COMPAS NEWSLETTER

December 2025

Learning Orienteers are Joining our Journey

The COMPAS project team is launching a new stakeholder group to join us on our product implementation journey. The Learning Orienteers are a group of state employees who will serve as peer trainers in the “train-the-trainer” set up. 

This project is wide-reaching and the COMPAS team continues to offer opportunities for impacted stakeholders to engage with the project in the training space. These Orienteers will become experts on one of three focused functional areas and host training sessions for impacted end users after receiving training from the COMPAS project team. 

This program encourages state entity engagement across teams and the chance to learn with peers. This is in addition to other training elements including web-based training, job aids, FAQs, and regularly scheduled office hours where end users will get support for their questions. 

Impacted end users will receive specific instructions for accessing training sessions and they can check out our project calendar for more information. We are excited for our Orienteers to join us on our journey and navigate this new landscape together! 

COMPAS Stakeholder Spotlight 

This month our featured stakeholder is Charlene Markel – a Payroll and Benefits Administrator with the Department of Local Affairs who has worked for the State for more than four years. Charlene has actively engaged with the COMPAS project by attending COMPAS Biweekly Office Hours and Agency Tours so that she can stay abreast of project progress. 

Charlene recently dropped us a note to express her excitement for the COMPAS go live as well as her appreciation for the transparent communications and resources available to prepare users for COMPAS. Here’s what she had to say:

“COMPAS has taken the mystery out of HR and Payroll processing and made it something I can understand. The tutorials, meetings, and website are all amazing! My current favorite resource is the COMPAS Reports Recommendation page. Appendices A, B, and C let me know exactly where my favorite reports are migrating, and I even discovered some new reports in the process! The system is intuitive and a promising grand improvement.

Thank you all for the inclusiveness, patience, and commitment to reaching me at my skill set levels. I think you are doing a great job at maintaining the integrity of our current system and mapping the way to the new.”

Thank you, Charlene. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves!

WordWise

The COMPAS implementation introduces a new set of terminology that may be unfamiliar at first. That’s why we’re launching WordWise, a monthly segment designed to help you become fluent in COMPAS—one word at a time.

This month’s featured word: Department

The COMPAS implementation will introduce new users to the term Department. This term is already familiar to CORE users.

In COMPAS, Department replaces Org ID. Org IDs in CPPS had three characters. In COMPAS, Department codes will have four characters. These codes are linked to the Chart of Accounts in CORE and represent a financial structure — not a business unit like in CPPS.

Here’s an example from the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA):

If your work spans multiple Departments, you’ll still have access to everything you need, just like in CPPS.

Want to learn more? Visit the COMPAS Crosswalk for a glossary of terms and mappings from CPPS to COMPAS. You will also find a list of COMPAS acronyms on the project website.

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COMPAS introduces a workflow capability that will allow transactions to be routed to another user (or group of users) for review and approval before they are considered final. CORE users are already familiar with this process, but for those new to COMPAS, the concept is likely new. While workflow for COMPAS is still under design, the intention is to implement a streamlined process with just one level of peer review and approval required for all transactions. The introduction of workflow in COMPAS is just one way the application will improve the accuracy of transactions. Stay tuned to the COMPAS Learning Center for a short video on the Workflow and Approval process coming soon….

We'd Love to Hear From You

Have ideas for future newsletter topics or office hours? Is there something you'd like to hear more about?  We are all ears.  Your feedback helps shape content that matters to you. SoC_COMPAS@state.co.us