Training Opportunities Available
Many training opportunities are available for those using the new PeopleSoft Financials system. Sessions are scheduled on the following topics:
- Submitting Requisitions (also covers ordering supplies with the new Complete Office Punchout)
- Approving Requisitions
- Purchasing Help (providing advice, answers to your questions, and individual tips)
See the Optimize Puget Sound Training page for the full schedule and description of these and other classes!
Orientation Week Highlights
It’s Orientation week, and as the Class of 2016 roamed the campus learning about their new home for the next four years, they had no idea what amazing and important activities were taking place in the depths of Howarth Hall!
First, there were training sessions on budget administration 1 and 2 and on purchasing requisitions and approvals. Janet Hallman, associate vice president for accounting and budget services, had kind words for Peter Ho of MIS who led the budget training, saying, “We couldn’t have done it without him.”
The Financials team plans to offer monthly opportunities for budget administration training, and Procurement Director Ed Barber will schedule purchasing classes each week over the next few months. Contact optimizetraining@pugetsound.edu for more information on training.
The Human Resources team was also busy reviewing Fit-Gap documents, while the Campus Solutions team continued with their design work. And the Project Management Office finalized a contract with Integral Business Solutions to implement Oracle Identity Management, a platform to “effectively manage the end-to-end life cycle of user identities.”
The management of user identities, which includes roles and permissions, is key to the successful implementation of an enterprise resource planning system like PeopleSoft. Oracle Identity Management will replace similar functionality in Cascade but will also extend capabilities, allowing the audit of permissions across multiple systems to further ensure synchronization and security. It may not be glamorous, but implementing strong identity management is the kind of behind-the-scenes work needed to keep the whole system running smoothly!
A Busy Week in the Heat
As temperatures soared outside, the Optimize computer lab in Howarth 005 was literally the cool place to be this week. The technical team led by Stephen Phillips from MIS spent several days there in PeopleTools 2 training, gaining advanced knowledge on the creation of data conversions, interfaces, and add-ons. With this background, the team can now create views, write complex business logic, and add images and graphs.
The Human Resources team has been fully engaged in the Fit-Gap review process, starting with the HR section. Next they’ll cover Benefit and Payroll with a planned final review and sign-off by the end of next week. Time and Labor discovery is complete, and the review process for that will begin next week.
With the assistance of the Data Standards Committee, the Campus Solutions and HR teams have been reviewing common values and making decisions for standardization of values shared across the databases (examples include name type, address type, name prefixes, etc.). This will provide consistency for both data entry and reporting. Once these values are established, the technical team can finalize the specifications and requirements for conversion of person biographic and demographic (bio-demo) data.
Still basking in the glow of last week’s celebration, the Financials team had a four-hour internal training session on General Ledger reporting tools led remotely by Suresh Pandurangam from MIS.
Step-by-step handouts from this week’s purchasing training on submitting and approving requisitions are available on PSHelp or the Optimize Training Handouts page. Additionally, PSHelp now has purchasing videos and job aids!
A Time to Celebrate!
Jody Putman signs the Optimize wall.
Meanwhile, the Human Resources team participated in some final discovery sessions on core HR functionality, time and labor, benefits, and payroll. They are looking forward to their first Fit-Gap sessions next week.
Training on purchasing and budget administration continued this week as well. We greatly appreciate the good feedback we’ve gotten from participants in training sessions. Such comments and suggestions are very helpful as we plan and conduct future sessions.
The Financials celebration this week marked a significant milestone in this important project. We happily anticipate more celebrations as the Human Resources and Campus Solutions teams move forward with their work!
Optimize: In Full Swing
Financials presented another round of training to the campus community this week. Procurement Director Ed Barber taught classes on submitting and approving requisitions to staff members from across campus. Ed highlighted the university’s new policies around purchasing and approvals, showing classes common tasks, such as adding routinely ordered items to favorites lists and requesting new vendors.
Still need training? Classes are available for Budget Administration 2 training next week! If you participated in Budget Administration 1 and want to dive deeper into budget inquiry and learn about processing non-PO disbursements, please register for Budget Administration 2. There are other opportunities to take Budget Administration 1 and 2, Submitting Requisitions, and Approving Requisitions classes in August for anyone that was unable to attend July’s sessions. You may review the entire class schedule on the Optimize Training page and sign up today!
Then the Human Resources team is in the midst of numerous Discovery sessions regarding benefits and payroll. The team looks forward to even more sessions next week, as MIS consultants will be on campus to incorporate several design discussions into the discovery phase.
The Campus Solutions team is incredibly busy in one-on-one sessions with MIS consultants who are teaching staff members how to enter data into PeopleSoft. The team will go live with demographic data first, and each day the team gets one step closer to that goal. This data is the foundation for the way the university operates and will be shared between the Human Resources and Financial systems. Behind the scenes, the team is also building its calendar of “firsts” (the first time registration will happen in PeopleSoft, the first time financial aid will be incorporated into PeopleSoft, etc.), which helps ensure that all operational tasks get done on time in both the old and new systems.
