2013-14 Goals - How
Did We Do?
In addition to individual goals, each year we establish team-wide
goals for the entire Finance Division.
See below for how you helped to contribute to meeting our 2013-14
goals. Thanks for everything that you do
to support and continue to improve how we and the University do their work.
Melody
Support University priorities, including:
1) Participate in the implementation
of a tuition pricing and financial aid model that provides a sustainable
financial model for academic excellence and preserves affordable access;
We played a
critical role participating in the affordable access conversation being led by
the BOV’s Finance subcommittee; we have developed, analyzed, and presented
information related to research activity, endowment distributions, alternative
tuition approaches, and AccessUVa; we have collaborated with Advancement on
AccessUVa fundraising.
2) Support the implementation of the
new internal financial model, especially in regards to data analysis and
associated reporting requirements, and lead efforts within the scope of the
project that align with the managerial reporting improvement project;
We led efforts
to successfully configure, test, populate with data, and deploy the Hyperion
Profitability and Cost Management (HPCM) module to support the implementation
of the University Financial Model (UFM). Training commenced and access was provided
to first 41 users on 9/17/14. We initiated conversations on the transition to
the UFM, particularly around F&A distribution and endowment fee
distribution. OSP supported and worked
with the School of Medicine now that the School is managing its deficits on
grants in a pilot program to be moved out to other schools.
3) Initiate the managerial reporting
project in collaboration with the schools and administration to improve the
visibility of key data and provide better decision support tools.
The Managerial
Reporting Project (MRP) has been formed, funded, and staffed. The project
kicked off with a full day retreat on January 27th which engaged
more than 50 Academic Division finance professionals. The retreat included presentations from two
peers (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and UCal Berkeley) and asked attendees
to consider what managerial reporting is and what our objectives should be. In
addition to the successful implementation of the HPCM tool, the MRP initiated
and completed the first phase of data process improvement organized through 10
“Orange Teams” which have evaluated and identified 34 “problems” to address.
4) Participate in the organizational
excellence initiatives such as administrative benchmarking and development of
centers of financial excellence; and
Student
Financial Services, Office of Sponsored Programs, and the Comptroller’s Office
were all functional leads of areas of emphasis related to the Hackett
benchmarking work. We participated in
collecting and evaluating data, as well as framing future projects. OSP’s Research UVa tool and the MRP efforts
have each been identified as institutional OE initiatives. In addition, OSP is working with OE staff to map the research administration process
to identify opportunities to increase effectiveness.
5) Prepare for the next Facilities
& Administrative Cost Recovery proposal and negotiation process (in FY15)
by conducting a comprehensive inventory, review, and analysis of all research
space, to ensure a solid, defendable space inventory data.
Cost Analysis
updated the web-based space survey tool to improve user efficiency in
conducting an inventory of space in preparation for the FY15 proposal and
negotiation. We conducted four training sessions where we established new
relationships with 76 departmental space contacts. We collected data for
more than 3,000 research related labs, lab service rooms, animal quarters, and
animal procedure rooms and conducted a quality assurance review of the data
over a four month period.
Upgrade processes to provide high value customer service,
including:
1) Revise the tuition and fee
calendar by moving approvals to the February board meeting to optimize student
recruitment, financial aid packaging, customer service to students and
families, financial aid appeals, school financial planning, and employee
workloads;
Graduate and professional tuition and all fees and student charges were approved in February (versus April in prior years), providing significant benefits to administrative offices, school offices, and students and families. Streamlining the calendar, in conjunction with reorganizing duties and processes in SFS, allowed SFS to improve the time to read financial aid applications by 9.9% above last year’s pace (representing an additional 835 students); SFS’ awarding and placement of awards on the fall semester bills was up 22.8% compared to the prior year, representing an additional 1,236 students.
Graduate and professional tuition and all fees and student charges were approved in February (versus April in prior years), providing significant benefits to administrative offices, school offices, and students and families. Streamlining the calendar, in conjunction with reorganizing duties and processes in SFS, allowed SFS to improve the time to read financial aid applications by 9.9% above last year’s pace (representing an additional 835 students); SFS’ awarding and placement of awards on the fall semester bills was up 22.8% compared to the prior year, representing an additional 1,236 students.
2) Begin implementation of a pre-award
research administration system that will include an electronic Proposal
Approval Sheet (goldenrod) and document imaging to streamline processes,
improve accessibility, and achieve operational efficiencies; and
The
Research UVa solution, which includes imaging all current and past files, is
well underway and is sponsored by OE.
Faculty and end users have been heavily involved in the design, while
the technical development has been a great example of collaboration between OSP
and ITS.
3) Advocate for improvements and
fixes for Oracle financial applications.
