OHS Contacts Glossary
The following terms are commonly used throughout the OHS Contacts System.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A contact type where each department is expected to have a primary contact assigned at all times.
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.
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.
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.
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).