Delivering a modern, accurate and secure payroll solution to professionals who serve the employees of the State of Colorado
Project Overview and Mission
We aim to replace the state's legacy mainframe payroll system with a modern cloud-based solution.
Through this effort, the Payroll Implementation Team strives to:
Reduce manual processes and increase task efficiency for payroll, finance, and HR professionals in state agencies
Improve data integrity and increase data security
Standardize business processes across agencies and departments, aligning processes with HR best practices and law statewide
Continue to provide the state's 36,000+ employees with accurate and timely pay
Environment Status
The COMPAS test environment (MA1) is currently unavailable for use as cycle jobs process to support testing. The data in the environment is from 05/21/2026 - the M05 payroll.
Important notes regarding data within COMPAS transactions:
Employee Status Maintenance - Pay Parameter From date must match or be later than the transaction From date
Position Status Maintenance - transaction From date must match or be later than the associated Labor Distribution Profile; Home Department must match Home Department of associated LDPR
Labor Distribution Profile - transaction From date must match or be earlier than the associated position Position Status Maintenance date; Home Department must match Home Department of associated PSMT
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Note: The 'Forgot Password' link in the COMPAS Test Environment will not generate an email at this time. Please send password reset requests or requests to remove access to corepayroll.help@state.co.us for assistance.
Current Activities: Moving from Testing to Readiness
The project continues to make progress as the team moves from foundational testing and training toward more complex testing and overall implementation readiness. Here’s a look at what’s happening now:
Summer Refresh Training Has Wrapped Up – This summer, we offered 23 training sessions covering a broad range of topics, including Reporting, Workflow & Approvals, Online Checks, the External Transfer process, ESS for HR and Payroll professionals, and more. Thank you to everyone who participated! Stay tuned for additional training opportunities as we prepare for go-live. Upcoming training will include refreshers on topics such as Position Control, Personnel Administration, and Pay Management, along with new topics such as Time & Leave and Labor Distribution and Correction processes.
UAT Phase 2 Is Getting Ready to Launch – Phase 1 of User Acceptance Testing (UAT) wrapped up in July, and the team is preparing to launch Phase 2. This phase will involve a smaller group of testers representing State entity HR and Payroll functions and will focus on the execution of end-to-end business scenarios. Testing will expand to include processes that cross functional areas and systems, additional reports and will include interfaces and integrations. Testing these more complex scenarios will help ensure CORE Payroll works smoothly as part of the larger payroll ecosystem. Sample end-to-end scenarios include creating and activating a new position, hiring a new employee, processing monthly and bi-weekly payrolls with labor allocation, processing a benefits refund, and separating an employee.
Integrated Parallel Testing Is Expanding – The COMPAS team is comparing payroll results between CORE Payroll and CPPS to identify and resolve differences before go-live. To do this, the team captures a snapshot of the data just before a CPPS payroll is processed, uses that same data in CORE Payroll, and then compares the results. When results differ, the team investigates the reason and determines whether changes are needed. This testing has focused primarily on payroll calculations, but the team is now expanding the process to include labor allocation. This means interfacing time data from UKG and CDOT into CORE Payroll and then running both payroll and payroll accounting processes to validate results from start to finish.
Focus Is Shifting to Overall Readiness – As testing and training continue, the project is also placing greater emphasis on overall business readiness for the CORE Payroll implementation. The team has developed a readiness scorecard and is regularly assessing progress across the following key areas: State Entity Readiness; Business Processes; Training; Communications & Help Desk; Batch Processes & Cycles; Conversion & Data Cleanup; Reports & Forms; Security & Workflow; and Cutover & Operations Planning. Together, these measures will help the team identify areas that need additional attention and ensure the State is prepared for a successful transition to CORE Payroll.
Questions? Reach out to us at corepayroll.help@state.co.us. We’re here to help!
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