Thursday, September 15, 2016

SFS at the Start of Term

Student Financial Services has successfully navigated another extremely busy start of fall term. For two weeks each August, it's "All Hands on Deck!" as each member of the team shares in the work of helping students arrange their payments and financial aid at the start of the academic year.

To give you a scope of the work we've been engaged in, here are some statistics from just our 10 busiest business days (August 15-26):
  • 4,638 phone calls taken
  • 1,867 emails handled
  • 1,064 walk-in counseling sessions
Great work, SFS!

New Faces in Outreach & Compliance, Sponsored Programs

Brandi Van Ormer
UVAFinance Communications Manager
Brandi will be working across UVAFinance to develop, coordinate and deliver communication programs and materials to support our shared mission, vision and values. Brandi has been a communicator for nearly 15 years in a variety of roles, which include internal communications, marketing and public relations, alumni affairs, and development. Most of her work has been in healthcare and higher education, outside of her first communications role marketing crickets and worms for a live pet food grower. She has also taught composition and analytical writing in an adjunct capacity for a variety of institutions. Prior to moving to Virginia, Brandi worked in Mississippi, at both Mississippi State and Ole Miss.  She has a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a Master’s degree in English Literature from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.


Brian Strickler
Process Improvement Lead
Brian has developed a career in operations strategy and process improvement across multiple industries, including education, healthcare, and defense. Prior to joining the Finance Outreach and Compliance team, he served as an Intelligence Officer in the Navy and earned an MBA from the University of Virginia. His primary goal is to develop strategies for performance improvement and support the implementation of positive change at UVA.


Malcolm Strickland
Grants & Contracts Assistant
Malcolm has joined the OSP pre-award team on a permanent basis. He has previously worked as a temp in OSP, where he learned much about the operations of the office, and was trained on the account create processes. He will continue to focus on account create in his new role, but he will also be learning the basics of research administration in order to assist with other pre-award actions. Malcolm is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management. He has already proven himself as an asset to the team and the office, and we are very pleased to have him on board! 

Thursday, September 1, 2016

UBI Major Release: September 2016

In September, Managerial Reporting will deliver a major UBI release—the first since the June 2016 go-live. MRP’s Agile approach to UBI development gives stakeholders ongoing opportunities to provide improvement requests—which are an important part of this first release. Read about the three new modules in this release, and more.

Christina Bousquet, from the School of Medicine, is one of many new UBI users. “UBI has definitely streamlined the process to view and modify GA reports,” she said. “Not only am I able to get needed information almost instantaneously, but reports are easily customizable. I can bookmark and save templates for future use. Everything you could want for GA data is essentially there.”

New Staff in OSP

The Office of Sponsored Programs is pleased to announce several key positions that have recently been filled:

The OSP leadership team welcomes Urmila Bajaj as the new Director of Accounting and Award Management. In her new role, Urmila will provide leadership and management of the financial postaward functions of OSP. Urmila has a unique depth and breadth to her experience in postaward research administration from which UVA will greatly benefit.

Urmila is presently the Director of Research Finance at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, a private, not-for-profit clinical research center, hospital and graduate medical school located in Duarte, California. At City of Hope, Urmila is responsible for managing financial research operations of basic and clinical research, including the oversight of postaward financial management of clinical trials. She additionally oversees shared resource operations, including 26 core laboratories. Before her work at City of Hope, Urmila was the Associate Director of Post Award Administration at the California Institute of Technology. At Caltech, Urmila strengthened internal controls and reduced audit risks by implementing new systems and reports to monitor federal compliance requirements, including those related to cost sharing, cost transfers and effort/payroll distribution confirmation. Earlier in her career, Urmila worked in research administration and management at the unit level at the University of Southern California as well as in the central sponsored programs office at the University of California, Los Angeles. Urmila has additionally served as an NCURA Peer Reviewer, workshop faculty and presenter. Urmila received her undergraduate degree in Business Management from the University of Phoenix. Urmila will begin her position at UVA on October 17, 2016. She is currently planning for her move to Charlottesville with her husband, Sunil Bajaj. Please join me in welcoming her.