OSP has been
actively working with ITS to resolve a system “rounding” issue which has been a
bug in Oracle since implementation. The
solution resolving 80% of the errors was put into production in September and a
permanent code fix will be implemented during fall Integrated System patching;
early estimates suggest this will save on the order of 10-12 hours of staff
time weekly; this saved time will help our post-award team make progress on our
close-out backlog. MRP has spearheaded a
process improvement effort (the Orange Teams) which is expected to result in a
number of process improvements related to cost transfers implemented prior to
calendar end; this is also related to findings from the Hackett benchmarking
work that indicate a (too) high number of intercompany transactions. An example
of a quick win team effort was the SIS health insurance issue that SFS, OSP,
and IST worked together to resolve.
Improve communication and transparency with internal and
external stakeholders, including:
1) Upgrade websites to provide critical information,
intuitive navigation, and clean design;
We have redesigned,
consolidated information, and upgraded OSP, SFS, and Comptroller’s websites, as
well as initiated AVPF and MRP websites.
2) Address student/family communications with an enhanced
financial aid award letter and student bill and consider ways to provide appropriate
parent access;
The new
financial aid award letter was implemented for both regular decision and early
action entering students. We have begun to plan improvements to the student
bill for the upcoming year with ITS and the vendor (Nelnet). We continue to
explore how we can improve parent access to SIS, given limitations with current
Peoplesoft functionality. We are
collaborating with other stakeholders to provide mobile access to the system
for students, with the first phase to be implemented this fall.
3) Implement a document tracking system for post-award
activities that will allow central and school users to see where a particular
award stands in the process for creating, approving, or managing the grant;
A post-award workflow tracker has
been placed in production for the OSP team; we expect to deliver to school
users later this year. We are developing tracking for invoicing and grant
reporting functions to be integrated into this tool.
4) Install a business officers council to engage central
business offices and school/unit administrators in a collaborative and
thoughtful manner; and
We have created
a bi-monthly, well-attended business officers council which is seen as an
effective way of communicating between administrative and academic
organizations. We sponsored a Finance
Professionals Workshop in May 2014 that included over 105 participants and
presenters from across Grounds. For
internal communications, we are holding a series of “Coffee with Pat and
Melody” chats and have launched a blog for Finance Division employees to
improve internal communication.
5) Deepen relationships with related organizations, such as
Medical Center, UVIMCO, and other foundations.
We worked
closely with related organizations, including collaborating with the Medical
Center in developing a combined operating statement for the Health System. SFS deepened its outreach efforts this past
year to Admission, International Studies, the Graduate Schools and the McIntire
School of Commerce. We held a series of
meetings with Budget in order to develop strategies for more closely
collaborating in the future.
Maximize organizational effectiveness of each unit and
promote staff excellence, including:
1) Evaluate market salary ranges and current compensation
levels, particularly related to morale, alignment with responsibilities, and
retention;
We achieved
this for University Staff through working with UHR and the Job Families
project. We also developed a thoughtful strategic merit increase process,
including an evaluation of appropriate pay within a pay range. We have identified any outstanding actions,
which will be complete prior to January 2015.
We collaborated with UHR on several employee initiatives: to develop a consistent approach and language
to rating employees in Fall 2013; to have every employee complete Respect@
training in Summer 2014; and to provide every employee a training session on
developing individual goals in Fall 2014.
2) Expand bench strength and robust analytical skills
through strategic hiring and employee development;
We have worked
to fill open positions with the best available talent, within and outside the
University. Continue to develop web and
Qlikview applications (including web-based operational contracts database,
automated reconciliation between financial statements and operating budget to
actual reporting, and an enhance cash analysis application) that enable staff
to be more effective.
3) Appraise best fit between employee skills and knowledge
with required duties/functions, which may result in short-term project and
longer-term job opportunities;
We have made
strategic moves to place the right people in the appropriate places and are
considering ways to share resources, breakdown silos, and increase
collaboration.
4) Deploy employees in the best manner, including salary vs.
wage; permanent vs. season; full-time vs. part- time employees; and
We restructured
the SFS Contact Center and other customer service functions for greater
effectiveness.For example,
the phone abandonment rate during fall registration dropped from an average of
13.5% in August of 2013 to 7.5% in August 2014.
In addition the average speed to answer during registration decreased by
more than half on average, and on several days was further improved from the
prior year (for example from 2:26 to just 14 seconds).
5) Consider how to partner with UHR to utilize the managerial
reporting project to develop employee skills, provide leadership opportunities,
enhance bench of data experts, and broaden opportunities for rotational
experiences within the University team.
We serve as a
Leadership Champion for the new Center for Leadership Excellence; we have had employees
participate in the Leading Teams, Leadership Strategies, and Cornerstone
Programs, as well as many individual offerings.
