The Planning area within Meridian allows U-M Medical School departments to communicate their faculty plans (planned new hires, departures, promotions, retentions, etc.) broadly to Michigan Medicine leadership. 

Planning provides the necessary output to enable faculty plan review by leadership via the Faculty Workforce Planning Committee (FWPC).  The FWPC is comprised of Michigan Medicine leadership from all three missions.  The FWPC takes Planning output, along with other information sources, and assess department plans relative to Michigan Medicine strategy.    The FWPC will engage departments on their plans prior to making final faculty workforce plan recommendations to the Dean.  Once faculty workforce plans are approved by the Dean, current and/or new faculty positions are affirmed and may proceed to the hiring workflow.  Planning allows departments to continuously update their plans as they change throughout the year, providing accurate and up-to-date forecasting on an as-needed basis.

Each Medical School department will have their own private view into their faculty and their respective planned changes (new hires, departures, etc.). Only the individual department and the FWPC will be able to see the data, providing privacy and security for sensitive staffing and planning decisions.

Access and Login

1. Navigate to the Meridian Planning page.
2. When prompted to authenticate, use your U-M uniqname and UMICH Level-1 password.

Only those given permission to do their department's staffing plans will have access to this application. To request access, reach out to the Office of Faculty Affairs, or contact the HITS Service Desk at (734) 936-8000 or submit a request.

Upon login, you will land on the Dashboard of the department/division assigned to you. If you are permitted to plan multiple departments and/or divisions, the application will display a drop-down list, to switch to your other departments'/divisions' dashboards.

The application is composed of two main pages -- a List page and a Detail page:

The List page is your working view of all faculty who have at least one active planned change. Adding planned changes to additional faculty will make them appear as 'cards' on this list; reconciling or deleting planned changes will remove the faculty 'cards' from the list.



This page also houses the Activity Bar at the top, which now contains the ability to add a new planned change, add plan comments, and view the dashboard.

The Detail page shows the details of the planned change(s) you have added for a specific faculty member. It also contains some key faculty details, such as Appointments, Compensation, and Locations.

Approximately every twelve months, called an 'Iteration', the FWPC team will freeze a copy of all departments' faculty staffing plans, to be used by the FWPC for review and approval of departmental growth. Departments will be asked to have their plans up-to-date by the end of each iteration window; however, departments are encouraged to update their plans at any time, making this data collection seamless and efficient. All relevant faculty and planning data will carried forward into the next iteration, and departmental forecasting can continue as normal once the new iteration has started.

• For questions about the Faculty Workforce Planning process, please contact the Office of Faculty Affairs
• For questions about the software, please contact the HITS Service Desk at (734) 936-8000 or submit a request.

About Position Approval (PCN)

As of July 2022, New Hire plans will be annually reviewed by the FWPC, leading to planned change approvals (or denials), depending on the target headcount for each department. Learn more about Position Approval functionality in Meridian.

About Data Sources

The Planning application retrieves faculty profile, compensation, and other data from U-M institutional sources, namely the Medical School Data Warehouse (which includes sources such as M-Pathways, MSA Info Services, and MSA OFA). The data will be refreshed nightly, and be combined with the original forecasting data you add.

If you have questions about any data discrepancies, please contact the HITS Service Desk.

About Departments and Faculty Assignments

The department a faculty member is associated with is not always clear-cut at the Medical School, and so the Planning application reflects a variety of departmental assignments. In general, a faculty member's department is their Admin Department (tenure home). The exception is when they are part of a division, such as Allergy within Internal Medicine, at which point their assignment is their Main Appointing Department. Other exceptions exist for faculty technically outside of the Medical School, including the Dental School.

If you have questions about the presence or lack thereof for a given faculty member in your department, please contact the HITS Service Desk.