The OSP Information Team is excited to welcome Nikita Mokhariwale as the newest Senior Data Analyst!  Nikita received her Master’s degree from the University of Cincinnati in Business Analytics.  She brings experience in institutionalized Tableau reporting and has been developing creative visualizations of customer data, which we look forward to her sharing with us. She has worked with various large and small retail clients through 2 multi-national companies and a start-up venture. She has experience with gathering business requirements and creating data-driven planning platforms. Nikita is comfortable managing large volumes of data and modeling solutions which will serve OSP well as we move to a data driven/data enabled organization.  We are looking forward to the energy, enthusiasm and knowledge Nikita brings to OSP.  Please give her a warm welcome when you see her.


The OSP Contracts Team is excited to welcome Asa Lopatin as the newest Senior Contract Negotiator! Asa’s previous experience includes working through disputes in state and federal courts relating to intellectual property, licensing and contracts. He also served as a Director of Alternative Dispute Resolution Services at the American Arbitration Association, managing client contact and case administration for large complex commercial cases in DC, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Asa’s legal experience also includes internships with the DC Office of the Attorney General, the DC Superior Court, the US House of Representatives, and the Washington Nationals. He has a B.A. from the University of Michigan and his J.D. from George Washington University. Asa and his family recently moved to Charlottesville from the DC Area.


The Pre-Award team is pleased to announce that Courtney Polk recently started in the newly-established role of Research Administrator in the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP), a centrally-reporting and funded position providing unit-level research administration supporting the School of Architecture (AR) and the Data Science Institute (DSI). In this role, Courtney will identify funding opportunities, manage administrative proposal development/submission and oversee post-award nonfinancial and financial matters as needed. Courtney will additionally be available to assist with large-scale, complex/interdisciplinary proposals across Grounds.

This new position plays an important role in ResearchNET, an initiative of the office of the Vice President for Research, the schools, the office of the Provost and OSP to enhance significantly research development efforts across Grounds. The position also supports the Cornerstone Plan’s ambitious goals for growth in scholarly collaboration and interdisciplinary research at UVA.
Courtney brings depth of experience in both grant writing and grant management; she helped win multi-million dollar grants from NASA for the Universities Space Research Association, and more recently did similar work for the Building Goodness Foundation here in Charlottesville. She has worked with a diverse set of sponsors, including federal agencies and private foundations. And, importantly, she has an amazing can-do attitude and keen professional focus. She will be a great addition to the team.

Upcoming Finance Trainings

Listed below are upcoming course, workshops, labs, and Brown Bag Sessions. We hope you will take advantage of these many professional development opportunities for finance professionals. Descriptions of the classes, as well as links to enroll via Employee Self-Service are available from the Events section on the Finance Outreach and Compliance website at http://foc.virginia.edu/.

Courses, Workshops, and Labs

Finance Fundamentals
Sept 13 (only 3 seats left!) and Sept 27
All sessions are 1:30–4:30 and will be held in Carruthers Hall, Conference Room E

Mastering Account Reconciliations (6 seats left!)
Sept 8, 1:30–4:00
Carruthers Hall, Conference Room E

Managing Salaries/Wages Charge to Sponsored Activities
Sept 29, 1:00-4:00
Michie North, Room 223

TravelUVA: Lab
Sept 14, 9:00–10:30
Miche North, Room 219

Pre-Award 101 Workshop
Oct 4, 8:30-5:00
Bavaro Hall, Room 116 (Holloway Hall Auditorium)



Brown Bag Sessions

Paperless Procurement
Sept 7, 12:00–2:00
Newcomb Hall, Commonwealth Room
Complimentary tasting offered by Virginia Catering Company

Working with the Expenditure Dashboard
Sept 14, 12:00–2:00
Bavaro Hall, Room 116 (Holloway Hall Auditorium)
Complimentary tasting offered by Pearl Island Catering

