Bridges Advisory #27 - September 16, 2004
Printable versionThe University of Florida is committed to keeping you informed as we continue our transition to the new myUFL systems. To help you with the transition, each week you will receive a Bridges Advisory.
REMEMBER TO APPLY THE TRAVEL AUTHORIZATION TO THE EXPENSE REPORT. Please be aware that it is important to apply each Travel Authorization to the applicable Expense Report. To apply the Travel Authorization to the Expense Report, please choose the "Copy from Travel Authorization" creation method. This action will close the original Travel Authorization, release the budget from the encumbrance budget ledger, and move the amount to the expense budget ledger.
If you have a situation where you created the Expense Report without applying the corresponding approved Travel Authorization, navigate to My Self Service > Travel and Expenses > Travel Authorization > Cancel then select the applicable Travel Authorization(s) and click the "Cancel Selected Travel Authorization(s)" button. This action will cancel the Travel Authorization and release the budget from the encumbrance budget ledger instantly.
SICK LEAVE BALANCE IN "VIEW PAYCHECK" AND SICK LEAVE POOL. Anyone who participates in the Sick Leave Pool will notice an 8.00 hour deduction (or less if part-time) for sick leave when viewing their on-line earnings statement. This is due to the recent replenishment of the Sick Leave Pool as explained in an August 12 memo from Central Leave Administration. Faculty and staff who printed their on-line earnings statement on Monday, September 13, would have seen an inaccurate sick leave balance as a result of this Sick Leave Pool contribution's not being reported correctly, but this has since been corrected. If you have any questions about the sick leave deduction for the Sick Leave Pool, please contact Central Leave at 392-5732 (TEAMS/USPS)or Academic Personnel at 392-1251 (Faculty).
ENTERPRISE REPORTING CATALOG. An inventory of all reports available in Enterprise Reporting is now available on the new Enterprise Reporting page at www.bridges.ufl.edu/reporting. Navigation: Services > Enterprise Reporting > Resources. The catalog will be updated weekly.
NEW ENTERPRISE REPORTING REPORTS. There are several new reports available in Enterprise Reporting. Access to Enterprise Reporting is available to any faculty or staff but does require the UF_ER_USER role for general access and may require additional roles depending on the type of information and level of detail.
New reports in Enterprise Reporting > Human Resources Information > My UFL HR and Payroll > Workforce Information:
- New Hires By Department
- New Hires Report By Salary Admin Plan
- Terminations By Department
- Terminations By Salary Admin Plan
Note: Benefits information is not included in the above-mentioned reports but will be in the next few weeks.
In addition, the following reports have been modified and improved:
- In Enterprise Reporting > Financial Information > My UFL Financials > Ledger > Month-End Ledger Reports. Users can now select the Accounting Period.
- In Enterprise Reporting > Financial Information > My UFL Financials > Purchasing.
ISSUES WITH ACCOUNT BALANCES AND BUDGET CHECKING. There are several ongoing issues related to account balances and budget checking. We understand that this is causing a great deal of inconvenience and confusion for the campus community. We are making every attempt to correct the situation in an expeditious manner and appreciate your patience and support. Below is a summary of the issues and plans to correct the problems:
Available Balance Discrepancies
There are some discrepancies between the stated and expected available balance. The UF Bridges team has undertaken an initiative to reconcile sub-ledger activity (i.e., transactions in the subsystems that feed General Ledger; for example, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Purchase Order and Billing) to the balances stated in commitment control (available balance). This effort identified a number of transactions from each subsystem that should have posted, but did not.Further investigation by the technical staff revealed that on-line budget checking has been "deadlocking" (i.e. bumping into each other) sporadically. When this occurs, the available balance posting process does not complete, but does update the transaction status to valid. We believe "deadlocking" is one of the primary causes for discrepancies between the sub-ledgers and the stated available balance. We have received a possible solution from PeopleSoft and are in the testing phase.
Canceled Purchase Orders not Impacting Available Balance
Canceled purchase orders have not been reducing the encumbrance balance and restoring the pre-encumbrance balance. UF Bridges believes one of the causes for these types of errors is the available balance discrepancies identified in the previous section. In addition to testing the PeopleSoft solution mentioned above, UF Bridges will budget re-check all canceled purchase orders after we budget check all of the sub-system transactions.No Budget Exists on Grants
Another common error occurs when users attempt to charge grants and receive a "No Budget Exists" error message in commitment control. Most often this occurs when the department affiliated with the budget is different than the department on the transaction. The easiest way to correct these errors is to open Query Viewer and run the UF_GL_GRANT_DEPT_LOOKUP query. This query will prompt the user for a Project ID then it will display the valid departments users can charge against the grant.Batch vs. On-line Budget Checking
Every day UF Bridges has been monitoring the transactions that have failed the budget check process. In past communications, we stated that once corrective measures take place (budget transfers, zero dollar budgets, etc), the nightly budget checking process would revalidate the transactions. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The Bridges teams have been able to manually budget check transactions (one transaction at a time) that failed budget check in nightly batch process. This was done temporarily for testing purposes (i.e., proof of concept). We are now asking departments to do this going forward. Until this issue is resolved-and we are working with PeopleSoft to find a solution-UF Bridges strongly recommends that users manually budget check (where available) all transactions that fail budget check.
NEW INSTRUCTION GUIDES. Several new or updated Instruction Guides are available:
Hiring
- Using SpeedCharts for ChartField Strings (New)
- UF Graduate Letters of Appointment (Updated)
- Posting a Position (Updated)
- Posting A Position Without A Position Number (Updated)
- Cloning A Requisition (Updated)
Job and Position Actions
- Change FTE: For TEAMS, USPS, and Academic Personnel (New)
- Change FTE: For all categories of OPS (New)
- Add a Position (Updated)
- Reclassifications (Updated)
Travel and Expense
- Travel and Expenses for Approvers (Updated)
UPDATED CLASSROOM TRAINING MATERIALS. The following Classroom Presentation and Handout is available:
- Authoring and Publishing in myUFL Portal (Updated), including an updated HTML guide and a new Adding Images guide.
For frequent updates about the project, subscribe to the UF Bridges pagelet on the myUFL portal. For a quick tutorial on how to use myUFL, visit: http://wla.erp.ufl.edu/media/PersonalizeContentLayout.html.
For more information about the transition, visit the Bridges Web site.
For help or support in using the new systems, including the portal, contact the UF Help Desk at 392-HELP or helpdesk@ufl.edu.
