The leave request process faced similar challenges. As Tadd Helquist, Senior Business Systems Analyst, explained during his presentation, “When an employee requests leave in the past, they would have quite the experience in even trying to locate the correct form to use.” Employees had to locate the particular paper form for their type of leave (FMLA, parental, military, or non-health related), analyze what information was needed, attach required documents, and then hope the form would get routed correctly to supervisors and potentially directors and vice presidents.
Tadd noted that “the leave team administrators, they had various ways of tracking those leave requests. And essentially, they were doing most of that on spreadsheets.” This manual tracking process created:
- Manual tracking and potential for errors
- Difficulty in reporting and auditing
- No automated workflow or notifications
- Delays in processing and approvals
The Solution
Comprehensive eForms Implementation
The University of Utah has been working with Gideon Taylor since 2008 and has implemented an extensive suite of eForms solutions. Their current environment includes:
- Infrastructure: PeopleSoft HCM, CRM, Student, and Financials on PeopleTools 8.60.13 and PeopleSoft 9.2 (Image 50)
- Annual volume: More than 63,000 eForms processed per year
- Form types: Hire, change employment status, I-9/E-Verify, additional pay, multi-pay, leave requests, and others in development
Additional Pay & Multi-Pay Forms
The additional pay solution, built on Gideon Taylor’s Fluid Helium Performance platform, addressed the university’s complex payment scenarios:
Clone functionality for efficiency: When departments need to process payments for multiple employees with similar parameters, they can create one form and use the clone feature to quickly generate additional forms with minor adjustments. As Stacie Rigby noted, “Once they get their one form done, they’re ready to rock and roll for any and other multiple forms. And then they just make small tweaks each pay period.”
Automated approval routing: The forms automatically route to the appropriate approvers based on business rules, ensuring policy compliance and eliminating the signature validation problems of the paper process.
Direct PeopleSoft integration: Data flows directly into PeopleSoft, eliminating manual data entry entirely.
Leave Request Form
The FMLA leave request form streamlined the entire leave management process:
Automated workflow: Employees can initiate leave requests directly through the form, which automatically routes to supervisors and other required approvers based on leave type and organizational hierarchy.
Eliminated manual tracking: The form replaced the master spreadsheet entirely. As Helquist explained, all data is now stored in queryable records, allowing the team to run reports and gather needed data without maintaining separate tracking systems.
Built-in validation: The form validates employee eligibility and ensures all required documentation is attached before routing for approval.
Implementation Approach
The implementation took approximately three months from planning and development through user acceptance testing to go-live. The team noted that development time was reasonable given the complexity of the business processes being automated.
Both Rigby and Helquist emphasized the value of thorough planning: “We spent significant time in the planning phase understanding all the different scenarios and approval paths we needed to accommodate,” said Rigby.
The Results
Dramatic Efficiency Gains
Eliminated 60,000+ manual transactions per year: The eForms implementation removed the need for paper processing across multiple HR functions.
Reduced processing time by 70%: Transaction time dropped from two weeks to just three days, dramatically improving the employee experience and operational efficiency.
Saved 200+ hours per pay period: The payroll team no longer spends over 200 hours manually entering additional pay data each pay period—that’s equivalent to more than five full-time employees’ work eliminated.
Cut error rate by 94%: Moving from manual paper processes to automated digital workflows nearly eliminated processing errors.
Decreased overtime by 88%: In the first six months alone, the university realized an 88% decrease in overtime and compensatory hours.
Achieved 100% policy compliance: The automated routing ensured that every transaction followed the proper approval chain, completely eliminating the problem of missing or invalid signatures.
Additional Benefits
Eliminated lost forms: The university solved the persistent problem of paper forms going missing in the approval process.
Improved reporting and auditing: All form data is stored in queryable records that can be joined with delivered PeopleSoft records, enabling comprehensive reporting without maintaining separate tracking spreadsheets.
Enhanced security: Role-based access controls replaced the cumbersome manual security management of the previous custom CIP page.
Better employee experience: Employees can now submit requests digitally and track their status, rather than printing forms and chasing down signatures.
Customer Testimonials
“The implementation of Gideon Taylor’s ePAF™ technology has had significant positive impact on the University of Utah. It has proven to be one of the most successful automation projects for Human Resources.” — HRIS Administrator, University of Utah
On the multi-pay clone functionality: “Once they get their one form done, they’re ready to rock and roll for any and other multiple forms. And then they just make small tweaks each pay period or each time that they need to pay a mass group for that department.” — Stacie Rigby, Senior Business Systems Analyst, University of Utah
On eliminating spreadsheet tracking: “We wanted to help the leave team be able to drift away from tracking on spreadsheets. So not only are we going to see what the user submitted, but we’re going to see several fields here where I can track whether or not the initial letter was sent, when due dates [are due].” — Tadd Helquist, Senior Business Systems Analyst, University of Utah
On the overall implementation: “It’s been quite a positive experience. And yeah, we’re eager to keep hearing from the business folks and enhancing as we can.” — Tadd Helquist, Senior Business Systems Analyst, University of Utah
Looking Ahead
The University of Utah continues to expand its use of Gideon Taylor eForms. With a mix of classic eForms, fluid eForms, and the latest Fluid Helium Performance eForms, they are systematically upgrading older forms to take advantage of the latest capabilities.
“We have some extremely old eForms that we are anxiously awaiting to have float to the top of our priority list to get upgraded to the latest and greatest,” said Rigby. The university also has additional eForms “waiting in the wings” that they are excited to implement.
About the University of Utah
- Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
- Students: 36,000 enrolled
- Employees: Over 47,000
- Recognition: #1 public university in the West (Wall Street Journal)
- Gideon Taylor partnership: Since 2008