FIS Explorer is a web-based faculty data management tool created and maintained by the FIS team (the Faculty Information System), a group within the Office of Faculty Affairs under the guidance of the Vice Provost. FIS Explorer access is restricted to staff in Faculty Affairs and the Office of Institutional Research.
FIS Explorer is used to review all faculty personnel events such as appointments, tenure, promotion, sabbaticals, post-tenure review, leaves and retirement. Faculty data includes information on demographics, positions, degrees, research topics, languages spoken and more. FIS Explorer connects with core people data originating in the HCM Peoplesoft personnel system and relies mostly on data supplied by Faculty Affairs stemming from processes managed by this office for the campus. FIS Explorer replaces the legacy system known as FIS Main which was the original FIS faculty data management tool created in the early 1990s. While FIS Main was a desktop-based application limited to viewing individual records, FIS Explorer offers the ease of a modern web application and new comprehensive reporting features.
Access to FIS Explorer
FIS Explorer access is managed by the FIS Technical Team and is very restricted due to the confidential nature of the information.
If you have been granted access, use this link and logon with your campus IdentiKey credentials.
Help Resources available for FIS Explorer
- FIS Explorer User’s Guide. This guide provides an outline of features available to FIS Explorer users.
- Data Dictionary. See the Data Dictionary within the FIS Explorer application under the Reference section or on each specific page. Information about all data fields in FIS Explorer are defined in the Data Dictionary. Source of data is noted when applicable. Users can view Data Dictionary information by page, by searching for a specific field of interest or the full list of fields in alphabetical order.
- Note: The Office of Faculty Affairs cares about inclusion and strives to build a welcoming and supportive campus community for people with all gender identities. The Faculty Information System (FIS) gender fields are sourced from the campus Human Resources PeopleSoft HCM system and are not changeable for now. Faculty Affairs will update gender identity options in FIS after changes are made in HCM. To learn more about the gender identity transition period, please contact the Office of Human Resources.
- Values for Data Fields. The list of values for specific data fields can be viewed by clicking on the column heading of the data field of interest to see the drop down.
- Advanced Reporting Features. For more details on using advanced reporting features, see this document provided by Oracle about APEX functionality. The most relevant section of this document for FIS Explorer users is Section 3 "Using Interactive Reports".