Upcoming Training from Records Information Management

 

Click here for Shared Drive Cleanup; Here's the link to the fall schedule

Training Update: Logging Business Processes

Contributed by Patty Marbury

The Training Team continues to prepare to deliver training in May of 2022.  The team has been hard at work logging all of our business processes and associated tasks.  For each business process or task, we indicate which type of training will be needed.  This will serve as the foundation for developing the curriculum we provide for each area and business role.

Additionally, we are working on mapping security roles to business roles.  This will allow us to ensure that all stakeholders complete the training required for the security role they will have in Workday.  Later, we will work with leaders in schools and units to map security roles to individuals, so that everyone will know who needs to complete what training.

As always, please reach out if you have questions or concerns!  We're happy to help.

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Read more about Workday Financials Training on the blog: 

• The Timing of Training
• Role Mapping

UVA sets records in bond sales (again!)

Two years ago, UVA made national news with the execution of three bond sales at historically low rates (see the story from UVAToday).  This summer, they did it again, issuing $100,000,000 of tax-exempt thirty-year bonds and $300,000,000 of taxable thirty-year bonds at historically low rates, setting two records!

The tax-exempt bonds achieved the lowest yield-to-maturity ever for any such bond issuance, and the taxable bonds achieved the lowest credit spread ever for such bonds. 

The Unviersity was positioned to take advantage of favorable market conditions for this sale after the three major rating agencies (Moody's, S&P, and Fitch) all reaffirmed UVA's triple-A bond ratings and overall stable outlook.

The bond proceeds will provide financing for projects under the multi-year capital plan, to purchase remaining membership interest with Novant Health in Northern Virginia, and much more. 

Congratulations to the Finance team, especially UVA Treasury, for the work they do to build upon previous success in the markets and to strengthen UVA's financial position in the long term.

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Get a peek behind the scenes of the 2019 bond deal.

Learn more about Treasury, Risk Management, and Julie Richardson, UVA's Treasurer.

New Email Address for ExpenseUVA/ Chrome River Questions

As of August 3, expense@virginia.edu is the preferred email address for users to ask questions about ExpenseUVA, non-employee reimbursements, and other expense-related matters. 

When you only email expense@virginia.edu, rather than copying multiple Procurement email addresses, we are able to respond more quickly and efficiently to your concerns. Expense-related emails are worked as a team utilizing the Salesforce Customer Service platform. 

When your request is completed, you will automatically receive a brief satisfaction survey. We appreciate and value your feedback!

FST Update August 26, 2021

Want to listen to this update instead of reading it? Click here to tune into the WFST Broadcast!

No time to read paragraphs? Check out "Five Things to Know about WFST"

Foundation Data Model

Schools and units are now several weeks into Foundation Data Model, or FDM, work.  They’re mapping the old chart of accounts, the PTAO, to the new FDM that we’ll use for Workday Financials.  There’s an expansive resource site for the FDM work in the online community that you can access here: https://communityhub.virginia.edu/docs/DOC-2982

Adaptive Planning

The Adaptive Planning Team is continuing to shape Adaptive, Workday’s planning and budgeting software, to be ready to integrate with Workday financials in July of 2022.  UVA has been using Adaptive since the summer the pandemic began, in order to take advantage of its enhanced planning functionality in that really unpredictable time.  Since then, users have been working with the Adaptive Team to make improvements to the software to make it more useful to UVA.  Read more on the blog.

Moving from Configuration & Prototype to End-to-End Testing

At the end of August, we officially say goodbye to the Configuration and Prototype phase of FST.  As of September 1, we’ll be in a  brave new phase: end-to-end testing, where the FST Team tests business processes from start to finish. 

Read more about testing on the blog

What did we achieve in Config & Prototype? 

Training Update

The Training Team is working hard to deliver the training that will allow you and your team to be successful doing your jobs in Workday Financials upon go live.  The decision on timing of training is based on training best practices and the years and years of experience the training team has, plus comparisons to what other higher ed institutions found successful.  It boils down to this:  Training sticks with learners best when they don’t have time to forget what they’ve learned before they can actually get into the system.  We want our stakeholders to learn on a system that appears and functions as it will at go-live.  Read more from Patty Marbury on the blog.

Recon@ update

The team is working with stakeholders to find a way to build real-time approvals on the front end, within Workday Financials, but we’ll probably still need post-transactional attestation provided by an outside tool.  Check out the detail on the blog.

Continuous Improvement:  UFM 2.0

With many financial changes underway and new university leadership at the helm, the University Financial Model is under review to make sure it supports 2030 strategic plan goals.  A committee is doing a strategic review of the model, to make sure it serves the needs of the organization, and also assessing how the current model is serving the needs of schools and units across UVA – focusing on the model’s users.  Learn more on the blog.

Five Things to Know about FST: August 26, 2021

 

1.  Schools and units are a few weeks into mapping our current chart of accounts to the new FDM; they're working from a resource page in the Online Community.

2.  The Adaptive Planning Team continues to shape Adaptive to integrate with Workday Financials at go-live next summer.  Users are collaborating with the team to make improvements to this 3.0 version. Read more on the blog.

