Tuesday, March 8, 2022

User Experience Reviews are Underway


User Experience Review (UER) is the final testing cycle of specifically selected scenarios in Workday Finance. This testing provides system exposure and enables the FST team to gather valuable feedback and data to inform training development.

Sessions began last week and so far, users are learning more about specific functions of Workday and how they can use the systems in their offices while also providing feedback to the FST team on user roles and process.

UER sessions are specific to processes such as creating and updating gifts, account certification, creating accounting journals and adjustments, and more. In each session, users view a demonstration of the processes, confirm their access to the system, practice in the system, ask questions, and then complete scenarios and document feedback and concerns. 

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. 

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Using UVAFinance LinkedIn


We hope you have joined UVAFinance on LinkedIn! If you haven't, please access the site here and make sure to click "follow." We are sharing everything from new team members to Salesforce tips to open positions. 

Our goal is to broaden our reach and appeal to job seekers and also communicate even more with our stakeholders and colleagues across Grounds. We'll be sharing tips on using our LinkedIn page to help you achieve outreach goals in your specific areas.

Here are two ways you can help increase our network (and yours, too!):

1. From your LinkedIn account, click "create new post" and share this link: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uvafinance1. 
Add a short narrative, "Please follow UVAFinance to get the latest on our support for the University, our Finance Strategic Transformation project, and how we are growing our team."


2. When you see a #UVAFinance post that interests you, such as the announcement of a new team member, share it with your network. Under the post, click "share" and add a short bit of text such as, "We are thrilled to have Jane on our team. Learn more about her experience and how she's helping shape . . . "

Thank you for engaging with us on this platform. We look forward to learning more about how we can use the tool to help all of you in the work you do.



Monday, March 7, 2022

Reporting & Analytics: Personas

At the March Fiscal Administrators Meeting, Mark Anderson's update on the FST Project's Reporting & Analytics Team was all about personas. Mark Anderson informed Fiscal Administrators that UVA's Associate Vice President for Financial Strategy, Bill Ashby, tasked the R&A Team with figuring out what experience they wanted to provide for enterprise reporting & analytics end-users.

The first step toward completing this task was to form a Persona Working Group composed of representatives from HCM People Analytics, ITS, schools and units across the University, and UVAFinance. The group organized reporting & analytics end-users into four different personas:

  • Fiscal Administrator - Bob
  • Business Officer/Chief Administrator - Jane
  • Department or Unit Director - Tim
  • Grants/Research Administrator - Susan

The group gave each persona a name to avoid focusing on job titles. There are many responsibilities end-users have based on the individual needs of their school or unit that don't necessarily fit the general responsibilities of a specific job title.

For each persona, the team thought about the following questions:

  • Who are they?
  • With whom do they interact?
  • What are their knowledge and skills?
  • What are their regular tasks?
  • What are their data and information needs?
  • What are their modes of operation (e.g. a manager responsible for a team)?

Asking these questions allowed the group to have a better understanding of end-user needs, as well as future actions that will help meet those needs. One of the ways the R&A Team is working to meet those needs is via a reporting & analytics dashboard. This dashboard will be a landing page for Fiscal Administrators and employees in Operational Support Roles to access tasks, reports, and other resources needed to perform daily work.

You can view a demo of a prototype version of the dashboard here.

Change Readiness Assessment #4 Results

The end of February brought the end of the FST Project’s fourth Change Readiness Assessment. This round of assessment included the use of a Readiness Dashboard and Focus Groups.

Through these activities, the Project’s Change Management Team gathered information from units regarding overall thoughts on Workday Finance’s implementation and stakeholders' current level of readiness as we get closer to go-live. Knowledge like this informs the Project Team’s approach to communication, change management, and training.


The Readiness Dashboard


Personalized Readiness Dashboards were shared with Advisory Group Change Leaders in early February. At the February governance meeting leaders were given instructions and time to update their Dashboard.


Results


100% of units completed their Dashboards by the end of that week, a tremendous help to the Project Team as it indicates areas of concern and informs future action plans for those areas. Moving forward, the Change Management Team will work with Advisory Group Change Leaders to implement recommended action plans. Also, Dashboards will be updated monthly at governance meetings.


Focus Groups


There were four Focus Groups held over two weeks in February. Anonymous polls and open discussions were used to gather feedback regarding participants' overall impressions of Workday Finance. Participants also provided suggestions for greater engagement and informed strategies for training and post-go-live support.


Results


70 staff members representing end-users from each unit across the University participated in these groups. All participants have had little involvement with the project until now. The results showed positive progress toward end-user knowledge and their ability to support and implement transformation:


  • 95% of participants indicated they were familiar with the FST project.
  • 87% correctly identified July 1, 2022, as the go-live date, indicating they were well-aware of major project details.
  • It was evident that participants were eager to both learn more and to experience the system for themselves.

