Bridges Advisory #89 – December 09, 2005
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.
Enterprise Storage System. Over the past several months, the infrastructure team, working with many members of the Bridges staff and the CNS staff, have installed a new enterprise storage system.
Our existing storage systems were not designed for the explosive growth our systems experienced in nearly three years of operation – we launched the portal in March of 2003 and Enterprise Reporting in August of 2003. The systems and tools we had were completely inadequate to manage the vastly larger system we manage today.
In addition, the cost of operating such a large storage collection far exceeded our expectations. By implementing the enterprise storage system, we lowered the operational cost of our storage, saved the university $300,000 over three years and prepared for additional growth for the foreseeable future
Department Security Clean Up. There are circumstances when people working at UF, or as university affiliates, gain access to myUFL for appropriate business needs. Periodically, those affiliates no longer need access as they move, terminate, or no longer act on the university’s behalf. At that time, the affiliates’ access to myUFL should be revoked.
The Department Security Administrator would sign on to myUFL navigate to Access Request System > Requests > Manage Requests, enter the UF Id, Mark the box by “Delete Roles”, change action for one of the roles to “delete”, and select the “submit for approval” button.
Through various means, Bridges is auditing security and is reporting to the department when we believe the resource no longer has an affiliation with the university. If you receive a Request Role Deletion notification message and have any questions, please contact Frank Green at fg@ufl.edu or call (352) 214–8504.
Grants Project Title Descriptions Updated. On December 7, 2005, Bridges application and technical resources replaced the DSR UPN in the project title description field with the actual project title. This enhancement will enable the grants user to have a higher likelihood of getting a match when searching by title description, reducing the effort and improving reporting capabilities.
HR View Only Pages. On December 9th, Bridges implemented an enhancement providing additional view only capabilities to HR data. This enhancement will provide department and core office employees possessing the UF_HR View/Inquiry role with the ability to review job, personal, and employment data without the fear of accidentally updating data.
Enterprise Reporting – Query Studio. Training and Organizational Development has developed a two–hour Query Studio training class called “Reporting: Query Studio,” course number PST012. In the training class, the query developer will have several hands–on exercises and learn about data packages and the data element dictionary.
The classes will be available for enrollment purposes on Monday, December 12, and will be spread over several months starting in January to provide sufficient opportunities for the query studio developer to attend and to maintain the query studio role (UF_ER_CRN_QUERY_STUDIO). Nine Query Studio training sessions can be found in myUFL by navigating > My Self Service > Training and Development > Request Training Enrollment and choosing the PST012 training session that best fits your schedule.
Query studio developers unable to complete the PST012 training session by April 1, 2006, will have their query studio security revoked. This will help ensure that all Enterprise Reporting clients including query studio developers can expect the best performance possible from a trained reporting client base.
Departmental employees needing the role, must complete the training class before your department security administrator (DSA) will request the query studio role on your behalf.
Updated Directives and Procedures – Payroll Services and Tax Services. Sent on December 8, 2005 from Michael McKee, University Controller, to the Dean, Directors and Department Chairs:
In our on–going efforts to update and expand the financial directives and procedures to improve guidance and direction to the campus community, I am pleased to announce the release of two new or updated sections of our Directives and Procedures. These cover Tax Services and Payroll Services and may be found on the following web site:
http://fa.ufl.edu/uco/handbook/handbook.asp?doc=1.4
The updated Payroll Directives and Procedures primarily reflect changes resulting from devolution and the implementation of the new myUFL system. Departmental staff responsible for payroll duties should be encouraged to review these updated directives and procedures.
This is the first time that we have issued codified Tax Services Directives and Procedures as a separate comprehensive set of guidelines. However, they do not reflect any major policy or procedural change from what has generally been in practice other than to reflect some changes resulting from the University’s devolution process from the State. Many university tax issues are complex and need review and oversight by tax experts. These new Tax Directives and Procedures provide useful information regarding a number of tax related issues and are primarily intended to give administrators and fiscal staff a basic awareness of university tax issues that they may encounter and who they should contact with these issues that may have tax consequences.
The financial directives and procedures will continue to be enhanced to reflect current requirements and best practices. Comments and suggestions on how to make these a more effective tool to departmental users is always welcomed. As always, your assistance and cooperation in sharing this information with appropriate members of your staff are appreciated. If you have any Payroll questions please contact Murphy Miller at 392–1231 or for Tax questions Eric Davidson at 392–1324.
Instruction Guides. The Bridges web site no longer requires gatorlink authentication to access.
An instruction guide. No updated or new instruction guides this week.
For frequent updates about the project, subscribe to the UF Bridges pagelet in the myUFL portal. For a quick tutorial on how to use myUFL, please sign on to the portal and click on Help > How to Use myUFL.
For more information about myUFL systems, 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.