3.  Training begins in May 2022, so that users can readily put what they learn into practice and can work with a tenant that looks as it will at go-live.  Read more on the blog.

4.  Configuration & Prototype is wrapping up and End-to-End testing is on the horizon.  Here's what we accomplished in C&P and what's in store for E2E.

5.  The University Financial Model 2.0 work is a great example of the Continuous Improvement that comprises one of the four main parts of FST.  Read more about UFM on the blog and don't forget: we go live on July 1, 2022!

Adopting Adaptive: A Story in Three Parts

UVA's journey with Adaptive Planning, Workday's Planning & Budgeting tool, truly got underway in 2019 (which, in the current way that time passes, might feel like a decade ago) when Batten, Arts & Sciences, and the School of Education & Human Development undertook a pilot of the software system (then called Adaptive Insights). That pilot was Adaptive 1.0.

In the midst of the successful pilot, just as team lead Elissa Morton was reaching out to other schools and units to expand the testing phase, disruption in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift in the timeline. Suddenly, in the summer of 2020, all schools and units were using Adaptive for FY21 budget revision and FY22 budget development. This was Adaptive 2.0.

Although their onboarding to Adaptive 2.0 was a little jarring, based as it was in a national emergency, users found the system to be flexible and full of potential. For the past year, people have been working in Adaptive 2.0 while the FST Adaptive Team has continued to shape Adaptive 3.0 to be ready to interact with Workday Financials at its go-live in July of 2022.

Adopting Adaptive has been an interesting process for UVA, and schools and units are both pleased with its capabilities so far while simultaneously yearning for the improvements the 3.0 version will bring.

We spoke to Charles Rush, Director of Finance and Budget at Batten, and Alicia Rudie, Senior Budget Analyst in the Office of the Dean in Arts & Sciences, to get a sense of how folks are feeling at this point in the implementation of Adaptive (let's call it Adaptive 2.5):

We have over 70 departments and 40 department managers in Arts & Sciences. Since Adaptive is in the cloud, it’s great that the people who have the best knowledge and information about their departments can update their budget directly in the system. We're looking forward to the connection with Workday Financials and seeing how the new FDM will make it better and more transparent. We do have better reporting in 2.0, but I've seen snapshots of the integration with Workday where budgeting and reporting at the person level will be a 1:1, and that's going to be great. Even though there are still a lot of unknowns at this time as the Adaptive team are working on building 3.0, I'm excited about the improvement and moving on to the next stage in the process.

-- Alicia Rudie

I appreciate that we have Adaptive as the primary system for collecting and depositing budget details, and in particular, I love the personnel functionality. My colleagues in Batten appreciate that it sets the stage for the managerial reporting we'd like to do. Because we participated in the pilot, I've been in Adaptive for a long time and know what its capabilities are, so sometimes my patience gets short with what we can do in it now -- I want the robust reporting I know the system is capable of. UVA is absolutely on the right track with Adaptive, and I'm looking forward to the functionalities we'll have in 3.0.

-- Charles Rush

For now, the Adaptive Team continues its work revising the budget process and refining user stories for Adaptive 3.0. We'll continue to have regular updates on Adaptive in the blog, so keep your eyes peeled!

 

UVAFinance has a new doctor in the house

Devin Foster, DHA, MA

 Devin Foster, budget analyst in the Office of Financial Planning & Analysis, earned his Doctor of Healthcare Administration from the Virginia University of Lynchburg this August.  He is a part of the first cohort to graduate from their DHA program.

Foster's internship was completed at UVA Medical Center under Chief Operating Officer Jody Reyes and staff. 

"I have always wanted to go to and graduate from a Historically Black College & University like VUL, and their newly-created program for working professionals provided that opportunity," Foster says.

He credits Dean Rex Hammond and Dr. Atul Gupta for convincing him to enroll, and extends his thanks to UVAHR for connecting him with UVA Health.

"UVA Medical Center is the number one hospital in Virginia, so it was an honor to shadow leadership and gain valuable knowledge," he says.

What's next for this newly-minted doctor?  Foster says, "We'll see what the future holds for me as I build lasting friendships and connections on this rewarding journey."

Farther Down the Path: FDM Mapping Resources

Schools and units are now a couple weeks into Foundation Data Model (FDM) mapping. During this time, mappers have been acclimating to the process and familiarizing themselves with the available support resources. They've also been meeting with their pods, which are supportive peer groups. FST team members have been updating materials and creating new ones based on mappers' needs. This mapping process is intended to be iterative, so learning and process improvement will continue to happen along the way. 

Two recent additions of note to the FDM resource page in the online Community are the template to use to request new worktags and FDM FAQs.

The resource page will be updated regularly as information changes and new resources are added. As you'll see on the page, files have the date they were last updated included, and new additions, like those mentioned above, are indicated. 

For FDM mapping questions or to share ideas for additional resources, please email FDMMapping@virginia.edu. 

