Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Training Update: Logging Business Processes
Contributed by Patty Marbury
The Training Team continues to prepare to deliver training in May of 2022. The team has been hard at work logging all of our business processes and associated tasks. For each business process or task, we indicate which type of training will be needed. This will serve as the foundation for developing the curriculum we provide for each area and business role.
Additionally, we are working on mapping security roles to business roles. This will allow us to ensure that all stakeholders complete the training required for the security role they will have in Workday. Later, we will work with leaders in schools and units to map security roles to individuals, so that everyone will know who needs to complete what training.
As always, please reach out if you have questions or concerns! We're happy to help.
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Read more about Workday Financials Training on the blog:
UVA sets records in bond sales (again!)
Two years ago, UVA made national news with the execution of three bond sales at historically low rates (see the story from UVAToday). This summer, they did it again, issuing $100,000,000 of tax-exempt thirty-year bonds and $300,000,000 of taxable thirty-year bonds at historically low rates, setting two records!
The tax-exempt bonds achieved the lowest yield-to-maturity ever for any such bond issuance, and the taxable bonds achieved the lowest credit spread ever for such bonds.
The Unviersity was positioned to take advantage of favorable market conditions for this sale after the three major rating agencies (Moody's, S&P, and Fitch) all reaffirmed UVA's triple-A bond ratings and overall stable outlook.
The bond proceeds will provide financing for projects under the multi-year capital plan, to purchase remaining membership interest with Novant Health in Northern Virginia, and much more.
Congratulations to the Finance team, especially UVA Treasury, for the work they do to build upon previous success in the markets and to strengthen UVA's financial position in the long term.
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Get a peek behind the scenes of the 2019 bond deal.
Learn more about Treasury, Risk Management, and Julie Richardson, UVA's Treasurer.
Monday, August 30, 2021
New Email Address for ExpenseUVA/ Chrome River Questions
As of August 3, expense@virginia.edu is the preferred email address for users to ask questions about ExpenseUVA, non-employee reimbursements, and other expense-related matters.
When you only email expense@virginia.edu, rather than copying multiple Procurement email addresses, we are able to respond more quickly and efficiently to your concerns. Expense-related emails are worked as a team utilizing the Salesforce Customer Service platform.
When your request is completed, you will automatically receive a brief satisfaction survey. We appreciate and value your feedback!
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
FST Update August 26, 2021
Want to listen to this update instead of reading it? Click here to tune into the WFST Broadcast!
No time to read paragraphs? Check out "Five Things to Know about WFST"
Foundation Data Model
Schools and units are now several weeks into Foundation Data Model, or FDM, work. They’re mapping the old chart of accounts, the PTAO, to the new FDM that we’ll use for Workday Financials. There’s an expansive resource site for the FDM work in the online community that you can access here: https://communityhub.virginia.edu/docs/DOC-2982
Adaptive Planning
The Adaptive Planning Team is continuing to shape Adaptive, Workday’s planning and budgeting software, to be ready to integrate with Workday financials in July of 2022. UVA has been using Adaptive since the summer the pandemic began, in order to take advantage of its enhanced planning functionality in that really unpredictable time. Since then, users have been working with the Adaptive Team to make improvements to the software to make it more useful to UVA. Read more on the blog.
Moving from Configuration & Prototype to End-to-End Testing
At the end of August, we officially say goodbye to the Configuration and Prototype phase of FST. As of September 1, we’ll be in a brave new phase: end-to-end testing, where the FST Team tests business processes from start to finish.
Read more about testing on the blog
What did we achieve in Config & Prototype?
Training Update
The Training Team is working hard to deliver the training that will allow you and your team to be successful doing your jobs in Workday Financials upon go live. The decision on timing of training is based on training best practices and the years and years of experience the training team has, plus comparisons to what other higher ed institutions found successful. It boils down to this: Training sticks with learners best when they don’t have time to forget what they’ve learned before they can actually get into the system. We want our stakeholders to learn on a system that appears and functions as it will at go-live. Read more from Patty Marbury on the blog.
Recon@ update
The team is working with stakeholders to find a way to build real-time approvals on the front end, within Workday Financials, but we’ll probably still need post-transactional attestation provided by an outside tool. Check out the details on the blog.
Continuous Improvement: UFM 2.0
With many financial changes underway and new university leadership at the helm, the University Financial Model is under review to make sure it supports 2030 strategic plan goals. A committee is doing a strategic review of the model, to make sure it serves the needs of the organization, and also assessing how the current model is serving the needs of schools and units across UVA – focusing on the model’s users. Learn more on the blog.
FST Update August 26, 2021
Want to listen to this update instead of reading it? Click here to tune into the WFST Broadcast!
