v Cathy Holmes thanked everyone for coming. Introductions were made going around the room.
v Al Benzschawel gave an update of developments with the UW-System SFS.
Ø The System Controllers have given the go-ahead on the upgrade to version 7.52 of the SFS software. The upgrade will be taking place beginning November 20th. The upgrade was intentionally scheduled to take place the week of Thanksgiving, with the aim of reducing the amount of disruption caused by the upgrade. WISDM will still be available during the period of upgrade. Al noted that Ruth Fruehling would be covering this topic in greater detail later in the meeting.
Ø Al also announced the formation of a System-wide Data Access group. The purpose of this group is not limited to SFS, but will be charged with examining, at a high level, issues related to data systems throughout the System schools. Al noted that, with three people from here participating, UW-Madison is well represented in this group.
v Ruth Fruehling gave an update on developments with the Data Warehouse.
Ø Ruth spoke about the impact of the SFS upgrade on the development of the Data Warehouse data views. Ruth explained that the unanticipated complexity of the SFS upgrade has caused DoIT to shift its resources to the upgrade project, and that Data Warehouse development has been negatively affected as a result. For the last month, there have been no changes in the data views. There are currently three in production; however, Ruth cautioned that some of the data might be faulty. As far as she knows, no transactions are missing, but in the FN_ACTRAN data view the req field may contain some strange characters, and some voucher numbers are missing.
Ø Don Miner asked if the totals are accurate in FN_ACTRAN. Ruth answered that as far as she knew they were.
Ø Ruth noted that in the FNR_RECEIPT data view the historical data is missing.
Ø Ruth said that the additional data views that had been promised had already been in development before the SFS upgrade put them on hold, and that she expected that they would go into production shortly after DoIT resources again became available.
Ø Ruth gave an update on the GL Star pilot program. She explained that the GL Star consisted of all the tables that make up the SFS database. A pilot group (Ruth and four others) has been set up that has been given access to the GL Star, and they are using BrioQuery directly against the GL Star. Ruth has been pleased with her results. She said that as we move forward, we will be looking at moving access to the GL Star outward, and may potentially put a copy of the GL Star out onto InfoAccess. Ruth explained that the basic difference between the GL Star and the data views is that the user must understand how the table structure works before they can use it effectively. She said that eventually we would like to make it available to the entire campus.
Ø Ruth reported the establishment of a System-wide Data Access team. She noted that UW-Madison has three representatives on the team, which is charged with high-level analysis of data access needs and developments for the entire UW-System. Cathy Holmes interjected that if people have questions or concerns regarding data access issues that they would like addressed by this team, to please contact Ruth. Ruth noted that other campuses tend to watch what we do here at UW-Madison, so questions and issues we raise will eventually spread out to the entire System.
v Ruth Fruehling gave an update on WISDM developments.
Ø Ruth began by noting that WISDM development has suffered from the same resource drain, due to the SFS upgrade, that is effecting the Data Warehouse development.
Ø Ruth noted that Jim Hellenbrand has written two new trees for WISDM, specifically for UW-Madison. The first one, MSN_GPR_DFLT, removes fringe benefit and longevity pay data, so as to not distort the budget. An enhancement has been requested that will include the fringe and longevity information below the balance line. The second tree, MSN_FUNDORG_DFLT, is the same basic tree, only with the fringe and longevity data included in the balance.
Ø Ruth announced the availability of improved criteria in the Transaction Search tool in WISDM. The organization field has been expanded to allow searches using ‘starts with’ and ‘contains.’ Ruth noted that we have asked for the ability to do the same thing with the other fields in the tool (i.e., account numbers, program code, etc.).
Ø Ruth also noted that the “View in PDF” option is currently in test mode. This option will allow the printing of data in a more professional looking report format. Use of this feature will require having the Adobe Acrobat Reader loaded on the user’s machine. This feature will not replace the subscription reports project that the team has been working on. Ruth said that she expects the subscription reports to become available sometime after the end of the year.
Ø Ruth pointed out the addition of an intermediate panel for encumbrance data. Clicking on an encumbrance amount will now open a screen showing the open balances on all PO’s making up the encumbrance. The user can then drill from the PO to the detail. Ruth said that DoIT would be adding the ability to drill into the encumbrance total from this intermediate screen, which will allow you to again see all the detail for the encumbrance at once. She noted that, in the mean time, you could still see the total detail through using the Transaction Search. Don Miner interjected that using this feature on salary encumbrances can act as a replacement for section three of the ACLS. Ruth added that the team has also asked for beginning and ending dates for encumbrances to be shown. She noted that, while it may take a while for this enhancement to be developed, when it is available it would help the user identify blanket orders seperately from specific orders.
Ø Ruth said that the team has asked for DoIT to make the ESIS project description available for project/grants.
Ø Ruth announced that a complete list of enhancements is now available on the SFS project website (http://www.bussvc.wisc.edu/acct/sfs/wisdmlinks.html). This list will be updated as more enhancements become available, and as more enhancement requests are received. Ruth said to expect the list to be updated every three to four weeks.
Ø Ruth pointed out that project/grant budget amounts carried forward from FY2001 are still not available. She affirmed that the team realizes how important this information is to campus users, and that there has been some discussion on how to make the budgets at least temporarily available on WISDM. Cathy Holmes noted that DoIT has been working on a budget roll-forward process, which, when finished, will be a permanent solution to this problem. In the mean time, they have been looking at having Accounting Services staff do an extract of project/grant budgets from FY2001 and uploading the data into SFS. The values would be correct, but it would not solve the problem of making the budgets available in the future.
