From Melody's Desk

Happy last day of the fiscal year!  I just wanted to send a quick mid-summer message to recognize all the work that everyone has been putting into year-end. Our grant and contract numbers are looking good, the auditors are on site, and the budget will load tomorrow. We have had a great week (see the next post) and are really gaining momentum as we are improving how we all do work at UVA. I’m looking forward to a great Fiscal Year 2017!

Our strategic planning committees have been meeting to come up with great ideas to implement as we move towards our vision. One awesome idea from the Employee Engagement Committee is to start a monthly “Finance T-Shirt Friday.” So, if you haven’t yet gotten your Finance T-Shirt, please email Linda Leake and let her know your shirt size.

Best,

PS: It’s mid-year.  Check Lead@ and make sure that you’ve completed your 2016 goals. Interim self-assessments should be completed by July 15th. Here are some hints on Conducting a Self-Evaluation. And check with your manager about having an interim check-in conversation to see how you are making progress on goals.

UVAFinance Vision: the valued and trusted financial partner that the University community turns to first.

Impeccable source of information * Service excellence * Innovative action * Collaborative partner * Valued, high-performing teams

MRP/UBI & ResearchUVA Celebrations

June was very successful across the UVAFinance family, especially the end of the month. Managerial Reporting and the Office of Sponsored Programs released major deliverables for their stakeholders—and both initiatives promise to change how we do work at the University.

In June, University Business Intelligence officially launched, and more than 100 users around Grounds already use the University’s new enterprise reporting environment. Small groups of pilot users and subject matter experts began testing in February with Managerial Reporting. Nearly 150 users have attended the required Intro-to-UBI training, which continues through the summer. Read more about UBI’s early successes.

Around the same time, the Office of Sponsored Programs released the new Proposal Routing Form, a bridge to the future-state proposal development and submission functionality in ResearchUVA. The release of the “PRF” (previously known as the “Goldenrod”) is making an immediate impact, as individuals around Grounds are already using the new fillable PDF form.

The easy-to-use Proposal Routing Form is a platform for more robust and meaningful data on proposal stage activity at UVA—from both a strategic and compliance standpoint. The goal is greater operational efficiency and greater reporting capability in research administration at UVA.

From Melody's Desk

I hope all are well and enjoying summer. Hopefully you all have made plans to spend time away from work, with friends, family, or even by yourself. It is critically important that you find time to rejuvenate and connect with the external world. I have time planned to go to a conference (NACUBO in Montreal, so lovely in July!) and to the beach with my family.

UVA Final Exercises - we all had a hand in making sure that more than 6,600 students earned degrees. Thank you for your role in supporting this core mission of the institution, whether it is helping procure equipment and supplies, support faculty, train staff, award aid, collect tuition, or maintain a financially strong institution.

I wanted to call your attention to the remarks of Paul Mahoney at the Sunday ceremony. I felt that his speech was different from many, in that he provided very tangible advice for the new graduates; advice that is pertinent for everyone of us, even for those who are a bit more seasoned in our careers. 

I encourage you to take a few moments to read his remarks, especially beginning on page 2 when he talks about how important it is for success in life to "take ownership, learn continuously, and think long-term." Often I will hear people wonder what they need to do to be successful, earn a promotion, and develop their careers. It takes more than, as Dean Mahoney says, to just "do what you’re told. Write the memo; create the spreadsheet; attend the meeting."  You have to own your career, your development as a leader, and even your mistakes.

UVAFinance Vision: the valued and trusted financial partner that the University community turns to first.

Impeccable source of information * Service excellence * Innovative action * Collaborative partner * Valued, high-performing teams

UVAFinance Posters

UVAFinance posters are making their way around to the various areas of the UVAFinance family. These posters display the Vision/Mission/Core Values we collectively established in early 2016. Look for them in your area in the coming days!

Posters Around Ground: A Simple Process

Posters around Grounds—A simple process

You’ve seen large-format posters around Grounds (UVA Forward, Carruthers Hall Spring Fling, OE Project Alliance Showcases). These posters are an effective way to increase project visibility, team messaging, or display other important visuals. Jeremy Serkin has produced a few dozen departmental/project posters in the last year or so—with three basic steps: Content, Layout, Print. 

Content (1 or 2 days)
What is your message? Establish any text content you want to use. If you plan to use pictures or graphics, locate high-resolution images (Google Image search allows you to filterbased on image size). The larger, the better.

