The main advantage of using Opus to request a UID for an academic appointee is that it prevents appointee records from being duplicated inside Opus when Opus synchronizes with other university systems. A secondary reason is that it may allow administrators to get a UID for an appointee, and start using that UID in other university systems, sooner than they otherwise would.
Preventing Duplicate Opus Records
The Opus Request a UID feature allows an Opus user to create a University ID (UID) for an appointee in the university's UID system, and associates this UID with an Opus record (profile). The Request a UID feature can be used as soon as an appointee’s Social Security Number (SSN) and date of birth (DOB) are known, even if this occurs well before their start date. Be aware that even if the Opus user doesn’t know the appointee’s SSN and DOB until they receive hiring paperwork for the appointee, they should use the Opus Request a UID feature before entering the person into UCPath.
This is our recommended best practice because when a user requests a UID in Opus before entering the appointee’s data in UCPath, they prevent the Opus record (profile) of their appointee from being duplicated during the synchronization that occurs between Opus and UCPath. Essentially, requesting a UID in Opus before entering appointee data in UCPath gets Opus ready for this synchronization and avoids creating multiple records for the same person in Opus.
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Note: Requesting a UID in Opus does not change the work that administrators do in UCPath — admins still enter appointees' data in UCPath.
Consequences of Not Requesting a UID in Opus
If a user starts an Opus case before the appointee has a UID, and does not request the appointee's UID in Opus before entering the appointee’s data in UCPath, the end result will be that Opus has duplicate records: one that was created when the case is started, and one that is created when Opus synchronizes with UCPath. This is not a fatal error, but it requires a workaround that is typically inconvenient — users may have to wait for a period of weeks for a new version of the Opus application to deploy before the divergent records can be merged, and in the meantime, profile data may seem incoherent or incorrect.
Getting a UID Sooner
In the case of someone brand new to the university, requesting a UID through Opus offers admins some advantages for work outside Opus because it allows them to associate the appointee with a UID as early as possible.
As an example, consider that departments often know well in advance who their new faculty will be on July 1. The advantage in requesting a UID through Opus is that the request can be made as soon as their status is Offer Accepted in Recruit. This is often as early as April, which is helpful for use in campus databases that include/require appointees’ UIDs in the months leading up to July 1.
Having a UID earlier also puts the university in a better position when the appointee starts to come into contact with other systems around the university. Continuing with the above example, if administrators don’t request a UID for an incoming appointee through Opus, a UID will be created for this appointee when the department creates a payroll record for the appointee (sometime in June for faculty starting on July 1). But if the admins do request UIDs for these folks through Opus ahead of time, UCPath will suggest a match with these UID records when the department creates that new payroll entry in June. This happens because the appointee’s name and date of birth, information collected when requesting the UID earlier, match what the department enters as they create a new payroll record.
The advantage of having an "early" UID is ultimately that doing so reduces the potential for redundancy, ultimately saving everyone time and preventing confusion (not to mention extra work).
Lastly, if a department administrator (DA) is thinking "My new hire already has a UID — from their student days or previous employment, but it's not in Opus..." the DA can send the appointee’s name and UID to opushelp@ucla.edu and the Opus team will bring the new hire into Opus. This is different than requesting a UID per se, because it’s not a matter of creating a new UID, it’s just retrieving an old one. We anticipate this particular process being upgraded in future releases — our developers are building an interface for the DA to handle these situations on their own.
See Also
Can I Request a UID Without a Social Security Number?