No time to read paragraphs? Check out "Five Things to Know about WFST"
Foundation Data Model
Schools and units are now several weeks into Foundation Data Model, or FDM, work. They’re mapping the old chart of accounts, the PTAO, to the new FDM that we’ll use for Workday Financials. There’s an expansive resource site for the FDM work in the online community that you can access here: https://communityhub.virginia.edu/docs/DOC-2982
Adaptive Planning
The Adaptive Planning Team is continuing to shape Adaptive, Workday’s planning and budgeting software, to be ready to integrate with Workday financials in July of 2022. UVA has been using Adaptive since the summer the pandemic began, in order to take advantage of its enhanced planning functionality in that really unpredictable time. Since then, users have been working with the Adaptive Team to make improvements to the software to make it more useful to UVA. Read more on the blog.
Moving from Configuration & Prototype to End-to-End Testing
At the end of August, we officially say goodbye to the Configuration and Prototype phase of FST. As of September 1, we’ll be in a brave new phase: end-to-end testing, where the FST Team tests business processes from start to finish.
Read more about testing on the blog
What did we achieve in Config & Prototype?
Training Update
The Training Team is working hard to deliver the training that will allow you and your team to be successful doing your jobs in Workday Financials upon go live. The decision on timing of training is based on training best practices and the years and years of experience the training team has, plus comparisons to what other higher ed institutions found successful. It boils down to this: Training sticks with learners best when they don’t have time to forget what they’ve learned before they can actually get into the system. We want our stakeholders to learn on a system that appears and functions as it will at go-live. Read more from Patty Marbury on the blog.
Recon@ update
The team is working with stakeholders to find a way to build real-time approvals on the front end, within Workday Financials, but we’ll probably still need post-transactional attestation provided by an outside tool. Check out the details on the blog.
Continuous Improvement: UFM 2.0
With many financial changes underway and new university leadership at the helm, the University Financial Model is under review to make sure it supports 2030 strategic plan goals. A committee is doing a strategic review of the model, to make sure it serves the needs of the organization, and also assessing how the current model is serving the needs of schools and units across UVA – focusing on the model’s users. Learn more on the blog.
Five Things to Know about FST: August 26, 2021
1. Schools and units are a few weeks into mapping our current chart of accounts to the new FDM; they're working from a resource page in the Online Community.
2. The Adaptive Planning Team continues to shape Adaptive to integrate with Workday Financials at go-live next summer. Users are collaborating with the team to make improvements to this 3.0 version. Read more on the blog.
3. Training begins in May 2022, so that users can readily put what they learn into practice and can work with a tenant that looks as it will at go-live. Read more on the blog.
4. Configuration & Prototype is wrapping up and End-to-End testing is on the horizon. Here's what we accomplished in C&P and what's in store for E2E.
5. The University Financial Model 2.0 work is a great example of the Continuous Improvement that comprises one of the four main parts of FST. Read more about UFM on the blog and don't forget: we go live on July 1, 2022!
Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Adopting Adaptive: A Story in Three Parts
UVA's journey with Adaptive Planning, Workday's Planning & Budgeting tool, truly got underway in 2019 (which, in the current way that time passes, might feel like a decade ago) when Batten, Arts & Sciences, and the School of Education & Human Development undertook a pilot of the software system (then called Adaptive Insights). That pilot was Adaptive 1.0.
In the midst of the successful pilot, just as team lead Elissa Morton was reaching out to other schools and units to expand the testing phase, disruption in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift in the timeline. Suddenly, in the summer of 2020, all schools and units were using Adaptive for FY21 budget revision and FY22 budget development. This was Adaptive 2.0.
Although their onboarding to Adaptive 2.0 was a little jarring, based as it was in a national emergency, users found the system to be flexible and full of potential. For the past year, people have been working in Adaptive 2.0 while the FST Adaptive Team has continued to shape Adaptive 3.0 to be ready to interact with Workday Financials at its go-live in July of 2022.
Adopting Adaptive has been an interesting process for UVA, and schools and units are both pleased with its capabilities so far while simultaneously yearning for the improvements the 3.0 version will bring.
We spoke to Charles Rush, Director of Finance and Budget at Batten, and Alicia Rudie, Senior Budget Analyst in the Office of the Dean in Arts & Sciences, to get a sense of how folks are feeling at this point in the implementation of Adaptive (let's call it Adaptive 2.5):
We have over 70 departments and 40 department managers in Arts & Sciences. Since Adaptive is in the cloud, it’s great that the people who have the best knowledge and information about their departments can update their budget directly in the system. We're looking forward to the connection with Workday Financials and seeing how the new FDM will make it better and more transparent. We do have better reporting in 2.0, but I've seen snapshots of the integration with Workday where budgeting and reporting at the person level will be a 1:1, and that's going to be great. Even though there are still a lot of unknowns at this time as the Adaptive team are working on building 3.0, I'm excited about the improvement and moving on to the next stage in the process.
