Finance Team

This page is for the UVAFinance team to share announcements and other useful information.  

Have something to share?  Email it to askfinance@virginia.edu with instructions that it be forwarded to the Communications Team.  

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BUSINESS PROCESS DOCUMENTATION

posted April 25, 2024

As a part of post-Finance Strategic Transformation stabilization, the Change Enablement & Continuous Improvement Team has assembled a top-notch team of experts to help UVAFinance areas standardize their processes.   This is important in order to equip our teams for success despite the multitude of systemic changes we've recently undergone.  

Would your team benefit from help creating documentation toward improving understanding and confidence in Workday and other systemic processes?  Let Dan Hoogenboom and Derrick Carter know!   They're a one-stop-shop for documenting and improving work processes so that you can save time, reduce waste and frustration, and retain the necessary knowledge your team will need as we move forward.

We'll be sharing more about this initiative in upcoming posts, so watch this space for more info!

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STAFF SENATE ELECTIONS IN JUNE

posted April 22, 2024

The Staff Senate is holding elections in June, and I am requesting the names of staff members who would like to run in the election. UVAFinance has two open seats:
  • 3-year term (person who garners the greatest number of votes)
  • 2-year term (person who garners the second greatest number of votes)
If elected, you will serve as the voice for our organizational unit and have the opportunity to make a difference for staff in our area and across Grounds. If interested, email Patrick Wood no later than May 1, 2024, to indicate that you want to run for a seat on the Senate. You can also nominate coworkers who you think would be strong representatives for our unit.

WHAT IS THE STAFF SENATE?

The Staff Senate is comprised of approximately 69 members who represent over 7,500 staff at UVA. We serve as a collective voice for staff, helping to shape programs and policies. The Staff Senate communicates directly with senior leadership at UVA.

As a senator, you will have the chance to provide your coworkers a voice in University governance, share staff perspective with University leadership, collaborate with staff from across grounds, gain a deeper understanding of the University, hear about upcoming University initiatives, and share your input, and even help shape University programs and policies.

WHAT WOULD I DO?

Senators attend monthly Staff Senate meetings and are encouraged to serve in a leadership role on the Staff Senate or to participate in a working group. You will spend, on average, approximately three hours a month, depending on your level of involvement. 

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

For more details about joining the Senate, please feel free to email me or call Patrick Wood, who is happy to talk about his experiences on the Senate. You can also contact other Senate representatives in our organizational unit.

Please also visit our Join the Senate webpage for more details about serving on the Senate and the Our Work page to learn more about the type of projects the Senate works on throughout the year.
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SALESFORCE BEST PRACTICES OFFICE HOURS

posted March 26, 2024

Tuesday, April 9, from 9-10 am is the next Office Hours session for Salesforce.  If you're like most of us, you probably have some questions about what you can do in Salesforce and/or how to do something you've never quite figured out.  Office Hours sessions are guided by the submission of questions from our users, so be sure to share yours on this post in Salesforce.

Here's the link to join.

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FINANCE WEEK INFO

posted March 25, 2024

The UVAFinance Finance Week 2024 schedule has been posted online.  Please note that some events require registration (Memorial to Enslaved Laborers Tour and Headshots).  


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SHARE OPEN UVAFINANCE POSITIONS

posted March 25, 2024

Please share any/all of our open UVAFinance Team positions with your networks!  Here are our openings: https://uvafinance.virginia.edu/resources/join-our-team

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COLLABORATIVE PARTNER STORIES

posted March 5, 2024

Payroll Team: Worked to streamline the quarterly entry for Executive Payments. Previously, these amounts were entered with generic work tags, and reclassified to the correct work tags after the fact.  Beginning in Qtr. 4, 2023, we were able to add the correct work tags when entering the contributions.  There are still a few issues to resolve, but this saves entering the data twice.  

Change Enablement/Continuous Improvement Team: This is the focus of our entire team!  I'm particularly excited about the partnership with the T&E team and Workday Support team and the work of implementing the new two-expense approver process.  From engaging stakeholders to drafting communications, this process was successfully launched on January 8th.

Training Team: Jack has developed a resource with business process workflows, approvals, and roles that was very well received by fiscal administrators.  Linda handles all UBI training/questions, working with the Business Intelligence Team.

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LEAN IN DAILY WORK CLASSES
posted March 5, 2024

Based on Lean concepts, this class provides practical, easy-to-implement strategies to make your current processes more efficient. Upon completion of the class, you will gain skills to help you

  • Use the 5S strategy for organization to help with identifying and eliminating waste and continuously improving processes.
  • Document how you do your work using the Standard Work approach.
  • Manage work through tools such as a Kanban Board.
  • Implement time saving ideas to improve efficiency and increase productivity.

