Curious about what's happening in the second round of Customer Confirmation Sessions (CCS 2)?
CCS 2 started last week and will continue until June 17th, ending with the session on Banking & Settlements. All pre-read materials and session slides will be added to the Community as they become available. You can access all resources here.
If you have trouble accessing the content in the Community, please contact Brand Van Ormer (bv8h) for assistance.
Currently, most of these types of revenue would be entered into the system through a GL journal entry. In Workday, an Ad Hoc Bank Transaction (AHBT) will automatically be initiated when a deposit hits the bank account. The AHBT routes to the Cost Center’s Deposit Specialist (in their Workday inbox) for them to enter the Foundation Data Model (FDM) values for the revenue prior to submitting the transaction.
Note: Central AR and OSP deposits will be handled differently.
These types of transaction are a cross-functional activity being discussed between the Banking & Settlement, Customer Accounts, and Financial Accounting teams.
Currently, Accounts Receivable (AR) is used to invoice customers outside of the University when a department provides a good or service externally. In Workday, the same will be true. This process is part of the Customer Accounts functional area, which encompasses customer creation, invoicing, and managing customer contracts.
Currently, these types of revenue are booked by central accounting/gift processing in either a DR, DI, or DU award type for gifts and ER, EI, or EU award type for endowments. In future state, gifts will still be booked by central accounting/gift processing. The team is still determining exactly how that will work, but all gifts and endowments will be booked to a gift worktag (GF) where you will be able to tell the difference between a gift and endowment in the gift worktag description. This is part of the Gift functional area.
Currently, all other revenue besides those listed above are entered via a GL journal. Some examples include tuition revenue and transfers. Similar to current state, Student Information System (SIS) tuition revenue will be recorded via integrated accounting journals from SIS. Revenue Transfers (89XX object codes) will be processed as accounting journals, which is part of the Financial Accounting functional area.
Currently, these types of payments can come in for many different reasons and don’t have a corresponding customer invoice. The team is still working on what this process will look like in future state, exploring potential use of the Cash Sale business process, which will allow for Central AR to specify the Revenue Category and any associated FDM values as provided by the receiving Cost Center.
Expenditure credits are not considered revenue (it is actually reducing an expense) and examples include vendor refunds, travel reimbursements, sundry reimbursements, or joint funding (see Policy FIN-050). In current state, you scan the check via a remote deposit scanner and complete an expenditure credit form for the Cashier’s Office to make the entry in Oracle. In Workday, we are envisioning this working very similarly to the aforementioned remote deposit entries, where an Ad Hoc Bank Transaction (created based on a remote deposited batch) will route to the Cost Center’s Deposit Specialist to choose the appropriate FDM worktags, including the Spend Category for the expense being reduced.
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| Zoie at her graduation with her sister |
Implementing PaymentWorks requires collaboration with a lot of different departments and units across the University. “With PaymentWorks,” Zoie explains. “We’re hoping to keep everyone’s best interest in mind. That’s part of what drew me to this position at UVA—in my previous position, the focus was a bit limited. Now I can think about how things will affect everyone at the University.”
Before coming to UVA, Zoie was working on minority business development, helping existing minority business owners and entrepreneurs. She enjoyed this but wanted to do something new and had heard good things about UVA. “Also, I wanted to do something more related to my interests and education. I’ve always been a numbers person and like to manage finances even in my personal life. In math, there is always a right answer, and I like that.”
So far, Zoie has had a positive experience at UVA. “Everyone at UVA has been so nice and welcoming,” she says. “Such team camaraderie is so great, and I’m excited to go to the office to really meet people.” In her previous roles, Zoie was often the first person there and had to navigate through information and responsibilities by herself. “This time, Korby in particular, didn’t give me too much to handle on the first day,” Zoie says. “It was the right amount of new information and all explanations used real-world examples. Being a trailblazer in your job can be great because it’s nice to make your own way, but sometimes it’s good to have a team to support you.”
Outside of work, now that it’s warmer, Zoie is playing a lot of golf. She’s still learning, but she loves it.
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| Young Zoie playing golf for the first time |
One thing that Zoie doesn’t enjoy: cheese. “I hate cheese!”
Zoie explains, laughing. “People are always very surprised about this. I don’t
eat cheese on pizza, and I don’t like mac & cheese, lasagna, etc.
