How To Apply Cash Application On People Soft

A wealth of additional information about each of these new reports is available in the companion "HelpDocs" in UM Reports. Click on this icon in the upper right corner, once you have run a report:

UM Reports help icon

Asset Management Capitalization report

This report shows asset IDs that have been capitalized based on the 'In Service' fiscal year and accounting period of an asset.

Asset Management Depreciation Expense report

This report shows summarized asset depreciation expense.

Asset Management Depreciation Schedule report

This report shows summarized asset scheduled depreciation expense.

Asset Management Disposal report

The report renders asset IDs that have been disposed (retired) based on the 'Retirement Date' of an asset.

August 18, 2013

Customer Request Functionality

There have been some minor cosmetic and page edit changes made to the UM Maintain Customer Request page. In addition, a new section called Customer Cross Reference has been added to the page for use by departments that interface bills into EFS and have a need to map the EFS customer back to a subsidiary system (at present, Vet Diagnostic Lab is the only department that meets this criteria ). The change is visible by all users.

Updates installed on May 19, 2013 (posted 5/20)

No "end user" facing changes were made to the system in this release.

Updates installed on April 28, 2013 (posted 4/29)

Budget Check – Requisition and PO

Procurement Specialists who need to budget check individual requisitions and purchase orders should be budget checking them on the Maintain Requisitions and Maintain Purchase Order pages.

Purchasing > Requisitions > Add/Update Requisitions > Maintain Requisitions
Purchasing > Purchase Orders > Add/Update Purchase Orders > Maintain Purchase Order

Starting April 28th, budget checking will no longer be available from the Buyer Center on the Procurement Processes page.

Fixes and enhancements to Expense Inquiry, Expense Inquiry Workbench

Several enhancements and fixes have been made to the Expense Inquiry screen including new reports that list outstanding transactions which need to be acted upon and resolved. These new reports (Budget Exceptions, Approval Pending Documents, Outstanding Advances, Unused Travel Authorizations that should be Cancelled and Travel Authorizations needing Budgets set up in the New Fiscal Year) replace reports previously provided to departments by Disbursement Services in support of year-end clean up efforts. These changes will help people process and manage their expense transactions.

Enhancements

Now also searchable by the RRC and Approver ID. The RRC associated with an employee is based on the default DeptID on the employee's profile.
The Cash Advance Applied Amount to an Expense Report is now included in the search result.
For performance reasons, search dates must be within the 24-month period from today's date. The system will automatically limit the search to Expenses transactions within 24 months based on document creation date, so it is not necessary to enter a date range for Date Submitted or Created Date unless you want to further limit the transactions searched to be less than the 24-month period.
New reports have been added. Expenses Preparers, Approvers, and Administrators can use these reports to discover action items that need to be resolved. These reports should be used frequently and are especially important at fiscal year end when transactions need to be processed by specific deadlines.
- Budget Exception
  The Budget Exception report provides a listing of the Expense Reports and Travel Authorizations with budget errors. Chartfield strings in error are displayed along with the error messages. Any documents listed should be sent back by the approvers. The chartfield string errors should be corrected before resubmission.
- Approval Pending Document
  The Approval Pending report provides a listing of the documents that are still in approval pending statuses. By the EX year-end cutoff, no Expenses documents should be in a pending statuses – they will be sent back unless the approvers act on them. The departments can use the listing to remind approvers to act or to request reassignment to other approvers if necessary.
- Outstanding Advances
  The Outstanding Advances report provides a listing of the Cash Advances that were paid to the employees and have yet to be reconciled (outstanding).
- Unused Travel Authorizations to be Cancelled
  The Travel Authorizations To Be Cancelled report provides a listing of TAs that have Cash Advances but no Expense Reports to which funds from the Cash Advances were applied. If Cash Advance funds were applied to Expense Reports without them being created from the TA, the TA needs to be cancelled in order to relieve encumbrances.
- Travel Authorizations Needing Budgets for the New Fiscal Year
  The Travel Authorizations Needing Budgets in the Next Fiscal Year report is only available in the month of June. It provides a listing of TAs whose budgets need to be set up in order for their encumbrances to be rolled over to the new fiscal year at the end of June. The departments can use this report to ensure that budgets for the TAs listed are included in the budget load process.

Fixes to Expense Inquiry and Expense Inquiry Workbench functionality

Problem (prior to April 28, 2013)	Fix
When searching by EMPLID, only those payees still with active employment statuses are searchable.	Can search by any EMPLID that is associated with at least one EX document.
Cannot retrieve TAs with future Expense Dates.	TAs with future Expense Dates will be retrieved when a future Expense Date range is entered.
The EX Document ID link in the search result returns "No matching values were found" error.	When the EX Document ID link is clicked, the document detail page will appear in a separate page to be viewed.
All preceding zeros must be entered for the document ID.	Preceding zeros not required.
The EX Inquiry Workbench can be accessed from several different portal navigation paths but the breadcrumb on the page indicates only Employee Self-Service path.	The incorrect navigation breadcrumb has been removed. The EX Inquiry Workbench can be accessed from any of the following navigation paths: Employee Self-Service > Travel and Expense Center Manager Self-Service > Travel and Expense Center Travel and Expenses > Travel and Expense Center

Updates installed on March 24, 2013 (posted 3/25)

There are no end user release notes for system enhancements made over the weekend.

Updates installed on February 24, 2013 (posted 2/25)

Department Deposits page modification

A change has been made to help ensure valid ChartField strings are entered on department deposits. It should also help prevent invalid ChartField strings from being processed for specific types of deposits.

What was changed? The reference code functionality has been enhanced for the Department Deposit process. With this enhancement, reference codes such as SP – Sponsored Program Income or EA – Employee Advance Return will have additional edits applied to ensure the proper ChartField strings values are entered.

This change means that a reference code must be entered for all departmental deposits.

A new reference code has been created (RD – Regular Deposit) for preparers to use in cases where reference codes were not previously used.

UM Prepare Deposit screen showing Reference Code field highlighted.

Updates installed on January 27, 2013 (posted 1/28)

Review Billing Details search page modification

Navigation: Billing > Review Billing Information > Details

The Bill Inquiry page has been modified to allow those with Billing Specialist and AR Inquiry access to search for invoices using additional data fields. The fields that have been added to the existing search fields (Business Unit, Invoice, Bill Status, Customer and Contract) are:

Order No
Order Date
Purchase Order Reference

Change in CPS Workflow Routing

In the April 2012 release the QCPS limit was raised to $50,000. This change decreased the
number of CPS contracts requiring vendor signature. After the April change the CPS offline process was updated so that when a vendor signature is required on a CPS (at $50,000 and over), Purchasing Services is obtaining the signature and approving the contract.