Registration is required.  Click the links below to sign up in Workday Learning.

Lean in Daily Work - In Person class - 3/21/24, 9:00-10:30
Lean in Daily Work - Virtual class - 3/27/24, 9:00-10:30
Lean in Daily Work - In Person class - 4/1/24, 10:30-12:00
Lean in Daily Work - Virtual class - 4/10/24, 10:00-11:30

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COLLABORATIVE PARTNER STORIES

posted February 28, 2024

CE/CI Training Team: Danielle has been working with the Finance Systems Support team on updating Account Certification training/documentation/resources -- on hold for Account Certification project work, which she is also involved in.

OFP&A:  Working with Financial Ops and Business Intelligence to build a new Qlik App that, for the first time, will tie out UVA's state expenditure reporting to Workday expenditure reporting and allow real-time state appropriation tracking to prevent Finance from correctly reporting all fiscal year expenditures on time.

Fixed Assets Team: A University department had an urgent requisition submitted that needed a PO created before the end of business to meet some grant-associated deadlines.  PSDS did not receive the email for the urgent request until 11:30 AM - request was via email as the vendor still had not finished the vendor registration process.  To meet the deadline group communications were setup that allowed the vendor registration team to finalize registration into our systems, the department to submit the requisition, for this to get routed through required approvers including the fixed assets team, and this all happened within a four-hour period!

Procurement: Worked with Andrew McGehee to more accurately identify those costs incurred by PSDS in meeting the needs of other departments across Grounds so that such costs can be appropriately recovered. 

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COLLABORATIVE PARTNER STORIES
posted February 21, 2024

Risk Management Team: We regularly collaborate with Procurement on RFPs, contracts, and insurance. They are a regular and important partner.

Travel & Expense Team: We work regularly with Logan Hobbs and Payroll to help answer Expense customer service questions.

Training Team: Nasima works with Finance Systems Support to check training completion for mass security role requests.

Procurement Team: Worked with Andrew McGehee to more accurately identify those costs incurred by PSDS in meeting the needs of other departments across Grounds so that such costs can be appropriately recovered. 
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LSP INSTRUCTIONS:  USING FM INTERACT
posted February 19, 2024

NOTE: These instructions only apply to those of you who will need to reserve hotel space when working in Carruthers.

First, a quick recap of how to access FM:Interact

General Login Process:
  • In order to access the FM:Interact you must be on Grounds OR be logged onto one of the Cisco VPN profiles. 
  • If you have never logged onto the UVA FM:Interact system you will need to set up your password by going through the Password recovery process.  Simply put, once you initiate the password recovery it will email you a link to create a password.  (The system is not behind Netbadge and you will need to create a password.)
Note: Your ComputingID is the username, not your email address.

The following steps show you how to reserve a hoteling space once you have gained access.

Select Reserve Hoteling Space

Choose:
  • The future Date & time for your reservation (You can only reserve one day at a time currently)
  • Which Floor (First or Second)
  • Then select the Floor Plan tab
On the Floor Plan choose an available station highlighted in neon green.
Note: the dark green stations require approval and are based upon availability.

The station you select will show a yellow border around it
You will see the cubicle # listed next to Room. Click Save.

You will receive a confirmation of your reservation.
You can review your reservation(s) from the Home page.  You can make changes to your reservation with the Edit button, or cancel your reservation by selecting the checkbox and Cancel Reservation
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COLLABORATIVE PARTNER STORIES
posted February 14, 2024

Payroll Team: We worked with Yvonne Metheny to help her get the resources so that her team could complete the escheatment process.

Treasury Team: We collaborated with several units this quarter: with the Budget Team for the Internal Loan Cleanup, with Procurement for the Procurement Optimization Project, OSP and Procurement for problem wire payments, and Financial reporting for the SIF Project. 

Business Intelligence Team:  We received a request from A&S to add a gift default cost center in Adaptive to incorporate into reports where applicable. We collaborated with FP&A on this need and the group agreed that this would be beneficial to all Adaptive users. We have developed, tested, and moved this to production.

The Risk Management Team:  Risk and Procurement regularly collaborate through RFPs, contracts, and regular conversations. 
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COLLABORATIVE PARTNER STORIES
posted February 8, 2024

Workday Support Team: Our team has collaborated with Business Intelligence and Financial Accounting re: eVA fees, with the PSDS team re: check printing, OCR, and dual approvals on expense reports.

