FIS BULLETIN Number 14

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

November 11, 1997

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

GENERAL: SCHEDULED FIS BANNER DOWNTIMES

FIS will be UNAVAILABLE on the following weekend day(s) for system maintenance tasks. See FIS Status for details.
Sat/Sun 11/15 and 11/16/97 all day
Sat/Sun 11/22 and 11/23/97 all day

ACQUISITIONS:

Report from Purchasing Module Focus Group Session hosted by SCT. See Odds and Ends for details.

Be aware of the effects of Change Orders on Encumbrances. See Tips and Tricks for details.

BANNER REPORTS: FWRBBAL Budget Summary Report synopsis. See FIS Status for details.

OTHER FIS / BANNER ITEMS:

New FIS Training and Documentation Coordinator on board! See Odds and Ends for details.

Advance notice of Year 2000 Date Format gotchas. See Tips and Tricks 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

FIS PROJECT STATUS

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

ORACLE DATABASE PERFORMANCE TUNING: On Sun, 10/26/97, the FIS Database Administrator continued with the table defragmentation process that has been ongoing since mid-September. This time, the second largest table in the database was defragged. Although we have not seen the dramatic increase in performance that we realized after the first set of tables were defragged in September, we do know that on some level, this table is now being used more efficiently by the system.

The final (and biggest) table in FIS is the only one left to undergo this process; our DBA is estimating it will take 20+ hours. This will happen over the course of the weekend of Nov 22-23.

OPERATING SYSTEM UPGRADE: On Sat/Sun, Nov 15-16 CATS CSO staff will be upgrading the Solaris operating system currently used on dinky, the server on which Banner resides. This upgrade is important because it keeps us current with the version of Solaris that the manufacturer supports, as well as offering better memory management facilities.

FIS DISTRIBUTED DIRECT PAYMENT PROCESS IMPROVEMENT: The FIS team continues to contribute technical expertise to this Business Process and Practices Workgroup project (which is now known as the Distributed Office of Record, or DOOR, Project). The team working on Policy and Procedures-related issues are wrapping up their work, and has passed the ball to the Training Development team, who are hard at work. You'll be hearing lots more about this initiative in January.

BUDGET SUMMARY-YTD BALANCES BY UNIT, ORGN, FUND (FWRBBAL) REPORT REVISITED

FWRBBAL is a report developed by Jane Wong working in conjunction with Mary Castro of the BAS Service Center. The report is run against a closed period. The report provides month end balances that allow a unit to quickly determine the status of each orgn/fund under their jurisdiction. Some units currently receive the report monthly, printed directly to their local printer.

FWRBBAL reports by Orgn Level 4, similar to the FWRDOLD. Each orgn/fund combination is one line in the report. Financial column titles are as follows:

97 (Prior Fiscal Year) Carry Forward - Budgetary dollar amount, if any, carried forward from the prior fiscal year

98 (Current Fiscal Yr) Allocation - Current fiscal year's budgetary allocation

YTD Budget Adjustment - Total of all YTD budget adjustments for this orgn/fund combination

YTD Revenue/Recharge - Total of all YTD revenue and/or recharges

Total (Budget) Available - The arithmetic total of the four preceding columns

YTD Expenditures - Total of all YTD Expenditures for this orgn/fund

Open Encumbrances - Outstanding Balance of all open encumbrances at month end

Available Balance - Arithmetic total of Total Available less YTD Expenditures and less Open Encumbrances. A negative value represents an overdraft.

Totals are provided for each of the above columns at the Orgn Level 4. Each new Orgn Level 4 begins at the top of a new page.

If you would see this report for your unit, please contact Monique Leduc (mleduc@cats). If you have any questions about the report itself, please contact Vicki Gutzwiller (vickig@cats).

TIPS & TRICKS / QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

TIPS & TRICKS

*** YEAR 2000 DATE CONVERSION BUG ***

We have recently become aware of a year 2000 date conversion problem in Banner. Banner provides 14 different date formats that it converts into the standard DD-MON-YYYY that displays on the various forms (aka screens). In three situations, the year 2000 is converted erroneously to 2020. Years greater than 2000 convert correctly.