Since the Procurement Specialist no longer needs to take any printing or signature actions on these CPSs, the Procurement Specialist role has been removed from the CPS routing effective January 28, 2013. Procurement Specialists (and back-up Procurement Specialists) will no longer receive approval emails or worklist entries on CPS transactions. The Category Manager in Purchasing Services will be the final approval on CPSs $50,000 and over.

Updates installed on December 16, 2012 (posted 12/16)

There are no end user release notes for system enhancements made over the weekend.

Updates installed on November 19, 2012

Display Budget Check Status on TA detail page

Current: Only EX Approvers can see the budget status and the individual expense line level approvals of a Travel Authorization

Enhancement: The budget check status as well as individual expense line level approvals of a Travel Authorization can be viewed by all Travel and Expenses users.

UM Authorized Users Page

Current: To create an EX document for an employee, an EX Preparer must first establish himself or herself as an Authorized User (an EX proxy) for that employee. The system uses the "employee/proxy" relationship to send email notices to authorized EX Preparers when an employee's EX documents are denied or sent back for revision by EX Approvers.
The current process only allows one Authorized User to be entered for one employee at a time. And the page does not allow an EX Preparer to view all the employees for whom that Preparer is responsible.

Enhancement: A new page will be available to allow easier management of the EX Preparer and employee relationship.
If you are an EX Preparer, navigate to Employee Self-Service > Travel and Expenses > User Preferences > UM Delegate Entry Authority (you may want to add this path to a Favorite).

The new page will immediately list all employees for whom you can create EX documents. You can add more employees to the list by using the "+" icon. You can also use the "Select to Delete" check box to delete employees you no longer are preparer for.

Category selection on requisition

Current: When selecting a category for a requisition or purchase order transaction, users are allowed to select invalid categories available at levels other than the lowest level of the category tree. Ultimately the use of the category is prevented later but it is at a point in the process that requires the user to repeat the search and selection of a different category.

Enhancement: Users will no longer be allowed to select an invalid category. When a user utilizes a requisition or purchase order category lookup, the invalid categories will no longer be displayed. When a user browses the category tree on an eProcurement requisition, the invalid categories will be displayed without an actionable hyperlink.

Updates installed on October 28, 2012 (posted 10/29)

Credit Invoice Approvals

Last April, we rolled out new functionality to support credit invoice approvals. We are implementing a few changes to the functionality that will deal with some minor issues we found after rollout. The changes are as follows:

Ability to print an invoice from the Standard Bill Entry page after it has been approved. People were receiving an error message when they tried to print an invoice that had already been approved. This issue has been resolved.
Standard edits built in when Pending Invoices are saved.
When a user saved a credit or rebill invoice in Pending status, the routine PeopleSoft invoice edits were not being executed on the save. These edits are delivered for bill status of RDY, and we have now added these edits to execute on invoices with a PND status. Note: the description of the edit has not been changed and will still say RDY.
Changing status on a credit or rebill after it has been approved will not be allowed. The system allowed users to change the status on a credit or rebill after it had been approved which was causing transactions to become stuck.

New Fields on Invoice and Statement of Account

Three fields will be added to the top portion of the invoice; PO/Reference, Order ID and Order Date. In the past, Billing Specialists have populated this type of information in the Header Note Field in EFS and it printed in the body of the invoice. In the future, Billing Specialists can populate this information on the Header Order Info tab and it will print in the top section of the invoice. These fields are NOT required, but if the Billing Specialist has the information, they should include it when they enter the invoice.

Voucher Specialist Workbench

Users were experiencing access authorization issues when attempting to use the Voucher Specialist Workbench. These issues have been resolved and users should now be able to access the workbench successfully.

Change to Fringe Encumbering

Effective Monday, October 29, 2012, the fringe encumbering process will be changed to read an employee's FICA status from their job record, instead of being evaluated each pay period. An employee's FICA status - 'SUBJECT' or 'EXEMPT' – is used by the fringe encumbering process to determine whether FICA and Medicare are included in the encumbered fringe amounts. This change is being done to improve the performance of the fringe encumbering process.
For the majority of fringe encumbrances, this change will not have any effect on the amount encumbered since most employees' FICA status is stable throughout the year. FICA and Medicare encumbrances related to those employees whose status could change from one paycheck to another - such as graduate students, whose FICA status depends on whether they are registered for classes – will now be stable based on the FICA status from their job record, which doesn't change.

Sponsored Fixed Price Balances

A new prompt (check box) has been added on the Sponsored Fixed Price Balances report that renders sponsored project data. The new prompt allows users to "Exclude Encumbered Facilities and Admin (F&A)" from the reports.

The default is that encumbered F&A is included on the reports. Selecting the prompt excludes the encumbered F&A calculation from the report. Inclusion or exclusion of encumbered F&A is identified in the report header and also by a foot note on the report.

This new functionality to "Exclude Encumbered Facilities and Admin (F&A)" is currently scheduled for next month for the following Sponsored reports:

Sponsored Award Summary
Sponsored Award Overview
Sponsored Project Summary
Sponsored Project Detail

Transfer Detail

The prompts for the Transfer Detail report was changed to allow the selection of multiple RRCs for prompt "Select an RRC, ZDeptID, DeptID".

DWEF (data warehouse) - new tables
The following tables have been added to DWEF.
FS_PS_PO_CHNG_SHIP – Purchase Order Shipping Change
FS_PS_GM_PROP_VNDR – Grants Proposal Vendors List
FS_PS_GM_PROP_VNDR_DE – Grants Proposal Vendor Deliver
FS_PS_GM_PROP_VNDR_TE – Grants Proposal Vendor Terms
FS_PS_GM_VNDR_BUD – Grants Proposal Vendor Budget Item
FS_PS_GM_AWD_PRJ_VNDR – Award Subrecipients
FS_PS_FM_AWD_VNDR_BUD – Award Subrecipients Budget
FS_PS_TEAM_MEMBERS – Sales Team Members
FS_PS_MEMBER_PERSON – Support Team Member Table

Updates installed on September 23, 2012 (posted 9/24)

Three new UM Reports are included in the September release.

Encumbrance Summary - This report provides encumbrance balances for the specific set of chart field values entered on the prompts, or for all chart field values (chart strings) for the RRC, ZDeptID(s) and DeptID(s) selected. The encumbrance data is reported at the full chart string, transaction, transaction line and distribution line level through the accounting date entered or fiscal year/accounting period selected on the report prompts. Only encumbrance distribution lines with a balance other than $0.00 are rendered on the report. This report is available in the UM Report Category – Enterprise Financials, SubCategory(ies) – Non-Sponsored and Sponsored.
Encumbrance Detail - This report provides encumbrance detail for specific encumbrance transaction values entered on the prompts. The encumbrance data is reported at the full chart string, transaction, transaction line, distribution line and sequence number level through the accounting date entered or fiscal year/accounting period selected on the report prompts. This report renders data for all distribution lines associated to the transaction regardless of the distribution line balance. This report is available in the UM Report Category – Enterprise Financials, SubCategory(ies) – Non-Sponsored and Sponsored.
Transfer Detail - This report provides transaction detail for Transfer Journal Entries for a selected accounting period/fiscal year range or accounting date from/to range. Users may select a specific chartstring and Account Group (corresponding Transfer IN and Transfer OUT accounts). The report renders transfers in and transfers out in separate columns with totals and a net balance. This report is available in the UM Report Category - Enterprise Financials, SubCategory(ies) - Non-Sponsored Reports & Sponsored Reports.