-- Alicia Rudie
I appreciate that we have Adaptive as the primary system for collecting and depositing budget details, and in particular, I love the personnel functionality. My colleagues in Batten appreciate that it sets the stage for the managerial reporting we'd like to do. Because we participated in the pilot, I've been in Adaptive for a long time and know what its capabilities are, so sometimes my patience gets short with what we can do in it now -- I want the robust reporting I know the system is capable of. UVA is absolutely on the right track with Adaptive, and I'm looking forward to the functionalities we'll have in 3.0.
-- Charles Rush
For now, the Adaptive Team continues its work revising the budget process and refining user stories for Adaptive 3.0. We'll continue to have regular updates on Adaptive in the blog, so keep your eyes peeled!
Adopting Adaptive: A Story in Three Parts
UVA's journey with Adaptive Planning, Workday's Planning & Budgeting tool, truly got underway in 2019 (which, in the current way that time passes, might feel like a decade ago) when Batten, Arts & Sciences, and the School of Education & Human Development undertook a pilot of the software system (then called Adaptive Insights). That pilot was Adaptive 1.0.
In the midst of the successful pilot, just as team lead Elissa Morton was reaching out to other schools and units to expand the testing phase, disruption in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift in the timeline. Suddenly, in the summer of 2020, all schools and units were using Adaptive for FY21 budget revision and FY22 budget development. This was Adaptive 2.0.
Although their onboarding to Adaptive 2.0 was a little jarring, based as it was in a national emergency, users found the system to be flexible and full of potential. For the past year, people have been working in Adaptive 2.0 while the FST Adaptive Team has continued to shape Adaptive 3.0 to be ready to interact with Workday Financials at its go-live in July of 2022.
Adopting Adaptive has been an interesting process for UVA, and schools and units are both pleased with its capabilities so far while simultaneously yearning for the improvements the 3.0 version will bring.
We spoke to Charles Rush, Director of Finance and Budget at Batten, and Alicia Rudie, Senior Budget Analyst in the Office of the Dean in Arts & Sciences, to get a sense of how folks are feeling at this point in the implementation of Adaptive (let's call it Adaptive 2.5):
We have over 70 departments and 40 department managers in Arts & Sciences. Since Adaptive is in the cloud, it’s great that the people who have the best knowledge and information about their departments can update their budget directly in the system. We're looking forward to the connection with Workday Financials and seeing how the new FDM will make it better and more transparent. We do have better reporting in 2.0, but I've seen snapshots of the integration with Workday where budgeting and reporting at the person level will be a 1:1, and that's going to be great. Even though there are still a lot of unknowns at this time as the Adaptive team are working on building 3.0, I'm excited about the improvement and moving on to the next stage in the process.
-- Alicia Rudie
I appreciate that we have Adaptive as the primary system for collecting and depositing budget details, and in particular, I love the personnel functionality. My colleagues in Batten appreciate that it sets the stage for the managerial reporting we'd like to do. Because we participated in the pilot, I've been in Adaptive for a long time and know what its capabilities are, so sometimes my patience gets short with what we can do in it now -- I want the robust reporting I know the system is capable of. UVA is absolutely on the right track with Adaptive, and I'm looking forward to the functionalities we'll have in 3.0.
-- Charles Rush
For now, the Adaptive Team continues its work revising the budget process and refining user stories for Adaptive 3.0. We'll continue to have regular updates on Adaptive in the blog, so keep your eyes peeled!
UVAFinance Has a New Doctor in the House
Devin Foster, DHA, MA |
Devin Foster, budget analyst in the Office of Financial Planning & Analysis, earned his Doctor of Healthcare Administration from the Virginia University of Lynchburg this August. He is a part of the first cohort to graduate from their DHA program.
Foster's internship was completed at UVA Medical Center under Chief Operating Officer Jody Reyes and staff.
"I have always wanted to go to and graduate from a Historically Black College & University like VUL, and their newly-created program for working professionals provided that opportunity," Foster says.
He credits Dean Rex Hammond and Dr. Atul Gupta for convincing him to enroll, and extends his thanks to UVAHR for connecting him with UVA Health.
"UVA Medical Center is the number one hospital in Virginia, so it was an honor to shadow leadership and gain valuable knowledge," he says.
What's next for this newly-minted doctor? Foster says, "We'll see what the future holds for me as I build lasting friendships and connections on this rewarding journey."
Farther Down the Path: FDM Mapping Resources
Schools and units are now a couple weeks into Foundation Data Model (FDM) mapping. During this time, mappers have been acclimating to the process and familiarizing themselves with the available support resources. They've also been meeting with their pods, which are supportive peer groups. FST team members have been updating materials and creating new ones based on mappers' needs. This mapping process is intended to be iterative, so learning and process improvement will continue to happen along the way.