Training Team: Derrick has started working with UVAFinance functional areas on documenting business processes. Eventually this will also involve collaboration within our own team as the training specialists will need to help with creating QRGs and other resources.

Business Assets & Cost Recovery Team: We met with Financial Reporting to discuss and plan for UVA's implementation of GASB bulk purchases. We collaborated about he best procedure and how the work would be delineated.

Payroll Team: We worked with the HR leave team and the WD Architects to automate the MC PTO termination payouts. This effort saved the leave team 4 hours of work per week and increased the accuracy of final payments. The leave team no longer has to calculate the PTO accrual by hand when an employee uses leave in the last check.
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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT REQUESTS
submitted by Patty Marbury, February 6, 2024

This is a friendly reminder to submit your Professional Development Requests as early as possible.

We recommend that you discuss and plan your professional development for the year with your manager, then submit your request(s). When you submit a request, it goes to your manager and then to the Senior Leadership team. The Senior Leadership team meets weekly to review all requests. If the request is approved, you will be notified, and at that point, you can proceed with registering, scheduling, etc. If the request is denied, your manager will be notified and will discuss with you the reasons for the denial.

Not all professional development opportunities require submission of the form. If an opportunity is less than ½ day AND there is no cost associated with it, then do not submit a form. Many LinkedIn Learning courses and some courses offered by UVA Human Resources or other UVA departments meet these criteria. Otherwise, the form must be submitted.

See the following Quick Reference Guide (QRG) for guidance in completing the form:

UVAFinance Professional Development Request Form QRG

Please be sure to complete all fields, including estimates for travel costs, if any. If you need to update the form after you have submitted it or have other questions please contact AskFinance@virginia.edu.

LEAN FLUENCY COURSE

posted February 6, 2024

This course provides an overview of Lean concepts and terminology.  Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to describe the basics of Lean principles, vocabulary, and tools.

The course incorporates three phases of learning: 
  • Phase 1 - pre-workshop activities including watching 5 brief videos, creating a process map, and completing a learning guide.
  • Phase 2 – 2 ½ -hour facilitated virtual class.
  • Phase 3 - post-workshop activities to reinforce concepts discussed in the class (should take about 1-2 hours to complete).
Approximately one week prior to the workshop, you will receive the Phase 1 learning activities. Please bring your completed activities to the class. They should take about 45-60 minutes to complete.

Date/Course link:
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COLLABORATIVE PARTNER STORIES
posted January 31, 2024

The Payables Team:  The Payables team, specifically the settlement team, collaborated well with both Student Financial Services, Financial Accounting, and Payroll to facilitate off-cycle payments over the December holidays.  This involved not just working additional hours, but collaborating and problem-solving with members of all teams to ensure alignment and clarity in the way forward.  As a result, the Vice Provost reached out directly to thank us for our efforts.

The Business Intelligence Team: In our recent Adaptive report survey, a user from Darden had communicated the need to have a gift hierarchy in Adaptive to incorporate into reports where applicable. We collaborated with FP&A on this need and the group agreed that this would be beneficial to all Adaptive users. We have developed, tested, and moved this to production.

The Financial Reporting Team: Has had the Med Center Finance team over here a couple of times to attempt to make them more of a part of UVA Finance as we have to report consolidated numbers, including theirs.  Trying to over-communicate to make the process better.

The Travel & Expense Team: The T&E Team worked closely with the Strategic Sourcing team to complete the local lodging RFP. This was a large project that took nearly a year to complete.

The OFP&A Team:  Members of the OFP&A team began collaboration with the Treasury teams and members of the Financial Reporting team on the Central Bank Operational Charge as directed by the VP for Finance, CFO. The teams have been engaging regularly over the past 3 months to remediate issues outlined in the charge, most notably internal loans. Collaboration has extended to several unit representatives (Business Ops, Facilities Management, and School of Medicine) to review the outlined internal loan remediation process and to vet the proposed new accounting process for internal loans. 

The User Success Team (AskFinance): We had a group meeting with the team in accounts payable to identify common issues that T1 might support as well as gaps in knowledge. We also engaged with the Financial Reporting team over the past quarter to bolster knowledge resulting in nearly 20 new Tier 1 knowledge articles. 

The Business Services Team: Worked closely with the Communications Team on the BOV quarterly report.  We are very thankful for them.  They are experts in InDesign and Illustrator and very patient.

