Updated Timeframes for AUREUS Testing – Choose How You Participate!

We are diligently working to make the AUREUS transition as smooth as possible for you, our key stakeholders. We want to identify any critical issues well before we go live – and we need your help! Here are some ways you can make your voice heard and help with the transition.

Becoming Familiar with AUREUS

If you are not already familiar with the AUREUS project, please review the resources (including webinars and sample file formats) on the URS AUREUS page and the AUREUS FAQ page.

User Acceptance Testing Participation

Beginning July 2024, we will conduct end-to-end User Acceptance Testing (UAT). We plan for several stages that will conclude November 2024. However, due to constraints, we may have limited assistance from our vendor during October and November, so it's important to identify any important issues before then. See below how your organization may participate.

File-Reporting Employers: If you plan to report employment and payroll information to URS through a file, we urge you to have your files developed before July 24, 2024, so we may include them in the end-to-end UAT processes. We plan to have one or two file-reporting employer organizations participate at the beginning of UAT (in July) and many more in August and September 2024. We welcome the opportunity to test every file at least once during the UAT from July to September 2024.

Web-Reporting Employers: If you plan to utilize the AUREUS Employer Portal’s “wizards” to report your employment and payroll activities, we invite you to participate in our July to September 2024 UAT to help us test the critical end-to-end processes. We anticipate inviting three to five of our web-reporting employer organizations to assist in August and extending more invitations in September.

If you've already expressed an interest in participating, we have kept a record of your request. If you have not, or just want to check to see if you’re on the list, send us an email at aureus@urs.org.

Parallel Testing

Between November 2024 and January 2025, we plan to conduct “parallel testing” and are looking for a few employer organization/vendors to participate. To participate, the employer organization will have already successfully undergone the earlier UAT vetting process.

We need at least one employer organization to help with parallel testing in AUREUS for each of the six categories listed below:

1. File Upload – Employment File: Upload Employment Files to the AUREUS Employer Portal

2. File Upload – Payroll File: Upload Payroll Files to the AUREUS Employer Portal

3. File SFTP – Employment File: SFTP Employment Files to URS

4. File SFTP – Payroll File: SFTP Payroll Files to URS

5. Web Report – Employment Information: Report employment activity (new hire, terminations, employment events) using the AUREUS Employer Portal wizards

6. Web Report – Payroll Reporting: Report payroll activity using the AUREUS Employer Portal wizards

Please email aureus@urs.org if you're interested in participating in parallel testing – and indicate which single category best fits your organization (e.g., “File Upload – Employment File”, “File SFTP – Payroll File”, “Web Report – Payroll Reporting”, etc.).

Data Conditioning

Thank you for responding quickly to our data conditioning requests. This helps us make updates to your employees’ records before we move them to AUREUS.

Please ensure your employee records are up to date by logging into the legacy Employer Portal and terminating all terminated employees. If you use the batch termination process, be sure to add the Verification of Termination information to the records (this was newly added in 2022). AUREUS will require all employees who are on your payroll to be reported and for those who are terminated to not be reported. So now is the time to diligently clean up the information and to stay on top of it moving forward. 

Code Freeze

In February 2025, we will have a hard code freeze as we make final preparations before we go live in Spring/Summer 2025. This means we may not be able to test files after code freeze and before AUREUS launch.  

Don’t Get Left in the Dark!

We communicate via email, the AUREUS web page, the Inside Story, in-person trainings, etc. If you have staff who need to be added to our AUREUS email list, drop us a line at aureus@urs.org.

Before July 2024, we would also love to have a 30-minute phone call with you to resolve any concerns!