Two recent additions of note to the FDM resource page in the online Community are the template to use to request new worktags and FDM FAQs.
The resource page will be updated regularly as information changes and new resources are added. As you'll see on the page, files have the date they were last updated included, and new additions, like those mentioned above, are indicated.
For FDM mapping questions or to share ideas for additional resources, please email FDMMapping@virginia.edu.
UFM 2.0: Striving for Simplicity and Predictability
When UVA adopted the University Financial Model six years ago, it was a vast improvement from the target-based system we had been using. The new model, often referred to as the UFM (you've surely heard it called “YOU-fum”), meant that resources would be allocated based on activity levels like enrollments and research activity. Now, in 2021, with new University leadership in place and many financial changes underway, the UFM is under review to make sure it supports efforts to achieve 2030 strategic plan goals.
As reported prior, the UFM Implementation Committee has taken up the work of reviewing and improving the UFM in time for the FY23 budget development process. FST Executive Committee member and Vice Provost for Planning, Adam Daniel says that periodic review of financial models such as the UFM is a best practice in higher education.
Click for a larger view |
“It makes sense that over time, and on a cycle, you go back and validate and refine your model after you learn and acquire new data and experience,” he says.
For this review, the Committee’s charge from Provost Liz Magill in reviewing the UFM is twofold:
1. Ensure that the plan we’re using has what we need to serve us well in light of UVA’s strategic vision. This is a strategic review of the UFM that analyzes how it serves the needs of the organization.
2. Assess how the current model is serving the needs of activity centers and central service units around UVA. Focusing on the needs of the model’s users.
Financial models such as UFM are not accounting systems, but planning tools built to advance both strategic and operational needs. The Committee’s recommended changes focus on improving planning and reducing the administrative burden that comes from managing the current model. Based on guidance from stakeholders and peer benchmarking, they are keeping these guiding principles in mind as they recommend changes to the model:
- Simplicity: Users report that the current UFM is overcomplex, requiring precision in some areas that does not necessarily result in added value.
- Predictability: The tool must better support multi-year planning, which means we need to work on the timing between budgeting in central service units and activity centers so that there is a stronger understanding of the relationship between revenue and expenditure growth.
The fact that this review takes place during a large-scale financial transformation at UVA was unplanned but serendipitous. Bill Ashby, an FST Functional Owner and Associate Vice President for Financial Strategy, says “The toolset supporting UFM is going to enhance the total budgeting and planning environment. We’re able to contemplate bigger changes than we would’ve otherwise if we weren’t going through Finance Strategic Transformation.”
Between now and the end of September, the UFM Implementation Committee will continue to work toward a smooth transition to UFM 2.0 for FY23. With an anticipated FY23 budget planning kick-off in early October, the Committee plans to have its report and significant work completed by the end of September.
Ready, Test, Go: Workday Financials End-to-End Testing
The Finance Strategic Transformation (FST) team is currently building the end-to-end (E2E) tenant in Workday Financials, expected to be completed this month. This tenant will enable us to confirm that our configuration of Workday will function as we need it to and is ready for our production tenant, which is the one we will use at go-live on July 1, 2022.
Fear not—the User Experience Review (UER) tenant and testing will occur after E2E and will involve a broad group of end users. During UER, users will test selected scenarios that include key processes to mimic what real-world use of the system will be like. User experience testing will also contribute valuable information to the training team to ensure that training-related communication and job aids appropriately meet user needs ahead of go-live.
The timeline below (click to enlarge) shows upcoming testing activities.
Monday, August 23, 2021
New Resource to Assist Academic Division Employees in Financial Need
The Community Resource Service is excited to announce a new UVA initiative in support of employees in the Academic Division. The Employee Assistance Fund (EAF) is a critical resource for employees who encounter a financial hardship due to an unexpected, non-recurring situation.
The EAF is truly a chance for employees to support one another; in order to provide assistance to those who need it, the fund relies on donations.
You can take steps to support your colleagues by:
1. Reading details about applying and donating to the Fund on the website
2. Helping spread the word by sharing the introductory video or this social media post with your colleagues
3. Considering donating in Workday, or if you need help, apply for assistance
Planning for the Future: OFP&A takes a CI Focus
The Office of Financial Planning & Analysis is looking toward the future state with an eye for continuous improvement. The OFP&A team, led by Katie Walker, is engaging in monthly workshops where they review their processes. The sessions are facilitated by Angela Knobloch.
Continuous Improvement is a key part of Finance Strategic Transformation, and as OFP&A sees it, now is the right time to make sure their processes are serving their needs and their stakeholders' needs in the most streamlined, user-friendly way possible.
In their most recent session, the team dissected the settlements process, identifying pain points to reconsider.
"The team has learned about CI tools and then just run with them," says Knobloch.
"They're learning to challenge the status quo and apply that to everything they do."