Existing UM Reports (modifications)

PI Reports

Sponsored/Non Sponsored Summary – Overall
Sponsored Project Summary by Budget Period
Sponsored Project Activity by Budget Period
Sponsored Project Activity by Project Period

A new prompt (check box) has been added on the PI Reports that render sponsored project data. The new prompt allows users to "Exclude Encumbered Facilities and Admin (F&A)" from the reports.

The default is that encumbered F&A is included on the reports. Selecting the prompt excludes the encumbered F&A calculation from the report. If selected, encumbered F&A is also not included on any of the drill downs available from the source report. Inclusion or exclusion of encumbered F&A is identified in the report header and also by a foot note on the report.

This prompt is not available on the Payroll Detail PI Report because the calculated value is not relevant for payroll data, and is not included on the Transaction Detail PI Report because the amount is a calculated value generated at report run time and is not an actual transaction.

This new functionality to "Exclude Encumbered Facilities and Admin (F&A)" is currently scheduled over the next two months for the following Sponsored reports:

Sponsored Award Summary
Sponsored Award Overview
Sponsored Project Summary
Sponsored Project Detail
Sponsored Fixed Price Balances

UM PUF Endowment Report

The PUF endowment report provides both University and Foundation market values, available balances and quarterly income distribution for PUF endowments based on information from the University of Minnesota Foundation and the Minnesota Medical Foundation. The report has been modified to include an endowment description.

Updates installed August 19, 2012 (posted 8/20)

Purchasing: UM Burn Rate Report access

Requesters now have access to the UM Burn Rate Report!

This report lists Blanket and CPS POs that are about to expire within a specified number of days, or have a specified percentage of encumbrance remaining. Requesters will need to enter values for the number of days remaining and the percentage of encumbrance remaining on the run control page in order to view POs that meet those parameters. Requesters can also run the report by Procurement Specialist, Deptid, and Origin.

The report can be found at Purchasing > Purchase Orders > Reports > UM Burn Rate Report.

Updates installed July 22, 2012 (posted 7/23)

System and reporting enhancements

Clear the cache on the web browsers used to access EFS and UM Reports. This will help ensure you can view/use all the latest system updates.

Requisitions

Image logos for web punch out

Requisition preparers will now see the images associated with punch-out vendors on the web tab.

Travel

Display approve Flag and Budget Header Status on Expense Report detail page

Prior to the change: Only travel and expense (EX) approvers could see the budget status and the individual expense line level approvals of an Expense Report.

Enhancement: The budget check status and individual expense line level approvals of an Expense Report can now be viewed by everyone with access to the travel and expenses functionality. A travel and expense (EX) preparer can navigate to view any budget errors on an Expense Report after it has been submitted for approval.

Display TA info when the applied cash advance button is selected

Prior to the change: The reconciliation process for selecting and closing out a Cash Advance, with the related Travel Authorization and Expense Report, was cumbersome and often resulted in errors being made.

Enhancement: Travel and expense preparers now see more information about the travel authorization when the 'Apply Cash Advance' hyperlink is selected on the expense report screen. This information will include the travel advance ID, travel advance description, and the travel advance start and end date.

Reports

Query Viewer Access to Delete Private Queries

Everyone who has Query Viewer access in the reporting instance of EFS may now search for and delete any private queries that have been shared with their UserID. This is done using the new UM Delete Private Queries page.

Reporting instance navigation: Reporting Tools > Query > UM Delete Private Queries.

New UM Report: Position Budget Distribution Detail

This report provides a detailed list of position budget distributions by RRC, zDeptID, HR DeptID, and DeptID for a fiscal year. The detail includes position, incumbent, chartstring, and budgeted salary and fringe information. Grouping functionality is available by zDeptID, HR DeptID, DeptID, Position, Job Code, EmplID, Fund, Program, Project, or Account.

Excel (xls) downloads for PI reports (sponsored Project level reports)

Current: Many of the project level PI reports render blank files due to the size or format of data returned in the header of the reports. The reports where downloads consistently render empty files are the Sponsored Project Activity by Project Period, the Sponsored Project Activity by Budget Period, and the Payroll and Transaction Detail reports.

Interim solution: For the Excel and csv file format download options, the header data has been scrubbed and the foot notes have been removed so the downloads will be successful. The header data elements that are included in the download files are: Project ID, date prompt parameters (through period, budget period selected, etc.), project start and end dates, and the PI name. Again, this an interim solution to the xls and csv file format download issue. We will continue working to identify and implement a solution so all report header data on the PI reports will be included in the xls and csv formatted download files.

Transaction Detail report

Prior to the change: When the Transaction Detail report was re-designed, it combined both sponsored and non-sponsored data on one report. Since this report is used as a drill down from both sponsored and non-sponsored reports, the report needed to distinguish between sponsored and non-sponsored transactions to render correct data. The distinction between the types of transactions was not readily visible when running the report via the web prompts.

Solution: An additional prompt has been added to allow people to determine what data is rendered on the report: sponsored, non-sponsored, or both. The prompt option selected is included in the header of the report so the distinction is more visible.

Enhancement: The chartfield prompt functionality has been expanded to allow combinations of numeric, character, and alph-numeric values in all chartfield prompts. This includes use of (blank) as a value to render data where a particular chartfield is actually "blank" (usually optional chartfields) on the general ledger.

Enhancement: The additional Cost Breakdown (in totals section of the report) has been renamed to Additional Sponsored/Cost Share Breakdown. This section of the report is populated with amounts only if sponsored or cost share activity is included on the report.

Updates installed June 24, 2012 (posted 6/25)

System enhancements

All system enhancements made during this maintenance window were "behind the scenes" and do not directly affect general end user interactions with the system.

Reporting enhancements

A number of reporting enhhancements were made. Read more about them here.

Updates installed May 20, 2012 (posted 5/21)

Budget Entry, UM Budget Exception report

This PeopleSoft report identifies certain exceptions that may exist with budgeting rows and should be reviewed prior to submission of the department's final detail budget. Two exceptions are currently available and will appear on the report if they exist:

Actual Variance - Displays all rows where the budget line is non-excluded and the budget amount is $0, but there is actual activity in the current year. Best practice is to exclude $0 budget lines if the budget line is no longer needed.
Position Variance - Displays budget rows where the budgeted amounts in Position Budgeting and Detailed Budgeting are different. Variance should be corrected by refreshing the detailed budget page to capture the most current data from position budgeting. (If the variance exists because the POSBUD connection to the Detailed Budget page has been broken, then make the necessary corrections in either Position Budgeting or the Detailed Budget page to eliminate the variance.)

