This page is a work in progress.
If you have questions about the content or questions you’d like us to answer here, please let Cecilia know via Teams or email. Thanks!
Why do we limit who can see records in CHEF?
CAMP allowed people access to information they didn’t need to do their jobs. To deal with privacy and data security, it is necessary to lock down access to the records per the organizational structure.
How do ‘end dates’ work for my RRU resource record and my computer account?
All employees and contractors (non-students) will have a resource record in Unit4/HR Core (position management).
CHEF is the interface between you and Unit 4.
Full time, regular employees will have no end date in Unit4 and their computer account will have no end date. If an employee leaves, People and Culture will edit the employee’s record in CHEF to indicate the end date. That end date will be used to expire the computer account.
Term employees WILL have an end date on their resource record and their computer account. If their term end date changes, People and Culture will edit the employee’s record in CHEF to indicate the new end date. That end date will be used to expire the computer account.
Contractors of all kinds will have a ‘contract end date’ on their resource record and their computer account. if their contract end date chnages, the resource administrator or delegate will edit the record in CHEF to indicate the new end date. That end date will be used to expire the computer account.
This is a change from how CAMP behaved because in CAMP, everyone had an end date and hiring managers/resource administrators had to intentionally renew/extend computer accounts at least every two years by responding to notifications from CAMP. Hiring managers/resource administrators will no longer have to ‘renew’ or ‘extend’ computer accounts for full time staff. When it is time, People and Culture will terminate those computer accounts. Resource administrators and delegates will be able to manage the computer account end dates for contractors.
What is the process to set up a new employee? A new contractor?
Employees | Contractors (academic and non-academic) |
|---|---|
Everything leading up to when a new employee accepts a job offer and signs their acceptance letter stays the same. | Everything leading up to when a contracted resource signs their contract stays the same. This is true for all contractors. |
At the same point a hiring manager/resource administrator would have entered information into CAMP to create a computer account, they’ll go to CHEF instead. (A computer account will be created and integrations will be made with systems in the background, as required for other business processes to function as expected.) | At the same point a resource administrator would have entered information into CAMP to create a computer account, they’ll go to CHEF instead. (A computer account will be created and integrations will be made with systems in the background, as required for other business processes to function as expected.) |
Hiring managers/resource administrators will visit the provisioning form to select from a list of things that might be needed for a new employee. The list includes things like:
Submitting the form sends requests to the right departments to provide these things. Representatives from the departments may follow up with you or the new person individually if they need more information or to arrange a meeting etc. | Resource administrators will visit the provisioning form to select from a list of things that might be needed for a new employee. The list includes things like:
Submitting the form sends requests to the right departments to provide these things. Representatives from the departments may follow up with you or the new person individually if they need more information or to arrange a meeting etc. |
Wow! Why does the set up process for employees and contractors look the same?!
BEFORE a new person signs a letter of offer or a contract, the financial and hiring processes for employees and contractors may look very different. There are good reasons for that, some of them legal. That kind of thing is different than getting the person set up to do their work.
Regardless of their relationship with us, once a person has committed to provide services in exchange for money, RRU needs to give them access to the things they need to meet that commitment.
For employees, that’s often a place to sit, a computer, access to software & systems (sometimes many!), etc.
For most contractors, a place to sit is not required. A computer may not be required. And in fact, we may not be allowed to provide a place to sit or equipment (legal reasons). Access to RRU resources will probably be required even if it’s just to a SharePoint site where they can collaborate with the people they work with. Some contractors may not need access to a SharePoint site, but they may need access to a different things, like Moodle and training related to Moodle.
It all depends on the work the new person will be doing.
The hiring manager/resource administrator knows what the new person needs, so the hiring manager/resource administrator will say ‘yes’ to all the right things.
Can we use shared mailboxes as ‘supervisors’ in CHEF as we did in CAMP?
In 1996, the field “supervisor” in CAMP was meant to hold the name of the actual supervisor/reporting manager of the person we were onboarding.