Layout (1 or 2 days)
Good is in the Details. Experts use the Adobe Suite: Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign. But Microsoft PowerPoint is an easy and accessible tool for the rest of us Do-It-Yourself graphic designers. Just set the page dimensions to the desired poster height and width before laying out content. There are even self-guided PowerPointposter design tutorials on YouTube.

Print (2 or 3 days)
Finalized your work? Great! Save the file as a PDF, and email uvaprint@virginia.edu. Attach the PDF and provide as much detail as you can (size, mounted/not mounted, date needed, Organization, PTAO, etc). Keith Tyre and the folks at UVA Printing and Copying Services do a nice job—so give them a few days to print, mount, and deliver.

Content. Layout. Print. It really is that simple.

Specifics
Time:                    4-7 days
Cost:                     ~$125 (for 4’x3’ mounted)
Delivery:              Yes

Policy Change: Food and Meals Retail Sales and Use Tax Exemption

State sales tax no longer applies to meals purchased for University purposes under the following conditions: 

• The food, meal, or catered meal furthers a function, mission, service, or purpose.
• The charge is invoiced to and paid for by the University – not reimbursed to an employee.
• The University determines to whom, when, and how the meals or food are served and consumed.

UVA’s catering concierge, America To Go (ATG), will ensure that invoices from their caterers will not include state taxes; however, if you are using non-ATG caterers, you may need to communicate this change to the caterer. For more information, please visit http://www.procurement.virginia.edu/pagerecentpuc#section667.

OE "Spotlight on Excellence" Recognizes Jessica Rafter of MRP

The Organizational Excellence Spotlight on Excellence peer-recognition program highlights individuals who exhibit the principles of OE in their daily work and contribute to an institutional culture of quality.

Jessica Rafter of the Managerial Reporting project was recognized with the award at the Quality CORE Network session on May 25, 2016. She was selected for exhibiting a high-level of technical competence and collaboration as she led the selection, design, and implementation of the Jira/Confluence project management toolset for MRP.

UVAFinance team members Jim Bowen (OSP) and Andrew Yeung (MRP) received this award in 2015.

QlikSense Early Work

While University Business Intelligence (UBI) is in the early stages of roll-out, two groups of developers and business analysts from ITS and HR began training on Qlik Sense—the self-service analysis platform.

Intro to UBI Training

A pilot group of users from Engineering, McIntire and Batten schools recently completed the first training session for Intro to UBI. Classes are being scheduled throughout the summer. Stay tuned for your Intro to UBI training invitation—scheduled by school and unit.

Procurement: Year-End Fiscal Deadlines & TravelUVA

Procurement’s year-end fiscal deadlines have been announced!

Travel workbooks submitted more than 30 days after travel will now be accepted without written explanation. Expense reports are required to be submitted within 30 days from the completion of travel or of incurring the expense. Justification and approval from the employee’s supervisor’s manager is required in cases where the travel expense report submission exceeds 30 days.

State Travel & Expense Cards (formerly “P-Cards”) can now be used to pay for travel costs such as lodging! For more information and a detailed list of allowable expenses please visit: http://www.procurement.virginia.edu/pageusingthepcard

Why Listening is Harder Than You Think - And How to Do It Right

Listening—really listening—is a vital and frequently underutilized leadership tool, Melissa Daimler, head of global learning and organizational development at Twitter, writes for Harvard Business Review.

Decades ago, a study found that the typical person forgets about half of what people say as soon as they finish saying it. As workers are increasingly distracted by packed schedules and 21st-century technology, "there's no reason to think" that we've gotten any better at retaining colleagues' remarks, Daimler says.

Read the full story from the EAB Daily Briefing.

From Melody's Desk

Good morning!

Spring is fully in gear (even the April showers are lingering into May) and Final Exercises are upon us. As the academic year comes to an end, I encourage everyone to check out the UVA Year in Review as well as the features on several 2016 graduates.

Respect@: Thank you for your efforts to make sure you have attended a Respect@UVA session – reaching every person in UVAFinance is directly in line with our core value to have Valued, High-Performing Teams. By the June 8^th session, we expect to have 100% participation! I appreciate your commitment to this goal. Next up in promoting a healthy and respectful workplace, this fall we will offer sessions on Multicultural Fluency – Patty Marbury, Les Haughton, and Ashley Feero are working with the John Alexander, Tabitha Enoch, Diane Ober, and the Center for Leadership Excellence to develop a session specifically for UVAFinance. More on that soon!

