In This Issue
We've pretty much hit the halfway point in the project. Here's what's been going on.
Go-Lives
Here we are at the start of January 2012 and we've got several new systems with that all important go-live activity in full swing. The new portal Treehouse had it's soft launch in the summer, and now has had it's first major pieces of interactive functionality turned on. In conjunction with the go-live for Human Resources/Payroll all employees who submit either hourly timesheets or monthly leave reports are accessing them via the new Treehouse portal. All of the approval for timesheets/leave reports are also being processed via Treehouse. In addition to those tools, all employees can now access their benefit information, pay stubs, direct deposit information and leave balances. As we go forward with the Drew 360 project more and more of the self-service functionality available to us will be accessible via https://treehouse.drew.edu.
Treehouse is only one of several systems that are going live this January. The Financial Aid department went live with Banner’s Financial Aid system on January 1, 2012. One of the biggest challenges with the Financial Aid system involves accommodating the changes demanded by state and federal regulations, which change quite often. Russell Sprague, a technology consultant on the Financial Aid implementation team, elaborates: “As someone relatively unfamiliar with the complexities of financial aid before this project, it has been amazing to see how well our staff navigates the governmental procedures. Having a consultant knowledgeable about both the regulations and the technology involved with the implementation has been wonderful.” Regulation changes are reflected in quarterly updates to the Financial Aid system, provided by SunGard. Renee Volak says of the go-live, “Financial Assistance is very excited, if not a little nervous, about bringing up the Banner system this month. The Financial Aid team and our consultant Jill Mackey have really worked hard to get us to this point. We're looking forward to the new functionality, reduction of paperwork and elimination of redundant processes. “
The last major system going live this January is the HR/Payroll module. The new functionality available to them will allow HR/Payroll to more easily manage the flow of information between the two offices ensuring correct and timely changes to benefits/deductions. HR can also now allow the system to track benefits eligibility freeing up time to handle policy questions/special cases. Many of the workarounds in place in AIMS to handle special situations like minister's housing allowances are now cleanly managed with non-cash earnings that will keep both the employee and Drew in compliance with federal and state tax rules. The time and effort that the HR/Payroll team has put in has already paid off. As of the publishing of this article, not only have they gone live with all the aspects mentioned, we have successfully run not one, but two Payrolls out of Banner.
Web Time Entry for Timesheets and Leave Reports
With the go-live of the HR/Payroll portion of the Drew 360 project there are a lot of exciting opportunities for the HR/Payroll team to gain new functionality and efficiency; however, the major function that end-users will see right away is the new Web Time Entry interface for entering Timesheets and Leave Reports. Timsheets are for the Biweekly paid staff and student employees, while Leave Reports are what the Monthly paid staff are currently used to filling out as Monthly Vacation Days in CampusWeb. Both of these functions are accessible through the new portal Treehouse. While most of the basic functionality is the same between how Timesheets/Leave Reports were filled out in CampusWeb and how they are done in Banner, we felt it was important to highlight some of the changes now that we are live with Banner.
The first major difference between the Timesheets/Leave Reports accessed through Treehouse and the old CampusWeb Timesheets/Leave Reports is that Employees will need to be more proactive in completing these forms in a timely manner. Biweekly and Student staff will have to have the Timesheet submitted and approved by 3:00 p.m. on the due date for the pay period. This is generally the Monday following the last day of the pay period, but can shift due to holidays. Monthly staff have until near the end of the month following their paycheck to submit the Leave Report for a given pay period. Reminder emails will be sent three days before the due date to anyone who has not submitted their Timesheet/Leave Report. Employees who Approve the Timesheest/Leave Reports of others will be notified at noon on the due date of any Timesheet/Leave Reports still needing their approval. Anyone who misses the deadline will have to fill out a paper Timesheet and get their supervisor and the Vice President/Dean of their area to sign it.
The second difference in Banner from CampusWeb is the types of Earning/Leave that you should be reporting. The Banner system will now allow you to report all of the major types of Earnings/Leaves you can use. These Earnings/Leave types always existed, but now you will be able to submit and track them via the Web Time Entry interface.
Instructions on how to fill out/approve Timesheets/Leave Reports is covered in the Web Time Entry and Leave Reporting Documentation.
Changes to Finance Budget Reporting
January will see updates to the self-service functionality and expansion of functionality from the Finance area via the reporting tool Argos. These changes will be reviewed for budget managers in the Budget Reports training sessions being held in early February, but here is a first look at what's coming down the pike.
Changes to Self-Service Banner (Budget Queries)
The new version of Banner Finance has had some significant improvements to giving budget managers the ability to view and understand how incomplete documents (documents that haven't been finished or fully approved) are affecting your available balance for your budget lines. This available balance (sometimes you may hear it referred to as BAVL) is what Banner checks against to see if you have enough funds to fulfill a Requisition or Journal Voucher (the dreaded NSF or Not Sufficient Funds condition). If you start a JV or Requisition and then don't complete it, Banner is still internally setting aside those funds in case you ever do finish it. To help prevent these documents from sitting out there hidden and dragging down your available balance, Sungard has given you the ability to now see incomplete documents in Self-Service Banner (SSB).
When executing a budget query in SSB if there are incomplete or Pending documents, you will now see a button telling you of that fact. By clicking on this button you will be shown a list of all the documents in the Pending status with an explanation of why they are not complete. Each of the Document Code numbers will be a link allowing you to few the information about that document. Any incomplete or error documents that you don't want to complete should be deleted from the system in Internet Native Banner (INB).
New Finance Reports Via Argos
While the Self-Service Banner (SSB) has two views via Budget Queries (By Account and By Organizational Hierarchy), there have been some requests for a simplified view across several Organizations to see a quick budget status for those Budget Managers with several departments or Orgs to view at once. Additionally, the SSB budget query can only view information stored in what's known as the Operating Ledger in Banner. The opening balances for Restricted Funds however are stored in the General Ledger. This causes a problem for managers of Restricted Funds who want to see what the current available balance for their fund is. To this end the Finance Department has requested and ETC has developed several reports for Budget Managers to run for these needs.
The Argos tool is a web-based reporting tool from Evisions that works as a plug-in for Internet Explorer (IE). This means that all people who need to run this tool will have to use IE to get to the reports. The training in February will include instructions on how to install the Argos plug-in on your computer. When the documentation is finished a web version of it will also be posted and linked from this article in U-KNOW.