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COLLABORATIVE PARTNER STORIES
posted January 19, 2024

As you are already aware, we are focusing on a specific value, one at a time, through our Culture Roadmap FY24 initiative. In Q1, our focus was on Service Excellence. This quarter we are focusing on Collaborative Partner. We expanded the invitation for these activities to managers who supervise others.  Enjoy the next round of values-based behaviors from the UVAFinance Team as we begin to share them this month.  (Scroll down a little further if you'd like to catch up on the Service Excellence Stories.)


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SERVICE EXCELLENCE STORIES

posted January 19, 2024

Devon Stribling, Procurement Category Manager: Devon's communications are timely, and professional, and provide a clear explanation as to why additional information is needed (in response to contract/purchase requests).  The department requestor has a clear understanding as to why they need to provide additional information with links to applicable policies and/or procedures.  He has created boilerplate responses to the many subjects buyers need to answer regularly and has made these part of his 'signatures within Outlook'. His work has been recognized and shared as a best-known method to all of the buyers, with the goal in helping us find additional bandwidth through more efficient communications.

Meredith Dixon, Senior Business Analyst:  Meredith found a way to "scope" the details from the source ticket email from Workday to accommodate which was causing the business assets team customers confusion without the needed detail.  Meredith went above and beyond to find a resolution.

Keith Carter, Budget Manager, & Chris Peper, Director of Budgets and Planning: Keith & Chris responded to customer needs by developing significant transfer guidance for the budget kickoff.

Patrick Wood, Procurement Specialist: Patrick sacrificed his personal time on a weekend to complete a contract to provide the football team an alternate flight home from the Tennessee game in Nashville. 

Brandi Van Ormer, Communications Manager:  Brandi created a "Top of Mind" follow-up newsletter after each Fiscal Administrators meeting to help address questions that come up during the meeting.  This one-page summary post-meeting has been a useful tool to demonstrate to our fiscal administrators that we are listening and addressing their concerns.

Kristin Dinwiddie, Senior Manager, Risk Control: Kristin Dinwiddie has taken multiple trips to the Wise campus  . . . in an attempt to meet their individual (and unique) stakeholder needs. 

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UVAFinance Project Dashboard

posted January 11, 2024

The Change Enablement & Continuous Improvement team is responsible for developing, managing, and tracking a continuous improvement/effort portfolio that addresses both internal UVAFinance and the broader University finance community needs. This also includes facilitating operational priority planning efforts requiring transparency throughout UVAFinance.

Visit the dashboard here.
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Literacy For All  Volunteer Training Opportunity
posted January 11, 2024

Guillermo Lopez is on the Board of Directors for Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville/Albemarle, and he reports they need more tutors.   If you're interested in learning more about being a volunteer tutor or know someone who is, please check out the new tutor training on their website: https://literacyforall.org/
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SERVICE EXCELLENCE STORIES

posted January 4, 2024

Linda Estepp, Local Service Partner:  We were having difficulty getting the correct authorization to QlikView desktop and Linda's extra effort with UBI support lasted late into Friday evening to a final resolution for the customer.  A great collaborative effort by the UBI team and business systems support to create a clear patch of authorization for the needed resources.

Linda Vannatta, Director of Treasury Operations: collects as much information as possible to limit the back and forth of emails.

Reshma Gali, Budget Analyst: Reshma was asked by another team member within OFP&A to assist with the submission of the institution's 6-year plan to the Commonwealth. Specifically, she was asked to analyze/project the financial aid calculations, including formula integrity, and provide charts for visual representation of the data. Since this was the first time participating in the submission, she asked solid questions to ensure that she understood the task and engaged stakeholders in SFS to ensure she had the needed information for the projections and ensure their stamp of approval for quality assurance. 

Logan Hobbs, Compliance Manager: The P&T Department was having difficulty with the kiosks in the parking garage.  They wanted to reinstall the kiosks but the card readers had expired per PSI-DSS.  Logan reached out to T2 to decide on a compliant solution.  After many meetings, T2 found a solution that was P2PE and PCI compliant.  Logan helped T2 to find a solution for us and had to work through communications issues between T2 and P&T.