Basically, I won’t eat anything with cheese on it.”
Would you like to get a look at some of the basic reporting functionality for Workday?
The FST team has you covered! They've prepared a short video that walks you through some future reports and basic reporting functionality in Workday.
Join Linda Leshowitz and Krisztina Kiss for this 12-minute demo on Workday Financials' reporting features and reports developed for Workday. Access the demo in the Online Community.
NOTE: If you have any trouble accessing content on the Community, let Brandi Van Ormer know and she'll be glad to address your issue ASAP!
Contributed by Patty Marbury
We've shared a few updates on training lately (see those listed below), and today's update is focused on how Workday Financials training will be delivered.
The training materials for Workday Financials will be developed by the training team using a blended learning approach. To develop the materials, the FST training team will use the change impacts noted from Customer Confirmation Sessions, Round 2, as well as the mapping they will have done from the business roles in Workday Financials to actual contacts within UVA who will be doing the work.
Here's a breakdown of the training modalities they're planning:
The FST trainers will facilitate training for you, the end-users. They'll share information, guide you through the materials, and answer your questions (or work with the functional and technical teams to get you the answers you need).
Of course, as the time draws nearer for training to be delivered, we'll share more details. For now, though, just know that our aim is to deliver seamless training that results in your being educated and knowledgeable, empowered and self-sufficient, and comfortable and confident!
As always, feel free to reach out to me if you have questions or thoughts regarding training.
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Read more about Workday Financials Training on the blog:
The FST Training Team prepares to deliver
Training Team is busy behind the scenes
The Guiding Principles of Training
Just because Student Financial Services is no longer a part of UVAFinance doesn't mean we don't still work together. Our SFS colleagues are a big part of UVAFinance's Continuous Improvement Committee.
This week, Sarah Doran of SFS highlights a Continuous Improvement Bright Spot for us. Sarah talked with Chris Doran and Dustin Ciraco about a recent improvement they helped make in SFS, and what continuous improvement means to them.
Sarah's questions are in bold.
You can read more great CI content in the Online Community, in our dedicated Continuous Improvement space.
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Chris and Dustin, thank you for joining me today to discuss the SFS Ocelot implementation. Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the work you’re doing, I’d first like to know, from each of you, when I say “continuous improvement”, what does that mean to you?
Dustin: To me it means not settling. We need to check processes at a regular time frame to make sure they’re still meeting our needs.
Chris: You have to have a growth mindset. Make a point to challenge what we think we know, make sure it works, needs of end-user.
Dustin: Yes, absolutely. The idea for this came out of some service issues we experienced last summer. Having a “failure” actually gave us the opportunity to see where we could improve.
Chris: Yes, there are clearly demonstrated needs that this project will address.
Could you please provide a brief description of the Ocelot product.
Chris: It is a human-guided AI product we will have available to students, parents, and others that is based on the IBM Watson technology. It provides 24/7 non-human support for customers of the SFS and ultimately others (UREG, Admission and Dining) to answer hundreds of basic questions that are related to those service areas.
For example, it will allow a student who’s trying to register at midnight but has a hold, to get an answer to how to solve their problem without having to wait to call our office the next day or to receive an answer by email. Ocelot also allows us to receive and answer questions in English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, and Vietnamese. More languages will be added in the future. There is also the ability to integrate with the Student Information System to provide student-specific answers. This piece will take a lot more time to flesh out. And we also could eventually use this to offer Live Chat. There are lots of options going forward.
What problem(s) are we trying to solve by implementing this?
Chris: To provide our users with the ability to answer simple questions without having to wait so long to talk to someone or to hear back from SFS. And in turn, this will allow our staff to focus our attention on the students who have more complicated needs that require more in-depth conversations.
Dustin: This is not really a problem, but this product will also allow us to track the types of questions that we get. We currently can’t track that, and this would allow us to do targeted outreach to our students about issues that seem to be misunderstood or confusing to them. And as a communications tool, this will allow for a more consistent response to questions from SFS as a whole. When humans answer questions, the responses can be inconsistent.
In your mind, what would be a successful outcome of this implementation?
Dustin: Seeing students and parents (and maybe even others around the university) actually use the chatbot and get answers would be a great success. It would mean our customers are being served, and our staff is not having to focus on the questions that the customers can answer for themselves.