Overall


Four key themes emerged from this Readiness Assessment: end-users have awareness, need consistent and clear communication and engagement, need training, and need post-go-live support. With this in mind, the Change Management Team will take the following actions to help stakeholders feel even more prepared for go-live:



For more information on the Change Readiness Assessment results, check out the Fiscal Administrator resources here.

Puthy Kun Joins PSDS

Puthy with his niece
Say “hello” to Puthy Kun who recently joined UVAFinance’s Procurement and Supplier Diversity Services department.

Kun is enthusiastic about both the work he’s done so far with PSDS and about the team itself. “The people I work with are all super friendly and willing to explain things to me,” he said. “I also, really enjoy the opportunity to communicate with vendors and University stakeholders.”

In addition to working with vendors and stakeholders, Kun will also process Purchase Orders, review contracts, and help with other projects as needed. “We have new projects daily,” he explained. “And that is ideal for me.”

New to UVA, Kun recently graduated from Brandeis University with a Master’s in Finance. He has experience in Procurement and Finance, and this past summer, he interned as a Procurement Analyst at Tufts Health Plan.

Outside of work, one can often find Kun hiking with his dogs. When he's not exploring the outdoors, Kun likes to stay in and listen to music.

Thursday, March 3, 2022

Security Role-to-Position Mapping: Guiding Principles

As you read this, the Security Role Mapping Sprint (Workflow Control & Approvals) has very nearly reached its goal of mapping Oracle roles to Workday Finance roles by March 11.  The roles identified by mappers across UVA will be used to inform training and can be edited up until and after go-live.  

As a part of the sprint, mappers meet at least twice a week and sometimes more, making sure proper controls are in place (including separation of duties) and that new business processes are followed.

The mappers have focused on the highest-volume business processes as they map, such as expensing, requisitioning, invoices, payroll adjustments, account certification, accounting journal events, internal service delivery, banking, settlement, and payments, and sponsored research business processes. 

You can see previous meetings, materials, presentations, and FAQs in the Online Community.  If you have questions upon reviewing the resources, reach out to your area's representative.



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________________________________________________________________________________

Read more about Security Role Mapping 

Read more about how this sprint affects role-based training

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Training Update: People, Process, and Technology

There's a light at the end of the FST
Tunnel . . . and it's TRAINING!

Contributed by Patty Marbury

 Everyone wants to know:  what will Workday Financials training look like? 

Training isn't just about the technology.  It's not simply a matter of what buttons you push, but rather about who is doing the work, what the business process around the work is, and what the bigger picture looks like.  Early on in our considerations about Workday Financials training, the Training Team wanted to make sure that our stakeholders understood the big picture because we understand it can be confusing to learn how to do something in a system if you don't understand when you do that action and why you do it.

To capture that experience, we focus our training on people, process, and of course, the technology:

  • People:  We'll provide an overview of how roles and responsibilities will change as a part of Finance Strategic Transformation.  The content will focus on key operational changes and explaining new ways of working.
  • Process:  We'll introduce standardized and simplified processes focusing on efficiency, effectiveness, and compliance.  The content will focus on business-critical processes that end-users need to know how to perform on day one of go-live. 
  • Technology:  We'll demonstrate workday and provide self-service instructions to enable end-users to complete transactions within Workday and other systems.

Training will be role-based in alignment with business requirements and operational needs (this is why the Security Role Mapping that's been in process for several weeks now is so important).  

  • Instructor-Led Training: Facilitated in Zoom with hands-on practice in the training tenant (Some-person sessions will be offered by request)
  • Web-based Training: self-paced learning modules  you can do anytime
  • Quick Reference Guides (QRG):  Short process-specific guides with steps to complete a task in Workday
  • Demos: short video sessions detailing how a task is executed in Workday
  • Office Hours:  Live working sessions with a trainer where you will be able to get questions answered.

Training will be available starting in May and will continue post-go-live (click here to read more about the kind of support you can expect from UVAFinance post-go-live; I think you'll be reassured that we'll be ready to assist in a variety of ways!).

You can expect to hear a lot more about training in the coming months.  The Training Team is just as ready as you are to dive in.  Thank you for your interest in training and your eagerness to learn something new.  We look forward to working with you!




Wellness Resources: March 10, 2022

 


Upcoming classes

What it Means to Matter
Mar 10, 12 PM and Mar 23, 3:30 PM
Presented by FEAP

The Impact of Taxes, Now and Later
Mar 8, 11 AM or 2 PM
Presented by TIAA

Organize, Plan and Own Your Future: Making Financial Health a Priority for Women
Mar 9, 10 AM or 6 PM
Presented by Fidelity

Saving for Education with Invest529
Mar 23, 11 AM or 7 PM
Presented by VA 529

Virtual Offerings (ongoing)

Hoos Well Virtual Resources
Suite of virtual resources to help you remain physically & emotionally well during the extraordinary challenges.