Team member Anne Marie Cumiskey says the sessions have been helpful in changing the team's perspective on what have come to be mundane duties.
"As we examine a process from start to finish, we have started asking questions: why are we doing it this way? Do we even need to do this?" she says.
We look forward to seeing the improvements the team comes up with -- watch the blog for future updates!
The Timing of Training
Contributed by Patty Marbury
As we move into the testing phase of Finance Strategic Transformation this September, Workday Financials training will likely be increasingly on peoples' minds. As we shared recently, there won't be a practice tenant or "sandbox" that people will use, but you shouldn't worry about being ill-prepared at go-live on July 1, 2022. The FST Team has a solid plan to have you comfortable with the system within the next ten months.
The key parts of that plan are testing and training. Since I'm the FST Training Lead, you can probably imagine which one I'm going to talk about today. Training will be delivered in May and June of next year. You may look at that target date and think that sounds pretty late -- why not start training earlier?
The decision on the timing of the training is a strategic one the training team is basing off training best practices, comparisons to what other higher ed institutions have done, and the years and years of combined experience of our training team.
The decision boils down to the fact that training sticks with learners best when they don't have time to forget what they've learned before they can actually get into the system. We need to use what we've learned, or we don't retain it (that's why you're probably pretty rusty on that foreign language you learned in high school).
Another practical reason for training later in the timeline is that as the FST team and, later in the process, some stakeholders from schools and units test the system, they'll be making adjustments to the system fairly regularly. We want you to learn within a system that appears and functions as it will at go-live.
The Training Team is confident that we have a plan that will give you want you need to be proficient within the system at go-live. We've have been and will continue to be working intensively to deliver necessary and effective training to you and your team.
We'll continue to update you on the training plan as time goes on, so watch the blog for more. And, as always, if you have questions or concerns, don't hesitate to reach out to me.
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For more information on training, check out this recent blog post and the links it contains.
Odumosu to join next Cornerstone cohort
Onyi Odumosu |
The next cohort of UVA's Cornerstone Program has been chosen, and among the 30 participants will be Onyi Odumosu. Odumosu is a senior project manager within the Finance Strategic Transformation project.
Candidates for the Cornerstone Program are nominated by Vice Presidents and Deans, and they are high performers who demonstrate leadership and management qualifications necessary for future senior leadership potential. Participants collaborate on team projects over the course of a year, which are then presented at a graduation ceremony in September.
Congratulations, Onyi!
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Read more about the Cornerstone Project on the UVAHR site and learn how to submit a project for cohort consideration:
Read more about Onyi on the UVAFinance blog
Check out past Cornerstone participants and their projects: Shannon Wampler and Kristie Sojka, Mark Anderson, Isaiah Behnke
Sunday, August 22, 2021
FST RAPID Decision Updates
At this month's Steering Committee, the FST team provided an update on several decisions that are currently in the works. Below, we've provided a closer look at what's going on with some of those decisions.
Finalized Decisions:
- Customer Portal: UVA will adopt Workday's Customer Portal to enhance customer service experience but will not integrate with a third-party payment processor. This means customers will not be able to make credit card or e-check payments via the portal. The FST Leadership Council has formally approved this decision, and adoption is underway.
- Expenditure Credit: UVA will leverage Ad Hoc bank transactions to record expenditure credit deposits against their original spend categories. This decision is currently awaiting formal sign-off.
- ETF Usage Threshold Guidance Change $500 - > $5,000: This decision is finalized and will soon be brought to the Leadership Council for final endorsement and approval.
Open Decisions:
- System Admin Responsibility Approach: The Functional Team is determining an interim admin assignment approach for testing; this will be updated based on leadership decisions related to Cross-Platform Support before go-live.
- Workflow Control and Approval: The Functional Team is working with a third-party organization providing a risk assessment and suggestions for building an enterprise risk management framework. The Functional Team will finalize an approach based on guidance from this third-party organization.
- Recon@ in Future State: It is likely that an outside (of Workday) tool is needed to meet requirements for recon. More information will be provided at next month's Steering meeting.
- Salary Certification: The FST Team has become aware of an opportunity to move away from effort reporting that will largely automate this process. The plan is to shift away from effort reporting to salary certification. The first step is to determine how to make this transition and confirm that salary certification meets UVA's needs. The team is hoping to define a decision by the end of the month. The decision will be informed by some of the data collection done in 2016.
For more information, make sure to check out the FST Decision Log for the latest updates on all decisions.
Were you here for the Oracle Implementation? We want to hear from you!
You're invited to one of two Oracle Focus groups designed to capture and share the perspectives of our staff that were involved with the UVA Oracle Transformation.
We believe this will shed light on strategies that worked (and didn’t work) during the Oracle transition and allow for discourse among staff who share commonalities in experience. There is no single goal of this focus group, but at a minimum it will be a great place to share ideas and express feelings regarding the current transition.