Carlos Rodriguez, Payroll Cost Allocation Analyst: I wanted to take a moment to provide my positive feedback on Carlos's help.   Being new to the University of Virginia as a 100% remote employee in the Dallas, TX, area, and having on-boarded at the end of March 2023, I am fortunate to have the opportunity to work remotely, but the flip-side is I don’t have the venue to walk over to a colleague’s desk and ask for help!  This did not deter Carlos one iota in “being there” to help me in a perplexing situation.  He responded to my reply to an answer I’d received on a ticket I’d sent to AskHR with the subject line, “Subject: Workday "Create Payroll Account Adjustments" Error - Does not populate Pay Component Earnings.” He demonstrated a high degree of effective professionalism in reaching out to me on my phone and scheduling a Zoom meeting so that we could be concise and not trade multitudinous emails.   He helped interpret what I needed to accomplish and took the onus with me to submit the PAA correctly.  The issue was not my knowing how to do the PAA; it was a Workday glitch.  With his accesses, he took the wheel and got it done for me so that I would not have to agonize with getting this done timely.  His tremendous patience and persistence when I admitted that I left out some instructions spoke volumes about not only his professional competence but also his empathy and great “customer service.”  Carlos ticks every box on how to help your colleagues and customer service base by going above and beyond.  Kudos and my gratitude!

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REQUIRED SEARCH COMMITTEE TRAINING

posted January 4, 2024

The UVA Employment Equity Training Module is a requirement for participation in search committees.  Successful completion of the Employment Equity module is required by all members of recruitment and selection processes in support of promoting more effective and objective selection decisions.  

Completion of the Employment Equity module is required every two years.  If you go to the link below, you will see green check marks next to the sections if you are current on training.

The training is available online at: http://employmentequity.virginia.edu

The module should take approximately 25 minutes to complete. We recommend that you review the support resources provided throughout the module. You are encouraged to return, via the provided link, to the module and the resources should you have questions as you progress through your recruitment and selection processes. 

The Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights (EOCR) is available to you as a resource. Contact them at employmentequity@virginia.edu or 434-924-3200 if you have questions, or visit their website for in-depth information related to these processes at https://eocr.virginia.edu/recruitment-and-hiring

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NEW FEATURE FOR CONFERENCE ROOMS

posted January 4, 2024

We now can host TEAMS meetings in our conference rooms (only those configured for Zoom Rooms). There is now a TEAMS icon on the conference room controllers which allows you to launch the meeting. You can also choose to join the scheduled meeting for the room.  

IMPORTANT NOTES: 

  • Either way, one will need to have the TEAMS meeting ID & Passcode to join or start the meeting, and 

  • You must still invite the conference room to a scheduled meeting, just as we do for Zoom Room meetings.  

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SERVICE EXCELLENCE STORIES

posted December 4, 2023

Mandy Eames, Finance Supervisor, Data & Technology:  Mandy prioritizes service excellence - while she indicates the urgency of the problem that is being solved, she provides an alternative with supporting justification for consideration.  She also makes herself available to further discuss.

Jacob Mair, Senior Director of Accounting & Financial Reporting:  Jacob coordinates, communicates, and manages the audited financial statements for the entire UVA enterprise.  He collaborates with our discreetly presented UAOs as well as the medical center and the APA.  He seeks to understand while holding entities accountable.

Danielle Hancock, Senior Training & Development Specialist: Danielle was a leading member of the Customer Experience working group and as such, committed to presenting to the leadership team and then developing content and facilitating Lunch and Learns on Service Excellence for the quarter.

Ben Tolson, Business Systems Analyst: Ben provided a final demonstration to the core Fiscal Admin team in helping to launch the portal.  Ben did an excellent demonstration and use of the portal for the team.

Mohammed Eitta, Senior Accountant, Capital Equipment:  Mohammed was tasked with leading an APA auditor around the University to verify capital equipment selected in sampling. Mohammed did an amazing job planning and coordinating the 25 selections from the auditor to accommodate times for stakeholders. Before the inventory verification, Mohammed confirmed equipment by collecting pictures from stakeholders and optimal times of availability to assist. Mohammed took all of these requested times and mapped out a plan that would have the least amount of impact on stakeholder schedules. Not only did Mohammed show the auditor all 25 pieces of capital equipment, but he also did it in a way that caused minimal disruption for stakeholders. Mohammed was flexible to their needs.

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SERVICE EXCELLENCE STORIES

posted November 28, 2023

Mike Hayton, LSP:  Michael took on leadership and service excellence in the writing and communication of a UVA Finance Blog post around the use and cautions of using ChatGPT-like services with university data.  

Joyce Gredler, Senior Capital Equipment Accountant:  Joyce Gredler always follows through on commitments. She handles all the sponsored program property reports for UVA. Most of the time OSP, the PI, or the government agency gives Joyce some lead time on submitting these reports. With the conversion to Workday and some of the delays in sponsored programs, that lead time has evaporated to only a day or two. Countless requests have come through this quarter (and last year) with a day turnaround. Joyce always confirms that she can meet the deadline and delivers as communicated.

