Friday, March 18, 2022

User Experience Reviews in Full Swing


The FST team has hosted almost 30 User Experience Review sessions and participants are getting more familiar with the upcoming transition to Workday Financials. The UER sessions are specific to processes such as creating and updating gifts, account certification, creating accounting journals and adjustments, and more.

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. 

If participants run into issues or have questions, they can log in during office hours with the instructor to ask questions and get assistance. These guided experiences enable users to better understand how to prepare for the use of the system and share information with their departments or units. Participants also provide detailed feedback so FST is able to actively update the sessions going forward to better deliver the information and provide tailored assistance. 

UER participation is integral to the FST rollout of Workday Financials and the time put into these sessions is an investment in ensuring a smoother go-live and system use. The FST team is grateful to all 400+ participants and appreciates their thoughtful feedback and questions. 







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:
  • 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

Do you want to increase your ability to have high-quality conversations in the workplace? Do you often find yourself having conversations that seem to be lacking in collaboration, innovation, and creativity? If so, please join an interactive workshop to learn about how the science of collective intelligence and positivity can be applied to increase the quality of our workplace conversations for better organizational outcomes.

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

 


1.  Over 400 UVA folks are engaging in User Experience Review of both the Workday tenant and Adaptive Planning.  Their experiences will be used to refine training.  Want to read more?  Check out this Adaptive UER post or this Workday UER post

2. The Role Mapping Sprint reaches a big milepost on March 11, the date by which sprint participants will submit a draft of their role-to-position mapping from Oracle to Workday.  This information is key to building role-based training.  Want to read more?  Check out this post.  

3.  Training & Support will be widely available in a variety of different ways from both the FST Training Team and our new Finance Solution Center.  Training begins in May and the Finance Solution Center is soft-launching on March 14.  Want to read more?  Check out this post on training or this post on the Finance Solution Center. 

4.  The Reporting & Analytics Team is working to make sure users have the Workday reporting & analytics capability they need at go-live, including the needs they have incorporating HR and Student data.  Want to read more? Check out this article on the blog. 

5. Close measuring of organizational readiness is being done by our Change Partners, Steering Committee, and FST team.  Month-by-month, they are tracking progress on critical areas of readiness ahead of go-live on July 1, 2022.  Want to read more?  Check out this post.



Click the image to see a larger view

FST Update: March 10, 2022

 


No time to read all the text?  Check out Five things to Know about FST
Or listen in to WFST, the FST Radio News Broadcast

User Experience Review

We are undergoing User Experience Review, or UER,  with both Workday Financials and Adaptive Planning, our budgeting software. Both the Workday tenant and the tenant of Adaptive 3.0, which is the version of Adaptive Planning that will integrate with Workday Financials, have gone through end to end testing and are on to User Experience Review.  

User Experience Review is not an additional phase of testing, where we test the processes and capture requirements. It’s not training, either. It’s just a chance for end-users to get exposure to the system and provide input into training materials. They’re using the Quick Reference Guides, or QRGs, developed by the training team, to work through scenarios in the tenant, and that helps the training team immensely.

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

The Change Management side of the project team has assessed our stakeholders’ readiness and throughout the project with a series of Change Readiness Assessments, or CRAs, which many have taken part in. Readiness was recently assessed once more, only instead of surveys, the team worked closely with Change Leaders and Steering Committee Members across Grounds to assess critical areas of readiness, such as FDM mapping, getting their other systems ready to integrate with Workday instead of Oracle, process transformation, engagement with their stakeholders, and other important categories. They’ll continue assessing these areas on a month-by-month basis.

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 you've likely already heard, training will become available in May and will be given in a variety of modalities.  We'll have instructor-led training, web-based training, quick reference guides, demos, and office hours.

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

Read more about the Finance Solution Center

Security Role-to-Position Mapping (Workflow Control & Approvals)

 Security Role-to-Position Mapping is continuing. March 11 is the date that schools and units need to submit their first draft of their mapping of Oracle roles to Workday Roles. Because our training will be role-based for Workday Financials, just like it was for Oracle. Because some roles have changed and processes have changed, we need the new mapping to be able to identify who needs what training within the system.

Reporting & Analytics

The Reporting and Analytics team is working hard to make sure users are equipped with what they need at go-live. That team has been working to accommodate both the reporting and analytics needed for the finance launch, but also making sure users will have what they need in terms of their broader needs, like Human Resources and Student data.


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.

Read more about the site's functionality.




Click the image for a larger view.

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 Carls

In 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



With End-to-End Testing in their rearview mirror, the Adaptive Planning Team is zooming off to their next stop on the Finance Transformation path and the next step in the evolution of Adaptive Planning:  User Experience Review!

This week, the team kicked off UER with a fantastic group of reviewers from UVA schools and units.  From now through the end of March, the group will work together to review business processes in the Adaptive Planning tenant.  Their review of a variety of scenarios will give them exposure to the system as it will function after go-live, find usability issues, and gather input that will affect eventual training materials. 

Thank you to all who have signed on for this important step in the road to go-live!



_____________________________________________________________________________


From Melody's Desk: March 10, 2022



Dear Colleagues,

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. 

I know that I have become quite adept at figuring out when I make a call to a customer service line – for a store, a bank, or another service – whether or not they have a robust customer relations management (CRM) tool. Do they know when I called earlier? Do they know what advice they have given me previously? Do they know the correct next step to suggest to me to solve my problem without giving me a run-around or sending me back to a step that I’ve already done? This platform will allow UVAFinance to provide best-in-class support.

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.

Visit the Business Terms Site 

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. 

Don't wait in line at the DMV. Sign up for an appointment to upgrade your ID on Grounds!

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

UVAFinance is pleased to announce that Andrew McGehee of Financial Planning & Analysis will assume a newly created role as the Director of Cost Accounting and Fixed Assets.  

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