Overview

The OHS Contacts System is a tool used by central offices to identify individuals in departments across campus with whom they wish to be able to communicate or to authorize to perform some action on the department's behalf. The central office, referred to as the sponsoring department, will establish a contact type in the OHS Contacts System and then ask each department to identify a person for that department's contact. Authorized updaters in each department will use the OHS Contacts system to assign someone as the department's contact. Then, the sponsoring department can communicate with this representative group of individuals, or the sponsoring department can build an information system which allows contacts to perform a certain administrative function on the department's behalf.

The set of people allowed to manage a unit code's contacts for a given contact type in the Organizational Hierarchy System (OHS) Contacts System depends on two factors:

• whether the sponsoring department elected to limit updates to the sponsoring department
• whether the contact type is an official role or an informational contact

The sponsoring department for the contact types listed below have elected to make all changes to contacts centrally. A request to update these contact types will need to be submitted to the sponsoring department per their procedures.

• DocuSign Unit Contact (DUC)
• University Business Officers Council

Since Workday implementation, central HR no longer uses OHS HR Contacts and HR Contact Delegates for communications. Instead, HR contacts are defined by Workday security role. 

Roles

See About OHS Contacts.

• Official Roles: Contact types that authorize individuals to perform mission-critical actions on behalf of a department are referred to as official roles. Because of the potential authority that may be granted to individuals assigned, updaters should be aware of the privileges that are granted to anyone in an official role when assigning contacts. Contact types that are official roles will have the  icon in the Official column.
  

• Informational Contacts: All contact types that do not fall under the category of official roles are known as informational contacts. Typically, these contact types are used by the sponsoring department to generate an e-mail list made up of current contacts across the campus or to have a person in each department that the central office can contact when topical issues arise.

• Primary versus Backup Contacts: For each contact type, whether the type is an official role or an informational contact, there is one person assigned as the primary contact, and zero or more people who may be assigned as backup contact(s). The distinction between primary and backup depends on the usage of this information by each sponsoring department. Individuals who are the primary contacts for a contact type will have the  icon in the Primary column.

• Mandatory Contact Types: Sponsoring departments can decide whether contact types should be mandatory. This means that departments should initially assign primary contacts for mandatory contact types as soon as possible. Once a primary contact has been assigned, that contact can only be removed by being replaced with another contact. The primary contact cannot be removed without a replacement ID (position ID or UT EID) being provided. Mandatory contact types are identified by the  icon in the Mandatory column.

Contact type definitions

Source:  Contract Type Definitions

View OHS contacts

Log in to OHS Contacts System.

• View Contacts by Unit Code
• View Contacts by Contact Type
• View Contacts by Assignee

Download OHS contacts

Source: Downloading Contacts

Manage OHS contacts

Log in to OHS Contacts System.

• Manage Primary Contacts for a Unit Code
• Manage One Contact Type for a Unit Code

Glossary of OHS Contacts System terms

See OHS Contacts Glossary.

• Backup Contact: A person who can represent the department with regards to a certain contact type in lieu of the primary contact. For example, Sandra Dee might be the backup contact for the Accounting contact type for the Physics Department. It is up to the sponsoring department whether backup contacts are treated differently or given any different access or responsibility than the primary contact.

• Contact ID: The identifier used to represent the person or position assigned as a contact. The OHS Contacts system allows departments to fill the contact ID with either a UT EID or an HRMS position ID, unless the sponsoring department has restricted assignment to one type of identifier.

• Contact Type: A role established by a sponsoring department where that office needs to interact with departments across campus. For example, the UT Austin Office of Accounting established a Records Management and Retention contact type in order to have a point of contact in each department who would be knowledgable about the department's document retention practices.

• Informational Contact Type: A contact type that is typically used by a sponsoring department for communication purposes. By establishing an informational contact type, a sponsoring department will have a point of contact to whom it can send reports or call if it has questions. All contact types are either official roles or informational contact types.

• Mandatory Contact Type: A contact type where each department is expected to have a primary contact assigned at all times.

• Official Role: A contact type that authorizes individuals to perform mission-critical actions on behalf of a department. An official role is more risk-bearing than an informational contact type. Contacts assigned to an official role will typically gain automatic authorization for an information system where the contact may be able to financially obligate the department. All contact types are either official roles or informational contact types.

• OHS: An acronym for Organizational Hierarchy System. The OHS is a proposed information system that would consolidate several hierarchy systems into one system, allowing for a university's hierarchy to be represented in different ways in real time. For example, university departments may report organizationally in a different way than their funding allows. Currently, one must look in two different information systems, *DEFINE and the Department System, in order to see this difference.

• Primary Contact: The primary person to represent the department with regards to a certain contact type. For example, Suzie Que might be the primary contact for the Accounting contact type for the Physics Department. It is up to the sponsoring department whether primary contacts are treated differently or given any different access or responsibility than any named backup contacts.

• Sponsoring Department: A central office that owns a contact type and determines the contact type's attributes and uses. Every contact type is owned by a sponsoring department. For example, at UT Austin the Space Coordinators contact type is owned by Campus Planning and Facilities Management (CPFM).

Please send suggested additions to this page and notifications about broken links to COE-HR@austin.utexas.edu.