WORK AROUND

If you enter dates into Banner using slashes or dashes to separate the numeric month, day and year then enter the year as only two characters (i.e. YY). The only two date formats that include a four digit year and convert correctly are:

DD-MON-YYYY - the standard displayed Banner date
NOTE: Be careful when using this format, because if you should enter only a one digit day (i.e. D-MON-YYYY) the year will convert to 2020.

MMDDYYYY

We would like to thank Fatima Salavisa of the Accounting Office -Extramural Funds Accounting for bringing this to our attention. If you have any questions regarding the date formats, please contact Vicki Gutzwiller, vickig@cats, x9-3206.

EFFECT OF CHANGE ORDERS ON ENCUMBRANCES.
Reminder of a situation that may occur when processing change orders; change orders may establish the full original encumbrance amount.

Depending on the timing of the change order, if you establish a new accounting sequence with the full purchase order amount, Banner FIS will establish a new encumbrance with that same full purchase order amount. This means that if some time has passed between the original order completion and the change order, some or all of the encumbrance may have been already liquidated. It may not be your intent to create a new encumbrance with the full original encumbrance amount. Make sure you check the encumbrance activity (FGIENCD) to know where your encumbrance balance is before you create change orders that establish new encumbrances.

Questions may be forwarded to Karsen Jones - kjones@cats

QUESTIONS AND 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

DISTRIBUTED ONLINE MEMO LIENS:

TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO BANNERLANDER HAS GONE BEFORE

(AND PROBABLY WILL NEVER WANT TO GO TO AGAIN)

Bannerdate: 1-NOV-1997 (but don't try this in a Banner form for the year 2000 - see "Tips and Tricks") - We have begun work on the memo lien project.

Setting of the scene:

Memo liens are budgetary reservations that, unlike encumbrances, do not represent legal commitments of the campus to purchase goods and services. Memo liens enable users to informally encumber budgetary amounts by particular FOAPALs. Memo liens can be thought of as being a complementary part of the budgeting process.

Being able to create and liquidate memo liens is particularly useful tool in allowing ending balances appearing on reports and query forms to reflect expected year-end balances for particular FOAPALs, rather than remaining balances left to expend. (In the words of one user: "Way Cool") The dilemma (all good two-bit dramas have these):

The original script version: We are not certain if the Banner Finance System provides an adequate means of creating and liquidating memo liens in the way in which the campus would find most useful. Initially, we believed that such a function existed within the vanilla Banner system. (You'd think we'd know better by now). This is increasingly looking not to be true. As a result, we may have design this functionality from scratch. The updated script version: Banner does not provide an adequate means of creating and liquidating memo liens. In fact, it provides no means (surprise, surprise. Actually, no other financial software package does either). We will have to design this functionality from scratch.

Fade to black...next scene, a variety of dark, shadowy hallways around the campus:

About a month ago, we informally canvassed a number of users to find out what kind of functionality memo liens should have. We learned the following:

1. Memo Liens will be used primarily to track the amount of available funding remaining in a FOAPAL and will be especially useful for budgeting recurring costs, like telephone and mail charges.

2. Having some way of automatically reducing memo lien each month would be most useful (in a manner similar to the payroll encumbrance process)

3. Memo liens without an automatic means of reducing would be significantly less valuable.

4. Being able to process memo liens in the operating ledger would reduce or eliminate reliance on budget tracking shadow systems.

In terms of functionality, having an automatic monthly reduction of memo lien balances is critical to making the process valuable. We had not anticipated this in our original planning. Our thinking then (when we knew a lot less about this uncharted territory) was that memo liens would be manually input and liquidated - a comparatively simple proposition, technically speaking (programmer-analysts may beg to differ, but they tend to angst a lot about these kinds of things, anyway).