UFM 2.0: Striving for Simplicity and Predictability

When UVA adopted the University Financial Model six years ago, it was a vast improvement from the target-based system we had been using. The new model, often referred to as the UFM (you've surely heard it called “YOU-fum”), meant that resources would be allocated based on activity levels like enrollments and research activity. Now, in 2021, with new University leadership in place and many financial changes underway, the UFM is under review to make sure it supports efforts to achieve 2030 strategic plan goals.

As reported prior, the UFM Implementation Committee has taken up the work of reviewing and improving the UFM in time for the FY23 budget development process. FST Executive Committee member and Vice Provost for Planning, Adam Daniel says that periodic review of financial models such as the UFM is a best practice in higher education.

Click for a larger view

“It makes sense that over time, and on a cycle, you go back and validate and refine your model after you learn and acquire new data and experience,” he says.

For this review, the Committee’s charge from Provost Liz Magill in reviewing the UFM is twofold:

1. Ensure that the plan we’re using has what we need to serve us well in light of UVA’s strategic vision. This is a strategic review of the UFM that analyzes how it serves the needs of the organization.

2. Assess how the current model is serving the needs of activity centers and central service units around UVA. Focusing on the needs of the model’s users.

Financial models such as UFM are not accounting systems, but planning tools built to advance both strategic and operational needs. The Committee’s recommended changes focus on improving planning and reducing the administrative burden that comes from managing the current model. Based on guidance from stakeholders and peer benchmarking, they are keeping these guiding principles in mind as they recommend changes to the model:

• Simplicity: Users report that the current UFM is overcomplex, requiring precision in some areas that does not necessarily result in added value.
• Predictability: The tool must better support multi-year planning, which means we need to work on the timing between budgeting in central service units and activity centers so that there is a stronger understanding of the relationship between revenue and expenditure growth.

The fact that this review takes place during a large-scale financial transformation at UVA was unplanned but serendipitous. Bill Ashby, an FST Functional Owner and Associate Vice President for Financial Strategy, says “The toolset supporting UFM is going to enhance the total budgeting and planning environment. We’re able to contemplate bigger changes than we would’ve otherwise if we weren’t going through Finance Strategic Transformation.”

Between now and the end of September, the UFM Implementation Committee will continue to work toward a smooth transition to UFM 2.0 for FY23. With an anticipated FY23 budget planning kick-off in early October, the Committee plans to have its report and significant work completed by the end of September.

Ready, Test, Go: Workday Financials End-to-End Testing

The Finance Strategic Transformation (FST) team is currently building the end-to-end (E2E) tenant in Workday Financials, expected to be completed this month. This tenant will enable us to confirm that our configuration of Workday will function as we need it to and is ready for our production tenant, which is the one we will use at go-live on July 1, 2022. 

Fear not—the User Experience Review (UER) tenant and testing will occur after E2E and will involve a broad group of end users. During UER, users will test selected scenarios that include key processes to mimic what real-world use of the system will be like. User experience testing will also contribute valuable information to the training team to ensure that training-related communication and job aids appropriately meet user needs ahead of go-live.

The timeline below (click to enlarge) shows upcoming testing activities. 

New Resource to Assist Academic Division Employees in Financial Need

The Community Resource Service is excited to announce a new UVA initiative in support of employees in the Academic Division. The Employee Assistance Fund (EAF) is a critical resource for employees who encounter a financial hardship due to an unexpected, non-recurring situation. 

The EAF is truly a chance for employees to support one another; in order to provide assistance to those who need it, the fund relies on donations. 

You can take steps to support your colleagues by: 

1. Reading details about applying and donating to the Fund on the website 

2. Helping spread the word by sharing the introductory video or this social media post with your colleagues 

3. Considering donating in Workday, or if you need help, apply for assistance

Planning for the Future: OFP&A takes a CI Focus

 The Office of Financial Planning & Analysis is looking toward the future state with an eye for continuous improvement.  The OFP&A team, led by Katie Walker, is engaging in monthly workshops where they review their processes.  The sessions are facilitated by Angela Knobloch.

Continuous Improvement is a key part of Finance Strategic Transformation, and as OFP&A sees it, now is the right time to make sure their processes are serving their needs and their stakeholders' needs in the most streamlined, user-friendly way possible.  

In their most recent session, the team dissected the settlements process, identifying pain points to reconsider.

"The team has learned about CI tools and then just run with them," says Knobloch.  

"They're learning to challenge the status quo and apply that to everything they do."

Team member Anne Marie Cumiskey says the sessions have been helpful in changing the team's perspective on what have come to be mundane duties.

"As we examine a process from start to finish, we have started asking questions:  why are we doing it this way?  Do we even need to do this?"  she says.

We look forward to seeing the improvements the team comes up with -- watch the blog for future updates!

The Timing of Training

Contributed by Patty Marbury

As we move into the testing phase of Finance Strategic Transformation this September, Workday Financials training will likely be increasingly on peoples' minds.   As we shared recently, there won't be a practice tenant or "sandbox" that people will use, but you shouldn't worry about being ill-prepared at go-live on July 1, 2022.  The FST Team has a solid plan to have you comfortable with the system within the next ten months.