Report Navigation:
UM Budgeting > UM Final Budgeting > UM Department Users > UM Reports
UM Budgeting > UM Final Budgeting > UM RRC Managers > UM Reports
UM Budgeting > UM Final Budgeting > UM Budget Office > UM Reports

PCard, Reconcile Statement - reconciler status updates

Prior to the change, a PCard transaction not in "Staged" status could not be edited by the Reconciler. Any changes the Reconciler wanted to make, such as correcting a budget check error, required the Approver to either make the change for the Reconciler or set the status of the transaction back to "Staged" so that the Reconciler could edit it.

This additional interaction with the Approver delayed approval of the transaction and forced the Reconciler to budget check each transaction individually prior to marking it "Verified".

Enhancement: the Reconciler now has the ability to change a "Verified" transaction that is not fully approved back to a "Staged" status in order to make corrections or add additional information.

With this change, Reconcilers will no longer need to contact the Approver to make a change to a PCard transaction. While the Reconciler will still only be allowed to edit a "Staged" transaction, they will now be allowed to change the status of a transaction from "Verified" back to "Staged". Transactions eligible for this action by the Reconciler are any current transactions not possessing a "Valid" budget check status or that have not been fully approved.

Business Process Change: This enhancement was made in an effort to improve the PCard reconciliation business process by removing extraneous steps needed for a Reconciler to make a change to a transaction. Further, this change eliminates the need to budget check each transaction before it is "Verified". With this change, it is highly recommended that Reconcilers do not budget check transactions while reconciling. Rather, Reconcilers should allow all "Verified" transactions to be budget checked by the overnight batch processing and resolve any "Verified" transactions with budget check errors the following day. This can be accomplished by searching for transactions with statuses of "Verified" and in "Error".

Job aid for reconcilers (pdf).

Travel, auto-population of certain default values on Travel Authorization and Expense Reports

Prior to this enhancement, for each expense line entered on a Travel Authorization or an Expense Report, the preparer had to manually select "Out of Pocket", the one and only value from the dropdown list for Payment Type, and "General" for Billing Type. When an expense line is disapproved, the Approver had to manually select the only reason code available (Out of Policy).

Now the required Payment Type and Billing Type values of an expense will be automatically populated. On the approval side, the reason "Out of Policy" will automatically display when an Approver disapproves an expense line.

Updates installed April 22, 2012 (posted 4/23)

QCPS threshold raised and CPS amendment eliminated

Prior to the change: The QCPS maximum threshold was $24,999.99. A CPS Amendment (change request) was required to make changes to a CPS.

Enhancement: The QCPS maximum threshold will be $49,999.99. In addition, the CPS Amendment (change request) transaction is no longer be available in EFS.

Training Resources
A short 10 minute CPS Amendment Training Video is available on this offline amendment process. The video describes how the department documents the offline approvals for the amendment and includes information for submitting their request to Purchasing Services to amend their CPS. Training has also provided a CPS Change Order & Amendments Job Aid. Suggestion: Since the video refers to information on the job aid, print a copy of the Job Aid to have available while watching the video.

In Process Amendments
Any EFS CPS Amendment not printed and signed before the cutoff date Monday 23rd will not process through EFS. Effective April 23, preparers may no longer access to any unfinished EFS CPS Amendment transactions. For those situations where the amendment was not approved and printed before April 23th, the department will need to complete the amendment through the new off-line amendment process.

Note: This does not affect the processing of original CPS Contracts. Procurement specialists will continue to print contracts for signature and approve the requisition for sourcing to the CPS PO.

UM Budget Variance Report

This PeopleSoft report is a budget to budget comparison that identifies budget amount differences between the previous year budget and the new year budget for individual ChartField strings. Data is split into sections for excluded and non-excluded rows.

Report Navigation:
UM Budgeting > UM Final Budgeting > UM Department Users > UM Reports
UM Budgeting > UM Final Budgeting > UM RRC Managers > UM Reports
UM Budgeting > UM Final Budgeting > UM Budget Office > UM Reports

Fix to eProcurement Review and Submit page

The "Add to Favorites" button will now appear on the Review & Submit page of the requisition in eProcurement.

Credit Invoice Workflow

As a result of an audit finding and based on best practices, functionality has been added to the Billing Module in EFS to capture the approval of non-sponsored credit invoices. Billing Specialists now will route all credit invoices to their cluster's designated approver in EFS. Once the credit invoice and any related rebill invoice are marked in a bill status of PND, the approver will receive an email requesting their approval. For more details, Billing Specialists should review the Adjust Entire Bills Job Aid and designated Approvers should review the Credit Invoice Approval Job Aid; both can be found here.

New financial ChartField string entry in HRMS

Changes have been made in HRMS to frequently used pages that contain combo code information (Earnings Distribution, Pay Entry and Display Pay Entry, Additional Pay and Historical Salary Adjustments). Now these pages will provide a choice of entering and viewing either a combo code or its associated financial chartfield string. A job aid has been developed by Training Services that contains navigation paths to the improved pages, screen shots, and other helpful information.

What is a combo code? In HRMS (and the Student system), combination codes (or combo codes) are used to represent budgeted chartfield strings that exist in the financial system. PeopleSoft provides the combo code functionality as part of its delivered integration between their financial, human resources, and student systems.

The changes to HRMS to allow the option to view or enter a combination code by its corresponding financial chartfield string were made as part of the EFS Improvements Initiative.

Updates installed March 25, 2012 (posted 3/26)

Billing/AR, invoices for State of Minnesota and its agencies

A standard note has been added to all EFS State of Minnesota customers. This note will automatically populate on all EFS invoices created to the State of Minnesota and its agencies. This note gives the State details about how to pay University of Minnesota invoices. Since the State moved to a new system last July, there has been some confusion among its agencies regarding how to pay the University. We believe the additional detail on the invoice will expedite payment of our invoices.

Procurement, changes to email generated when a requisition is sourced to a purchase order

Prior to this change the email that was generated when a requisition was sourced to a PO did not give the requestor positive confirmation of what was ordered. The email only stated that the requisition had been sourced.

Now the system has a new link added to the email. The link will take the requestor to the PO Inquiry page. From this page the requestor can view positive confirmation of the PO and create a printable version of the PO if needed. In addition, the delivery date will no longer be displayed on this email.