Using America To Go
Oct 5, 12:00-2:00
Bavaro Hall, Room 116 (Holloway Hall Auditorium)
Complimentary tasting offered by Alex Montiel Catering and Events

Being Prepared for Emergencies
Newcomb Hall, Room 389
Complimentary tasting offered by Panera Bread



Future Brown Bag sessions include:

Understanding Export Controls
Nov 2, Newcomb Hall, Room 177

SecureUVA: Ways to Avoid Hacking and Phishing
Nov 16, Bavaro Hall (Holloway Hall Auditorium)

Recharge/Service Centers: Everything You Need to Know
Dec 7, 2400 Old Ivy Road, Room 189


As always, if you have any questions, suggestions, or need to discuss training needs, please email foc-training@virginia.edu.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

The Class of 2020: Mindset and Insight


The University’s Class of 2020 moves onto Grounds this weekend, preparing for Tuesday, the start of classes and their college careers. Take a look at this class in the context of 22-year trend lines—by race, by gender, by geography and by several other categories in Virginia Magazine.


For the Class of 2020...
  • While chads were hanging in Florida, they were potty training.
  • Snowboarding has always been an Olympic sport.
  • Books have always been read to you on audible.com
  • The United States has always been at war.
  • They have never seen billboard ads for cigarettes.
Read more from Beloit College's 2020 Mindset List.


Carruthers Renovation News


Late Friday afternoon, the American Office team finished building the first set of offices in the new design and assembled the furniture in the collab rooms.  



Come take a look!



On Monday morning the Fixed Assets team began moving in, and their former spaces were quickly filled by the the AR and PCI teams.  



Many thanks to those who assisted in the moves!

PSDS: Cloud/SaS Contract and T&E

Procurement received praise for helping navigate a very complex and aggressive contractual negotiation with what many IT leaders would say is the biggest Cloud/SaaS vendor solution that UVA will implement in the next 10 years. More information will be released soon about this exciting new development!

The Travel and Expense Services Team is excited to share the progress of the Chrome River Expense Program design! In preparation for the completion of the build, we asked each school to identify key individuals involved in their Travel & Expense (T&E) processes. There were approximately 150 people in attendance over the course of eight sessions held throughout July and early August. We solicited feedback regarding each school’s expense reimbursement and T&E card reconciliation processes. We also encouraged use of TravelUVA and the Travel and Expense Card

The TravelUVA program is continuing to grow with over 2000 airline tickets booked to date. Travel labs are offered monthly and can be found in Learner Home if you or are interested in attending. 

PSDS also congratulates staff members Kevin Crabtree, Carrie McGowan, Meredith Dixon, Charles Kidd, and Shannon Wampler, who recently completed the “Leading a Lean Transformation” workshop taught by Darden professor Elliot Weiss.  

Service Excellence Survey

The UVAFinance Service Excellence Committee has been charged with developing strategies and programs to deliver services that help University community members and external partners to be their best. Today, we ask you to take a few minutes to provide your perspective on the state of customer service within UVAFinance, feedback on what works and what remains to be addressed. Your response will directly impact where we focus immediate attention as well as how we shape our service culture and philosophy now and in the future.

Access the survey.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Bookmark This: FOC's "Tips and Tricks Tutorials"


The Tips and Tricks Tutorials page on the FOC website contains videos with helpful tips, tricks, and shortcuts to help you save time and effort, and reduce mistakes when working in the Integrated System. Check back often as more videos will be added.

MRP: UBI & Development

UBI Training, by the numbers: (as of Aug 1, 2016)
775 GA users (our initial UBI stakeholder population)
370 Users completed Into-to-UBI training (35 of 60+ scheduled sessions)
290 UBI users in Production
132 Users in the UBI Community

For new UBI users, once you have completed training, it is important to log in and use the tool before you forget what you’ve learned. Remember: this is a reporting tool—you can’t hurt anything. Dive in and move around. Start with familiar data, and see where the experience takes you. The UBI Community is the best place for UBI users to engage with colleagues about the new reporting tool.

