Instructors host a virtual session in which users get familiar with a particular tenant and they can review scenarios with the instructor. The participants get time to work through their own scenarios with access to resources such as the UVA Business Terms site and quick reference guides.
Friday, March 18, 2022
User Experience Reviews in Full Swing
Instructors host a virtual session in which users get familiar with a particular tenant and they can review scenarios with the instructor. The participants get time to work through their own scenarios with access to resources such as the UVA Business Terms site and quick reference guides.
Share with your Networks
As we post new job opportunities, we'll be turning to you for some help. That's right - you! By sharing these opportunities on your personal LinkedIn page, you help demonstrate the culture of UVAFinance and grow our reach to attract the right candidates.
Currently, we are looking for a talented Payroll Analyst and we are just starting to gain some traction on LinkedIn. To broaden the scope, we invite you to share the position to help us get views across a variety of networks. To do this:- Visit here
- Just under the post, click “Share”
- From there, you can add some text such as “UVAFinance has an exciting opportunity to join our team as either a Payroll Cost Allocation Analyst Sr or Payroll Cost Allocation Analyst. UVAFinance is a phenomenal place to lead, grow, and work in a welcoming and supportive environment where everyone feels empowered to be their authentic selves and share ideas. We embrace a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and invite qualified applicants to apply and for anyone to share this opening with their networks.”
We are excited to see how your involvement helps impact recruitment. Thank you for your help!
High Quality Workplace Conversations – The Power of Choice
Ed Hess, Professor Emeritus, Darden School of Business (To learn more about Ed, visit his bio)
Mary Brackett, Senior Associate, Office of Organizational Excellence
When: April 6, 2022, 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Where: Harrison Library-Small Auditorium / In-Person
Sponsored by UVA Organizational Excellence. Register here.
Join us for FST Fridays in April!
Would you and your team members like a sneak peek into common Workday experiences? If so, then we hope you'll join us for FST Fridays in April!
The FST Change Team is happy to invite the UVA community to these Friday sessions to get an inside look at Workday Finance before training begins in May. These informal sessions will cover common business transactions related to the FDM, buying and paying, and expense reports (plus more!).
Take a look at our FST Fridays calendar and read more about the sessions on the UVAFinance website. No invitations will be sent; instead, links to join each session are posted on the website and we'll keep reminding folks to attend.
MORE INFO: Visit https://uvafinance.virginia.edu/finance-strategic-transformation/about and click "Join us for FST Fridays in April!"
We look forward to a big crowd at these sessions, so make plans to join us!
Tuesday, March 15, 2022
FST 101: Seventeen and a half minutes to get you up to speed
Are you or a colleague suffering from "too much regular work to do to focus on Finance Strategic Transformation?"
Have you not really engaged with any work on the Finance Strategic Transformation project yet, but know that you need to catch up before go-live?
Do you sometimes wonder if FST and Workday Financials are the same thing?
Do you worry you're behind on what's going on with FST and need to know how to get up to speed?
We have a resource that will help! Check out this brief video that will walk you through the basics of Finance Strategic Transformation (what it is, what's happening now, where we're going, and where we've been) and the best ways for you to keep up to date on the areas that interest you most.
This video is great for someone who hasn't been very involved with the project so far. Feel free to share with anyone you think would find it helpful!
Wednesday, March 9, 2022
Five Things to Know about FST: March 10, 2022
| Click the image to see a larger view |
FST Update: March 10, 2022
User Experience Review
Adaptive UER will run the whole month of March, while Workday UER sessions will continue through April. We’re really grateful to the over 400 people taking part!
Organizational Change Readiness
We’ll use the readiness information we’re gathering to make sure we’re properly engaging and preparing the people who are affected by the change.
More about Change Readiness Assessment #4
Training & Support
As the training team is making plans to make sure everyone has access to the training they need to do their jobs and the information they’ll need while they’re working, UVAFinance is also setting up a Finance Solution Center to reduce confusion amongst our users in the schools and units and get their common questions answered quickly. The Finance Solution Center is going through a soft launch starting March 14 – even though the team is still being assembled, we’ll be launching askfinance@virginia.edu as the first human point of contact to UVAFinance
Security Role-to-Position Mapping (Workflow Control & Approvals)
Business Terms Site
As UVA gets ready to do business in a new era, with all the insight that Workday Financials and Adaptive Planning provide, it’s important that we all remember that not only are processes and roles changing but also that the terms we use to refer to common business processes are changing, too.
