March 12th, 2024  | 162nd Edition

Oracle Financials Maintenance Scheduled 03/15/2024

Oracle production environment will be down for scheduled maintenance from 7:00 PM Friday 03/15/2024 through 7:00 PM Sunday 03/17/2024.

Oracle Foundations Course Now Live!

The first course in the Finance Training Program, Oracle Foundations, is now available in the UC Learning Center: https://go.ucsd.edu/4a3xkgQ!  
 
The course’s four learning modules, listed below, focus on core concepts and navigation within Oracle Financials Cloud and are available for all UC San Diego staff and faculty to complete.  
 
Welcome: OFC and reporting navigation basics 
General Ledger and Subledgers: How OFC is structured and information flow 
Chart of Accounts and Chartstrings: Basics of transacting in the General Ledger 
Intro to Project Portfolio Management (PPM): POET(AF) and project attributes 
 
The Finance Training Program aims to establish a foundation of knowledge, so those with finance-related responsibilities can achieve long-term success. More information about the Finance Training Program, including a roadmap of future courses, is available on the Budget & Finance Training Blink page.

Oracle Guided Learning is on a Roll! Updates and Next Steps

In February 2024, we successfully launched 62 guides in the OGL platform, meeting our goal! Our communication plan, which included weekly summaries, community of practice involvement, stakeholder meetings, and educational materials, has been well-received by both our team and external stakeholders. 

We've collected positive feedback on the usability of the OGL and promptly addressed any issues that inhibited the streamlined guide experience, like the autoload feature. For the next phase of our launch, we'll focus on implementing user-requested enhancements and testing. We aim to launch Phase 2 around June, coinciding with the end of the fiscal year. Stay tuned for updates!

Special Offer from Alaska Airlines to UC Employees

On March 1, Alaska Airlines launched a unique offering for UC travelers to earn double miles through December 1, 2024. Only tickets purchased via UC’s preferred agencies (Anthony Travel, Balboa Travel, BCD Travel, UCLA Travel) qualify for this promotion. This offer is being made to less than 1% of Alaska's entire business client base and UC is incredibly privileged to be part of the small trial group.

Find out more

Outstanding Card Charges Report

Do you know about the Outstanding Card Charges Report available through the Business Analytics Hub (BAH)?

Best practice: Run this report regularly to see any unreconciled credit card charges that have not yet posted to department chartstrings.

This report provides detailed information about unreconciled UCSD Credit Card transactions by age and workflow status.  Cards include the UCSD centrally billed “CTS Air/Hotel” cards, Procurement Card (P-card), and Travel and Entertainment (T&E) Card.  Also included are the P-Card and T&E TVC (Temporary Virtual Cards).

• After running the report, the results will yield several worksheet tabs:
  
  • Aged Transactions: This tab shows a list of credit card charges that are over 365 days past due of the transaction posting date.  The report excludes transactions that are applied to expense reports pending Central Office (IPPS) review.
  • Unassigned Card Charges: This tab lists credit card charges that have not yet been assigned to expense reports in Concur.
  • Charges by Cardholder: This tab lists outstanding credit card charges regardless of credit card posting date.
• Inactive Employees:  the report includes the “HR status” of employees, (i.e. active or inactive). If the results show outstanding card charges for inactive employees, ask a delegate to help reconcile those transactions as soon as possible.
  • If you need help adding a delegate for an inactive employee, submit a Services & Support ticket: support.ucsd.edu, Budget & Finance, select “Concur Navigation” under More Specifically.
  • Note that when a Concur profile is inactive, delegates have the ability to submit Travel Expense Reports.
• Tips:
  • Take advantage of any of the available filters to narrow the data down for faster results. For example, use a shorter date range, select a Home Department or Financial Units, etc.
  • When using the available filters, we highly recommend switching from the default “Starts with any of these keywords” to “Contains any of these keywords."
• Need Access to the BAH?
  • See this Blink page for guidance on how to request for the correct role to obtain access to the BAH.

