FIS BULLETIN Number 13

FIRST ANNIVERSARY EDITION!

Announcements | Calendar | Status | T&T-Q&A | Training | Inside Peek | Odds & Ends

October 3, 1997

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

GENERAL: SCHEDULED FIS BANNER DOWNTIMES

FIS will be UNAVAILABLE on Sunday, 10/26/97 for system maintenance tasks. See FIS Status for details.

ACQUISITIONS:

NEW FUNCTIONALITY: Buyer Assignment Date added to form FYIOPOB (Open Purchase Orders By Buyer). See FIS Status for details.

BANNER REPORTS: None

OTHER FIS/BANNER ITEMS:

Tips on finding documents in approvals. See Tips and Tricks for details.

FIS training update. See Odds and Ends for details.

CALENDAR OF FIS / BANNER EVENTS

MONTHLY INTERFACE SCHEDULE (Financial data from other admin systems)
All interfaces begin running at 5pm; dates subject to change

FIS STATUS

Work continues on the 1997-98 Projects outlined in last month's bulletin. Below are some progress highlights for the past month:

PRODUCTION COORDINATION: Much behind-the-scenes work has been completed on this project, which involves the development and standardization of many daily/monthly FIS tasks which were being run manually by FIS programmers and analysts. By automating these "scripts", we are able to turn them over to be run by CATS CSO Operations staff. This ensures that the processes involved will be run on a consistent schedule, and frees up FIS programmer/analyst time for development work.

ORACLE DATABASE PERFORMANCE TUNING: On the weekend of Sept 13-14, the FIS Database Administrator performed a defragmentation of most of the Banner FIS Tables. The results were staggering: documents immediately started posting at anywhere from twice to six times as fast (and in some cases even more!)..For example, the big run of Student Financial Aid checks, which would have taken over 3 hours to post pre-defrag, posted in about 30 minutes. We plan to make this defrag process a biannual event.

There wasn't enough time in one weekend to defrag all the tables, and two of the biggest tables remain to be done. On Sun, 10/26/97, the Database Administrator will be performing a defrag on one of those tables. The final table is scheduled for degragmentation in November; we'll pass along the specific date as soon as it is setup.

BUYER ASSIGN DATE ADDED TO FYIOPOB: Those of you in attendance at the last FIS User Group Meeting may (probably vaguely) remember a demonstration of the new FYIOPOB (Open PO's by Buyer) form. We are ready to roll the new version of this form out to all users at 8:00am Monday October 6, 1997.

This form is currently used by Central Purchasing and Service Center buyers to view and access purchase orders that need attention. Unfortunately there was no way to prioritize these purchase orders, or to know how long they had been waiting. To remedy this, we added the "Buyer Assign Date". This new field will display the date the purchase order was assigned to the buyer code entered into the form. The purchase orders will now be sorted by this date. Most recent orders will be at the top of the list, old ones at the bottom. In addition, we added an "Extended Total" field that will display the total for the commodity displayed. This will give the buyers a way to quickly view orders recently assigned to them, and the dollar amount associated.

Current functionality: Buyer enters their buyer code in the form and all assigned purchase orders are displayed in PO number order.

New functionality: Buyer enters buyer code and all assigned purchase orders are displayed, but will now be sorted by date. 'Buyer Assign Dt', and 'Extended Tot' are now displayed.

All other functionality remains unchanged. (Buyers are still able to 'Exit with value' to the appropriate form to work the Purchase Order - FPAPURR or FPACHAR.)

Note: Since we don't know the history of existing purchase orders buyer code changes, we will be setting all current purchase order's 'Buyer Assign Date' to the transaction date on the purchase order. All activity beginning Monday October 6 will be captured.

If you have any question regarding the form, please contact Karsen Jones at kjones@cats.

Enjoy the new features!

PS- Many thanks to all involved users for the great feedback.

TIPS & TRICKS / QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

TIPS & TRICKS

*** FINDING DOCUMENTS LOST IN APROVALS ***

The FOAAINP Document Approval Form is used to track where a document is waiting in approvals. The form indicates the queue(s) and level(s) the document is waiting in, and who can approve it for each queue and level. The form can be tricky to use because of a couple of "undocumented features."

When researching an INVOICE, FAADPAY (DIRECT PAY) or JOURNAL VOUCHER (TOE/TOF), be sure to enter a zero (0) in the Sub. No. field at the top of the form. This field should be left blank for Requisitions or Purchase Orders. For PURCHASE ORDERS, be sure to fill in the Chg Seq No if it's a CHANGE ORDER.

Once you have filled in the info at the top, do a NEXT BLOCK (shift page-down) to populate the Queue ID/Queue Description section on the left middle of the form. Then do a PREV BLOCK (shift page-up) to populate the Queue/Lvl/User section on the right middle of the form. Now you should see the whole picture...where the document is (on the left) and who can approve it (on the right.) If there is more than one queue and/or level listed on the left, use your up and down arrows to move through them. The Queue/Lvl/User section on the right will change accordingly.