Ø Ruth noted that FY2002 budget entries and transfers have been recorded into SFS.
Ø Ruth spoke about fringe benefit encumbrances for project/grants. She noted that there are on going discussions on how to handle this data. She affirmed that the team does realize that this is an important issue. She asked that people please send any comments to the SFS mailbox ().
Ø Ruth gave some more details regarding the upcoming SFS upgrade, and how it will affect WISDM. Monday, November 19th will be the last time that WISDM will be updated until the upgrade is finished. WISDM will still be available, but will not be updated. Ruth noted that people who need real time data should use legacy. WISDM will be updated again (assuming everything goes according to plan) on the evening of Wednesday, November 28th. The System SFS team has announced that some drill-downs in WISDM will not function during the upgrade, but Ruth’s analysis has led her to feel that this issue will probably not affect Madison users. Ruth said that the team would post announcements, on the project web site and on the WISDM main page, when the upgrade is done and WISDM is updated. Ken Mount suggested using a different font or some other graphical element to make the upgrade announcement stand out from other announcements.
Ø Pennie Maclean took the opportunity to remind the team that they had promised to send each division a list of staff who had received authorization, but who hadn’t used it. Ruth said that this ended up not to be possible because the WISDM system was not actually forcing users to change their passwords on first logging in, as was intended (note: since the meeting the team has determined that the bug in WISDM that prevented the system from forcing a password change has been fixed – gg).
Ø Tim Norris asked if there was a way to track statistics on the usage of WISDM. Ruth acknowledged that there was a way, but said that she hadn’t used this ability recently.
Ø Dennis Olson wondered why the team couldn’t send an announcement directly to the 700+ authorized WISDM users. Cathy Holmes responded that this would require the team to set up an automatic mailing list, and that, while she was not averse to doing this, she was personally dubious about the effectiveness of mass e-mailings.
Ø Ruth then gave a report concerning the naming of the tree levels in the new WISDM trees. She solicited feedback on what names would be meaningful for campus users, and requested that suggestions be sent to her by the end of next week. Maggie Roth stressed the importance of including the level number alongside the level name on the WISDM screens. Pennie Maclean noted that the use of ‘Account’ in the tree level names might be confusing for users who are not used to the SFS terminology.
v Gareth Green gave an update regarding the project web site.
Ø Gareth announced that an updated WISDM user’s manual was now available on the project web site. The manual incorporates screenprints showing the new graphical layout of the WISDM site, and addresses the enhancements previously described by Ruth. Gareth stated that, as always, he appreciates any suggestions on ways to make the user’s manual more effective.
Ø Gareth echoed Ruth’s remarks regarding the requested WISDM enhancement document that is now available on the web site, and pointed out that this document, as well as other WISDM materials on the site, have a date posted in connection to them, which indicates the last time that the particular document was updated. He encouraged people to pay attention to these dates, so as to ensure that they have up-to-date WISDM materials.
Ø Gareth made a short announcement regarding the use of the “View in Excel” option, and some potential problems that this feature might cause people using Internet Explorer. Gareth directed those interested in this issue to read a discussion of the problem on the web site (http://www.bussvc.wisc.edu/acct/sfs/wisdm.html) - look for the “Embedded Excel Issue” section.
v Gareth Green then gave a brief update of the SFS team’s training efforts.
Ø Gareth remarked that, while registration for the sessions has been brisk and all announced demonstrations have filled up, there has been a consistently high level of no-shows. He allowed as to how, short of charging for training, there was not much that the team could realistically do to enforce attendance. Gareth did ask that the Financial Mangers be aware of this, and encouraged them to instruct their staff to contact him and cancel their attendance if they knew they could not attend.
Ø Gareth announced the addition of a WISDM training session on December 4th. The session will be held at 9:00 a.m. at the Pyle Center. There is still plenty of space, and Gareth encouraged everyone to have any staff that they would like to have attend contact him for registration. As Gareth previously mentioned, these sessions have been filling up, so he encouraged registration to be done as early as possible.
v Sandy Jaeckel reported on developments with the Auxiliaries and their response to the SFS implementation. She reported that representatives of the Auxiliaries have been meeting together to review software in order to set up a new accrual accounting system. They hope to make a final decision on what system to use by December 1st.
v Sandy gave an update on requests for new SFS account codes. Sandy has been part of a team that met to review the new account code requests. The team then made recommendations on each request. They also sent the first four requests they received to the other UW campuses, hoping to solicit information on whether the other schools would find these new account codes useful. Sandy reported that while the response on these four codes was minimal, the act of sending them out produced a number of new account code requests. The account code team has reviewed these new requests and made further recommendations, which they forwarded to Al Benzschawel and Cathy Holmes. The requests will be forwarded to System after the SFS upgrade is completed.
v Ruth Fruehling reported on issues arising out of an incorrect crosswalk between legacy and SFS. Transactions for legacy account 3222 were incorrectly posted to ‘Royalties’ instead of ‘Miscellaneous Services.’ The crosswalk was corrected, but the entries were never backed out by System. The incorrect postings should be limited to July and maybe very early August. Ruth cautioned everyone to watch for entries in these account codes with a different Journal ID from the rest of the entries. Ruth also noted that there is further documentation of this issue on the project web site. She encouraged people to go to the Journal Search, enter the Journal ID number and see what data they have that has been affected by this error.