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This is NOT an example of the branded backgrounds,but it's pretty funny.If you're taking part in larger online meetings where it might be handy to have your organization, name, and title onscreen as a part of your Zoom background, check out the new branded options available in the UVAFinance brand resources. The files linked below contain several options for backgrounds, from simple to photographic.  Please read the Zoom Background Template guidance before choosing and using a template

This January, the Adaptive team begins a six-week testing phase on the Adaptive 3.0 tenant, the version of the budgeting software that will integrate with Workday Financials.  A team of folks from UVA schools and units will pitch in to help with the testing.Thank you to everyone who has committed to helping us with this critical step in the last push to get Adaptive ready for go-live with Workday Financials on July 1, 2022.Do you have questions about Adaptive, or about budgeting now or in t

 The 2021 Commonwealth of Virginia Campaign is quickly coming to a close. As we approach the end of the campaign, we want to provide you with a few updates to help us collectively finish strong. General Updates To date, UVA employees have pledged ~$500k, representing ~50% of total CVC pledges from all state agencies. Over 70% of UVA funds pledged have been designated to local Charlottesville area organizations Total participation across the University is about half of where it was during

In current state, all transactions are run through Oracle whether or not the involved organization or entity is affiliated with the University. Certain issues often come up because of this policy. For example, sometimes one entity (e.g. UVAMC or UPG) doesn't have a transaction recorded on the Academic side. The Financial Reporting team then has to go in and manually reconcile information between that entity and the Academic side. Also, it can be challenging to identify all intercompany transacti

With Workday Financials going live in just a little over six months, people are wondering how different balances will be converted to Workday. The FST Team is completing GL Balance Conversion by following these guiding principles: Meet External Audit Requirements: The General Ledger is the source of truth--it must balance by Company and Fund. Timing: We need "correct" balances in FDM for departments and units as early as possible after the start of the fiscal year.School and MBU Balanc

Zachary Jackson has joined UVAFinance’s PSDS as a Supply Chain Business Analyst. He is involved in the synthesis of procurement data to inform strategy development around supplier diversity and sustainability.Prior to coming to UVA, he worked as an economic development specialist with the Virginia Tech Center for Economic and Community Engagement. Specifically, he worked in a consulting capacity as part of a team that partnered with public and private-sector entities to conduct applied economic

Got a problem?Who wants to talk about problems? No one. . .wait, scratch that! The FST testing team reports they are actually looking for problems. Have any you want to send their way? I bet we all do.But they are looking for specific defects in the Workday Financials system. Nothing is perfect and transferring processes to a new system will produce some hiccups and the goal is to solve those issues now. The testing phase is integral so the team knows exactly what users will encounter in the sys

Do you have questions about mapping the PTAO to the Foundation Data Model?  How about questions about budgeting, or budgeting in the future state?  Maybe something about the University Financial Model?   Both the FDM Mapping Team and the Budget/ Adaptive Insights Team want to hear from you!  Ask Us Anything using these online forms -- we promise to respond quickly!FDM Ask Us Anything: https://uvafinance.virginia.edu/form/fdm-ask-us-anythingBudgeting/Adapt… As

The FDM Mapping Sprint team is still racing down the track to get 85% of UVA’s PTAOs mapped to the new Foundation Data Model by January. Mappers are meeting regularly with sprint and workstream leadership and working through questions and concerns.If you want to keep up with the FDM happenings, you can access the FDM Resource page on the Community. Things to check out: FDM Frequently Asked QuestionsArchive of weekly FDM bulletinsDemonstration videos (payroll costing, value lookup, pod meet

December is a great time to look at accomplishments made over the past year. Here's a look at what the FST Team's Reporting & Analytics workstream has accomplished this year: The Reporting & Analytics Team created Workday Reporting user stories to better understand reporting needs of various stakeholders. The team then divided these user stories into three separate categories: P1, P2, and P3. P1 reports are ones that the functional leads needed to do end-to-end testing, P2 reports a

 This month, we bring you the stories of two UVAFinance departments using Salesforce and the benefits they've gained from the tool.  Read on, you will.Jedi #1:  Julie Richardson of UVA Treasury.Now that Treasury has been using Salesforce for several months, Richardson has enough data to start to see consistencies.  The dashboard report she receives every Monday gives her a view into the team's service numbers, their service survey results, and the comments stakeholders share.