The key parts of that plan are testing and training.  Since I'm the FST Training Lead, you can probably imagine which one I'm going to talk about today.   Training will be delivered in May and June of next year.  You may look at that target date and think that sounds pretty late -- why not start training earlier? 

The decision on the timing of the training is a strategic one the training team is basing off training best practices, comparisons to what other higher ed institutions have done, and the years and years of combined experience of our training team.  

The decision boils down to the fact that training sticks with learners best when they don't have time to forget what they've learned before they can actually get into the system.  We need to use what we've learned, or we don't retain it (that's why you're probably pretty rusty on that foreign language you learned in high school). 

Another practical reason for training later in the timeline is that as the FST team and, later in the process, some stakeholders from schools and units test the system, they'll be making adjustments to the system fairly regularly.  We want you to learn within a system that appears and functions as it will at go-live. 

The Training Team is confident that we have a plan that will give you want you need to be proficient within the system at go-live.  We've have been and will continue to be working intensively to deliver necessary and effective training to you and your team.  

We'll continue to update you on the training plan as time goes on, so watch the blog for more.  And, as always, if you have questions or concerns, don't hesitate to reach out to me.

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For more information on training, check out this recent blog post and the links it contains.

Odumosu to join next Cornerstone cohort

 

The next cohort of UVA's Cornerstone Program has been chosen, and among the 30 participants will be Onyi Odumosu.  Odumosu is a senior project manager within the Finance Strategic Transformation project.  

Candidates for the Cornerstone Program are nominated by Vice Presidents and Deans, and they are high performers who demonstrate leadership and management qualifications necessary for future senior leadership potential.  Participants collaborate on team projects over the course of a year, which are then presented at a graduation ceremony in September.

Congratulations, Onyi!

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Read more about the Cornerstone Project on the UVAHR site and learn how to submit a project for cohort consideration: 

Read more about Onyi on the UVAFinance blog

Check out past Cornerstone participants and their projects:  Shannon Wampler and Kristie Sojka, Mark Anderson, Isaiah Behnke

FST RAPID Decision Updates

 

At this month's Steering Committee, the FST team provided an update on several decisions that are currently in the works. Below, we've provided a closer look at what's going on with some of those decisions.

Finalized Decisions: 

• Customer Portal: UVA will adopt Workday's Customer Portal to enhance customer service experience but will not integrate with a third-party payment processor. This means customers will not be able to make credit card or e-check payments via the portal. The FST Leadership Council has formally approved this decision, and adoption is underway. 
• Expenditure Credit: UVA will leverage Ad Hoc bank transactions to record expenditure credit deposits against their original spend categories. This decision is currently awaiting formal sign-off.
• ETF Usage Threshold Guidance Change $500 - > $5,000: This decision is finalized and will soon be brought to the Leadership Council for final endorsement and approval.

Open Decisions: 

• System Admin Responsibility Approach: The Functional Team is determining an interim admin assignment approach for testing; this will be updated based on leadership decisions related to Cross-Platform Support before go-live. 
• Workflow Control and Approval: The Functional Team is working with a third-party organization providing a risk assessment and suggestions for building an enterprise risk management framework. The Functional Team will finalize an approach based on guidance from this third-party organization. 
• Recon@ in Future State: It is likely that an outside (of Workday) tool is needed to meet requirements for recon. More information will be provided at next month's Steering meeting. 
• Salary Certification: The FST Team has become aware of an opportunity to move away from effort reporting that will largely automate this process. The plan is to shift away from effort reporting to salary certification. The first step is to determine how to make this transition and confirm that salary certification meets UVA's needs. The team is hoping to define a decision by the end of the month. The decision will be informed by some of the data collection done in 2016. 

For more information, make sure to check out the FST Decision Log for the latest updates on all decisions. 

Were you here for the Oracle Implementation? We want to hear from you!

You're invited to one of two Oracle Focus groups designed to capture and share the perspectives of our staff that were involved with the UVA Oracle Transformation.

We believe this will shed light on strategies that worked (and didn’t work) during the Oracle transition and allow for discourse among staff who share commonalities in experience. There is no single goal of this focus group, but at a minimum it will be a great place to share ideas and express feelings regarding the current transition. 

There will be two sessions: 

• Wednesday, Sept. 8, 11:00 am -12 pm and 
• Monday, September 13, 1:30 - 2:30 pm. 

If you'd like to join us, please RSVP to Jack Sherwood (jss6bf@virginia.edu) with subject line “RSVP” followed by the session you wish to attend.

We look forward to talking with you about strategies and experiences from previous transitions that may shape our current transformation!

Join us for the next Caste book discussion

For the Caste book discussion this week, on August 26, at 4:30, we will be discussing Part Four: The Tentacles of Caste.