PCard, change headings on PCard report output for UMDPV007

On the 20th day of each month, a process sends email notifications to PCard reconcilers notifying them of transactions that were rolled back to the default account during forced reconciliation due to incomplete processing. The notification states that JEs need to be created for each transaction to be moved to the correct ChartField string. In prior emails, each notification contained a link to a unique report listing the transactions needing JEs to move the amounts out of the default account. The following changes will be effective beginning April 20th:

The email will provide instructions that are more clear.
The email will be sent to all PCard reconcilers AND all PCard approvers associated with the defaulted PCard transactions.
Instead of providing a link to the report, it will be attached to the email. This e-mail may be forwarded to the JE preparer as appropriate.
The report will include additional information: both the original ChartField string (before defaulting) and the default account to which the activity posted, as well as the reason the transaction defaulted. The four possible reasons for defaulting the transaction will be listed on the report. They are:
1) The transaction was never reconciled.
2) The transaction had not yet been approved.
3) The transaction had a budget error.
4) The transaction had not received certified approval (if needed).

PCard reconciliation search page, forced to save the page upon navigating away from that page

Prior to this change, when someone tried to navigate aware from the PCard reconcilation search page, a message displayed that there was unsaved data on the page even if no action was taken.

People will no longer receive this message when navigating away from the PCard reconciliation search page when no action was taken on the page.

Updates installed February 26, 2012 (posted 2/27)

Purchasing: CPS reprint program

Prior to December 2011: once a CPS was approved neither the requester nor the procurement specialist could reprint the CPS for signature from either the Manage Requisition page (eProcurement > Manage Requisitions > CPS Print) or the CPS Print page (eProcurement > Buyer Center > Procurement Processes > UM CPS Print). With the December 2011 release, both the requester and the procurement specialist had the ability to reprint a CPS for signature using both of the paths noted above, regardless of the approval status. It was later discovered that this ability was not available from the Manage Requisition page once the CPS requisition was sourced to a PO.

After the change: Both the requester and the procurement specialist have the ability to reprint a CPS for signature using both of the paths noted above after the CPS requisition has been sourced to a PO.

Caution: If reprinted copies are shared with vendors, be sure they understand it is a reprinted copy of their existing contract and not a new contract.

Purchasing: Apple Store to Open in New Window

Prior to the change: When requesters selected the Apple punch-out link, the Apple Store page would open within the same window as PeopleSoft. For some requesters, depending on their browser version, this was preventing them from accessing Apple. Apple will be implementing some infrastructural changes to their site in late March. These changes will require the Apple Store page to open up in a new window separate from the PeopleSoft page.

After the change: When a requester selects the EFS Apple punch-out link, a message will pop up stating that a new window is about to open for the Apple Store page. The requester will have to click on an OK button to continue to the new page, or a Cancel button to remain on the Create Requisitions Web tab.

This new window should alleviate some of the access issues requesters have been having related to web browser versions. Because a new window will open, the EFS Requisition Summary on the left of the screen will not be updated until the requester has saved and submitted the requisition, closed out the new window, and returned to the original window with the Create Requisitions page. This enhancement is only related to Apple and has no impact on Dell or UStores ordering.

Requisition approvals: Requisition lines misrouted to additional Certified Approvers

Prior to the change: A requisition line with both sponsored and non-sponsored distribution lines with different Department IDs could misroute to the Certified Approvers associated with the Department IDs used on non-sponsored distribution lines.

After the fix: Only Certified Approvers associated with the Department IDs on sponsored distribution lines will receive the requisition line for approval. Department approvers will receive the transaction to approve as usual.

Travel & Expenses: Automated overdue cash advance notification

Prior to the change: Disbursement Services manually tracked and sent emails notifying employees when they had an outstanding cash advance that was overdue.

After the change: EFS will now automatically track outstanding cash advances and send out emails notifying employees when they are overdue. Cash advance recipients will receive email notification for paid cash advances that have an outstanding balance more than 30 days old, based on the end date of the travel authorization relating to the cash advance. The email will contain a link that will take the person to the specific cash advance referenced.

The email will contain the following information:

Cash Advance ID
Cash Advance Outstanding Amount
Cash Advance Pay Date
Travel Authorization End Date
Cash Advance Description
Deadline Date for making payment

To provide greater visibility of overdue cash advances, in addition to the advance recipient, this notification will be sent to:

the preparer of the Cash Advance
the approver of the Travel Authorization
the RRC Manager tied to the employee's default department ID

Travel & Expenses: Restrict Travel Authorizations from being deleted or canceled when there are outstanding Cash Advances

Prior to the change: Approved travel authorizations could be canceled or deleted by the preparer even if the travel authorizations are associated with un-reconciled cash advances. This action caused reconciliation issues.

After the enhancement: Travel Authorizations can only be cancelled or deleted if there is no cash advance associated or the cash advance is denied or closed. Travel Authorizations with associated cash advances will still appear on cancel or delete search pages but they will be grayed out and the preparer will not be able to select them to be canceled or deleted.

Travel & Expenses: New travel and expense inquiry

A new flexible summary search page has been created in which anyone with access will be able to view a list of employee expenses. The list will include Expense Reports, Travel Authorizations and Cash Advances and the relationship between them. Links are provided in the resulting list that will allow drilling into the Expense Report, Travel Authorization or Cash Advances.

Navigation: Employee Self-Service > Travel and Expense Center > Expense Inquiry

Accounts Payable: Add voucher ID hyperlink to Voucher Inquiry page

Prior to the change: The voucher inquiry page did not provide a way to drill into the Voucher Add/Update page. People had to manually navigate to the voucher page for more details about the voucher.

After the change: A Voucher ID hyperlink is now on the voucher inquiry page. This hyperlink will open a new window to display the Voucher Add/Update page.

Accounts Payable: Add missing Description/Comments warning to Voucher

Prior to the change: A voucher preparer could save a non-PO voucher missing a Description or Comments, even though the Voucher Creation business process requires them. This delayed approval, as the transaction was sent back, or resulted in incomplete information on subsequent reports and online inquiries.

After the change: The voucher preparer will receive a warning when saving a non-PO voucher if the Description or Comments are missing from the transaction. Likewise, the approver will receive a warning when changing the status of a non-PO voucher to 'Approved' if the Description or Comments are missing from the transaction.

AR/Billing: Allow attachments to standard bills

Allow billing specialists the ability to attach documentation to an invoice which will be printed with the invoice and mailed to the customer by Accounts Receivable Services.

Prior to the change: EFS Billing functionality allowed only internal attachments to invoices; the attachment was stored for informational purposes only and not mailed to the customer. If departments wanted to include attachments with invoices being sent to customers, they had to print invoices locally and manually include attachments. This did not allow units to take advantage of having AR Services perform invoice distribution activities.

After the change: This enhancement allows external attachments; the attachment can be uploaded by the billing specialist and will be printed with the invoice, then mailed to the customer by AR Services.