Concur 2.0 Release Date Announced

Get ready for the April 8th release of Concur 2.0! The project team has published a Blink page to help prepare campus clients for launch. Visit Concur 2.0 for details on the complete list of enhancements set to go live on April 8th. Highlights include:

Intuitive Flow 

• A more intuitive workflow gives you the ability to group expenses, add allocations, and view allocations (Project or GL string) in one place. 

Less Data Entry 

• Only provide data that is needed (Project OR GL string – not both!).
• Categorize expenses one time (SAP Concur Expense Types + UCSD Expenditure Types work together!) 

More Data Transparency 

• The taxable status of expenses is visible on the expense entry screen. 
• Account codes are visible on all expenses.
• Verify allocations in a single window. 

Continue to reference Concur 2.0 on Blink for news and updates as we near the launch date.

Procurement Cardholders: Create a User Profile in US Bank's Access Online Portal & Sign Up For Real-Time Fraud Alerts

As US Bank continues to increase their efforts to catch fraudulent card transaction attempts, it is becoming more and more important every day to have access to your card profile information and real-time fraud alerts.

If you are a Procurement Cardholder you can create a profile in Access Online in order to review your Procurement card profile, including contact information and limit information.  You can also sign up to receive real-time fraud alerts, if US Bank ever identifies any transactions on your Procurement Card as suspicious. It's quick, and it's easy!

• Simply navigate to Access Online
• Click on "Register Online"
• Enter UCSD as the Organization Short Name, followed by your 16-digit card number and expiration date.
• Click "Send a Code" and an email will be sent to the UCSD email address on file with your Procurement Card, in order to complete the registration process.
• After completing registration, you can sign your account up for real-time fraud alerts by doing the following:
  • To Enroll, go to My Personal Information > Account Alerts > Fraud Alerts
  • Confirm your contact information, select how you would like to receive your alerts (text/email), accept the terms and conditions, and click Submit.

For more information about US Bank Access Online, please review our Blink page.

Discontinuation of Direct Retro Processing Automation Tool (DrPat)

The Direct Retro Processing Automation Tool (DrPat) has been discontinued due to incompatibility with the new Salary Cost Transfer (SCT) Tool. Users can continue to submit their Direct Retros and SCTs directly into UCPath. While DrPat is no longer being used, staff in Health Sciences can submit Hypercare Transactional Request tickets through ServiceNow for assistance with submitting Direct Retros and Salary Cost Transfers, while staff in Academic Affairs can reach out to their respective Fiscal Tiger Team contact.

Report Enhancements

The following enhancements have been made to the dashboards listed below:

• Staff Workload Dashboard:
  • Count of Award Agencies has been added to indicate the complexity of fund manager portfolios.
• GL Project Balances & GL Fund Balances:
  
  • Checkbox prompts for maximum open and closed accounting periods have been added to enable users to schedule reports for automatic monthly delivery.
• Graduate Student Funding:
  • A page for payroll and tuition & fees projections has been added.
• Trend Analytics Dashboard:
  • Grand Total columns and Accounting Period Status prompt have been added.
• Fund Manager Reports (Project Management Dashboard, Faculty and Researcher Dashboard, and Expanded Project Summary):
  • Financial Resources Budget Category has been excluded from budget summary reports.  Amounts allocated to Financial Resources represent restricted amounts not authorized for spending, and inclusion of those amounts in the budgets painted an inaccurate picture of the amount available to spend. The Restricted Amount has been added to the top section of the Expanded Project Summary.
  • Projects classified as Diversity Initiative are now reported on Fiscal Year To Date basis rather thanInception to Date.
  • Payroll Detail tables now display UCSD derived effort rather than UCPath derived effort.  The DOPE Report continues to display both columns.
• Transaction Details:
  • A column for PO Description has been added to the GL table.
  • A column for Most Recent Accounting Period has been added to the PPM Full table. This value aligns with the Accounting Period shown on the Manage Project Costs screen.
  • The Account Type prompt (Managerial Account Hierarchy L3) has been changed to Account Category (Managerial Account Hierarchy L4). The Account Category separates Revenues into Internal and External, and separates Expenses into Compensation, Non-Compensation, and Transfers.
  • For Travel Commitments: Concur Traveler Name now appears in the Supplier column, and Concur Trip Name now appears in the Commitment Description column.
  • For Travel Costs: Concur Request ID now appears in the PO Number column.