Kevin Crabtree, Strategic Sourcing Director: Arranged an in-person meeting with UVA Branding and Licensing to thoroughly vet their needs and concerns.

Reshma Gali, Budget Analyst: Reshma facilitated a number of mass journal uploads during the year-end process (June) to remediate expenditure function for a number of PV and RS units, as well as a number of journal transfers during the year-end adjustment period in July to ensure units received FY23 funding commitments in the appropriate fiscal year. This involved engagement directly with units to confirm details and a few late evenings, but she followed through until completion and had a direct impact on the FY23 outcomes for many units. 

Amanda Meares, Senior Financial Analyst: Amanda worked with the Saleforce team to create a dashboard to monitor our team cases and have it sent to management each week to replace a manually created tracker sheet making the process more efficient to free up time for other tasks.

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ADDIE COE APPOINTED AS INTERIM DIRECTOR OF ACCOUNTS PAYABLE

posted November 28, 2023

Addie Coe, the current leader of the Business Solutions and Data Analytics team, will be taking on additional responsibilities in Accounts Payable in the wake of Amanda Lockhart Davis’s recent departure.  Addie has graciously agreed to assume these duties temporarily and her experience and “can do” attitude will ensure that process improvement initiatives in payables will stay on track. We appreciate Addie's commitment to UVAFinance and are confident that she will excel in her expanded role.

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FAMILY FUN NIGHT PICTURES

posted November 17, 2023

We had a great evening at Carter's Mountain!  Thanks to everyone who attended, and an EXTRA big thanks to everyone who helped plan the event.  See pictures on our Flickr album.


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SERVICE EXCELLENCE STORIES

posted November 15, 2023

These examples of the UVAFinance value of Service Excellence were provided by UVAFinance Directors as a part of our FY24 Values Focus (see the Cultural Roadmap on our site).  We'll share a few stories every week all quarter long! (Scroll down on this page for more!)

Rasha Ahmad, Business Services Associate: Amongst the User Success Agents, Rasha has done a fantastic job pulling from training resources to develop new T1 Knowledge Articles.  This saves the team time in having to review T0 resources more frequently.

Miranda Bransom, Administrative Assistant: An employee at Albemarle County was confused about how to obtain a Certificate of Insurance. Miranda walked the caller through the process and provided additional information so the County employee could work with their contact in facilities management.

Brian Logwood, Senior Director of Operations: Brian does an amazing job interacting with the Commonwealth's Department of Planning and Budgeting - soliciting feedback - and cross-walking our UVA instance to what DPB is used to seeing/expecting to see.

Stephanie McAteer, Senior Financial Analyst: Converted a quarterly task list used by the wider team from Excel to inside of Teams so the tasks and due dates are more visible, up to date, and easily tracked.

Jack Jensen, Training & Development Specialist:  When Jack is given an assignment, he takes action immediately, meets expectations, and delivers results usually way in advance of a due date. For example, he was asked to help document and create a QRG for the new SF Customer Portal. He met with other team members working on the project and developed the QRG quickly.

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HOST INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS FOR THANKSGIVING

posted November 9, 2023

We’re thrilled to bring back Thanksgiving Meal Match this year. We’d love to accommodate as many international students as possible. If you are interested in hosting, please fill the online form by Sunday, November 12. You are welcome to share the registration link with friends/colleagues who would like to host.

About the Thanksgiving Meal Match

A division of UVA’s International Studies Office, the Lorna Sundberg International Center organizes a Thanksgiving Meal Match to match a local family with UVA's international students, scholars, and their families for a Thanksgiving meal. This unique opportunity allows local families to showcase American hospitality and share Thanksgiving traditions while learning about their guest’s culture.
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SERVICE EXCELLENCE STORIES

posted November 7, 2024

These examples of the UVAFinance value of Service Excellence were provided by UVAFinance Directors as a part of our FY24 Values Focus (see the Cultural Roadmap on our site).  We'll share a few stories every week all quarter long! (Scroll down on this page for more!)

