Collaborative effort produces a targeted class to help UBI users

As the sun went down on Discoverer for Finance, a few UBI users in UVAFinance began to worry that some of their colleagues might get lost in the shadows.

Josh Breeden of Financial Reporting & Operations and Danielle Hancock of Finance Outreach & Compliance were concerned that accounts receivable billing specialists might not be comfortable transitioning to the new tool for their reporting needs.

I encourage UBI users to say what they’d like to see in the tool. The UBI team is very responsive to information from our users that will make the tool more helpful. – Josh Breeden

With his inside knowledge of the AR process, Breeden began working with Hancock on a training session for his colleagues, tailoring his UBI knowledge to fit their needs.

As UBI Trainer Linda Leshowitz points out, accounts receivable is a smaller audience with specific needs. “I was thrilled to learn that Josh and Danielle were putting this session together,” she said.

Leshowitz collaborated with Breeden and Hancock to get the training into a UBI training template, providing guidance so that the language used would align with other UBI materials.

During the training session, Breeden walked attendees through their old reports in Discoverer, and showed them how to access those reports in UBI. They also learned about new functionality they could take advantage of that wasn’t as readily available in Discoverer.

“UBI is so much more flexible than Discoverer; they can now produce the kind of reports they need and want,” said Breeden.

In the end, not only did the group produce a training that provided what the AR specialists needed to learn in the context of their processes, but they also ended up with a training manual that is now posted in the UBI Community (UBIC) for everyone’s use.

Jessica Rafter, who manages UBIC, said the users loved the narrowly focused training.

“People want to learn in context,” she said.

“They want to learn what matters to them from people who do what they do. Josh is already on the ground helping as a trusted UBI colleague in Carruthers – we’d love to have more partnerships like this!”

What are you trying to find in UBI? Head to the UBI Community and let the team know!