Recognize Colleagues: Don’t forget that you can nominate colleagues as Respectful Workplace Champions with an email to respect@virginia.edu. Organizational Excellence’s Spotlight on Excellence is another great opportunity to recognize your colleagues – both individuals and teams can be nominated for this recognition.

Spring Fling / Organizational Excellence Showcase: What a great turn-out for the Spring Fling and OE Showcase last week! Stacey Rittenhouse, Lynne Schwar, Mike Hayton, Lisa Shuler, Mike Beverage, Travis Spence, Chris Brazelton, and Chris Swenson all helped to turn the outdoor fling into an indoor event. Thanks to UVA Catering Company for the excellenct food. It was also great to see the interest in the OE Showcase exhibitors – hopefully you learned something new about all the many improvement initiatives ongoing. If you didn’t get a chance to pick up a new post card featuring our vision, mission, and core values, I will be dropping off extras in each office.

Strategic Planning Committees: In the next blog, there will be an update on the work for the committees formed following our appreciative inquiry work this winter. I did want to pass along the names of the selected leader for each committee, as well as an email address to reach the group.

Committee	Lead/s	Email
Employee Engagement	Patty Marbury (FOC), Elizabeth Carey (HR)	finance_engagement@virginia.edu
Service Excellence	Julie Bird (MRP), Jennifer Bari (SFS)	uvafinance_sec@virginia.edu
Collaboration	Ana Lynch (VPF)	Aml8q@virginia.edu
Steering	Disha Venkatesan (VPF)	finance_steering@virginia.edu

Employee Connection: A quick reminder that if you ever have trouble scheduling a timely doctor’s appointment for you or a family member, you should contact the UVA Care Connection which provides access to expedited appointments for many services, plus scheduling through a single point of contact. UVA Care Connection strives to schedule primary care visits within 2 business days; specialty care visits within 5 business days; and radiology visits within 3 business days.

I will close with a link to a recent NBC29 feature on our PSDS vendor training, featuring John McHugh and Les Haughton. Check it out!

UVAFinance Vision: the valued and trusted financial partner that the University community turns to first.

Impeccable source of information * Service excellence * Innovative action * Collaborative partner * Valued, high-performing teams

FOC: Current Initiatives

Finance Outreach and Compliance is working on a variety of initiatives in the coming months, including supporting the update of various finance policies and procedures. We’re excited to partner with OSP to develop training materials to support new functionality in ResearchUVA and with Procurement on the expense management tool. We’ll also be exploring the possibility of offering a loaner device program for University personnel traveling internationally and adding new tools and information to the export controls website. Other objectives are developing a financial compliance monitoring plan for FY17, including documenting financial processes and associated key controls. We’re also looking to add a Communications Manager to our team to develop and implement communication plans supporting UVAFinance projects and initiatives.

MRP: Three New Team Members

Matt Douglas (right) is the first half of MRP’s Training Development team. As part of MRP’s Change Management team, Matt will design UBI training, deliver it to users, and support the UBI community across Grounds. He joined the UVA family after working at Liberty University Online, working as a training manager. Matt is something of a handyman, and enjoys building and fixing things in his basement workshop. While in college in California, Matt played in Ringo & The Tryhards—a regional “psychobilly” band. He and his wife Jen are expecting twins in October.

Linda Leshowitz (center) is the second half of MRP’s Training Development team. Like Matt, Linda will also design UBI training—and she will draw from nearly 20 years of experience working in education consulting for McKesson. Linda enjoys singing, listening to music, and dancing—and even performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City. She and her husband Tim live in Charlottesville with their three cats. Question to Linda: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Linda Leshowitz: “Practice.”

Brandon Wyckoff (left) is MRP’s newest ETL Developer. Brandon is new to UVA (and to Charlottesville), after spending his whole life in the Virginia Beach area. Brandon most-recently worked for PRA Group, gaining broad Informatica experience—which is very valuable to the MRP team. He and his wife Kelley have a daughter (9) and son (4). Brandon is an avid surfer, and on weekends he can be spotted hanging ten in the slop off the 1st Street Jetty in Virginia Beach.

Announcing University Business Intelligence

While the Managerial Reporting Project is conducting usability and acceptance testing ahead of the initial May reporting release, they are excited to reveal the name of the new reporting environment: UBI. UBI is a friendly, easy-to-remember moniker where “U” represents the University and “BI” stands for business intelligence.

Read more from Managerial Reporting.