IM-Rec Virtual Recreation
Range of quality programs, services & venues that support all dimensions of wellness through sport, fitness & recreation. (Also, in-person classes now.)

FEAP Virtual Resources
Collection of resources to support mental & emotional wellness.

WW (formerly Weight Watchers)
Digital subscriptions and virtual workshops are available at a discounted price. You may also be eligible for 50% reimbursement.

eM Life
Online mindfulness platform to promote health, happiness, stress management and self-care.

UVA Walking Paths
(not virtual)

Interactive walking paths throughout the university. Use the interactive map on your smartphone or print a PDF.

Upcoming Training from Records Management: Learn how to automate retention

Not these kind of records :)
Date:  March 22 at 1pm
Microsoft 265:  Automating Retention

Learn how to automate the management of University records by applying retention labels in Outlook, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams. We'll briefly review the functionality of each application then move into a live demonstration. Bring your questions! There will be opportunities to ask about tips and tricks for using these products to effectively manage records.

Thursday, February 24, 2022

FST Update: February 24, 2022

 


No time to read all the text?  Check out Five things to Know about FST

Security Role Mapping (Workflow Control & Approvals)

The Security Role mapping sprint is working toward a March 11 deadline to submit a draft of the workday security role assignments in their respective schools and units.  The group often meets up to three times per week to compare current oracle processes and roles to map them to the processes and roles we’ll use in Workday.  Security role mapping, or Workflow Control and approvals as you may sometimes hear it referred to, is all about getting the right people in the right roles so that when it comes time for training, we’ll know exactly who needs which role-based training.

Get the full story on the blog.

Training

The specific roles you’ll play within Workday Financials will determine what courses you will complete as we approach July 1, 2022, and it’s the training team’s goal to make sure you’re able to perform your work upon go-live.  They will offer self-paced, online training that folks can take at their own convenience, as well as instructor-led training offered virtually and supplemented with in-person as needed.  We’re also working on Quick Reference Guides,  and the training team will also hold office hours after go-live to address your questions.  

Read more about training and post-go-live support.

User Experience Review is kicking off!

Over 300 folks from across Grounds will jump into the pool to review the Workday tenant as it is now.  With end-to-end testing wrapped, these users will be taking the system for a spin and using the training team's QRGs (Quick Reference Guides) to complete tasks in the system.  We appreciate their assistance!

Read more about UER

FDM Mapping Work continues

Schools and units are firming up their FDM, because March 17 begins the FDM frost, the last day they can request new worktags. Getting the FDM mapping as refined as possible now will mean fewer manual efforts post-go-live.

Get the details on the blog.

GL Mapping

We're expecting further clarity on GL Balance conversion soon.  The team is working to refine the mapping rules and testing the conversion of expendable fund balances, with a goal of having a plan for schools and units to review by mid-March.

Read more about expendable fund balances

Adaptive Planning

The Adaptive Team and its intrepid band of end-to-end testers is still working out the kinks of the version of Adaptive Planning, our budget software, that will integrate with Workday Financials on go live.  They’ll be moving to User Experience Review themselves, soon. 

Get the full story on the blog.

Cutover (turning Oracle off and Workday Financials ON!)

We’ll also be sharing more details very soon on cutover – which is the turning off of the old system and turning on of the new one.  Cutover Lead Madhu Iyer has been planning for cutover since his arrival last year.  He is working with the FST team and our stakeholders to have some more concrete dates and plans as we move through spring.

More details on the blog.




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Five Things to Know about FST: February 24, 2022



1.  Security Role Mapping efforts are working toward a March 11 date to have most current Oracle roles mapped to Workday Finance Roles.  These are the roles that will be used to sort users into role-based training this May.  Want to read more?  Check out this blog post.

2.  Training will roll out this May in a variety of modalities, and as mentioned above, will be role-based.    Interested in the details?  Read more on the blog.

3.  Support in the future state: We're also planning in-system support, office hours, and help desk support for after go-live.  The aim is that you're able to do your job in Workday Financials at go-live!  Read more about plans on the blog.

4.  Testing of Workday Financials and Adaptive Planning continues.  With end-to-end testing wrapping up, user experience review is kicking off for Workday Financials.  Adaptive Planning continues testing and looks toward user experience review in March.  Read more about Workday UER; Read more about Adaptive testing.

5.  More details about GL balance conversion and cutover (switching Oracle OFF and Workday Financials ON) are coming soon!  You can read more if you like about GL balances and cutover on the blog, and we encourage you to watch the blog for more information as we draw nearer to go-live on July 1, 2022.


