The following feedback was collected in the FY 14 Planning training sessions that took place in August 2013. The business stakeholder representatives met with IT and developed an action plan to address these items. Note this action plan does not include development items that may be generated from this feedback. Those items are prioritized against other items by the stakeholder representatives on the project team and can be viewed on the following pages:
Initial responses/clarifications from the Project Team are in red.
Summary | Owner | Actions | Status |
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A critical need for the Forecast Report Grid in the UI to be based on IFAS Month End Data rather than IFAS as of last night. (The Forecast is based on Working Plan as of the Last Month End, but IFAS data is as of last night, so by this time of the month a lot may be double counted.) Note: The forecast scenario is not double counting. This is a training issue.
Forecast Report Grid: Can this work off every close, all month end closes, but also each Year End close, including the preliminary? Yes, we can use Incurred Actual MOE scenario instead of Incurred Actual on this grid. Or users can make the selections themselves
Forecast Report Grid : A need for two versions of this, this detailed version and a simpler version. This can be done using the dimension selector. | Reta/Justin | Confirm there is no double counting in the Forecast scenario – Complete | Complete 9/18/13 |
Barb | Add IFAS Budget vs Actual MOE to TM1 dimension. – | Complete 9/18/13 | |
Reta/Justin: | Write step-by-step training for analyzing remaining budget and updating planned expenses in a contract end or year-end spend down situation and schedule training as necessary
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Reta/Justin: | Communicate Proposed Scenario dimensions on columns in this grid including user ed on how to change dimension selections to create any views desired. |
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Barb | Update Scenario drupal page with new scenarios: /docs/scenarios
A new grid will be created if needed based on additional info gleaned from outreach by Justin and Reta
| Complete 9/20/13 | |
Forecast Report Grid : A need to have a column with just IFAS Actual Expenses and just IFAS Actual Encumbrances, but not added. – Note, there were 2 separate columns in the grid – Actuals and Encumbrances were not being added together. This was a labeling issue. | Barb | Change Budget Type label to All Budget Types on grid | Complete 9/18/13 |
Reta | Continue user ed on this topic |
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Need to think about how Forecast is used in any report– probably need ALL forecast reports to include Actuals as of last month end since the Working Plan forward is only from last month end to avoid double counting all expenses through Last Night, August 28th AND the full August Working Plan. Note: The forecast scenario is not double counting. | Reta: | Assess existing reports and determine the following: Is the report meaningful/necessary – can we cull the reports down? - Reta |
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Justin/Dee | Assess existing reports and determine the following: - Which new IRM reports replace the current reports on BI? - What changes should be made to the report to leverage the new IRM scenarios
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Reta/Justin | - Document requirements for changes to existing reports - Reta - Define change management plan for updating/replacing any changed reports - Reta to propose new list and send
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A critical need to be able to copy actual expenses into the grid for past months. Requirements clarification: Users would like to be able to copy incurred actual to working plan and have the actual go into the expense class object code instead of the actual specific object code they were incurred on in IFAS. Revise the N2 process | Barb | Ceate workspace item priority 2 for now to change the N2 process | created 9/18/13 |
The TOTAL Column in this grid does not "stick" when moved and the grid layout is saved, it reverts to where it was. | Reta | Reta: Test and approve for deployment | Complete 10/2/13 |
Can we add a process to copy Non-Salary Funds Available from one year and scenario to another. (For instance, copying funds available by expense class in Non-Salary from FY13 into FY14 would have a good starting point for planning.) | Reta | Confirm/clarify business process/best practice - Probably would not do this until last year-end close by which time you already have a working plan for the next year – if you write over items in that is that really the goal? You could alos copy form the IFAS budget once the IFAS carryover process is complete. What is the recommended best practice for palnning carryover (when? what analysis is done? what steps should be taken? etc.) - What are requirements for parameter for copy process (e.g. Budget type Source, Budget Type target, scenario source scenario target, year source, year target, spread evenly to months or put into one month? |
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Can we add Fund Source and Budget Type to copy processes? | Reta | Clarify requirements: - Is a source and target budget type needed? We already have budget type in both N2’s - Confirm copy processes where budget type source and/or target needs to be added (e.g. S2, S3, S4?) - How widespread is the request to copy by fund source from one scenario to another?
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Barb | Create workspace item to include fund source for N2 process, currently designated by team as priority 2 | Complete 9/19/13 | |
BI: Can we change the folder layout? Place various reports into TASK or SUBJECT folders, so we go to one folder for any reports relating to MTDC or one folder for Month End? Can some reports be in more than one folder? It would be much easier to find what we need and use the reports. Yes – this is easily done and shortcuts to reports can be created in multiple folders. | Reta | Propose folder names and reports that go in them and complete outreach to gain agreement and buy-in. |
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BI: Questions about options in the BI reports – are we able to hide or show specific columns or sections base on selections in the Prompt page, in the same way can we choose to show Working Plan or Forecast, would also like that option to select to run with Provisional Rates or the Current Interim Rates (A single report with many options in BI). This is definitely possible but could make the reports very complex. We could also ramp up training on Perspectives so ad hoc reporting could be used to achieve this depending on the goal. Requirements clarification needed.
| Reta | Work with requestor on clarification of request (e.g. if reports are designed based on a common best practice why would a column need to be hidden?) |
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BI: Can there be a mouse over or info button on column headers to show the formula in the report and describe the info? (A lot of time is spent deciphering column headers when users are not sure what it is or includes. If this were Excel, you’d look at the formula to figure it out, but this takes a lot of time. Since this is a database system formulas are not all in one place like in Excel. Tool tips could be created describing the calculations but these would need to be maintained for every column of every grid in FAB and in every column of every report in BI reports. We could also use a different alias for the scenarios and budget types if agreement could be reached on what to call them and a common understanding of how they are used could be achieved. This would be easier to maintain.
| Reta | Clarify where this is needed (BI or FAB) and is a legend/glossary in drupal sufficient? How can we develop a common terminology set for these types of items? |
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Expected Budget: When we have such a grid for data entry can it show the current IFAS Budget and the Current Working Plan information as reference points? A new Expected Budget data entry grid is currently in Testing. This grid is based off the current non salary planning grid so already has Working Plan. A workspace item is opened already to drive IFAS Budget into the cube behind this grid as well.
| Reta/Business owners on project team | Test Expected Budget item needs testing and prioritize #604 against other priority 1 items. |
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Rather than so many e-mails and handouts can we have an index or searchable info on the web-site from the handouts and e-mails and other info to quickly and easily find what we are looking for rather than a lot of digging and eventually just calling. Can the web site be better organized so folks can find things quickly?
| Reta | Added FY14 training materials to Drupal Site so they are searchable under "Quick References" as well as printable Word Docs Need to prioritize getting additional information on the site and easy to search, find and print as necessary. |
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There were numerous checks and balances built into user spreadsheets. We do have this in the Projection Grid where PY and FTE over or under 1.00 are highlighted for the user to verify. There may be more, but one example was a warning if you plan someone or a non-salary expense past the Contract POP. These are a big timesaver and provide confidence in data entry. Due to the complexity of the tool based on UCAR’s requirements (various planning options, use of date ranges, etc.), these alerts are more challenging to have in the data entry grids themselves. One option would be to create a status grid that shows all of the warnings by employee. The user could then go to the individual data entry grids to correct the problems if needed.
| Reta | Gather requirements listing all of the indicators people need and develop user ed for using existing grids to cross check
Once requirements are vetted this can be added to the development list |
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