The Adaptive Journey: Looking back and looking forward

Before we jump into the updates, let’s take a moment to celebrate the fact that we had 100% submission of FY21R budgets in Adaptive Planning! Woo hoo!

Using Adaptive for this submission meant leaders of UVA were able to evaluate two budget scenarios in order to make informed decisions. We’ll use the lessons learned during this process to inform FY22 budget development.


The Adaptive Team worked with the Change team to collect stakeholder feedback after the FY21R process. We got at least one response from every school and unit, and you can see what people had to say listed below.

On September 2, the team launched the Adaptive Budget Focus Group, whose purpose is to engage with stakeholders as the journey continues (basically, they want to ensure that the end-user experience is the best it can be!).



Top Obstacles:

1. The timing. We had a really tight deadline for revised budget submissions.

2. Support and Training. There were many things we just didn’t understand about the tool and we were learning as we went. Examples include things like the process of adding new PTA combinations or PTA not carrying over when new sheets were added, not being able to move or hide columns to add new rows, and hiccups accessing the tool.

3. Tools and Configuration. Bumps in the road that folks mentioned include trouble with reports as they were made available, the tool itself going through changes during the process, and difficulty managing and balancing personnel expenses.

Top Support Mechanisms/Resources:

1. Support and Training. Users found job aides and training to be helpful, and Office Hours were very successful. They want to see these efforts continue, especially training on reports, development of a Community of Practice, and a one-stop-shop to house all information.

2. Tool and Configuration: The group looks forward to seeing more advanced features of the tool made available, to adding more robust reporting capability, and to improving upload functionality and management of salary details.

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Want more information about Adaptive?  Check out the Adaptive Planning page on the FST website, or visit the Online Community!