There will be two sessions:
- Wednesday, Sept. 8, 11:00 am -12 pm and
- Monday, September 13, 1:30 - 2:30 pm.
If you'd like to join us, please RSVP to Jack Sherwood (jss6bf@virginia.edu) with subject line “RSVP” followed by the session you wish to attend.
We look forward to talking with you about strategies and experiences from previous transitions that may shape our current transformation!
Join us for the next Caste book discussion
For the Caste book discussion this week, on August 26, at 4:30, we will be discussing Part Four: The Tentacles of Caste.
Following are some questions to consider as you read and review the content:
- Wilkerson gives examples that range from the horrifying (lynching) to the absurd (the Indian woman who walked across an office to ask a Dalit to pour her water from the jug next to her desk) to illustrate caste’s influence on behavior. How do both of these types of examples—and everything in between—help cement her points? Why do we need to see this range to clearly understand caste?
- “Indians will ask one’s surname, the occupation of one’s father, the village one is from, the section of the village that one is from, to suss out the caste of whoever is standing in front of them,” Wilkerson writes. “They will not rest until they have uncovered the person’s rank in the social order.” How is this similar to and different from the process of determining caste in America? Have you ever, for instance, asked someone what they did for work or where they lived or went to school, and been surprised? Did you treat them differently upon hearing their answer?
- Discuss how overt racism subtly transformed into unconscious bias. What are the ways that we can work to compensate for the unconscious biases inherent in a caste system?
- It is a widely held convention that working-class white Americans may often "act against their own interests" by opposing policies designed to help the working class. Discuss how the logic of caste disproves this concept and redefines that same choice from the perspective of maintaining group dominance.
- How does the caste system take people who would otherwise be allies and turn them against one another?
Even if you have not joined us for prior discussions or haven’t read the book, please join us for these very thought-provoking conversations.
Please let Patty Marbury know if you have any questions, and as always, invite your friends and colleagues to participate in our discussions!
The zoom link is: https://virginia.zoom.us/j/95163051737?pwd=TlZ0WVF4VUl4cnpyZ3dTRVl6U2w3dz09
Friday, August 20, 2021
Time Saving Office Tips Series from the Continuous Improvement Committee
Tip 3: Tools to add variety and dimension to your Communications
From Brandi Van Ormer
Every day, we write hundreds, sometimes thousands, of words. Words are powerful, and they're our go-to way of communicating. Words are wonderful . . . but you may sometimes feel the need to break up the sea of written words with something that will catch your audience's attention and give them meaning through another medium.
To that end, I offer you these three free-to-inexpensive tools that can make your communications life easier, get your work more views and interest, and allow you to break up with Word and PowerPoint.*
First things first. Things to know about these tools:
- All three tools work beautifully together
- Your Snipping Tool in companion with these tools is a match made in heaven
- All three have beautiful, useful stock images PLUS the capability to upload your own stuff
- All three have the option to “play” for free, and various tiers of affordable paid plans
- All three tools can help you make great use of the brand.virginia.edu resources
And here are the tools, with a little explanation attached. Check them out, but feel free to contact Brandi Van Ormer if you want more info or a demo of how they can be used.
1. Canva.com: the most widely known.
a. Plays well with InDesign
b. Exports in a variety of formats
c. Build your brand resources on it: Colors, images, logos
d. Templates for specific channels/uses that really will speed up your work
e. Use it as a great source of stock imagery if nothing else
2. Infogram.com: Data visualization heaven.
a. It’s like Canva but with a back end for loading your data, plus icons in addition to stock images
b. Upload a spreadsheet or plug in your #s
c. See immediately how the data presents most usefully
d. Do infographics instead of fact sheets
3. Animoto.com: Easy, short video like a boss!
a. Like Canva but for video: stock stills, stock music, and stock video clips (and you can upload your own of each content type)
b. Storyboarding format that makes it easy to plan the videoc. Great option to break up your written content: make a quick video, or even have stills with a voiceover
* because they don't love you anyway
Time Saving Office Tips Series from the Continuous Improvement Committee
Tip 3: Tools to add variety and dimension to your Communications
From Brandi Van Ormer
Every day, we write hundreds, sometimes thousands, of words. Words are powerful, and they're our go-to way of communicating. Words are wonderful . . . but you may sometimes feel the need to break up the sea of written words with something that will catch your audience's attention and give them meaning through another medium.
To that end, I offer you these three free-to-inexpensive tools that can make your communications life easier, get your work more views and interest, and allow you to break up with Word and PowerPoint.*
First things first. Things to know about these tools:
- All three tools work beautifully together
- Your Snipping Tool in companion with these tools is a match made in heaven
- All three have beautiful, useful stock images PLUS the capability to upload your own stuff
- All three have the option to “play” for free, and various tiers of affordable paid plans
- All three tools can help you make great use of the brand.virginia.edu resources
And here are the tools, with a little explanation attached. Check them out, but feel free to contact Brandi Van Ormer if you want more info or a demo of how they can be used.