Throughout the project, using resources like Workday Words, we’ve tried to highlight some of these term changes. At this stage in the process, however, we have a more fully-formed resource out there, the Business Terms Dictionary, which is now the source of truth for our business vocabulary at UVA.
A Message of Thanks to those involved with FST
It feels like as each week passes, the FST project team and our partners across Grounds see an increase in project complexity, in problems to be solved, and in deadlines to be met. You're under a tremendous amount of stress, you're still being patient with one another, helping out wherever you're needed, and generally functioning with an admirable level of dedication and determination.
The work you're doing will enable UVA to be truly great and good-- your work is the foundation upon. You likely hear the leadership team and functional leads thank you often in various forums, but you should also know that others are singing your praises and appreciating your efforts, including UVA's leadership. President Jim Ryan and EVP-COO JJ Davis recorded the video linked above and below to personally express their thanks for your extraordinary effort.
VIDEO LINK: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nyXzetbVHi8VorYw2SgT07uNlzY_kcmn/view
Thank you again! We couldn't accomplish this transformation without each and every one of you.
Post-Go-Live Support
Contributed by Joey CarlsIn a few short months, we'll go live with Workday Financials. The Training Team is working hard to make sure people are ready to do their work in the new system and with the new processes on the first day the system is live, but that's not the only preparation being done to ensure a smooth transition from Oracle to Workday.
UVAFinance is in the process of standing up the Finance Solution Center, our centralized, first human point of contact for most support requests after go-live. We will begin with the launch of askfinance@virginia.edu on March 14 followed by call center and chat integrations in the coming weeks and months. This primary point of entry for support requests will reduce confusion amongst users in the schools and units and help to reduce burden of specialists in other areas of UVAFinance currently fielding common questions both within and outside of their portfolios.
The organization of support in the Finance Solutions Center will be as follows:
- Tier 0: Self-help resources including quick reference guides, FAQs, policies, and procedures. The Training Team is working diligently to create robust resources for this level of service. Read more about their efforts here (LINK).
- Tier 1: The User Success Team will act as the primary point of entry for finance questions or issues via askfinance@virginia.edu, our call center, and chat. We are working with functional area leaders to create a catalog of service and knowledge articles that will aid User Success Agents with answering common questions and solving common issues. It is our expectation that many well-documented questions and issues will be supported at this level.
- Tier 2: Functional area specialists (experts in procurement, payroll, treasury, budget, etc.) will provide support with cases escalated from the User Success Team. Cases will remain “open” until such time that a solution is suggested to the user and the user confirms resolution.
- Tier 3: The Workday support team in UVAFinance will receive system support cases that are escalated from lower tiers of service. Cases will remain “open” until such time that a solution is suggested to the user and the user confirms resolution.
- Tier 4: Cases that require the attention of our vendors and partners outside of UVAFinance will be escalated to this level of service for further investigation and support. Cases will remain “open” until such time that a solution is suggested to the user and the user confirms resolution.
Over the next few weeks, we will be recruiting and onboarding User Success Agents and continue building our service catalog. The period between the soft launch and Workday go-live will provide us time to expand our service catalog, refine our workflows, and review our resourcing to ensure that we are fully ready to support you on July 1.
We are excited to serve you in the coming months and after go-live. As the Finance Solution Center team comes on board, I look forward to introducing them to you.
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
Adaptive Planning begins User Experience Review
From Melody's Desk: March 10, 2022
Shout out to Joey Carls and the Engagement Team on the launch of Askfinance@virginia.edu (read more about that on the blog). I can’t tell you how excited I am to adopt the Salesforce platform for our user engagement.
In 2017 we began a journey to create the UVAFinance organization. Prior to that time, we were a disparate group of independent departments, with different approaches to how we did work, how we delivered customer service, goals and objectives, admin and IT support, and technology/tools.
