New System Streamlines Faculty Appointments, Improves Efficiency

In 2012 the Faculty Affairs Office initiated a project in partnership with University IT to streamline and automate Stanford’s Faculty and Academic Staff Appointment (FASA)  process. At that time the academic appointment process was inconsistent across the university; each school used its own system/process, and relied largely on paper forms.

Now, after nearly three years and three major project phases, the new FASA system provides a consistent and centralized process for managing the majority of Stanford’s 7,000-plus academic appointments across 200 departments. A customized application built with Oracle’s Apex tool, FASA interfaces with Stanford’s PeopleSoft database to enable departments to efficiently initiate and manage faculty and teaching staff appointments.

Cross-campus collaboration leads to improved efficiency and a Stanford first

The project team worked with representatives from all the schools and multiple central offices, plus SLAC and the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. The result is an efficient system that works for more than 600 users across the entire campus.

“FASA is the product of a university-wide collaboration among all of the schools, the Dean of Research, VPUE, SLAC, and University IT," said Megan Pierson, senior associate provost for Faculty Affairs. "FASA streamlines a time-consuming, paper-based academic appointment approval process.”

In addition to the efficiency gains, the FASA system puts Stanford in a unique position among its peers: No other university currently has a central application to manage and track faculty appointments.

Resulting benefits

FASA's Phase Three release on March 14 delivered significant benefits. Processing time has been reduced from weeks to days, and the use of numerous paper forms has been eliminated. In addition, FASA will improve accountability and compliance with university policies, and will facilitate coordination with Faculty Affairs and University Human Resources.

System features

The new FASA system includes the following features:

• automated workflow/approval processes
• email approval notifications
• milestone notifications
• organization-based security
• document management
• letter templates
• improved reporting

Learn more

For more information on the various types of appointments, see the Faculty Groupings chart