Across UVA, FST project team members and our partners in
schools and units are diving into the Configuration & Prototype phase of Finance Transformation. As
deeply immersed as we are collectively in the building and refining stage of
UVA’s Workday Financials tenant, it may be hard to imagine that time in the
not-so-distant future (July 2022 to be exact) when the system goes live.
Within UVAFinance, the future state is very much on our
minds. Under the leadership of Bill
Ashby, AVP for Financial Strategy, the Finance Engagement team is already
making strides toward their vision of an exceptional customer service model to
complement Workday Financials. A large
piece of the future-state finance service model involves the incorporation of
Salesforce to manage customer interactions.
Team members Scott Adams and Andrew Sallans are taking the
lead on the implementation of Salesforce in UVAFinance. Salesforce was a natural fit for
UVAFinance’s complex nature and its desire to provide the best service
possible.
In the past and up to the present, service in finance had
been provided via email, and largely by individuals as opposed to teams. We have learned to rely on the institutional
knowledge of long-term employees (which is difficult in a large, complex, constantly-changing organization), and our customers have had to navigate the
clunky process of explaining the problem all over again when another department
is brought in to help. All in all, it’s
a manual and time-intensive process.
Salesforce alleviates those issues: when a question or issue is logged, all
finance team members have visibility into the problem, and can easily see the
whole story at a glance and join in as needed with helpful context. Within Salesforce, issues are less likely to
fall through the cracks, and the team will be able to provide answers more
quickly and comprehensively.
The data that can be collected and tracked via Salesforce will also
allow UVAFinance to identify opportunities to improve and identify trends that
would otherwise be hard to spot.
Adams and Sallans are working with central finance
departments to gradually roll out the use of Salesforce; the first department
to go live this November will be Travel & Expense. From the customer perspective, Adams says,
the changes will be barely detectable at first, but as we move forward, they
should start seeing better and more consistent service, along with faster and
more comprehensive answers.
Although Salesforce will enable finance departments to
provide the top-level of service they’ve been aiming for, Adams says the
technology isn’t the end-all, be-all.
“We aren’t here just to build the technology,” he says. “The technology allows for tracking,
reporting, and automation, but we’re also doing intensive process-building with
the departments we’re working with.”
Sallans notes that the T&E team has been an ideal pilot
for the implementation of Salesforce in UVAFinance.
“We’re building interfaces, layouts, and things that make
the processes repeatable, and the T&E team is excited to leverage the
tool. They didn’t know anything about
Salesforce when we began, but they’ve been inspired to pursue the potential of
the tool. We’re helping them improve
their processes and removing manual transactions so that they have more time to
provide actual customer service.”
The choice of Salesforce also means that UVAFinance will be
able to work more closely with UVAHR, which already utilizes Salesforce, to
provide a single view of those we serve at UVA, from all angles.
“It’s an opportunity for us to deliver a superlative vision
of service on the Operations side of the house at UVA,” says Adams, adding that
the Engagement team will remain a steady presence even after go-live to keep
driving change, asking questions, and providing the necessary support.
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Adams, Sallans, and Raegan Harouff (of T&E) will be guests on an upcoming Challenging the Status Quo panel series webinar -- read more on the blog!
Watch your inbox! The Finance Engagement Team will be are surveying stakeholders over the next month to get an understanding of current perceptions of UVAFinance service, to serve as a baseline for comparison as we make improvements.
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