In that all-hands effort, we established a vision that has propelled us forward through the FST project: to be the valued and trusted financial partner to our stakeholders. We developed a set of 5 values, that were updated and re-affirmed in 2020:
We knew at that point that we all wanted to provide the best support to our stakeholders, but we were not yet equipped to do so. We have a confusing maze of websites, email addresses, and phone numbers which makes it very tough for faculty or staff with a question to figure out how to get one, consistent, and accurate answer. It was even difficult for someone in the field to know whether to contact budget, accounting, or payroll for an answer to their question.
We have slowly been working through the FST project to transform our financial management capabilities... to create a strong foundation of financial expertise, processes, and systems, dedicated to advancing the University’s academic mission through its strategic plan. We will finally have the tools and systems to deliver exceptional services and systems to help faculty, staff, and students do their best work.
One important step we can take right now, as we prepare for the launch and stabilization process around Workday Finance is to begin to adopt a common set of tools to support stakeholder engagement. AskFinance@virginia.edu and Salesforce will allow us finally to utilize a common platform for collecting and responding to all types of inquiries. Using this consistent interface will allow us to provide timely and consistent feedback… and will provide us data to inform where we should apply continuous improvement to our policies, procedures, websites, and other materials.
This is but one example where consistent tools will help us be the best we can be. Aligning around Office 365 (including Teams); Workday Reporting and UBI for reporting and analytics; maintaining current policies and procedures and updating the UVAFinance website are all additional efforts that we will focus on.
With the launch of Workday Finance coming quickly, we’ve been focusing on change behavior. For UVAFinance leaders and managers, the enthusiastic adoption of Salesforce and modeling this to your teams is one critical way that we can hasten the provision of excellent service to our stakeholders.
Thanks!
Quick Tip: Using the Business Terms Site
As we get closer to the Workday Financials go-live date of July 1, 2022, it's even more important to "speak the same language" across UVA when it comes to our business-speak.
The UVA Business Terms site launched early this year, and while you may have noticed it has a lookup feature on the homepage, we'd also like to call attention to the "Definitions" tab. Navigating here will allow you to page through all of the definitions at your leisure. You can also click on the functional areas for each term to view other terms involved in that area.
The Business Terms site is a dynamic window into the language of business at UVA. We hope you take advantage of it to increase your fluency.
REAL ID Event at Carruthers Hall March 28, 29, & 30 – A few spaces are left!
The deadline for obtaining a REAL ID has been extended. Beginning May 3, 2023, the federal government will require you to present a REAL ID-compliant credential or another federally approved form of ID to board a domestic flight or enter a secure federal facility.
Contact travel@virginia.edu with any questions.
We will send information about fees and required documentation closer to the event dates.
McGehee accepts new role in UVAFinance
This new position will establish an meaningful intersection between the Finance Operations and Strategy groups within Finance. Together, McGehee and both teams will seek unified and aligned approaches with regular and close integration into all Financial Accounting and Reporting needs.
Initially, McGehee will remain focused on completing the University’s F&A proposal for submission to DHHS while stepping in to oversee the operational and transformational work occurring in fixed assets. He and the team will begin exploring opportunities to enhance service provision across both functional areas through collaborative work together.
This realignment of functional areas and responsibilities is another opportunity for UVAFinance to support our vision and core values. Thanks for taking on the role, Andrew!
You're Invited: Climate Action Workshop
Are you curious about UVA’s goal to be fossil fuel-free by 2050?
The UVA Energy Working Group is hosting an event next Tuesday that you might be interested in. Feel free to spread the word, especially to any passionate students you might know. Anyone is welcome!
Planning for a Fossil Fuel Free UVA
Tues, Mar 15 from 5:00-6:30pm
Guest Speaker – Paul Zmick, Director of Energy and Utilities at UVA
Come join us for a presentation and discussion via Zoom to discover the pathways for decarbonizing thermal energy consumption at the University of Virginia. Register here:
https://virginia.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUud-2rrD8sEtUApaDFMU_mLBkUX0lWGnJB
