This time of year often brings new additions to our teams and changing roles. We wanted to share some information about how faculty and staff listings in CHSSWeb work to help you make sure these changes are reflected on your websites.
New Faculty and Staff
Each night, the system accesses an export from Banner and uses that to add people to the CHSSWeb system, associate people with sites, and update a limited portion of the information associated with people.
The export contains faculty and staff who are currently being paid by the university. It also tells us from which account or accounts (org codes) each person is paid. We use that information to determine which people to import and which people to associate with which sites. More information about how the Banner Import is available on our help website.
For most new faculty and staff, a bio is created automatically a few days after they are first paid by the university. A few days after a new bio is created, the owner of that bio will receive an automated email with instructions for logging in and updating it with their information.
If you have people who you would like us to add manually, either because they aren't paid out of an org associated with your website or you just need them on your website before the import brings them in, you can send us their information. Please refer to this guide for what information we need and how to send us a larger list of additions.
New Titles and Contacts
The start of each semester often brings changes to titles and contacts. Site editors should review your site titles and your program titles. Site titles are often unit-specific roles like Chair or Office Manager. Program titles are specific to an individual program, such as the Director for the PhD in I/O Psychology. Site editors can manage the assignment of site and program level titles on their website. Faculty ranks are imported from Banner. If you have questions about a faculty rank, contact CHSSWeb.
Removing People from your website
We don't automate the removal of people from your website. The primary reason for this is that we can not use university data sources to accurately predict when someone should be removed from a website or archived. There are many cases when someone might not be paid by a department but should still maintain a presence on a website. Site editors should review their faculty and staff listings and remove or archive people as needed.
Graduate Students
Many departments maintain listings of the graduate students. These lists work differently than the regular faculty and staff listings. While graduate students with paid positions are added through the nightly import, unpaid students must be added manually.
If you list graduate students, you can send us an updated list of your relevant students each semester and we will add new students. Site editors can remove students who are no longer with a program using the same tools for removing faculty and staff.
We provide a full guide for maintaining a list of graduate students on your website.
Custom People Listings
Some websites have chosen to maintain custom listings rather than using our standard People application. If you are using a custom listing, more manual maintenance is required. You will need to review your custom listings and remove or add people as needed. These custom listings are not automatically updated. The most common type of custom listing uses the bio_list page template. We offer instructions for working with the bio_list page template.
Contact Us Pages
Most of our websites have a contact page separate from their People pages. The start of the semester is a good time to review this page and make sure it still reflects the correct information for your website. There are few things more frustrating that trying to reach out for help and finding outdated information. If your site uses our standard Contact Us page template, updating the Site Titles on your website will also update this page. If your site uses a custom, manual contact page, we recommend reviewing it and making any changes.
We are happy to help if you have questions about any of this information or just need some help making updates. Contact the CHSSWeb team.
September 15, 2025