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Notes from your friendly neighborhood LSP: Softphone Rollout

UVAFinance is transitioning from physical desk phones to virtual phones, otherwise known as Webex softphones. This will allow you to answer your UVA work phone number using your laptop from any location you are working.

All physical phones are being removed. If you believe you have a business need for a physical phone, please contact vpf-support@virginia.edu. We will work with your supervisor to determine the best solution.

Please see the Using the UVA Softphone (Cisco Webex) App section on the ITS page https://in.virginia.edu/softphonefor helpful resources and instructions.

If you already have the Webex app on your cell phone you may continue to use it in addition to the desktop version being rolled out.

The Webex softphone rollout will occur by department over the next month. We will enroll all staff members into the new program and then provide further technical instructions on the steps required to complete the transition.

If you have questions, please reach out to us at vpf-support@virginia.edu.

UVAFinance: Make plans to attend the Spring Fling!

We’re having a fling! No, not that kind of fling. 

The UVAFinance Spring Fling will be held on April 27, 2022. The biennial, in-person event is an opportunity to gather with our colleagues to share news and celebrate our accomplishments. 

The schedule for the day will be shared closer to the event, but plan on meetings throughout the day and a lunch social with maybe a surprise or two. As plans are finalized, information will be shared through the Outlook calendar invitation you already have and through the blog digest. 

Need hotel accommodations? The Travel Contracts page lists local hotels that provide discounts. When booking, make sure to indicate you are booking under the UVA contract to obtain the discount.

Reporting & Analytics: An Update from Team Lead, Mark Anderson

Contributed by Mark Anderson

The Reporting & Analytics workstream has been working hard to get necessary reporting functionalities ready for go-live. 

On the Workday front, we have developed well over 200 custom reports. We will address another 75 reporting user stories before July 1st. These numbers will continue to fluctuate as we get feedback from E2E and UER testing.

 

Over the past few months, we have been sharing reports and getting feedback from a small group of users from schools and units. As a result of this group’s engagement, we recently communicated that we would augment Workday’s native reporting with a number of UBI applications/reports. This decision was made after carefully considering users’ need for more flexibility and self-service customization of reports than we can support in Workday itself. By utilizing a suite of solutions leveraging Workday, Adaptive, and UBI, different reporting capabilities will provide various tools for you depending on your needs. 

 

Here’s a brief look at reporting capabilities for each system: 

 

Workday


When users manage business processes in Workday, it will make sense to utilize the reports within that system. The Workday reports are often integrated into those business processes and allow users to “drill-through” into the associated transaction and supporting details.

 

Adaptive


For managerial reporting like budget-to-actuals variance and trending over time, Adaptive might be your tool of choice. We can build summarized views of our budgets and actuals with powerful drilling options. Analytics requiring slicing and dicing the data by the various FDM worktag combinations, UBI will provide you the most flexibility. The first UBI app for analyzing Journal Lines is in development now.

 

UBI


For analytics requiring slicing and dicing the data by the various FDM worktag combinations, UBI will provide you the most flexibility. The first UBI app for analyzing Journal Lines is in development now. Today, most finance users are familiar with UBI Reporting (aka Qlikview); our future UBI finance tools will use UBI Analytics (aka Qlik Sense). The underlying functionality is very similar; however, with UBI Analytics creating and sharing My Sheets is much easier once you get the hang of it. If you want to get a taste of UBI Analytics and FDM, take a look at the UVAFST FDM Mapping Tool located on the UBI User Hub. UBI Analytics training is available in the Workday Learning Center as well.

 

Our data warehouse team is busy developing and testing their Workday extracts that are going into the enterprise data warehouse (EDW). EDW will serve as the central delivery point to provide data for UBI and data warehouses in the School of Medicine, Facilities, the Law School, and others across the enterprise.

 

With all these tools available, you may be wondering how you’ll find what you need. We have a small group of users providing input and partnering with the HCM People Analytics Team to prototype a Fiscal Administrator dashboard for reports/charts, actions/tasks, and links to commonly used reports as well as informational resources outside of Workday. This will serve as a landing page in Workday to bring most things you need into a single location. We’ll have more to share on this soon, and if the approach works, we can build the same for other user populations.

 

Also, don’t forget about the newly launched UVA Business Terms. This is our new business glossary where you can find (and request) definitions for all the new Workday finance terms you’ve been hearing.

 

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

The DMV is coming to Carruthers Hall this March


UVA Travel Services is bringing DMV Connect onsite at Carruthers Hall March 28-30 with a wide variety of services including: 

  • REAL ID
  • Drivers' licenses
  • ID Cards (adult and child)
  • Disabled parking placards
  • vehicle titles
  • address changes
  • vehicle registrations
  • compliance summaries
  • transcripts
  • hunting and fishing licenses

Schedule your appointment with DMV Connect here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090F4EACA92BA4FC1-dmvreal1