Following are some questions to consider as you read and review the content:

1. Wilkerson gives examples that range from the horrifying (lynching) to the absurd (the Indian woman who walked across an office to ask a Dalit to pour her water from the jug next to her desk) to illustrate caste’s influence on behavior. How do both of these types of examples—and everything in between—help cement her points? Why do we need to see this range to clearly understand caste?
2. “Indians will ask one’s surname, the occupation of one’s father, the village one is from, the section of the village that one is from, to suss out the caste of whoever is standing in front of them,” Wilkerson writes. “They will not rest until they have uncovered the person’s rank in the social order.” How is this similar to and different from the process of determining caste in America? Have you ever, for instance, asked someone what they did for work or where they lived or went to school, and been surprised? Did you treat them differently upon hearing their answer?
3. Discuss how overt racism subtly transformed into unconscious bias. What are the ways that we can work to compensate for the unconscious biases inherent in a caste system?
4. It is a widely held convention that working-class white Americans may often "act against their own interests" by opposing policies designed to help the working class. Discuss how the logic of caste disproves this concept and redefines that same choice from the perspective of maintaining group dominance.
5. How does the caste system take people who would otherwise be allies and turn them against one another?

Even if you have not joined us for prior discussions or haven’t read the book, please join us for these very thought-provoking conversations.

Please let Patty Marbury know if you have any questions, and as always, invite your friends and colleagues to participate in our discussions!

The zoom link is: https://virginia.zoom.us/j/95163051737?pwd=TlZ0WVF4VUl4cnpyZ3dTRVl6U2w3dz09

Time Saving Office Tips Series from the Continuous Improvement Committee

 

Tip 3:  Tools to add variety and dimension to your Communications

From Brandi Van Ormer

Every day, we write hundreds, sometimes thousands, of words.  Words are powerful, and they're our go-to way of communicating.  Words are wonderful . . . but you may sometimes feel the need to break up the sea of written words with something that will catch your audience's attention and give them meaning through another medium.

To that end, I offer you these three free-to-inexpensive tools that can make your communications life easier, get your work more views and interest, and allow you to break up with Word and PowerPoint.*

First things first.  Things to know about these tools:

• All three tools work beautifully together
• Your Snipping Tool in companion with these tools is a match made in heaven
• All three have beautiful, useful stock images PLUS the capability to upload your own stuff
• All three have the option to “play” for free, and various tiers of affordable paid plans
• All three tools can help you make great use of the brand.virginia.edu resources

And here are the tools, with a little explanation attached.  Check them out, but feel free to contact Brandi Van Ormer if you want more info or a demo of how they can be used.  

1. Canva.com: the most widely known. 

a. Plays well with InDesign
b. Exports in a variety of formats
c. Build your brand resources on it: Colors, images, logos
d. Templates for specific channels/uses that really will speed up your work
e. Use it as a great source of stock imagery if nothing else

2. Infogram.com: Data visualization heaven.

a. It’s like Canva but with a back end for loading your data, plus icons in addition to stock images
b. Upload a spreadsheet or plug in your #s
c. See immediately how the data presents most usefully
d. Do infographics instead of fact sheets

3. Animoto.com: Easy, short video like a boss!

a. Like Canva but for video: stock stills, stock music, and stock video clips (and you can upload your own of each content type)
b. Storyboarding format that makes it easy to plan the video

c. Great option to break up your written content: make a quick video, or even have stills with a voiceover

 * because they don't love you anyway

Recon@ Update

It's one of the most popular questions in FST:  What's going to happen with Recon@?

As you've read before in the blog, the FST team has been working with stakeholders to find a way to build in real-time approvals on the front end, thereby reducing the need for detailed month-end reconciliations -- in short, no more Recon@.  However, we also heard you loud and clear that we need to provide the kinds of reports and processes that give you what you need for certification and transaction monitoring.  

So what's the latest?  Well, Recon@ will likely be replaced with functionality within Workday, but we will still need post-transactional attestation, likely provided by an outside tool.  

Our governance groups will be seeing more about this and weighing in on it in the next month or so, so keep your eyes peeled for updates!

In the meantime, did you hear Recon@ is getting a new address on the web?

Putting Config & Prototype in the Rearview Mirror

The climb is steep but we've got this!

The beginning of September starts a new and exciting phase of Finance Strategic Transformation:  Testing!  

Read more about testing here.

But before we begin testing, we will bid adieu to the Configure & Prototype phase.  In this phase, the team built two tenants of Workday Financials and revised each of those based on the feedback provided by you, our stakeholders, in two rounds of Customer Confirmation Sessions.  

As we exit Config & Prototype, a phase we've been in for a year, it's good to take a few moments to look back at all we've accomplished together: 

• Customer Confirmation Sessions:  we conducted prototype walkthrough review sessions and gathered feedback.
• End-User Training Plan:  We created a training strategy that will describe our approach to training, including documentation of roles and responsibilities and the data needed to train end-users.
•  Change Readiness Assessment #2:  We gauged stakeholders' perceptions of the implementation and readiness to move forward.
• System Remediation Plan:  A plan was put in place for critical systems and their impact on testing.
  
