Electronic Time Keeping and NAASC Account Codes
There are specific account codes to be used for NRAO staff doing work associated with NA ALMA Operations and the
NAASC. These account codes should be used to account for work associated with various tasks in support of ALMA operations. This includes time you spend on the task (billed through the NRAO "Electronic Time Keeping" or ETK system), go on travel associated with the task, or purchase equipment or materials for the task. The correct account needs to be included on relevant billing forms (e.g ETK, Travel Authorizations and Travel Expense Vouchers; Purchase Orders). A graphical representation of account codes for NA ALMA Operations including the work elements associated with each is given at
on this internal wiki page.
NAASC Staff Base Distributions
Your "base labor distribution" represents the expected fraction of your time over the year that we think you will spend, on average, on various tasks. ... HAVE JASON DESCRIBE....
- [https://staff.nrao.edu/wiki/pub/ALMA/NaascWbsStaff/ALMA_Operations_FY13_Base_Labor_Distributions2.pdf][Table of NAASC Staff base ETK distributions]]
Recording efforts outside your Base Distribution
For most months, your activities should be distributed roughly according to
your base distribution. However, there will be times when you work on specific tasks for a period of time that does not reflect your base distribution. In these cases, we ask that you charge the appropriate time specifically to that task in your monthly ETK. This is particularly true of business trips, which are usually entirely for a single specific activity, e.g. - traveling to Chile, traveling to a software developers meeting, attending a community workshop (other types of activities and their corresponding account codes are listed below). You should bill your travel directly to the relevant account, and make sure that the hours you enter in ETK for that month reflect your effort (i.e., don't simply let your hours be split according to your base distribution for that month).
The more common areas where we expect staff to charge their time on a per-effort basis are given in the following list:
- 711000 Diversity
- 721000 Trips to Chile to support JAO (AoD /CSV)
- 722000 NA-based support in direct support of JAO (working on CSV tasks; Capabilities Working Group, ObsMode WG, working on JAO JIRA tickets, configuration studies)
- 723000 Science Exchange (visits to another ARC, ARC node, or possibly Chile)
- 782100 Technical Assessments or Proposal Review support
- 782200 Visitor Support and Phase2 process: helpdesk, supporting face-to-face support to NAASC visitors, preparing Phase 2 materials and reviewing them with PI's, training for this support
- 782300 Data Processing & delivery
- 782500 Participation in Community Training events (CDEs, webinars), documentation
- 7826xx Software Testing (including subsystem scientist work & meetings to set/evaluate development targets) (xx=10 for CV, =30 for Socorro)
- 782700 Scientific Travel (for science meetings not covered as part of your functional work)
- "Admin" code in ETK for time spent in meetings not directly associated with your work in the NAASC
- "EPO" code in ETK for time spent on EPO efforts (see below)
- "IR" code in ETK for time spent on Independent Research (see below)
Please note that there are TWO methods for changing the amount of effort that should be charged to accounts.
IMPORTANT: Only one of these methods can be used in any given month. If you enter information using the Monthly Percentage method, then enter information using the Duration method, your previous changes will be 'overwritten.'
- "Monthly Duration" - This is the preferred method for recording changes in effort. Unless you are instructed otherwise by your supervisor, it is enough to simply ensure that your estimated effort is charged to the correct account over the course of the week or month. For example: During the month of June, you spent 16 hours (over 8 days) working on data reduction and have been asked to record this effort on your time sheet. Rather than changing the hourly distribution on 8 days, you may simply choose two days in the month and charge 8 hours, on each day, to the data reduction account.
- "Monthly Percentage" - If you are instructed by your supervisor to record specific days to a particular account, you should use this method. If, instead of typical duties, you worked 11 days (out of a 22 work-day month) on a project outside your normal work (data reduction, for example), you would use the Monthly Percentage screen to make changes to your ETK distribution. Note that any changes that you make in the Percentage screen will carry over automatically to the following month. For instructions on making percentage-based changes to your ETK effort, please see these Instructions for Changing Monthly Percentage Effort in ETK.
Typically, we only expect your ETK to reflect the aggregate hours for the month spent on particular tasks, and do not expect the day-to-day billing to be strictly followed. e.g., if you spend ~20hrs in a particular month doing Phase2 support, we expect account 782210 to be entered for 20hrs in your monthly ETK, not that your ETK shows that you spent 2.4 hrs on one day, 1 hr on 3 days, etc.
If you have more questions on charging your effort in ETK, please talk to or contact
Lyndele von Schill or
John Hibbard.
Tracking Science Time and other non-work activities
Another deviation is the time you spend on science. Most NAASC scientific staff are expected to spend some fraction of their working hours on scientific activities not associated with their functional work assignments. This includes scientific research, working with collaborators, writing scientific articles, attending meetings not associated with NAASC work functions, attending science seminars, mentoring students and postdocs, etc. Since scientific excellence is directly related to excellent scientific support, it is important for us to make sure our staff are getting enough time for science. To capture this information, we ask that NAASC scientific staff keep track of the time they spend on scientific activities by using the "IR" code in ETK.
Other special codes are "EPO" for work on Education and Public Outreach activities, "AD" for time spent in meetings not directly associated with your work in the NAASC or for science (e.g. NRAO "all hands" meetings). You use these codes in exactly the same way you would use the codes for Doctors Visits (DV), Vacation (V), etc.