A hyperlink has been added to the standard bill entry page that will take billing specialists to the supporting documentation page where they can upload attachments. Attachments that are marked for external use will be printed as part of the nightly batch. Note: Because external attachments are printed, collated and mailed with the invoice, the file requirements for the type of document that can be uploaded are very specific. See the Attach Supporting Documentation Job Aid (pdf) for additional details.

Invoice format changes

Enhancement: The invoice format was changed to support the above external attachment functionality. Some cosmetic changes were also made to the invoice format, including marking taxable line items with a "T" so it is clear to the customer which line items include sales tax.

All invoices and invoice reprints should be retrieved from the Process Monitor (they will no longer be available in Report Manager).

When retrieving invoices or invoice reprints from the Process Monitor, please note that the job name is now UMDBIAE005. The PDF of the invoice can be found by clicking on the UMDBIAE005 link. Both of the job aids below have been updated to reflect this change.

Reprinting Invoices Job Aid
Retrieving Invoices from Process

AR/Billing: Update to UM Aging by DeptID Tree report

Enhancement: Department Name has been added to the "UM Aging by Dept ID Tree" report. The DeptID font has also been increased in size and made bold, which will highlight the report's breaking levels.

Updates installed January 29, 2012 (posted 1/30)

Accounts Payable, PCard, and Procurement changes

Asset-related Voucher Creation Error Fixed

Voucher specialists should return to the practice of copying receipt information when creating an asset related voucher. The system error that necessitated this practice has been fixed.

Background: Between early November 2011 and now, an error prevented voucher specialists from creating asset vouchers from receipts when split distributions were involved. The temporary workaround was to create the voucher by copying the PO information instead of the receipt information. The underlying system problem has been fixed. Voucher specialists should again be creating asset vouchers by copying from the receipt—it is no longer acceptable to create vouchers for assets from the PO.

No ability to 'copy from PO' on asset voucher

Prior to the change: When a voucher was created, people had the ability to copy from the PO and to copy from the receipt. If one copied from the PO, information needed in the asset module from the receipt is not transferred.

Enhancement: Voucher specialists will not be able to copy from the PO on any asset vouchers. The functionality to copy from the PO and the receipt (copy from receipt is the preferred method) will remain available for all non-asset vouchers.

Some sponsored PCard transactions not being flagged for certified approval

Prior to the fix, when a PCard reconciler split a transaction or used the Distribution Template hyperlink on a transaction that required Certified Approval may not have been flagged by the system to display the CA Status field.

After the fix: Starting January 29, 2012, the CA Status field will be correctly displayed when splitting a transaction or using the Distribution Template hyperlink. Transactions using a UMSPR PC Business Unit that are $1,000 or greater, as well as transactions using both a UMSPR PC Business Unit and a travel related Account regardless of amount, will now correctly display the CA Status field.

Modification of the UM Voucher Approval Search

Prior to the change: When approvers accessed the UM Voucher Approval page directly through the online menu, the system allowed searching by Business Unit and Voucher ID. The rows returned:

contained minimal transaction information,
were limited to those vouchers pending approval at the voucher line level that the approver has been associated with as either a primary or alternate approver, and
may have contained transactions that the approver was unable to act upon due to the transaction having been deleted or already approved/denied at the voucher header level.

Enhancement: To improve search capabilities, the available search fields have been expanded to include vendor ID, vendor name, invoice number, and the user ID of the voucher specialist that entered the voucher.

Approvers asked for more meaningful transactional data so they could better select the vouchers they need to approve, so the fields returned in the search results will now include vendor ID, vendor name, invoice number, invoice date, invoice amount, the user ID of the voucher specialist that entered the voucher, entered date, and any PO number associated with the voucher.

Add 'Next in List' button to PCard reconciliation Details page

Prior to the change, when a PCard user viewed the PCard Transaction Details page for a transaction from the Procurement Card Transactions (Summary) page, the Return to Main Page hyperlink had to be used before they could access the details of another transaction.

After the change, both "Previous" and "Next" buttons are available on the Details page. As a result, people can immediately view the details of the previous or next transaction without going back to the Summary page. Transactions returned are predicated upon transaction selections made on the "Summary" page prior to entering the "Details" page. The new buttons behave similarly to the Return to Main Page hyperlink—the user will be prompted to save any changes before proceeding to the previous or next transaction. This change was made in an effort to improve the performance of the PCard reconciliation business process by removing extraneous clicks currently required to navigate between transactions

Correct PCard Card Acceptor Name

Prior to the change: An incorrect Card Acceptor Name may have been displayed on the Level 3 Data, found behind the Line Details icon of the Procurement Card Transactions (Summary) page, of a PCard transaction. This primarily occurred when the Card Acceptor (for example, PAYPAL) was not the Merchant.

After the change: Now the Card Acceptor Name will be populated with the legal name of the entity that accepted the card.

Add missing Description/Comments warning to PCard reconciliation

Prior to the change: A Reconciler may have verified, and an approver may have approved a PCard transaction that was missing description or comments, even though the PCard reconciliation business process requires them. This delayed approval because transactions were sent back or it resulted in incomplete information on subsequent reports and online inquiries.

Enhancement: Now the Reconciler will receive a warning when changing the status of a transaction to Verified anytime the description or comments are missing from the transaction. Likewise, the approver will receive a warning when changing the status of a transaction to Approved anytime the description or comments are missing from the transaction.

Requisition template functionality updated

The delivered functionality for requisition templates does not allow requesters the ability to manage the requisition templates they have saved. For example, there is no way to remove a template once it is no longer valid. In addition, University customizations regarding Blanket Orders and CPS requisitions were not developed to be used as templates thus causing errors when templates are used for these types of transactions.
Enhancement: Additional template functionality has been added. Requesters will now have the ability to delete templates that are no longer valid. And:

The template creation date will be visible on the Templates tab of Create Requisition.
The Save as Template check box will be active for UStores and Special Request requisitions.
The Save as Template checkbox will not be available for other requisition types that do not work well as templates. These include Dell and Apple punch out requisitions, as well as all Blanket Order and CPS requisitions.

Reminder: templates do not automatically update prices when used to create a requisition later. To avoid clean up or match errors later, be sure to verify the prices defaulting from the template are accurate.

New email notifications for Requesters and Procurement Specialists

Prior to this change requesters and procurement specialists do not get any notification when Requisitions are held up due to budget checking or sourcing work bench errors. This causes the time between when a requisition is entered to the time the PO is sourced to the appropriate vendor to be longer then needed.

The fix: A new program will be scheduled at the end of the daily batch for PO as well as during the nightly PO batch. This program will send email notifications for both budget check and sourcing workbench errors.

Budget Check Errors Email:

The budget check error email notification will be sent to the requester with a CC: to the procurement specialist. The email will contain the requisition # with budget checking error(s), a link that will take the requester to the requisition, as well as detail steps to log in and fix the budget error(s).