What’s in Development?
Development never stops for UBI and the Managerial Reporting Project. Our team is working on enhancements to the existing UBI modules, in addition to new modules for GA. We're planning to release changes in concert with the switch of the data source from the Operational Data Store (ODS) to the new Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) in early September.

Updates from PSDS

The Supply Room Companies, UVA’s strategic office supply contract vendor, is now offering a full selection of coffee and water breakroom services. For more information, including a special incentive to kick off the new program, please visit: http://www.procurement.virginia.edu/main/publicpostings/contract/CSS_TSRC-UVA%20Coffee%20and%20Water%20Proposal%202.16.16.pdf.

America To Go, UVA’s strategic Catering Services vendor, has partnered with PSDS and Finance Outreach and Compliance to provide complimentary tastings from select America To Go caterers at upcoming Brown Bag sessions! To view a list of upcoming sessions, and to enroll, please visit: http://foc.virginia.edu/.

PSDS will be hosting a “SWaM Day” on Tuesday, August 16 featuring over 20 SWaM (Small, Woman-, and Minority-owned) vendors from across the Commonwealth and around the country. UVA staff are invited to visit the Newcomb Hall Ballroom from 1:00-4:00pm to meet new vendors and learn more about their companies’ offerings! For more information, or for a listing of vendors, please contact Jack King (jek7s).

Tech Tip: PowerPoint Footers

Do you manually edit PowerPoint slides, so each one shows the title, date or slide number?

For some, this rudimentary PPT feature is a mystery (you know you’ve seen a slide deck that had an erroneous date or slide number). Follow these simple steps to ensure accuracy and consistency in your PPT footer information:


Picture 1

To update the slide footer Title and Date detail in PPT, click “Header& Footer” on the Insert tab.




Picture 2

Date and time: “Update automatically” always shows the current date. “Fixed” shows a specified time (08/23/2016).

Slide number:  Choose whether or not to include a slide number.

Footer: Enter a custom footer (Classes Begin).

IMPORTANT:  “Apply to All” adds these edits to all slides in the slide deck. 





Slide 3

Validate date/footer/slide# changes.


Carruthers Construction Update

Project services have been hard at work preparing for the collab room turnover on 8/8. Activities include:

Mechanical




  • Duct work was completed 8/1 
  • Tying in the new systems to the existing 7/30
  • Moved the main duct in collab room 270A to accommodate new lighting 
Electrical

  • Lighting and controls will be delivered Thursday 8/4 
  • Furniture is being assembled in the large work area behind the collab rooms
Drywall

  • Finished and currently being primed 
Ceiling




  • Done on 8/1 
Carpet




  • Demo of carpet in the large work area behind the collab space took place over the weekend 7/30 
  • New carpet was installed 8/1 
Storefront

  • Installed 7/28 
  • Doors arrived 7/29 and were installed Monday 8/1
  • Temporary wall was removed during off hours 7/30 


Nine Comptroller staff will be moving out of their current offices on August 12 so that offices along the south wall can be torn down to build 6 new hard walled offices.  The “Fixed Assets” group will move to their new permanent offices behind the collab rooms the week of August 15.

Procurement and Supplier Diversity Services has reconfigured their office space to accommodate the Fixed Assets move.  The reception desk is located where Joyce Dunn sat and Joyce has moved back 2 offices.  Connie Alexander is beside the receptionist desk.  Charles Kidd and Kristin Floyd are diagonally across from the receptionist desk.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

MRP: UBI & QA Data Warehouse

MRP’s Change Management team continues to deliver Intro to UBI training (25 sessions to-date). The training is going very well, with lots of positive comments from users. MRP's Training and Reporting teams also hosted another UBI Workshop, with an exchange of important information and helpful feedback.



In parallel to the UBI rollout, the Data Architecture team started migrating ETL code to the QA Data Warehouse. Soon, UBI will display GA data from the new Data Warehouse (instead of the legacy data store). This switch should be transparent to UBI end users.