As we move closer to the fall, we hope that this will really impact our ability to service our students without long wait times.
Chris: As I’ve been listening to your questions, an idea came up that I hadn’t thought of before, but a great outcome would be able to track the number of interactions on Chat, and then retroactively model what the wait times would have been if they had had to contact our office. This would allow us to assign a value to our service in real dollars, opportunity cost, public perception cost, and a human cost to our staff who have to answer questions over and over that students and families could get on their own. If our customers use it, we will see a difference.
Do you have a sense of how much time this will save our Contact Center?
Chris: We won’t know until we have data, but we will figure that out! But most importantly, it’s the parents’ and students’ savings that matter.
Dustin: Integrating with SIS will be where we would see the biggest savings, so we hope we can do that in the future.
Chris: Because all of the Enrollment areas are going to be using this, it could provide a little bit more of a seamless handoff between functional areas. One voice, tone, helpfulness. Also, the multiple language feature of this is a real game-changer and could be a way to call people in to interact with the university on their own terms. They can feel safe in asking questions that they may not be able to with a person who doesn’t speak their native language.
Dustin: I think that we’ll be surprised by the amount we can learn from our customers to know better what they need. Also, this could help other departments to gather information if they’re helping students without having to call our office.
Dustin: I really enjoy doing something new and exciting that may or not be a part of my normal work. It’s fun.
Chris: Having a pretty significant background in Contact Center management, I believe that any time that you can deflect service back on the customer, there’s satisfaction for the customer to find the information themselves, and they can do it when they need to, not just during our office hours. Allows us to think differently and provide assistance to our customers. I feel like that’s our job to do that work.
What recommendations would you have for others who see a need in their departments in “making the case” for improving a process and/or implementing new ideas within their department?
Chris: Support from the top always helps. If you see the need you should raise the question. “There’s got to be a better way!” Then review resources in-house or externally to make the case. Don’t be afraid to ask the question. Even if it costs money, that shouldn’t be a reason not to do it. UVA suffers a bit from people not wanting to get in trouble. This isn’t complaining. This is continuous improvement!
Dustin: Pack your patience. Sometimes these things take time, pounce when the time is right. Encourage your colleagues to think through these things too.
This June, UVAFinance welcomes a familiar face back to the University as Katie Walker takes up the role of Executive Director of Financial Planning & Analysis.
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| Walker and family |
Walker, who has spent the past few years at the University
of Colorado, Boulder, most recently as their Director of Budget Management,
previously worked with UVA’s School of Education & Human Development in a
variety of financial roles that culminated in her role as budget director.
In her new position, Walker emphasizes the importance of
collaborative problem-solving and transparency.
“My goal is to provide a consistent
connection between OFP&A and our partners across Grounds,” she says.
Walker says she’ll lean on the many relationships she has at
UVA, as well as her training and education, to hit the ground running from day
one. In addition to her wealth of experience, Walker brings a Master of
Teaching, a Doctor of Philosophy, and a ProSci certification in Change
Management.
She’ll have ample opportunity to put her change management training to use in the year leading up to go-live of Workday Financials. Walker acknowledges that she’s joining the finance team at a challenging moment in the change process.
“The Finance Transformation project is what some change
management professionals call ‘the groan zone,’” she says, noting that this is
the phase in the project where everyone is down in the weeds, working out
details and uncovering issues that haven’t been examined in a long time. This period of time is difficult, she notes,
but very worth it.
“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel! We wouldn’t be doing FST if the changes weren’t going to yield great results. It may be painful right now, but it’s much better than staying in a legacy system.”
Chart of Accounts (FDM)
We are very close to having a finalized FDM! Decision-makers in schools and units are working out their cost center structures for the Workday Financials Chart of Accounts, our FDM. Danielle Hancock on the training team has put together seven things to consider as you develop your cost centers – check it out here. If you’re looking for more updates on the FDM, we recommend checking out a prior blog piece on recommended worktag changes. An important thing to note when you take a look at these worktag changes is that “Program” as a worktag, is not going away; it is just not going to be a driver worktag.
Training Update
Patty Marbury lays out the timeline for our training between now and go-live of Workday financials in July of 2022, and then after go live. Read more here.