  

In the remaining time period before testing begins, the team will have a few C&P chores to complete: 

• User story sprints:  conducting user story review and identifying completed user stories to be used in test prep activities.
• Report building and unit testing:  Completing development and developer unit-testing of priority one reports
• Integrations build and unit test:  building and testing all cycle 1,2, and 3 integrations
• Test Preparation: creating test scenarios to support the testing cycles. 
• End-to-end tenant build:  Finishing up the prototype tenant built upon feedback and issues resolved from the configuration tenant build prototype.
• Delivery Assurance Checkpoints:  submit required reviews for the C&P stage.
• Decisions:  Closing out tier 1 and tier 2 decisions that need to be finalized before testing. 

The FST Team gives a big THANK YOU to everyone in the schools and units who have worked right beside us through Config & Prototype.  We look forward to entering this new phase with you and getting one step closer to go live in July of 2022!

Onward and upward!

UVAFinance Team: Use the Force!

Our goal in UVAFinance is to build towards using Salesforce to track all communications around support and engagement. 

Sometimes, stakeholders still email our personal boxes directly instead of sending requests to shared boxes. If that happens to you, forward the email to the appropriate shared address in SF to create a case. Jack Jensen created a job aid this week to clarify how to do this. 

You can find it in the Quick Links in the lower-left corner and via this link: https://training.foc.virginia.edu/ForwardinganEmailintoSalesforcetoGenerateaCase.pdf 

Getting into this practice will continue to build the value of SF as a resource that we can all rely on when solving stakeholder problems.

Questions?  Reach out to Andrew Sallans or Jack Jensen.

Wellness Resources

Development Opportunities

Making it Okay Not to Know (Presented by Organizational Excellence)

Uncertainty is everywhere.  But what if we could make it comfortable and even joyful not to know? What if we reimagined uncertainty and lack of clarity as an opportunity for deep learning? How would our work feel if we focused more on questions and less on answers? And, importantly, how can we build inclusive cultures that thrive on testing possibilities rather than getting things exactly right? During this session, we will use the foundation of neuroscience as a tool to address the paralysis and fear that often accompany the need to try something new or navigate through profound uncertainty.

Presenters:
Catherine Lilly, Senior Consultant - Higher Education, Segal
Allison Vaillancourt, Vice President & Senior Consultant, Organizational Effectiveness - Segal
When: September 9, 2021, 1:00 p.m to 2:15 p.m.  

REGISTER HERE

Benefits and Wellness (UVAHR Offerings)



NEW RESOURCE TO ASSIST ACADEMIC DIVISION EMPLOYEES IN FINANCIAL NEED

The Community Resource Service is excited to announce a new UVA initiative in support of employees in the Academic Division. The Employee Assistance Fund (EAF) is a critical resource for employees who encounter financial hardship due to an unexpected, non-recurring situation.

The EAF is truly a chance for employees to support one another; in order to provide assistance to those who need it, the fund relies on donations. You can take steps to support your colleagues by:

• Reading details about applying and donating to the Fund on the website
• Helping spread the word by sharing the introductory video or this social media post with your colleagues
• Considering donating in Workday, or if you need help, apply for assistance

NEW LOOK FOR WORKDAY BENEFITS BEGINNING SEPTEMBER 1

Beginning September 1, UVA employees will notice a new look when enrolling in or making changes to their health, retirement, and other electable benefits in Workday. This more user-friendly layout will make benefit selections and changes easier! The new “tiles” layout is not exclusive to Open Enrollment. New hires who are making their first benefit elections and current employees who need to change a benefit plan due to a Qualified Life Event will experience this new layout.


LEARN MORE AND PREVIEW THE NEW LOOK


WEBINAR: TRAINABLE SKILLS OF WELL-BEING

Neuroscientist Richie Davidson, PhD, suggests that well-being is a skill that you can learn and practice, just as you might practice your golf swing. In this Hoos Well reward-eligible webinar, you will learn about the results of decades of neuroscientific research in the field of human flourishing and practical ways you can strengthen different areas of your mind and boost your well-being. A hybrid event will be offered on September 14, with participation in person at the Medical Center ERC or virtually by Zoom.


JOIN THE SEMINAR SEPT 14 AND 21



UPCOMING FINANCIAL WELL-BEING WEBINARS

You'll find a number of reward-eligible live webinars to boost your financial well-being in August and September on topics like Saving for Retirement, How and When to Claim Social Security and more.


SEE UPCOMING FINANCIAL WELL-BEING WEBINARS

UVA Sustainability Report Available

The Office for Sustainability is pleased to share that the 2020-2021 UVA Sustainability Annual Report is complete and online for your viewing at https://sustainability.virginia.edu/sites/sustainability/files/2021-08/UVASustainabilityAnnualReport_2020-2021_0.pdf

FST Update August 12, 2021

Want to listen to this update instead of reading it? Click here to tune into the WFST Broadcast!

No time to read paragraphs?  Check out "Five Things to Know about WFST"

Foundation Data Model

As we’ve reported prior to today, representatives from schools and units got together on August 3 for an FDM Mapping Kickoff session.  Participants got an overview of the mapping timeline and process and were assigned to work in collaborative groups with similar schools and units in order to make the work a little easier.  The mapping process will go from now until March 2022.

Read more about mapping here.