But as we grew and the administration of managing CAMP information was handled more and more by support staff, we started using the email address of the person who needed to receive the notifications in that field. Later, we started using the email address of the departmental shared mailbox.
Because CHEF relies on the resource management system for information, we must move back to the original definition of “supervisor” meaning hiring manager/resource administrator.
When my supervisor/hiring manager/resource administrator logs into CHEF, the system knows who they are in relation to me, like so:
Any information the hiring manager/resource administrator needs from CHEF will be sent automatically, like confirmations when they add a new resource record etc.
Further down in every record, there is a field where you can enter the email address where you want computer account related notices to go:
So, you can’t use shared mailboxes as “supervisors” anymore.
But you CAN specify where computer account related messages go.
What kind of notifications will CHEF send? Will I get the same notifications I got from CAMP?
One of the main purposes of notifications in CAMP was to trigger various activities like:
creation of a computer account
provisioning computer equipment
providing access to software
And at various points in history, things like:
keys
training
long distance codes
phones
updating of other systems like Moodle
But because hiring managers/resource administrators will use a special webform to ask for these things going forward, CHEF won’t need to send notifications about them.
The bottom line is that CHEF will send fewer notifications than CAMP did and they will confirmation that the record was been submitted, approved by HR if appropriate, that kind of thing.
(If you’re a person who previously received notifications from CAMP and you’re worried that you’ll miss important information, please let us know.
Can I create/update resource records in Chef for staff whose records are normally administered by people who report to me?
The answer is YES, you absolutely can edit records for everyone who reports through to you. And you can add new records, too.
This is because as this manager (circled in yellow), you have access to all records in your organization (shaded in blue), including the people who report to you, who are managers/resource administrators AND people that report to those managers/resource administrators.
Someone in my team reports to two different supervisors. Does CHEF handle that scenario?
Yes, both you and the other supervisor/manager will see this person listed under “My Team”.
Why is the information I see in Outlook, Teams, and on the www directory incorrect, even though the information in Chef IS correct?
Currently (2024-10-07) the data we see in Chef comes from either the CAMP database or Unit4, depending on which function you’re using.
Why are we using the CAMP database if CAMP doesn’t exist anymore? Because we’ve just taken the first step in decommissioning CAMP. We could not disconnect the CAMP database from everything at the same time because everything would have broken.
We’ve replaced the application called CAMP with the application called Chef. And at the same time, we linked Chef to the (new!) resource management system. But the CAMP database is still connected to Chef.
There’s still a lot of work to be done for us to fully disconnect the CAMP database from all other systems. As that work moves along, the information is shared in the directories and in Outlook and Teams will line up with the official information in the Resource Management system.
Where we see data | Where does it come from? |
|---|---|
 | When someone looks at their own profile or when a manager goes to ‘My Team” and pulls up someone’s record in Chef, they are looking at information from Unit4, the resource management system. Here, you’ll see the official position name etc. |
  | In all of the Chef ‘Directory’ functions, whether it’s a ‘search’ or ‘organizational directory’ or ‘phone directory’, you’ll view information on a card, shown on the bottom picture. The information on this card comes from the CAMP database. Why? Because we cannot disconnect everything at once. The position name/title you see here may be the same as that on file in the Resource Management system OR it may be whatever title was entered into the text field in CAMP back in the day. |
 | When you look at someone’s ‘organization’ information in Outlook, the data you see comes from the CAMP database. Why? Because we cannot disconnect everything at once. The position name/title you see here may be (coincidentally) the same as that on file in the Resource Management system OR it may be whatever title was entered into the text field in CAMP back in the day (more likely). The ‘organizational structure’ shown here does not reflect the official organizational structure. Instead, it’s reliant on the email address listed as the ‘computer account notification email’. This is not ideal and won’t be this way forever. But it is this way right now and cannot be changed at this time. |
 | When you look at organizational data in Teams, same as above. |
 | The information you see when you look up a person in the contact directory on www comes from the old CAMP database so like Outlook and Teams, it may well be out of sync with Unit4. And just like Outlook and Teams, the content showing in the directory will be improved over time. |