Position Management Community of Practice

What is the Position Management Community of Practice?

A quarterly meeting series hosted by the Berkeley UCPath Operations Team to bring together subject matter experts and decentralized UCPath Position Management Transactors.

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Who is this meeting for?

Anyone whose role intersects with UCPath Position Management, especially transactors who manage vacant and filled position data.

This meeting series is intended to bring together transactors who have the following UCPath Access Roles:

  • Position Management / Position Control
  • Position Administration
  • PayPath

Learn more about the mission, objectives, and scope of our UCPath Community of Practice.

Position Management Definition

The oversight of position data from creation to inactivation, ensuring positions remain aligned with funding, job codes, and employment structures.

This includes Vacant and Filled Position Management through:

  • Position Control
  • Position Administration
  • PayPath
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""Quarterly Meeting Schedule

Upcoming Meetings:

  • Q1: February 2, 2026
  • Q2: April - June 2026
  • Q3: July - September 2026
  • Q4: October - December 2026
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Resources

Community Google Drive

In this folder you will find:

  • Meeting recordings, slide decks, and notes
  • Community-shared resources

Want to join the community?

Position Management Community of Practice - Sign-Up

Sign up for the Community of Practice today!

Audience is intended for transactors with inquiry, initiator, or approver roles for Position Management/Control, Position Administration, and PayPath. But anyone whose role intersects with Position Management is welcome to sign up!

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Have a topic or question to discuss?

Topics of Interest

Future meeting topics our Community of Practice is interested in discussing:

  • Updating vs. Creating New Positions Best Practices
  • Copying/Initializing from a Position Best Practices
  • Overallocation & Multi-Head Count Issues
  • Approval vs. Approvers – Who ‘Owns’ Position Management?
  • Staff vs. Academic – Adding a Stipend
  • Downstream Impacts of Incorrect Position Data

Last updated 2/2/2026

Position Management Community of Practice - Topics & Questions

Propose a topic or ask a question for a future meeting
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Past Meetings:

02/02/2026: Vacant Position Management Best Practices

Session Summary: 

  • Positions are foundational to financial planning: salaries, wages, and benefits make up ~60% of the campus budget (and up to 90% in some divisions), making accurate position data critical for budgeting and decision-making.

  • Too many vacant positions obscure insight: with ~67,000 vacant positions in UCPath (many student-related), the challenge isn’t reporting,  it’s identifying true vacancies.

  • Intentional cleanup works: a Haas spotlight showed how clear workflows, stakeholder buy-in, and HR–Finance collaboration enabled a large-scale position cleanup and better cost visibility.

  • CalAnswers supports smarter decisions: download your department’s data from the Position Roster report in the Position Management Dashboard in CalAnswers, and add a new column  “Position Review.” Label each position to decide whether vacant positions should be recruited, reused, or inactivated:

    • Filled - ‘In Budget’

    • Vacant - ‘Recturing’, ‘Re-use for __’ or ‘Inactivate.’

  • Shared ownership matters: breakout discussions emphasized partnering with managers and reviewing positions regularly to keep data accurate and sustainable.

Session Materials:

10/29/2025: Position Lifecycle Workflow

Session Summary: During this session, we explored how clear communication and intentional collaboration keep Position Management workflows running smoothly across units. Participants shared tangible practices like using shared Smartsheets or Google Sheets for real-time updates, scheduling regular check-ins with partners, and manually verifying data in Service Hub when needed. Spotlight presentations from the School of Public Health and Student Affairs highlighted the power of streamlined structures, centralized oversight, and proactive coordination between HR, Finance, and departments.

Session Materials:

9/22/2025: Project Charter & Position Lifecycles Framework Introduction

Session Summary: We discussed the mission, objectives, scope, and stakeholders for this Community of Practice. We defined the Position Lifecycle framework and, in breakout rooms, discussed our role(s) with the Position Lifecycle as well as where communication handoffs within the lifecycle, between units, break down.

Session Materials:

Topics