Will there be a Sandbox?

The short answer is that no, there won’t be a practice tenant or "sandbox" as such. Why not?  One thing that makes a sandbox difficult in our situation here at UVA is that if we had a sandbox between now and go-live, we would be offering that environment to people before they had any training whatsoever, which means their sandbox experience wouldn’t be very meaningful.  We want to give our time the ultimate goal of pushing UVA's instance of Workday Financials across the finish line at go-live.  You can read more about this decision and learn more about how users will be able to "get their hands dirty" in Workday Financials before go-live.

End-to-End Testing 

Testing begins this September! If you would like to know more about testing, we recommend the articles below.  Also, FST Testing Lead Sunil Sah has been making the rounds to FST governance groups, so if you’d like to hear him talk about the testing plan, check out the recording of the August 4 Fiscal Administrators' meeting.

Putting Workday to the Test (link to FA video)

Getting Everything Just Right: FST Testing

Read more about Sunil Sah, FST Testing Lead

FST Website Content Migrating to New UVA Site

The new UVAFinance website goes live August 16!  This is an agile rollout, and we'll gradually be adding all UVAFinance areas to this one, integrated, function-based site.  Finance Transformation content is one of the first areas to be migrated.  Visit uvafinance.virginia.edu to see the new site (FST content is located in the upper left).  Even though the site is live, we’ll still be making adjustments, and of course, working toward getting the other UVAFinance department on the new site, so for a while, the old sites of those first few departments will still be live before we put redirects in place.  That gives our stakeholders a chance to get familiar with new locations of the content they visit most frequently. 

Read more about the new UVAFinance website

Reporting & Analytics Focus Group

The Reporting & Analytics team is holding meetings with a sampling of users across Grounds to take an initial look at high-priority financial reports.  This is just a preliminary examination of reports and not full-fledged testing, but it's a good first step to make sure we're headed in the right direction with reporting.  Read more on the blog.

Five Things to Know about FST: August 12, 2021

 

1. FDM Testing is underway and will continue through March 2022.  Read more on the blog.

2. There will not be a "sandbox" or practice tenant of Workday Financials, but stakeholders can still expect opportunities to get comfortable with the tenant.  Read more here.

3. The FST Reporting & Analytics Team is meeting with a focus group to provide usability feedback on Workday Financials reports.  Read more on the blog.

4. FST web content is moving: as a part of UVAFinance's new, integrated website, FST content is moving to uvafinance.virginia.edu.  The old site, financetransformation.virginia.edu, will remain live while we finalize migrating the content.  Read more about the new site.

5. The FST Team is currently building out the version of the Workday Financials tenant that we'll test end-to-end beginning September 1 to get us ready for go-live on July 1, 2022.  Read more about the testing phase of FST.

R&A Focus Group

The Reporting & Analytics Team (R&A Team), in partnership with Change Management, is currently forming a focus group to provide usability feedback on Workday reports. The group will first meet on the 17th of August and is composed of around 12 stakeholders who are financial analysts, fiscal administrators, and grant administrators from schools and other units.

The R&A Focus Group will meet bi-weekly for one hour over the next few months to analyze high-priority financial reports that the R&A Team has developed. The initial list of a dozen or so are ones that are designed to replace the most frequently used UBI finance reports.

The Focus Group will spend 30 minutes of each meeting examining if a report meets requirements, and if not, what could be changed so that it does meet requirements. The other 30 minutes will be devoted to reviewing decisions and changes to a report discussed in a prior session, usually with a demo of changes made.

It is important to note that this is just a preliminary group to make sure the R&A Team is headed in the right direction, and to identify change management and training opportunities related to reporting. The Focus Group is not meant to be a fully-fledged testing of reports and only has a few members to be more effective, manageable, and participatory. Eventually, more people will be involved in end-user testing.

Make sure to keep an eye on this space for future updates related to the R&A Focus Group.

UBI and Adaptive Planning: How should each system be used?

There is some confusion around data found in UBI and Adaptive Planning. Sometimes the numbers in each system don’t match up, so people are wondering what the source of truth should be when this happens and if there is any value in trying to reconcile the numbers.

Some design differences in the way the UFM model and the BBA reports treat some items have always been present. For example, the Sources/Uses format moves F&A expenses up to offset Grants & Contracts revenue rather than showing it as an expense.  When it comes to Adaptive Planning and UBI, the differences come down to how the systems are used and when they are updated.

Adaptive Planning (how it is currently configured for Fiscal Year 2022) should be used for comparing actuals to the Board of Visitors approved budget or Working Budget. Actuals are loaded into the system after each month-end close (usually the 2^nd or 3^rd of the following month).

UBI, however, should be used for budgets to actuals (BBA) reporting when comparing actuals to updated info in BudgetUVA throughout the month. Actuals and budget information are updated nightly.  Since UBI is the only system that includes all centrally approved budget adjustments to institutionally owned awards (SG, LG, FI, SU, EI, DI, LC), the BBA report is considered the correct budget to actuals report for institutionally owned awards for FY22. The budgets in the BBA reflect the Board of Visitors approved budget plus all centrally approved adjustments to institutional awards (via BudgetUVA), so it is the correct base budget for all institutionally owned awards.