  • Mark Anderson, Director of Business Intelligence:  Mark collected input on needs and then led the effort by the Business intelligence team to build a School Dashboard that consolidates meaningful data and analytics in a user-friendly QLIK UI.
  • Andrew Sallans, Director of User Success and Services:  In response to stakeholder requests for more visibility into the status of their Salesforce cases, Andrew led an effort to imagine, develop, and deploy the AskFinance Customer Portal.
  • Reshma Gali, Budget Analyst:  Reshma has worked closely with diverse units to get institutional endowment funding budgeted and transferred.  She has adjusted her approach effectively based on the stakeholder. 
  • Michelle Gregory, Finance Manager, Data & Technology: We had a request from numerous Adaptive users asking for a way to download detailed data from Adaptive more easily.  Michelle investigated several possibilities and mocked up beta solutions so that the FP&A team and selected users could see the pros and cons of each and understand system limitations that we have to work with.  Through this process, the end users understood that what was delivered to them was the best possible option given the constraints.
  • Dawn Wood, User Success Agent: When a supplier payment is held up, Dawn does a detailed investigation of where it is held up and attempts to identify what the blocker is that needs attention.  She will reach out to related departments as needed.  She also takes the opportunity with the supplier to address other outstanding case issues to save them time and potentially resolve other cases as well.

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click image for a larger view
DISC Behavior Styles and Customer Interactions

posted October 25, 2023; Contributed by Danielle Hancock

This quarter UVAFinance will focus on the value of building collaborative and trusted relationships. At this point, everyone should have been given access to take the DISC behavior assessment and most have had the opportunity to debrief the results both individually and with your team.

Using the knowledge you gained about your personal DISC behavior style can play a role in how you interact with customers. The infographic included here illustrates some of the ways you can use that knowledge to understand and work with your customers (click on the infographic to see it up close!).



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Service Excellence Stories
posted October 24, 2023

These examples of the UVAFinance value of Service Excellence were provided by UVAFinance Directors as a part of our FY24 Values Focus (see the Cultural Roadmap on our site).  We'll share a few stories every week all quarter long!

  • Azamat Akhmedov, Senior Compliance Analyst:  Azamat was helping a Romanian student who had a difficult foreign national tax situation.  The student arrived from Germany after living there for a year, so it was unclear whether to use the German or Romanian tax treaty.  Azamat researched this ambiguous issue and provided helpful counsel to the student. 
  • Krisztina Kiss, Finance Data & Tech Analyst:  Krisztina is excellent at following up on Salesforce or Jira tickets to make sure we fully understand the user's requirements (stated and unstated) before we begin work on any new reports or enhancement requests.  She fully documents the requirements and shares them with the user.
  • Alison Hyler, Financial Analyst: Regularly engages with challenging stakeholders such as OSP with poise, kindness, professionalism, and grace.  Most recently, Alison worked with the Workday Support team to implement a process for "stuck" grant payments that have been billed.  Workday limitations will not allow the reversal of these payments for reissuing or canceling without errors.  After working closely with the Workday team, Alison created documents to illustrate the resolution process and explained it at length to management and then again to the OSP team several times.
  • Patrick Wood, Procurement Specialist: The Football team had charter plane issues for the return trip back to Charlottesville from TN (the first game of the season) that required for UVA to find and use the services of another vendor.  Athletics texted Patrick Wood and myself at 7 AM on a Saturday morning needing an agreement with a new charter plane vendor reviewed and executed ASAP.  Patrick redlined the agreement and got it fully executed before 11AM on Saturday.
  • Thomas Schneeberger, Workday Finance Senior Analyst: Thomas was responsible for the creation and management of our FY2023 year-end task list and calendar.  This task required more than just identifying and documenting Workday closing-related steps.  Thomas spent a considerable amount of time working with others in and outside of Finance to ensure what year-end activity and cutoffs were applicable to each area.  It was because of Thomas' service excellence that our year-end processes ran extremely smoothly.

UVAFinance Cost Center Reminder
posted October 23, 2023

Effective July 1, 2023, we decided to consolidate OTPS expenses into several main cost centers, with the goals of coordination/leadership/strategy around spending and creating efficiencies in tools/ services. However, recently we have had to reject quite a few expense reports because employees might not have been aware of changes that were implemented. Moving forward, please use the following cost centers for your expenses.
  • CC0484.DN001967.FD005.FN034.BU16 - FI-Business Systems Support (Scott) – computers, software, systems, technology (note: some of the largest expenses, like Workday, have been deemed institutional expenses and are going to a non-Finance cost center).
  • CC0486.DN001967.FD005.FN030.BU16 - FI-Change Enablement & CI (Angela) – employee training registration fees and materials, and travel for professional development and training.
  • CC2033.DN001967.FD005.FN030.BU16 - FI-Business Services (Andrew/Stacey) – contracted services, supplies, legal, printing, consultants, publications, security, membership fees, shipping, and all other general operating costs.
Contact Stacey, Rasha, or Ann for questions.

