Frequently Asked Questions

Business processes related to education grant will not yet be available through the Umoja Employee Self-Service Portal. Staff will still be required to submit hard copy applications to their HR Partner.

The deployment of the first extension of Umoja deals with transactions related to personnel administration, entitlements, benefits, time management, payroll, and travel

Example 1:

All staff will be responsible for entering their leave in Umoja. If a staff member is out of the office (e.g. sick leave or annual leave), the staff member must record the absence through the Employee Self-Service (ESS) portal.  The supervisor will be notified of the entry and will need to review and it will be routed to the right person for approval.

Example 2:

Personal and financial Information about staff will be converted from the current system, IMIS.  There will be a “blackout” period where no changes will be permitted in IMIS during this conversion.

In addition, personal addresses and emergency contact information are converted from Inspira, if available and if no data is found in Inspira the IMIS data is converted.  The last day for a staff member to make changes to address and emergency contact information in Inspira that will be transferred to Umoja is 15 May 2015 (for duty stations deploying Umoja in June 2015).

Umoja is an on-line web based system that can be accessed from any location.

There are numerous training materials and guides available to help staff and managers navigate the system and can be accessed on the Umoja website (https://www.unumoja.net/display/public/Umoja+Employee+Self-Service+Tutor...). Specialized training is provided to transactional users (HR, travel, finance, procurement, etc.)

• All staff will require some training to use the new system. How much training is needed depends on your role and responsibilities.  All UN staff are advised to review general Umoja self-study training materials/tutorials/computer-based training.

Your role and responsibilities as a supervisor/manager will not change. The process to approve or initiate various managerial transactions, such as leave, will change with the implementation of the new system. Managers will be able to log into the Umoja Manager Self-Service (MSS) and access information, approve requests from their staff as well as perform tasks (initiate contract renewal) that will automatically send notifications or trigger workflows to other colleagues such as HR Partners.

• Employee Self-Service portal will allow staff to:
  • View and update their HR information and profile
  • Initiate and track requests for leave requests, benefits and entitlements
  • Make travel requests directly and submit claims electronically
  • Own and be accountable for their information and entitlements
• UN staff data will be stored centrally and shared across the organization
• Transfer of staff across duty stations will be seamless, no more script transfer and delays in processing payroll

• Since 2013, Umoja has been gradually deployed to various duty stations.
• HR, Payroll, Benefits, Organization Management and Travel are within the scope of Umoja Extension 1. Deployment of this functionality began in July 2014 in MINUSTAH, and continues in June 2015 in OCHA, UNON, UNEP, UN Habitat, UNAKRT and ESCAP, and November 2015 for the remaining of the Secretariat, except local staff in Peacekeeping missions. Full roll-out will be completed in March 2016.

Umoja is an initiative for the United Nations Secretariat that includes a thorough streamlining of UN business processes. It is an implementation of SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. The system changes the way we do a wide variety of administrative and management activities and puts the focus on the staff member to be responsible for initiating actions and managing their own personal information.   It will transform the way staff and managers work, which will require a change in behaviours.