Though these systems have different uses, if schools/units are updating their Working Budget in Adaptive to coincide with BudgetUVA updates, the budget in both systems should typically be in sync.  Since Adaptive reports for FY22 do not automatically include adjustments, including centrally approved budget adjustments to institutionally owned awards, it is incumbent on units who wish to report out of the Adaptive working budget to ensure their working budget balances to the budget totals reflected in the BBA for all awards. 

Please note, now that the University is using Adaptive for the budget process, some minor differences may come up because of challenges in keeping mapping rules and code in sync between Adaptive and UBI.  Currently, the focus is on getting Adaptive ready to integrate with Workday Financials.

 

RIM Fall 2021 Training Schedule

Save the date for virtual fall training with Records & Information Management!

The full schedule is available here. Sessions include:

• Paperless Office: Scanning Guidelines on September 9 and November 4
• Shared Drive Clean-Up on September 21 and November 16
• Email Management on October 7 and December 2
• Microsoft 365: Automating Retention on October 19 and December 14

Register now for the first offering of Paperless Office: Scanning Guidelines. Registration for each of the remaining webinars will open a month before each event.

Time Saving Office Tips Series from the Continuous Improvement Committee

CI Tips brought to you by the Continuous Improvement Committee and CI-minded UVAFinance FST Intern turned part-time employee, Jack Sherwood

Read more about Jack here.

Tip 2:  Hybrid Meetings

from Jack Sherwood and Kriszti Kiss

In the coming months of a hybrid working environment, new challenges will present themselves as some folks return to the office while others remain remote. The focus of this post is to combat the disruptions that will occur in meetings.

Zoom has its benefits of substantially increasing attendance at meetings and making work accessible anywhere. When returning to in-person meetings, it is expected that turnout will be lower and meetings will be harder to make. The most likely outcome is one where those in the office will meet in a conventional office space and remote workers will video call in via Zoom. A year and a half into using Zoom, we still encounter troubles every day muting people, taking turns speaking, and accessing meetings. Here are best practices to avoid inefficient meetings and creating an inclusive environment.

1. Limit the number of meetings. This may come in the form of combining agendas, but a lower volume of meetings means less chance of conflicts and missing out on information.

2. Piggybacking off number one, be precise and strict with meeting times. As mentioned in one, if there is one meeting that will be a tell-all, make sure the time is clear and attendance is high.

3. Embrace digital meeting tools. As frustrating as Zoom can be, it has kept teams connected during a time of strict isolation. Don’t put workers at a disadvantage if they need to work at home.

4. Eliminate fear of outside contribution. If there is one virtual person in a meeting of 50, create a comfortable environment where the virtual worker can speak as if everyone were virtual.

5. Make all visuals universally visible. If whiteboards or presentations are used, be sure to make them digitally accessible via camera.

6. Ask for feedback from all attendees. Oftentimes, Zoom audio will not reach everyone or the video will malfunction. Make sure that if problems arise, they are noted.

There is a common theme with these tips: be inclusive. The outsider effect is real and will be important to avoid this fall. There is no worse feeling in the world than not having a voice, so conduct meetings in a way that is equal and accessible for all.

Jack Sherwood Joins the FST Change Management Workstream

Jack Sherwood

The FST Change Management Workstream is happy to welcome Jack Sherwood as an official part-time team member for the remainder of the project. Sherwood, currently a fourth-year at UVA, started as an intern for the Change Management team earlier this summer.                             

 “Given my positive experiences in performance improvement and industrial organization,” Sherwood explains, “an opportunity to work on a change management team was one I could not pass up: I was looking for a job that offered to teach me new skills while also allowing me to showcase my abilities, and this job presented itself as the perfect combination of the two.”                                                                            

Throughout the summer, Sherwood has helped the Change Management team with deepening engagement for the second round of Customer Confirmation Sessions, has worked on the Enterprise Data Catalog, and has collaborated with other team members to teach Root Cause Analysis and Change Management Lean Labs. He looks forward to taking on even more responsibilities now that he is staying with the project.

“I have found this experience to be very gratifying,” he says. “Not only is it satisfying to see a project of this scale successfully move closer to the finish line, but I also feel as though I am making a positive contribution to the University that I call home. I have enjoyed every moment of this project and every colleague I have worked with. This is a tight-knit group that has fun while getting the job done.”

Outside of work, and in addition to being a part-time UVA student, Sherwood spends his time traveling, fly-fishing, and drumming. This summer he has focused on drumming as he's in a new Charlottesville-based band called First Lady. Sherwood converted from guitar to drums for this band, which performs at various student-populated venues, and finds the new instrument to be “very loud but even more empowering.”

Sherwood also took up surfing this summer in Narragansett, Rhode Island. “I may not be doing tricks,” he says, “but it is definitely a sport I would love to practice more in the future.” With his excitement to try new things and continually improve upon his skills, it’s no wonder Sherwood is a perfect fit for the Change Management team.