Hope this helps your sleuthing...contact me at mleduc@cats if you have questions.

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: None submitted this month.

________________________
Questions or problems regarding the Banner system can be directed to:
Acquisitions, Accounts Payable - Karsen Jones kjones@cats
Ledger Reports, Fiscal Closing - Vicki Gutzwiller vickig@cats
Banner Security, Access, Other - Monique Leduc mleduc@cats

INSIDER'S PEEK AT FIS

PART 1

OF THE PLEASANT SUMMER DAYS GONE BY AND FINAICIAL STATEMENTS

It seemed like so long ago that the exciting days of this year’s fiscal closing were fading into our memories, and for a brief moment, we were able to devote some time to more halcyon thoughts of pleasant summer days, relaxing vacations, and financial statements...

Financial statements?!? How can that be? Just about everybody would say that there’s nothing idyllic or tranquil about financial statements. But before we jump to this conclusion, let’s take a closer look at financial statements.

After all, they are prepared during the lazy days of summer when we’re thinking our halcyon thoughts (except for the folks in the accounting office and FIS whose thoughts are more along the lines of #!@?* to use comic strip slang). There are a variety of official financial statements of University, all of which include information from our campus.

More info, you say. Well, they are prepared for public consumption. They are used by the regents, the legislature, private and governmental funding agencies. Major donors also want to see them, too (they want to make sure their money is being spent well just like everyone else).

What exactly are the financial statements, you ask? Well, I’m glad you did. Let me start with this one (my personal favorite):

BALANCE SHEET BY FUND GROUP: prepared from the ledger data from all UC campuses and the laboratories, the Balance Sheet, like those of commercial enterprises, provides financial statement readers with a snapshot view of financial situation of the University on June 30. The report provides us with an idea of where we’re at - i.e. how financially healthy we are. It lists Assets, Liabilities and Fund Balances.

One might ask quizzically, what are these assets and liabilities things? Well...for the curious and brave, read on:

An ASSET is a resource owned by the university. Assets are used to fulfill the mission of the university (i.e. instruction, research, public service). For example, the university has cash (an asset) in order to pay instructors and researchers for the work they do fulfilling the mission of the university. Other assets include amounts owed by students fees (i.e. receivables), everything listed on the campus equipment tracking system. Unlike Price-Costco, most of the assets belonging to the campus are not for sale (we probably couldn’t compete on price, anyway). (Oh yes, the monk asked me to say that debits increase amounts in asset FOAPALs which most all of you don’t deal with directly.)

A LIABILITY is a debt or obligation owed by the university to creditors. They result from the purchase of goods or services from others on credit (the good faith and credit of the regents?) and through cash borrowings to finance the operations of the university. Liabilities include principal owed on bonds issued to finance student housing construction, unpaid vendor bills, and money owed to the IRS for employee payroll tax withholdings. (The monk reminded me to tell you that credits increase amounts in liability FOAPALs.)

A FUND BALANCE is the net amount of assets available to use in fulfilling the mission of the university. Fund balances are equal to total assets less total liabilities (It works out this way because of the wonders of double-entry accounting. If you don’t remember, take trip back memory lane to the monastery in FIS Bulletin #8. By the way, the monk there told me to tell you that credits increase amounts in fund balance FOAPALs).

One might ask why they call it a balance sheet? Well if you read the definitions of assets, liabilities, and fund balance, and are somewhat mathematically inclined, you probably figured this out:

Assets = Liabilities + Fund Balance.

Almost like magic, the amount of assets (which will be a debit balance) equals the total amount of liabilities and fund balance (which will be a credit balance). All those debits and credits (and the Bannerland-inspired pluses and minuses) you enter into FIS get transformed into the numbers appearing on the Balance Sheet (Pretty cosmic, huh?).

From a balance sheet, the reader of a financial statement can get a rough idea of the general financial health of an organization (That’s the thinking, anyway). The reader can see how much money an organization has, the value of its inventories, how much it is owed, how much it owes to others, the value of the buildings and equipment, etc.

All of the balances listed on the Balance Sheet are as of June 30 - so things like all the cash the university has on hand, the value of all of the university’s library collections, and all the amounts owed to vendors, are reported as of June 30.

(Amaze your Friends: Like virtually all other colleges and universities, June 30 is the year end because, according to accounting rules, an organization’s business cycle should dictate when a year end is set. Since our business consists primarily of instruction and the bulk of instruction begins in September and ends in June, the logical business cycle for us is July 1 to June 30. Yes, some things do make sense.)

Having learned all about the Balance Sheet and where we are, you might now ask, "Now that we know where we’re at, what financial statement do we use to figure out where we’ve been?"