Gradual fade out and cut in with an image of "The Thinker:"

As a result of this feedback, we have begun to develop a model that will provide for automatic reduction in memo liens. Doing this has been difficult (lots of angsting by all) - we are currently testing the possibility/feasibility of the following subfunctions - initial memo lien input, changing lien amounts, arriving at a mechanism to liquidate memo liens on a periodic basis, and assessing impact on reports and query forms. Most of these subfunctions are likely to be modified variations of existing forms and processes, with a number of local (customized) tables and processes added in (yes, body monitors have been placed on all project team members - there is no getting out of this project). Fade to black - open with rising morning sun over a forest (banana slug in the foreground optional):

Our current memo lien plan is as follows:

1. Complete possibility/feasibility testing and develop a model plan by the end of Bannerdate 31-Dec-1997. We are about to begin exploring the "liquidation" portion of the process. This involves testing some Banner forms and processes that have not been used so far. There is no telling what we'll find (Old-time "Bannerlanders" already knew that)

2. Communicate the plan to FIS users in early January 1998, obtaining feedback by Bannerdate 31-Jan-1998.

3. Developing a memo lien project plan by Bannerdate 28-Feb-1998 and beginning work.

Estimated implementation of the project will be dependent on the feasibility and acceptability of the model plan. Right now, it's too early to tell. Like other recent new functionality implementations, our goal is spend the time necessary to implement a solid, useful tool (alas, a touch of melodrama).

As always, we will keep you up-to-date on all memo lien project developments.

Finis...Fade to black...Roll credits.

ODDS & ENDS

NEW TRAINING COORDINATOR JOINS FIS TEAM
As we mentioned in the last edition of the Bulletin, we have hired a new FIS Training Coordinator. We are pleased to inform you that Nancy Miller joined us on November 3. Nancy's background includes stints as Trainer, Documentation Writer, and Controller with a variety of private companies, including many involved in software development. Currently, Nancy is quickly becoming familiar with the various FIS trainings, particularly the FIS Acquisitions Training. She will also be involved in updating and enhancing FIS Web documentation. Please join us in welcoming Nancy to the campus.

Further details on FIS training, including updated schedules and registration procedures, is planned for email distribution to Service Center Managers and FIS Users the week of November 18.

THE LATEST FROM SCT: SCT REVISITS THE FIS PURCHASING MODULE.
SCT recently held a purchasing module walkthrough at SCT headquarters in Malvern PA. The main topic of discussion was how to best improve the purchasing module for the next scheduled Banner FIS release.

Prior to the walkthrough in Malvern, a request was made to all the Banner FIS sites to submit the most important enhancements and fixes needed. SCT then put all these together in one document and again requested from all Banner FIS sites that they choose which would be most beneficial. Each site responded with a prioritized list of enhancements.

SCT has been working on a complete form redesign for the purchase order, requisition, change order and invoice forms to include the enhancements that would benefit the most clients. Those enhancements were the focus of the walkthrough. Clients came together and voiced opinions on the work done so far, and made suggestions for alternative, more effective methods.

Some of the enhancements included are: The ability to copy forward a previously completed purchase order or requisition into a new purchase order or requisition and make changes as necessary before completion.

The ability to create zero amount items on a purchase order, or a zero amount purchase order. A new purchase order form for service orders; no quantity required, and a quick, easy way to receive against them.

Requisitions that allow tax processing and contain all same the fields as on the purchase order.

The accounting information and commodity information will all be on the same page; no more navigation back and forth between two separate screens!! A new form to close PO/Req items, (so you don't have to assign req items to a purchase order and zero out to get them off of FPAPOAS.)

Navigation consistency between all forms.

An 'Attn to:' line in the ship to information that can be changed for each purchase order.

These are just a few of the new enhancements that will be ready for the SCT Banner release 4.0, due out the end of 1998. This translates into probable implementation here sometime during the year 2000.

SCT has finally come forward with an effort to transform the purchasing module into a more workable tool.

Contributors: Vicki Gutzwiller, 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