1. Canva.com: the most widely known.
a. Plays well with InDesign
b. Exports in a variety of formats
c. Build your brand resources on it: Colors, images, logos
d. Templates for specific channels/uses that really will speed up your work
e. Use it as a great source of stock imagery if nothing else
2. Infogram.com: Data visualization heaven.
a. It’s like Canva but with a back end for loading your data, plus icons in addition to stock images
b. Upload a spreadsheet or plug in your #s
c. See immediately how the data presents most usefully
d. Do infographics instead of fact sheets
3. Animoto.com: Easy, short video like a boss!
a. Like Canva but for video: stock stills, stock music, and stock video clips (and you can upload your own of each content type)
b. Storyboarding format that makes it easy to plan the videoc. Great option to break up your written content: make a quick video, or even have stills with a voiceover
* because they don't love you anyway
Recon@ Update
It's one of the most popular questions in FST: What's going to happen with Recon@?
As you've read before in the blog, the FST team has been working with stakeholders to find a way to build in real-time approvals on the front end, thereby reducing the need for detailed month-end reconciliations -- in short, no more Recon@. However, we also heard you loud and clear that we need to provide the kinds of reports and processes that give you what you need for certification and transaction monitoring.
So what's the latest? Well, Recon@ will likely be replaced with functionality within Workday, but we will still need post-transactional attestation, likely provided by an outside tool.
Our governance groups will be seeing more about this and weighing in on it in the next month or so, so keep your eyes peeled for updates!
In the meantime, did you hear Recon@ is getting a new address on the web?
Putting Config & Prototype in the Rearview Mirror
The climb is steep but we've got this! |
The beginning of September starts a new and exciting phase of Finance Strategic Transformation: Testing!
But before we begin testing, we will bid adieu to the Configure & Prototype phase. In this phase, the team built two tenants of Workday Financials and revised each of those based on the feedback provided by you, our stakeholders, in two rounds of Customer Confirmation Sessions.
As we exit Config & Prototype, a phase we've been in for a year, it's good to take a few moments to look back at all we've accomplished together:
- Customer Confirmation Sessions: we conducted prototype walkthrough review sessions and gathered feedback.
- End-User Training Plan: We created a training strategy that will describe our approach to training, including documentation of roles and responsibilities and the data needed to train end-users.
- Change Readiness Assessment #2: We gauged stakeholders' perceptions of the implementation and readiness to move forward.
- System Remediation Plan: A plan was put in place for critical systems and their impact on testing.
In the remaining time period before testing begins, the team will have a few C&P chores to complete:
- User story sprints: conducting user story review and identifying completed user stories to be used in test prep activities.
- Report building and unit testing: Completing development and developer unit-testing of priority one reports
- Integrations build and unit test: building and testing all cycle 1,2, and 3 integrations
- Test Preparation: creating test scenarios to support the testing cycles.
- End-to-end tenant build: Finishing up the prototype tenant built upon feedback and issues resolved from the configuration tenant build prototype.
- Delivery Assurance Checkpoints: submit required reviews for the C&P stage.
- Decisions: Closing out tier 1 and tier 2 decisions that need to be finalized before testing.
The FST Team gives a big THANK YOU to everyone in the schools and units who have worked right beside us through Config & Prototype. We look forward to entering this new phase with you and getting one step closer to go live in July of 2022!
Onward and upward!
Thursday, August 19, 2021
UVAFinance Team: Use the Force!
Our goal in UVAFinance is to build towards using Salesforce to track all communications around support and engagement.
Sometimes, stakeholders still email our personal boxes directly instead of sending requests to shared boxes. If that happens to you, forward the email to the appropriate shared address in SF to create a case. Jack Jensen created a job aid this week to clarify how to do this.
You can find it in the Quick Links in the lower-left corner and via this link: https://training.foc.virginia.edu/ForwardinganEmailintoSalesforcetoGenerateaCase.pdf
Getting into this practice will continue to build the value of SF as a resource that we can all rely on when solving stakeholder problems.
Questions? Reach out to Andrew Sallans or Jack Jensen.
Wellness Resources
Development Opportunities
Making it Okay Not to Know (Presented by Organizational Excellence)
Uncertainty is everywhere. But what if we could make it comfortable and even joyful not to know? What if we reimagined uncertainty and lack of clarity as an opportunity for deep learning? How would our work feel if we focused more on questions and less on answers? And, importantly, how can we build inclusive cultures that thrive on testing possibilities rather than getting things exactly right? During this session, we will use the foundation of neuroscience as a tool to address the paralysis and fear that often accompany the need to try something new or navigate through profound uncertainty.