Hoos & Boos Halloween in Carruthers
posted October 17, 2023

On Friday, Oct. 27th from 2:30 to 4:30, ITS will be hosting an in-person, All-Carruthers Halloween event (Hoos and Boos Halloween). This event is family-friendly and will include trick-or-treating, craft stations, and more! Please bring the kiddo(s) in your life for an afternoon of fun, spooktacular scares, and candy! (please note that 10/27 is a teacher workday holiday for Albemarle County and Charlottesville City Schools). Costumes for both children and adults are strongly encouraged and very much appreciated. Please use THIS LINK to let us know if you are interested in attending this event and the number of people who will be in your party.

If you work in Carruthers and you/your group are interested in participating during this event by being at one of the trick-or-treat stations, by sponsoring one of the craft stations, or by decorating your area, that would be much appreciated and I would love to speak with you! Please feel free to respond to this message or to email Elodie if you have any questions or if you would like to be part of the planning, setup, or execution of this Halloween event.

 
Nominate a Colleague for the Leonard Sandridge Award
posted October 13, 2023

Nominations for the 2023 Leonard W. Sandridge Outstanding Contributor Award will be accepted starting Monday, October 16.  This award recognizes outstanding University staff and team members whose service and contribution far exceeds the overall mission and values of the University.  Nominations are due by November 3.  Learn more about the award and nominate.



United Flight Certificates Available
posted October 11, 2023

Are you traveling for work before the holidays?  The Travel & Expense team has two United Flight Certificates available for university-sponsored business travel.  They are each for a round-trip domestic flight on United, and the travel needs to be completed by December 20, 2023.  The certificates can only be used by those who have not already purchased their flight. Contact Danae Polemi.

Need a flu shot?  
posted October 2, 2023

Hoos Well is sponsoring two upcoming flu vaccination clinics. CVS Health will administer flu vaccines at the Benefits & Well-Being Expo in Newcomb Hall (10/4) and the Education Resource Center (10/5). All faculty, staff, and team members are welcome to pre-register using the clinic links below.

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

8:30am – 2:00pm

Newcomb Ballroom, third floor

Schedule your flu vaccine appointment!     


 

Thursday, October 5, 2023

7:00am – 3:00pm

Education Resource Center, UVA Health

Schedule your flu vaccine appointment!     



Reminder:  Headshots available on October 18
posted September 26, 2023

We've planned Fall Headshots for October 18, 2023, at Carruthers Hall. If you need a headshot, please head to our Sign Up Genius page to secure a time slot.


Active Attacker Prevention, Response, and Notification Training
posted September 20, 2023

Since 2020, the Department of Safety & Security has conducted multiple Active Attacker Prevention, Response, and Notification training for over a thousand members of the University community. Incidents involving active attackers at universities and medical centers are infrequent but do occur and the impact on the individuals and communities affected cannot be overstated. In the wake of November 13th, the Department of Safety & Security continues its commitment to educate the UVA community about public safety. 

In this 60-minute training, the Department of Safety & Security will discuss what the University Threat Assessment Team, Office of Emergency Management, and Police Department do to prevent and if needed respond to and notify the UVA community of an active attacker event. Participants will learn about emergency notifications, how to report concerning behavior, and easy-to-remember options for people who are faced with a violent situation. 

October 17th, 12-1pm Newcomb Hall South Meeting Room

This training is free and open to all students, employees, faculty, and staff of the Academic and UVA Health Divisions. For more information, contact Dr. Rachel Slotter (Academic Division Office of Emergency Management) at ras5zm@virginia.edu. Please register for the training here.

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Career Navigation for Staff:  Help is Available!

posted September 20, 2023


The Career Navigation Center at UVA is dedicated to guiding UVA staff through their next career steps. They offer resume help, coaching, and presentations to your team, among many other things! Check out their webpage for resources and available services.  

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Benefits Open Enrollment Presentation at Carruthers

posted September 20, 2023


Benefits Open Enrollment is October 2 – October 13. Rachel Short, Benefits Counselor, for Human Resources will give a Benefits Open Enrollment Presentation in Carruthers Hall (see details below). She will discuss the 2024 changes, key dates, action items, resources, and how to enroll in Workday. A Zoom link is included for those who are remote.

Date: Tuesday, September 26
Time: 1:30pm – 2:30pm
Location: Carr-1 and Carr-2

Zoom Link: https://virginia.zoom.us/j/99850668681?pwd=QWVnbURNZ1dQQXJiem5iNC85RFRPZz09&from=addon

All Carruthers departments are invited to attend.
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