Customer Confirmation Sessions, Round 2
This June will see the next round of customer confirmation sessions. We have a shiny new second version of UVA’s tenant of Workday Financials that’s been modified based on our stakeholders’ feedback from the first round of Customer Confirmation sessions at the tail end of last year, and the team is eager to answer the questions folks had from those first sessions, to show off the new version of the tenant, and to have good discussions with folks on what needs to happen next as we move forward.
Reporting & Analytics Update
The Reporting & Analytics team is hard at work to make sure that on day one of Workday Financials at UVA, you have all the reports you need. You might be shocked to know how many required operational reports there are out there, that the Reporting and Analytics team has to ensure are ready on day one. Make your guess and then find the answer here.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can check out our latest round of answers to some of the most frequently asked questions from the deepening engagement sessions that were held by our Change Leaders after the first round of customer confirmation sessions. This week, we share info about UBI, expense receipts, and what’s going on so far with RECON@.
After the first round of Customer Confirmation sessions, Change Leaders from across Grounds hosted "sneak peek" sessions in their areas so that more people could get a glimpse of the first build of UVA's Workday Financials tenant.
The result was lots of great questions (244 to be exact). Many of those questions could be answered during the sneak peek sessions, but about 35% are still yet to be addressed. The Change Management Team is working on getting answers to those and on sharing answers to the most commonly-asked questions.
This week, we answer three more of these questions. Check out the first round of questions and answers from the last blog digest.
What will happen to UBI?
UBI will still be around! Even though Workday Financials will be your new main source for day-to-day financial reporting and transactions, UBI will still be used for student finance and records, as a repository for large volume data sets, etc. Read more on UBI's future use here and here.
Is RECON@ going away?
You've probably heard that the project team has been focused on building in real-time approvals on the front end, and reducing the need for detailed month-end reconciliations. In that sense, yes, we're trying to move away from RECON@. At the same time, we realize that RECON@ also functions for many as a reporting tool and a way to check in a month-end. We're also trying to provide the kind of reports and processes that will give people what they need for certification and monitoring transactions for compliance. So, in short, we're not looking into just getting rid of RECON@, but also at providing the back end internal controls that are needed.
What will it be like to work with receipts in Workday Expenses?
People had lots of questions about how Workday Expenses would function when it comes to receipts, compared to Chrome River. Here's the latest on the top questions asked about this:
1. We are **so close** to a finalized FDM! Schools and units are working out their cost center structures for the Workday Financials chart of accounts (the Foundation Data Model, or FDM). Here are 7 things to consider as you develop your cost centers.
2. Reporting & Analytics is working on 360 operational reports that will be needed on day one when Workday Financials goes live, and they're tackling them all! Read more about their strategy here.
3. There's a timeline in place for the delivery of Workday Financials Training. While delivery of training is set for around 60 days out from go-live, there are lots of steps taking place between now and then (and after, too!). Read more on the blog.
4. RECON@'s place in the future state is still being worked out -- we're trying to move toward real-time approvals on the front end, but we know we need a solution for RECON@'s use as a reporting tool and a month-end check. Read more about this and a few other FAQ's.
5. The second build of UVA's tenant of Workday Financials is ready for Customer Confirmation Sessions Round 2 this June. Read more about what's involved with a tenant build, and remember: go-live is July of 2022!
Check out her instructions in the Continuous Improvement space of the Online Community (she also kindly provided a video walkthrough). Remember, if you have any trouble accessing the Community, a quick email to bv8h@virginia.edu should get you sorted out!
Contributed by Jamie Wilson
As you may or may not know, Salesforce is UVAFinance’s newest superpower. Though each team or group might leverage the software differently, each enjoys the general benefits to daily work described below.
I use Salesforce primarily with the Admin Services Team for onboarding and offboarding FST team members and scheduling meetings.
Communication Consolidation – Tasks, workflows, and projects often involve cooperation among team members. Salesforce tracks – in a single location – internal and external communication regarding such work and notifies team members actually involved in a given effort when additional communication is sent. Users not involved in the effort, but who are on the team, can also see the communication and activity for a particular effort.
Customer Service – When work doesn’t fall through the crack and when our customers (in my case – other admins and FST team members) aren’t receiving multiple communications for the same information or having to reach out multiple times for information or transactions they need, everyone wins! Salesforce enables our team to provide high customer service because with it, we see what our customer needs, we take ownership of the request or need, and we minimize the time and effort required to get ‘er done!