Presenters:
Catherine Lilly, Senior Consultant - Higher Education, Segal
Allison Vaillancourt, Vice President & Senior Consultant, Organizational Effectiveness - Segal
When: September 9, 2021, 1:00 p.m to 2:15 p.m.
Benefits and Wellness (UVAHR Offerings)
NEW RESOURCE TO ASSIST ACADEMIC DIVISION EMPLOYEES IN FINANCIAL NEED
The Community Resource Service is excited to announce a new UVA initiative in support of employees in the Academic Division. The Employee Assistance Fund (EAF) is a critical resource for employees who encounter financial hardship due to an unexpected, non-recurring situation.
The EAF is truly a chance for employees to support one another; in order to provide assistance to those who need it, the fund relies on donations. You can take steps to support your colleagues by:
- Reading details about applying and donating to the Fund on the website
- Helping spread the word by sharing the introductory video or this social media post with your colleagues
- Considering donating in Workday, or if you need help, apply for assistance
NEW LOOK FOR WORKDAY BENEFITS BEGINNING SEPTEMBER 1
Beginning September 1, UVA employees will notice a new look when enrolling in or making changes to their health, retirement, and other electable benefits in Workday. This more user-friendly layout will make benefit selections and changes easier! The new “tiles” layout is not exclusive to Open Enrollment. New hires who are making their first benefit elections and current employees who need to change a benefit plan due to a Qualified Life Event will experience this new layout.
LEARN MORE AND PREVIEW THE NEW LOOK
WEBINAR: TRAINABLE SKILLS OF WELL-BEING
Neuroscientist Richie Davidson, PhD, suggests that well-being is a skill that you can learn and practice, just as you might practice your golf swing. In this Hoos Well reward-eligible webinar, you will learn about the results of decades of neuroscientific research in the field of human flourishing and practical ways you can strengthen different areas of your mind and boost your well-being. A hybrid event will be offered on September 14, with participation in person at the Medical Center ERC or virtually by Zoom.
JOIN THE SEMINAR SEPT 14 AND 21
UPCOMING FINANCIAL WELL-BEING WEBINARS
You'll find a number of reward-eligible live webinars to boost your financial well-being in August and September on topics like Saving for Retirement, How and When to Claim Social Security and more.
SEE UPCOMING FINANCIAL WELL-BEING WEBINARS
UVA Sustainability Report Available
The Office for Sustainability is pleased to share that the 2020-2021 UVA Sustainability Annual Report is complete and online for your viewing at https://sustainability.virginia.edu/sites/sustainability/files/2021-08/UVASustainabilityAnnualReport_2020-2021_0.pdf
Friday, August 13, 2021
FST Update August 12, 2021
Foundation Data Model
As we’ve reported prior to today, representatives from schools and units got together on August 3 for an FDM Mapping Kickoff session. Participants got an overview of the mapping timeline and process and were assigned to work in collaborative groups with similar schools and units in order to make the work a little easier. The mapping process will go from now until March 2022.
Will there be a Sandbox?
The short answer is that no, there won’t be a practice tenant or "sandbox" as such. Why not? One thing that makes a sandbox difficult in our situation here at UVA is that if we had a sandbox between now and go-live, we would be offering that environment to people before they had any training whatsoever, which means their sandbox experience wouldn’t be very meaningful. We want to give our time the ultimate goal of pushing UVA's instance of Workday Financials across the finish line at go-live. You can read more about this decision and learn more about how users will be able to "get their hands dirty" in Workday Financials before go-live.
End-to-End Testing
Testing begins this September! If you would like to know more about testing, we recommend the articles below. Also, FST Testing Lead Sunil Sah has been making the rounds to FST governance groups, so if you’d like to hear him talk about the testing plan, check out the recording of the August 4 Fiscal Administrators' meeting.
Putting Workday to the Test (link to FA video)
Getting Everything Just Right: FST Testing
Read more about Sunil Sah, FST Testing Lead
FST Website Content Migrating to New UVA Site
The new UVAFinance website goes live August 16! This is an agile rollout, and we'll gradually be adding all UVAFinance areas to this one, integrated, function-based site. Finance Transformation content is one of the first areas to be migrated. Visit uvafinance.virginia.edu to see the new site (FST content is located in the upper left). Even though the site is live, we’ll still be making adjustments, and of course, working toward getting the other UVAFinance department on the new site, so for a while, the old sites of those first few departments will still be live before we put redirects in place. That gives our stakeholders a chance to get familiar with new locations of the content they visit most frequently.
Read more about the new UVAFinance website
Reporting & Analytics Focus Group
The Reporting & Analytics team is holding meetings with a sampling of users across Grounds to take an initial look at high-priority financial reports. This is just a preliminary examination of reports and not full-fledged testing, but it's a good first step to make sure we're headed in the right direction with reporting. Read more on the blog.