Umoja News and Updates

UMOJA CONTINUITY AND IMPROVEMENTS
The two-phase annual disaster recovery exercise for Umoja was successfully completed in early June. The test, conducted on an annual basis, ensures business continuity in the case of an actual disaster, by testing the switch from the UN's primary Data Center in Valencia, Spain, to the UN's back up Data Center in Brindisi, Italy. This is a highly complex exercise involving numerous hardware and software operations as well as several teams of staff and vendors. The test, conducted over the course of two separate weekends, required Umoja to be offline for a significant period of time. Further improvements will be explored to shorten the length of time required to 'fail-over' to the secondary Data Center.

Maintenance periods represent an opportunity for the Umoja team to implement upgrades, improvements and enhancements to the Umoja Solution. For example, recent updates to the Umoja Access Layer addressed issues faced by some ECC users, such as lack of SAP GUI response, or in some instances, flickering screens. This update required a restart of the Umoja Access Layer, which was performed during the Disaster Recovery test, without taking additional maintenance downtime.

The Umoja team is grateful to all staff for their understanding and cooperation with the ongoing Umoja improvements and technical needs of the Organization. Successful completion of such activities is critical to maintain business continuity for the United Nations, especially as more core business operations are now dependent on Umoja.

Take a look at the Umoja maintenance schedule for more details.

 

JUNE ESS/MSS PAYROLL LOCK SCHEDULE
As part of the monthly payroll processing, specific Employee and Manager Self-Service functionality are unavailable for a period of time. The ESS/MSS freeze applies to the following staff:

  • NY and MINUSTAH based General Service staff;
  • Peacekeeping Operations and Special Political Missions international staff on UNHQ payroll and MINUSTAH Uniformed Personnel; and
  • NY based professional, higher category and other pay areas.

Take a look at the June freeze schedule for each payroll area and to find out which ESS/MSS functionality will be available during that time.

 

2017 HEALTH INSURANCE CAMPAIGN KICK OFF
The 2017 Annual Insurance Campaign - for staff around the world eligible for the UNHQ and UNOG-administered Health Insurance Programmes - will be held during the entire month of June 2017.

The June 2017 campaign is the only opportunity you will have for the next year to make desired changes without a qualifying event (such as re-appointment, death, job loss, divorce, and marriage). Please note all plans must be managed through Umoja Employee Self-Service. For more information, click here.

 

PENSION FUND UPDATE
The United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund recently launched their new Member Self-Service portal in an effort to help members find the information they need, when they need it. The new service is an extension of the new comprehensive computer system (Integrated Pension Administrative System or IPAS). 

The portal provides real-time information on members’ accounts. Members can access Annual Statements, use the estimate tool to calculate potential future benefits, retirees can see when their Certificate of Entitlement (CE) was received and registered by the Fund, and much more. To find out more, visit the UNJSPF Member Self-Service portal

 

REMINDER: UMOJA CLUSTER 5 USER SURVEY
Have you completed the Cluster 5 post-deployment survey? If not, you still have time!

In an effort to assess the Umoja Custer 5 deployment, staff are being asked to provide their feedback through a user satisfaction survey. All C5 colleagues are encouraged to participate by accessing the survey here.

 

 

JOB AIDS
Umoja Job Aids offer the most up-to-date guidance to successfully run transactions using Umoja. Please visit the Job Aids page often to ensure you are using the most recent version of any needed document. 

Financial Accounting 
New Down payments – from creation to clearing 
Deleted Cheat Sheet for Clearing of Down payments for PO invoice 
Updated P1E 100 Coding Block 

Financial Accounting Production Support Users 
New 1 UNDP maintenance for FI production support users  
New 2 MR11: Maintain GR/IR Clearing Account 

Travel Management 
New BI Travel Report: Scheduling Travel Reports 
Updated BI Travel Report: Advance Purchase Policy Compliance Report

UNDP Processes
New 7-0 Universal price List (UPL) for UNDP Cheat Sheet

 

 

RELEASE NOTES
Are you interested in the latest enhancements to the Umoja solution? Visit the Umoja website for the most recent Release Notes, including travel updates, where travellers now receive an email notification the day after their travel is scheduled to end with a reminder to submit their expense report. For more details on this and other changes, take a look at the latest Release Notes.

 

The Umoja News and Updates is available 24/7 online and as a PDF

The Umoja Team
umoja@un.org     l     umoja.un.org