New Finance User Success Manager Looks Forward to Challenges and Change

Joey Carls

Joey Carls joined UVAFinance as Finance User Success Manager on January 31, bringing experiences from his role as Director of Operations in the UVA School of Education and Human Development.

In his previous position, he directly supported school leadership and unit administrators with the operational calendar and tracking, process improvement, employee onboarding, space planning, and safety. His team also supported school faculty, staff, and students with facilities matters, faculty affairs, events, and procurement.

“Now as the User Success Manager, it is my role to develop and then manage the new primary point-of-entry, Tier 1 support service of the new Finance service model,” he says.

“It is my goal to build a supportive and collaborative team of User Success Agents at the Tier 1 level and to partner with others in Finance for Tier 0, 2, 3, and 4 support.”

As the primary point of entry for most UVAFinance questions, Carls and team will monitor support activity across all tiers and identify ways to improve the service experience for stakeholders.

“We are aiming for a March soft launch of the Tier 1 service so that we have several months to refine processes before the July transition from Oracle to Workday Financials,” he reports.

Carls foresees the transition from Oracle to Workday Financials involving significant change with particular challenges along the way.

Carls is calling on past experience and understanding of change management practices to ensure a streamlined project rollout, “While the project team has prepared diligently for the cutover, process changes paired with our new centralized approach to support may be stressful for some finance users. Throughout my career, I have engaged in several process changes and will be applying my knowledge of change management practices to ensure our success. Building and maintaining positive, supportive relationships with end-users will be a critical component to our success in managing change to this support model.”

Carls reports the UVAFinance team has been incredibly welcoming and collaborative and says the opportunity to shape the future of support in UVAFinance and the excitement amongst team members is highly engaging.

Carls loves the Hoos but maintains he is a Mason Patriot through and through. He received his Master of Public Administration in 2012 and my Bachelors of Science in Public Administration in 2006, both from George Mason University.

Carls lives with his husband Noah in Charlottesville where they are soon to move into a new condo in the Brookhill development. They have three wonderful fur babies, Sullivan, Bella, and Twist. On the weekends, they spend time teaching courses in Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Medical Technician. During their downtime, they enjoy being with family and friends or traveling.