UIC Innovates with GoTime Employee Time Off Reporting Tool
A new, user-friendly time off reporting tool
It’s now easier for some UIC employees to request and report time off thanks to the innovative efforts of UIC Technology Solution’s Software Development and Delivery (SDD) Team. A custom-built application, GoTime (gotime.uic.edu) promises to serve as the most user-friendly time off reporting tool for UIC employees and HR yet.
quote 1 Heading link
User experience with HR systems is usually very complicated. We have hidden those complications and simplified the user’s interaction with the system.
| Assistant Director for Software Development at UIC Technology Solutions
Simplifying User Experiences Heading link
“It’s not very easy for employees to use certain systems without some sort of training, and there are a lot of complications because of different employee classifications and leave types and rules around those employee classifications and leave types,” Patangay says.
With GoTime, what the Technology Solutions team has done is put all those complications on the back end. “We have hidden those complications and simplified the user’s interaction with the system,” Patangay says.
With employee schedules on file, GoTime captures time off information and calculates work time without the user having to estimate or manually type in time off. For example, the GoTime system knows that an exempt civil servant works 37.5 hours a week, their workday is 7.5 hours and their half day is 3.75 hours. “It’s more error prone when users are allowed to type out their hours,” Patangay points out. “A system should be smart enough to know typical employee hours based on classification and perform that task for you.”
Launched in August 2021, the SDD team hopes this modern, flexible tool will be made available to more and more departments, accommodating various employee classifications. The design, development, and launch of GoTime constitute a new chapter for web app development at UIC. Historically, tools and applications built by UIC’s IT department, then known as “ACCC”, were limited in terms of the ability to upgrade the existing framework.
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Applications built previously were very locked down, and it was hard to find developers who knew and understood the code. We had to find hacks in order to make requested updates…that was unsustainable.
| Director, Software Development & Delivery at UIC Technology Solutions
How GoTime is Different Heading link
Designed from scratch by UIC developers with UIC’s business logic and employee database on the back end, GoTime’s web-based front end can also be applied to a mobile-based GoTime app in the future. Unlike older legacy tools, GoTime was built with an application programming interface (API), a method which not only simplifies software development and innovation by enabling applications to exchange data and functionality easily and securely, it also makes the application agile and easy to update or integrate with other technologies.
“It’s a big change at UIC,” Patangay says. “I don’t think there is any enterprise level application that is built with this kind of architecture…GoTime is much more aligned with standard industry practices, meaning any developer can work on it going forward.”
quote 1 Heading link
It’s a big change at UIC. I don’t think there is any enterprise-level application that is built with this kind of architecture. GoTime is much more aligned with standard industry practices, meaning any developer can work on it going forward.
| Assistant Director for Software Development at UIC Technology Solutions
Achieving Excellence Heading link
The project owes its successful delivery and its impressive turnaround time of three months to the team’s dedication, and the support and commitment of Assistant Vice Chancellor for Human Resources Cheri Canfield, Reddy says. It is the team’s hope that with further support and expanded resources, Technology Solutions can build a dedicated development shop to design more customized tools for the UIC community.
“The launch of GoTime helps prove that we can develop an enterprise-level tool in a short time frame,” Patangay says. “If we can have the resources we need, we can expand our team and provide this as a broader service to UIC.”
Thank You to the Support, Development & Test Teams Heading link
| Support Team | Development Team | Test Team |
|---|---|---|
| Matt Riley, Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Chief Information Officer | Teresa Bocchini, Enterprise Server Administrator | Dean Dang, Director, Enterprise Applications & Services |
| Jason Maslanka, Chief Technology Officer | Tomas Borosko, UI/UX Engineer | Anthony Marino, Director, Client Experience |
| Cheri Canfield, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Human Resources | Vishakha Patangay, Assistant Director for Software Development | Radhika S. Reddy, Director, Software Development & Delivery |
| Adelina Vidal, Site Reliability Engineer - Linux | Richard Wolf, Application Developer | Mathew Willis, Senior Project Manager |
| Jemma Ku, Assistant Director, Digital Accessibility | Ruthwik Lingam, DevOps Engineer | Sadonia Ruff, HR Manager |
| Michael LaRue, Assistant Director of Software Delivery and Data | Kurt Okimoto, Web Developer | Margot Wosko, Director of Human Resources |
| Matt Patterson, Linux Team Manager | ||
| Vlad Karpenko, Software Developer |