Now that it's been a few months since PaymentWorks went live with Oracle, let's look at how the implementation of the supplier management software is progressing. According to the PaymentWorks Team, who gave an update at Governance meetings this month, PaymentWorks' rollout has gone as well as could be expected. A few issues have shown up, but the team feels confident they can deal with those and any other issues that come up in the future.One issue that users are experiencing is differenti

As we move closer to go-live, the functional team is matching the defined Workday Roles with existing Oracle Roles. Between January and March of 2022, the team will work directly with each unit in an iterative process to identify how to best fill these roles while ensuring separation of duties.This role-definition process is important because as the FST management team shared when this project began: this is more than a technology transfer, this is about the people and their roles. Each employee

Madhu Iyer says challenge, collaboration, autonomy, culture and helping others are what comes to mind when he thinks about what he’s experienced since joining the FST Team.With experience in cutover management at Comcast and Arizona State University, Madhu, the new Cutover Lead, will develop execute activities related to Workday Financials go-live. This includes planning for the resources and tasks required for the cutover to the new system. His experience and work are integral to tailoring a s

A second series of Lean Training Classes has been scheduled from Aug - Nov 2021.

 Gobble Gobble:  Have a happy Thanksgiving!Attention multitaskers:  you can listen to this update on WFST!Not much time to read?  Try "Five Things to Know about FST"FDM SprintSchools and units have been working toward a December 31 deadline to have 85% of FDM Mapping complete so that we can have a fairly complete chart for testing moving into 2022. Recognizing that we need a little extra help to get there, the team has enlisted a few additional resources to get us over the l

 1.  A new FDM Sprint began this week.  This sprint, led by Jacob Mair, Elissa Morton, and Katie Walker, will work in conjunction with the FST Functional Team to get us at 85% FDM Mapping completion by December 31, 2021.  Read more on the blog. 2.  The Adaptive Planning Team and the Office of Financial Planning & Analysis want to hear your questions and concerns about future state budgeting!  Read more and access their "Ask Us Anything" site.3.  See th

The December 31 deadline to have 85% of FDM Mapping complete is quickly approaching. Recognizing that if we’re to meet that deadline and have a fairly complete chart for testing, the team is enlisting additional resources to help us meet the goal and also to help optimize the new chart for managerial reporting. Jacob Mair, Elissa Morton, and Katie Walker will co-lead the effort in partnership with existing functional leaders, expanding the team to staff a sprint.The sprint team’s tasks inc

At this month's Advisory Group, the FST team provided an update on several upcoming decisions.  Below, we've provided a short explanation of each decision discussed in this month's governance meetings.WFCA Workflow Changes: UVA's financial leadership has expressed a desire to shift away from the University's current heavy reliance on detailed post-transaction reconciliation and move towards front-end, real-time transaction approvals. These efforts will reduce time and increase accuracy on t

 Click Image for a Larger ViewUVAFinance is working with ITS and HR on how we will manage and support Workday Financials after implementation and stabilization.  We're developing this structure in real-time, and will keep you updated as we go. As you see in the graphic above, our approach consists of a cross-functional support team including the Workday Stakeholder Support team reporting to Bill Ashby (AVP for Financial Strategy) and the Workday Systems Support team reporting to A

 As the Foundation Data Modelling team provides guidance while also optimizing the new chart for managerial reporting to units, the System Remediation Network team will be providing one-on-one support. Moving from the build phase to the test phase, it is important that units work to test the status of each system.Scot Thornton, SRN lead, said to achieve this, “change leaders will be provided with the opportunity for personalized support and guidance.” Each unit is unique in some aspects of

Crystal TapiaFor Crystal Tapia, joining the FST Team meant the opportunity to help implement Workday and to use her skills at a large institution like UVA.As the UVA FST Security Lead, Crystal will be focusing on Workday security needs. She will primarily be involved in security for Finance but will also help with HCM security as needed. She will be working closely with the UVA Workday Security Team, Kelli O’Dell, and Venkata Nimmalapudi. Though jumping into a Lead role at this point in the proj

Brittany Newton on hiking tripBrittany Newton joined UVAFinance back in March 2020, the chaotic time when all of us were adjusting to working from home suddenly. Unfortunately, that means we missed introducing her when she first started. However, good things are worth waiting for, and we think the chance to learn about Brittany was definitely worth the wait. Brittany assists the Accounts Payable department in expense management and payment processing for the University’s vendors. She was interes

We've got a panel of creative folks from the UVAFinance team in today's episode, talking about the benefits of creative pursuits on them as individuals and also as professionals on the Finance team. Join Patty and Brandi as they talk with Jay Gallimore (musician), Matt Bonham (photographer, graphic artist), and Mary Wagamon (artist, writer), and get inspired to pursue your own creativity!Listen Here!