PeopleSoft Financials Training Update
Budget Administration 1 training was a success this week, led by professional instructor Peter Ho from MIS. Staff and faculty members said they enjoyed the hands-on experience and illustrative handouts. This was the first time that many of the participants signed into PeopleSoft and began looking up new department and account codes using the crosswalk created especially for the university by the Optimize project team. After mapping old account codes to new ones, the classes practiced searching for budget information and saving it to their PeopleSoft profiles so that they can easily refer to it later. The project team encourages people that participated in Budget Administration 1 to sign up for Budget Administration 2, which will expand on the budget inquiry feature and talk about processing non-PO disbursement requests.
You may register for classes by visiting the Optimize training page. If you are unable to attend training, help videos are available through PS Help on PeopleSoft navigation, budget administration, and using the crosswalk tool. You may watch step-by-step instructions, try the process out yourself, and print a hard copy of the instructions to keep as a reference. The help videos are a great resource if you haven’t yet gone through training or if you need to refresh your classroom lessons.
Remember that classroom training is offered for: Budget Administration 1, Budget Administration 2, Submitting Requisitions, and Approving Requisitions. Register today!
Financials: Going Live on Monday
This was a milestone week for Financials, Campus Solutions, and Human Resources! As the team leading the implementation process, Financials spent the week testing and training in preparation for go-live on Monday, July 2. Meanwhile Campus Solutions signed off on its Fit-Gap document, outlining each department’s operational requirements for the new system, and Human Resources kicked off its Discovery sessions to begin documenting operational requirements. Training sessions with the General Ledger and Accounts Payable teams went well, with team leaders guiding their staffs through PeopleSoft, and the purchasing department taught requesters and approvers—in seven departments!—how to order goods in the new system. But the accomplishment everyone is most excited about was getting checks to print correctly! (Woo hoo!)
The PeopleSoft Help system is now accessible with basic PeopleSoft navigation instruction videos. Budget administration and purchasing resources will be available shortly. Remember to check the Optimize Training page for updates on in-person and online training. Additionally all weekly campus communications about Optimize Puget Sound system changes and training opportunities are available on the Optimize communications page for your reference.
As the university transitions to PeopleSoft, please refer all questions or comments about system access and functionality to the Service Desk at 253.879.8585 or servicedesk@pugetsound.edu. It is important to document all the questions during the coming months. The Service Desk will then route your question to the appropriate party. Thank you for your patience and excitement as the university launches PeopleSoft Financials!
Preparing for Financials Go-Live
In addition to participating in all-day work sessions to prepare for go-live on July 2, this week the Financials leads provided an introductory training session on PeopleSoft for members of the Accounting and Budget Services (ABS) team. The ABS group was excited to log in to PeopleSoft, navigate through screens, enter journals, and process inquiries. In another session the leads demonstrated the grant process for the staff of the Associate Deans’ Office, and everyone was happy to see how the new system will support grant tracking. Grant tracking’s functionality will continue to be enhanced over the coming months. In two years, the options will be phenomenal.
Campus Solutions celebrated the completion of their Fit-Gap review sessions with cake and cookies! The Fit-Gap highlights how operations will be configured in the new system, and now they can begin the design phase!
To learn about upcoming training sessions and preregister, visit our Optimize Puget Sound Training page. Please check the website often as current session offerings will be updated regularly.
Gaining Momentum
The Optimize project gains momentum through the combined efforts of Puget Sound and MIS! On the Financials side, technical and functional teams are busy organizing the system to ensure that processes run smoothly. Members of Accounting and Budget Services were pleased to learn how to query in PeopleSoft, moving them into a new world of reporting. Instead of using many systems to generate reports, the team will now be able to utilize one system for reporting. The team also experienced a breakthrough with the Approval Framework structure streamlining the approval process for the purchasing of goods.
Campus Solutions had an exciting week as the team assembled to approve the Fit-Gap document. The Fit-Gap document summarizes each department’s operational requirements and how the new system will handle those requirements.
Additionally, Human Resources is preparing for Discovery sessions to begin June 25.
Technology Services’ Optimize Puget Sound page now includes a calendar for upcoming training sessions. Budget administrators and staff members with purchasing authority should take note and see when upcoming opportunities for training will occur. Stay tuned next week for more information about Financials progress.
Going Page by Page
Financials made significant progress in three areas last week. First MIS consultants were on site to demonstrate the system’s configuration page by page! The newest team member from MIS, Mike Staton, spoke highly of the week’s advancement: “Going page by page allows the functional leads to see how something works. Then, through discussion, we are able to validate the setup or refine it to ensure that the configuration meets the requirements.” During this process, MIS consultants led the team through the navigation steps. On their laptops, team members used the User Productivity Kit (UPK) to record each click, creating a reference for future use.
Second the Wells Fargo Payment Manager implementation kicked off, and within three days, the team reviewed the associated documents and began development. (That’s really fast!)
Third Mike Staton gave the first hands-on demonstration of PeopleSoft’s Approval Framework, clearly outlining options that were not evident before. Configuration can now move forward.