Sourcing Errors Email:

The sourcing errors email notification will be sent to the buyer with a CC: to the requester. The email will contain the requisition, requisition line, and detailed error message as it shows on the sourcing details page. A link to the sourcing workbench containing the requisition in question as well as steps needed to Reset/Purge which unlocks the requisition for edits.

Changes to the Requisition Denied email

Prior to the change, when a requester received an email notification that a requisition has been denied, the email contained little information on what the requester may do next.

Starting January 29, 2012, the email notification the requester receives that a requisition has been denied will be revised. The email will now inform the requester that a denied requisition may still be edited and resubmitted for approval or canceled, depending upon the Approver(s) comments. Instructions on how to review the Approver(s) comments and how the requisition may be accessed for editing have also been included.

Category code changes allowed on punch outs

Prior to the change: Orders placed with punch out vendors (Apple and Dell) had a default category code tied to a non-asset account code. Requesters had no means of changing the category on requisitions coming from punch out vendors (Apple and Dell). This caused issues when a requisition needed to have an asset category.

Enhancement: Requesters now have the ability update the category code on the requisition before submitting the requisition. On Create Requisitions, the requesters use the line details page available on the Review and Submit screen to make these category updates. By having the requester update the category/account information earlier in the process at requisition time, the procurement specialist does not have to do change order later.

Change to federal PO_TYPE

Prior to the change: All federally funded purchase orders were set with a federal PO_TYPE although only federally funded contracts and subcontracts should have had a federal PO_TYPE indicator.

After the change: The program in EFS that updates the federal contract indicator after sourcing and prior to dispatching has been modified. The change ensures that the ChartField string associated to the PO in question is a federal contract. This change will apply to all new requisitions and orders. All existing POs will be left with their original PO Types. Further, to address the issues where vouchers are presented on which the approver may not act, the search results will be limited to those vouchers that have not been deleted nor have been already approved/denied at the voucher header level.

Updates installed December 18, 2011 (posted 12/19)

Reporting

Reporting performance enhancements, UM Reports (not EFS)

Performance enhancements are being made to the financial UM Reports.

Please note that as sponsored financial report enhancements are rolled out within the next couple of months, you may note some data differences between the reports, particularly when accessing reports via links between reports. This is not a data issue. This is due to a timing issue between the old sponsored reports using accounting dates from PS_PROJ_RESOURCE and the enhanced reports using the ledger dates from the new reporting tables (the PS_PROJ_RESOURCE table is loaded the day after activity hits the general ledger). When all of the performance enhancements have been made, this data difference will be eliminated.

Accounts Receivable / Billing

Departmental Deposits: Contact Department on the UM Prepare Deposit page now populates from most current active job record

Prior to the fix: The Contact Department on the UM Prepare Deposit Page did not always default correctly. The UM Prepare Deposit Page allowed employee contact department to be populated from terminated job records. If an employee had multiple active job records, the most current record was not always selected, so the information in the Contact Department field was incorrect.

After the fix: Contact information from an employee's terminated records is no longer selected by the system. If an employee has multiple active job records, the contact department for the most current record is selected.

UM View Deposit Page: Reference Data was not always displayed when scrolling through deposits using the 'Next In List' and 'Previous in List' buttons.

Prior to the fix: When scrolling through deposits from the UM View Deposit Page, Reference Data appeared on the first page viewed as expected but when 'Next In List' was clicked, then 'Previous In List' to return to the first item, that Reference Data was no longer displayed.

After the fix: Two rules now apply to the display of Reference Data when scrolling through records on the UM View Deposit page:

If the deposit contains reference data, the reference fields should be visible on the page.
If the deposit does not contain reference data, the reference data fields should not be visible on the page

Create Bills SQL Error

Billing Specialists may have encountered a fatal SQL error during the create bills process. Typically this error occurred when someone tried to make changes to the invoice after the Pro Forma was initiated but before it finished processing.
Now when a Pro Forma is initiated and someone tries to make a change before the process is complete, the system will display a message that the Pro Forma process must complete before changes can be saved. Once the Pro Forma is complete, changes can be made. If people continue to receive a fatal SQL error during the create bills process, please notify the University Financial Helpline 612-624-1617 or controller@umn.edu.

Accounts Payable

Making it easier to 'Save' work done by PCard reconcilers and approvers.

Prior to the change: PCard reconcilers and approvers working with PCard statements in EFS had to click the Save button after clicking 'verify' or 'approve' in order to save the changes made to a transaction. This was true on both the Procurement Card Transactions ('Summary') page and the PCard Transaction Details ('Details') page.

After the change: Now the save function will automatically occur when a PCard reconciler or approver updates a transaction using the 'Verify', 'Stage', or 'Approve' buttons at the bottom of both the 'Summary' and 'Details' pages. This eliminates the need to click on the Save button. This change was made to improve the performance of the PCard reconciliation business process by removing extraneous button clicks that, when missed, can lead to 'save' warnings and 'Data being added conflicts with existing data' messages.
The save will not automatically occur when the status of a transaction is changed via the status dropdowns on the 'Summary' page.

New Voucher Workbench!

A new flexible search page has been created that anyone with voucher inquiry access can use to view all vouchers (by origin, department, vendor, etc.) on one screen that are: in an error/recycle status, pending approval, contain match exceptions, or budget exceptions. Links are provided in the results that allow drilling into the voucher (add/update), Budget Exceptions Detail, Voucher Approval, or Purchase Order Inquiry pages. This search page does not replace the existing search page but has been provided as an additional, more efficient inquiry page for vouchers.

Navigation: Accounts Payable > Review Accounts Payable Info > Vouchers > Voucher Specialist Workbench

Notify voucher approvers that a voucher contains an asset purchase

Background: All capital assets are to be purchased using a requisition/PO. When a requisition is created for a capital asset, a capital category code is selected for each item. The category code drives the item's profile ID and account value. The category code, profile ID, and account value carry over from the requisition to the PO and then from the PO to the voucher. This allows capital assets to interface correctly with the Asset Management module.

Problem: Periodically non-PO-related vouchers are entered into the financial system for capital assets. Doing so causes the transaction to interface incorrectly with the Asset Management module.

Enhancement: A warning message has been added to alert approvers when they are about to approve non-PO-related voucher lines with capital asset accounts. This will allow approvers to deny the voucher and instruct departments to either enter a requisition for the asset purchase or request the Procurement Specialist enter a change order to include the line on a PO.

New PCard Functionality

A new function has been added to the 'PCard Transaction Details' page. In the 'Comments & Attachments section' a hyperlink called 'Images' has been added. Clicking the hyperlink will open a new browser window in imaging system that will display any images already scanned that are related to the PCard Transaction Details. This link will be active whether or not a related image exists in the imaging system.

