FDM Requests

The FST Finance Team has officially opened the ability for schools/units to request new values, edits to existing values or the deactivation of existing values on select FDM Worktags.

Using the Worktag Request Template, schools/units can request Projects, Cost Centers, Programs and Activities, as well as their corresponding hierarchies. Instructions are available to aid in completing the template.

Each school/unit will designate one individual to act as the administrator for the MBU and collect, review, and submit the Template. Requests should be submitted once per week for the MBU. The MBU FDM Administrator should work with their school/unit to consolidate efforts and ensure requests align with your unit’s philosophy for the FDM.

Templates should be submitted via AskFinance. Templates received by EOB Wednesday will be reviewed and processed by EOB the following Monday.

The Central Finance Team will review requests to ensure that the requests align with the agreed upon definitions and usage. Definitions for the Worktags are:
  • Cost Center - Area that owns a subset of revenues and/or expenses to support management decision-making or accountability.
  • Project - Activity that has a defined start and end date (e.g., capital or IT project), multiple funding sources and Hierarchy.
  • Program - Defined at the school/unit level, Program captures activities or initiatives that are generally consistent over time (no definite start or end date), broad in nature, and typically spans across multiple cost centers, funding sources, projects, and activities.
  • Activity - Envisioned as managerial reporting tool only, defined at the school level; used to assign further granularity to programs and/or projects
Description Names – Description names should adhere to the following guidelines:
  • All Descriptions should include the two-letter prefix for the MBU along with a dash (“-“) with no spaces.
  • When combined with the worktag value, the length of the description should not exceed 64 characters.
  • The following special characters should not be used:
    • Comma (,)
    • Plus sign (+)
    • Double quotes (“)
    • Backward slash (\)
    • Less than (<)
    • Greater than (>)
    • Semi-colon (;)
    • Hashtag (#) as the first character
    • Vertical slash or pipe (|)
    • A space ( ) as the first or last character
  • Additional Naming Convention Basics can be found on the Community.