To that we respond, stay tuned (you may as well if you’ve made it this far) and find out in an upcoming edition. In the meantime, you may resume your fond memories of peaceful summer days (but only for a few seconds, this is the beginning of the quarter, after all).

ODDS & ENDS

FIS TRAINING: As many of you are aware, we have been recruiting for an FIS training and documentation coordinator, who will be helping to coordinate and in some cases conduct, FIS, Accounting Office, and Campus Controls training. We are reasonably confident that we will have someone on board by early November. As many of you have experienced, during the interim period (which lengthened due to our lack of success in the first recruitment that took place in July-August), the FIS training effort has not been as smooth as you or we would like since the departure of former Technical Training Coordinator Peter Fullenwider. We have appreciated your patience and understanding during this transition. Please be aware that things will remain a bit rough for the next month or so. After this time, we are confident that the training effort will stabilize and improve.

HOW HAS THE FIS BULLETIN HAS CHANGED YOUR LIFE: All this PR stuff with the Bulletin has just kept me so busy, I’ve lost track of time. Why, the Bulletin has literally extended my life. By all accounts, I should be dead by now. Amazing, a regular fountain of youth. I feel as good as I did when I was 29 [days old]. With all that’s going on still, who knows how long I’ll be around . - Bannerslug

The bulletin has been a real value to me, especially in light of the fact that the FIS meetings went the way of the dinosaur. The bulletin does a great job of keeping me informed (even tho I will admit I don't read everything). I love being informed and having this "organized" forum for sharing tips, tricks - and everyone gets the information! Not to mention the benefits to all who contribute to the newsletter

I don't have to nag you lovelies for information (I actually keep copies and have incorporated some of them into my FIS manual to keep it up to date.

The information is cataloged in one place where I can go back to ref again (and I do).

One of the most useful announcements-which gave me great pleasure- was in the FIS 2 bulletin when we were advised FOATELE became available to all! What a move forward! I've since used it often and have not had to call Purchasing for the secret info, or make a call to the vendor for a fax #!.

Also "a keeper" was the #7 bulletin with instructions on PO query.

I must also say that I simply find it comforting to see a monthly report that lists jobs "in process" even if no progress has been made (which isn't often). It lets me know the project or inquiry has not been forgotten. Keep them bulletins comin! and thanks.
- Edna Sandberg, UCO Lick

You've got a great model for communication. The FIS bulletin is an excellent and much needed medium for communication. It's simplicity, humor and consistency is something one rarely sees in these kinds of positions. Although this response is not humorous -- I did want to make sure I noted for the record -- You have a great product and are providing a great service. Keep up the wonderful work!
- Linda Kittle, Planning and Budget Office

You know, one day I was kind of enjoying a 'rest the carpel tunnels' moment away from my Banner session by reading the FIS Bulletin (really just looking for the amusing parts) and suddenly I got a call from home. My name had been selected by a Mr. Ed McMahon to win ELEVEN MILLION DOLLARS in some sort of publisher's sweepstakes! Anyway, I'm not sure if there's a direct correlation to my reading the FIS Bulletin (there was no stamp for it in their page of magazine stamps), but my life is going to be getting a whole lot better any day now when this wonderful Ed McMahon comes to my front door with bells ringing, camera crews filming, and my check for ELEVEN MILLION DOLLARS!
- Name withheld of an FIS Programmer/Analyst whose afraid that people will start sucking up to him as he awaits receipt of his pending fortune

In the pre-FIS bulletin days, I never looked forward to any communications regarding processes or procedures or just financial life in general. Now I know that no matter how dull and routine, or frantic and scary, things, have been, I can look forward to some humor along with some useful information about Bannerland when the Bulletin comes out. It's refreshing when the Bulletin lands in my e-mail IN box to look forward to reading it during some quiet time and knowing I will be able to chuckle as well as learn something. Thank you!
- Marilyn Wood, Natural Sciences Division

It hasn’t. That’s just it. It was supposed to, and in a big way. Bannerslug was supposed to be the new business world icon. The new symbol of Business America. I had big plans, really big plans. Bannerslug motivational seminars, books, and tapes, Bannerslug screensavers, Bannerslug "value meals," nightly Bannerslug infomercials. We’d bowl over that stovepipe-headed, eyeless guy in that half-rate backgroundless comic strip. Who can resist the humor? The stories about accounting and monks? Com’n now that’s real creativity. I can’t for the life of me figure out why it didn’t work
- A somewhat bitter, unnamed co-editor of an unnamed monthly UCSC FIS-related electronic publication who is stuck at UCSC for time being

Conttributors: Karsen Jones, Kirk Lew, Monique Leduc
Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. Please direct them to the Editors, Monique Leduc (mleduc@cats) or Kirk Lew (kllew@cats)

Financial Affairs | Accounting Offices | Campus Controller | FIS

Comments to: controller@ucsc.edu - Maintained by FIS, Updated