New Monthly Scheduling Feature for Faculty and Researcher Dashboard & Project Management Dashboard

You can now have Cognos send PMD & FRD reports to your inbox on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Check out this KBA to get more information on how to schedule it.

Special thanks to everyone who submitted enhancement requests:

Chester Yao, Chelsea Van Pelt, Lindsay Root, Eir Fileccia, Misuk Morales Pineda, Anna Nordeen, Janice Wu, and Kathy Celestino.

EPBCS Support Office Hours Now Available Every Thursday 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM via Zoom 

Join us for weekly office hours if you have questions about budgeting in EPBCS. 

Zoom: https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/91798780724

The EPBCS system will close at 5:00 PM on Monday, April 1st, 2024.

Watch recorded office hours and more on our UC San Diego Budget & Finance YouTube channel.

ECERT Effort Reporting Office Hours
Every Wednesday @ 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Come get your questions answered, system access setups, or helpful hints on the effort report certification process. 

Fund Management Office Hours
Every Thursday @ 11:00am - 12:00pm 

This week's Office Hours will highlight the Finance Training Program, which was developed to build a foundation of understanding to enable those with budget and finance-related responsibilities to be successful. There will also be an overview of the first course in the program, Oracle Foundations.   

In next week's Office Hours (3/21), Han Van Etten from Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs will discuss how graduate student tuition and fees post to the financial ledgers and how to move tuition and fees retroactively.  Eva Thiveos will also demo the new payroll projections pages on the Graduate Student Funding Report.

IPPS Office Hours

IPPS holds weekly Office Hours to help with all of your questions related to Procurement, Accounts Payable, Travel and Entertainment, Procurement Card, and Tax & Account/Supplier Setup. This is our schedule:

• Procure-to-Pay, Travel & Entertainment, Tax & Accounting/Supplier Setup
  • Mondays, 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM, Wednesdays and Fridays 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

• Procurement Card
  • Wednesdays, 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

ICA 1:1 Sessions

Sign up for 1:1 zoom session with ICA team members

• Payroll Financial Management team 1:1 sessions have moved from UCPath to ICA.  
  Register here for help with Salary Cost Transfers, Direct Retros, Payroll Reconciliations, UCPath Funding Transactions, Composite Benefit Rates (CBR), General Liability (GAEL) & Vacation Leave Assessment (VLA). 
• General Ledger Financial Management team 
  Register here for help with General Ledger, Capital/ Fixed Assets, Detail Code setup, ITFs, Internal Controls, Oracle Role questions and more.

Reporting 1:1 Sessions

Sign up for a 1:1 Zoom session to meet with a member of the BI & Financial Reporting team who can answer your specific questions about financial reporting and dashboards/panoramas in the Business Analytics Hub (BAH).

Click to access the Event Calendar on Blink, which showcases a consolidated view of Office Hours, Instructor-Led Training sessions, and Hot Topics. Be sure to try out the different calendar views in the upper right corner!

The Support Framework: Your Guide to Finding Help

Learning all there is to know about budget & finance can feel daunting.

The Support Framework is designed to help the Budget & Finance community, including faculty or staff with financial responsibilities, identify their resources based on the following questions:

• What can I do on my own?
• Where can I get help?
• Who can help escalate?
• How do I suggest enhancements?

Bookmark or download a copy for quick links to various resources available to you.

Each Tuesday, the Weekly Digest provides important updates related to
Budget & Finance, including Oracle Financials Cloud and Concur Travel & Expense.
Our goal is to deliver timely information that matters to you.

Not sure where to find answers? Get started using our Support Framework.

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