The University of Texas at Austin is a big place with many distinct groups. Keeping things organized at a large university can sometimes be daunting. This is one of the many reasons that developing unique departmental and unit codes for separate groups was initiated. Both code types are used to identify departments, colleges, schools, and organizations within the university. What are they used for and how are they different?
Unit Codes
Unit codes are seven-digit numbers tied to account numbers in DEFINE, Inventory of equipment and computer assets in ISORA and software license management in TrackIt. These codes are broken down into units (the first four numbers) and sub-units (the last three numbers). This makes them particularly important for financial transactions, purchasing, inventory and software license registration.
Department Codes
Department codes are four-character codes that reflect an abbreviation of the department name and are associated with each employee to identify their group on campus. Some department codes involve additional characters, usually when there are several sub-units within a department. An example would be FASV for Facilities, and FASVSSV for Resource Recovery, a unit within Facilities. These codes are tied to faculty, staff, and student EIDs.
Why are they Important?
These codes impact all of us, and it is important to understand how they work to incorporate them regularly in our transactions, requests, and correspondence. Awareness, understanding and consistent use of these codes ensure coordination of purchases for departments at the unit level. It is important to know how your specific department and unit code(s) are related to your EID, your computer asset(s), capital equipment, and software licenses both at an individual and group level. It is especially important within larger groups with multiple sub-units using different subcodes. Correct assignment of these codes for inventory and software can be complex. Make sure you have the right code for the right department or sub-unit to ensure that your equipment and software purchases are associated with the intended group.
You can find your department or unit code by navigating to UTDirect.
Jenn Quraishi