Travel and Expenses

Improvements to Expense Reports and report printing

Prior to this change the printed version of the Expense Report did not include the comments field. Now:

The comments, expense report description, and the status fields will appear on the printed version of the Expense Report.
The column shading has been lightened so that less ink is used in creating the report while still maintaining the clarity of the report.
A spelling checker is available when Expense Report comments are being entered or modified.

Travel Authorization and Cash Advance save functionality

Prior to the change: A link existed on the Travel Authorization entry page that allowed one to navigate to create a Cash Advance before the Travel Authorization was saved.

Enhancement: The Cash Advance link on the Travel Authorization entry page will not be available until the Travel Authorization has been saved.

Note (added 2/2/2012): Travel Authorizations need to be fully approved by the unit prior to the Cash Advance being issued. The intended flow of events is for the Travel Authorization to be created and and routed for approval first. Then after the Travel Authorization is either in progress or approved, the Cash Advance request may be created and submitted. Remember that Disbursement Services cannot issue a Cash Advance unless the Travel Authorization is fully approved.

Procurement

Ability to view all Locations related to a vendor from requisition screen

Issue: Many vendors have multiple locations. Requesters could only see the vendor location description and address when making a selection. The screen did not display enough information for a requester to select the correct location. In addition, the search page only returned the first 50 locations. Some vendors have more than 50 locations, making it impossible to see all locations.

Fix: The system now displays 200 locations rather than 50 and provides additional information on each location. This additional information will help the requestor when selecting the correct location. The additional information to be shown includes:

Location Description
Address Type
Address Line2
Dispatch Method (Email, Fax, Print)
Dispatch Information (Email ID, Fax Number)

New CPS reprint program

Prior to the change: Once a CPS was approved neither the requester nor the procurement specialist could reprint the CPS for signature from either the Manage Requisition page (eProcurement > Manage Requisitions > CPS Print) or the CPS Print page (eProcurement > Buyer Center > Procurement Processes > UM CPS Print).

After the change: Both the requester and the procurement specialist now have the ability to reprint a CPS for signature using both of the paths noted above, regardless of the approval status.

Caution: If reprinted copies are shared with vendors, be sure they understand it is a reprinted copy of their existing contract and not a new contract.

Ability to change contract administrator on Contract for Professional Services (CPS) purchase orders

For CPS and QCPS purchase orders, Procurement Specialists are now able to update the CPS Contract Administrator information on EFS CPS purchase orders. A hyperlink at the top of the Purchasing > Purchase Order > Add / Update screen > Edit Contract Administrator allows the Procurement Specialist to edit the name of the CPS Contract Administrator.

Although the Edit Contract Administrator hyperlink displays on all PO header screens, non-CPS purchase orders do not require a named contract administrator. For these orders, the link will display 'Data not found. (18028,2102)'--just click OK on the message and return to the PO header.

HSA changes December 2011 (emailed 12/13/11)

HSA processing window change for sponsored or cost share activity from 26 pay periods to a rolling five years

The Historical Salary Adjustment (HSA) processing window for sponsored or cost share ChartField strings is now a rolling five years. It remains the case that HSAs on sponsored accounts are expected to be processed within the period allowed under policy (currently, within the active Effort Certification period). This change does not impact this requirement. Instead, this change is meant to allow the system to technically allow HSAs outside of this window (in those rare cases when these are approved) as opposed to being forced to use a journal entry for corrections older than 26 pay periods.

At this time there is only data available back to fiscal year 2008; once five years' worth of data exists in the system, the oldest pay period will fall off as new pay periods are added.

Prior to this change the HSA processing window for sponsored or cost share activity was 26 pay periods (one year) for transactions with a sponsored or cost share ChartField string on either the debit or credit side of the transaction.

An updated training manual will be available by the time the release occurs on December 20th.

The payroll dates will sort in order of most recent pay period first.
When an older pay period is selected, a warning message will appear asking the preparer if they are sure they want to continue.
If attempting to process an HSA outside the current fiscal year, where neither side of the HSA includes a project number, an error message will appear. Non-sponsored HSAs must be processed in the same fiscal year as the original payroll expense that is being adjusted.

Other impacts:

The ability to process a journal entry affecting salary accounts on sponsored or cost share ChartField strings, either online as a JE in EFS or via JE spreadsheet upload, will no longer be available. Journal line edits will error on any JEs with salary accounts on these ChartField strings.
For the situations when a JE is needed to move fringe components that are unallowable, a journal entry can still be used.

There are several reasons for the change: the proper review and approval process was not always followed for HSAs processed outside the HSA processing window of 26 periods, journal entries were used when HSAs should have been used, and for consistency in the business process (salary can only be moved via an HSA).

Reminder: HSA transactions are processed in the HR system (Campus Solutions). The activity is then fed to EFS for posting to the general ledger. After the activity is posted to the general ledger, it is available for financial reporting. There may be a lag of a few days between HSA processing in the HR system and when departments will see the activity on financial reports.

Related change made in November 2011, just a reminder:
On November 20, a change was made to the HR system to route all HSAs that use a Sponsored Project or Cost Share Program and are processed outside the Effort Certification Period to the Effort Certification Office in SPA for review and approval. (Prior to the change only HSAs with a debit--a charge--to a sponsored project or cost share Program routed to the Effort Certification Office in SPA for review and approval.) Reason for this change: in some instances when a credit was processed outside the Effort Certification Period, a revised effort report might be necessary. This in turn might trigger the need for a revised report or invoice to the sponsor.

If you have any questions, please contact controller@umn.edu or Sue Paulson, David Hagen, Sherrie Kutzler or Julie Tonneson.

The above message about HSAs was been sent to the following listservs for distribution: GMUN, certified approver, EFS cluster directors, HR Aces, RRC managers by the Controller's Office of the University of Minnesota.

Updates installed November 20, 2011 (posted 11/21)

Enhancements to Format of Non-Sponsored Invoices

Recurring Invoices : The calendar date range for the current recurring invoice will now be displayed.

Installment Invoices: The Invoice will now specifically identify the installment number and total number of installments represented by the amount being billed (1 of 6, 2 of 6 etc). The Installment Invoice will also now include the 'Total Amount Owed for All Installments'.

Several minor formatting changes to make the invoices easier to read.

New Method for Processing Chartstring Only Corrections on Invoices

Current: The current method for processing Chartstring only invoice corrections is cumbersome for the end user and the new invoices created do not share the same invoice number or aging category of the original.

Enhancement: A new bill adjustment action was added to the Adjust Entire Bill page- (Chartstring Correction). Selecting this action will streamline this process allowing for fewer clicks by the billing specialist. Aging for these items will retain the original aging categories and the new invoices will retain the first 10 characters of the invoice being corrected. In addition, an adjustment justification will be required for all actions on the Adjust Entire Bill page. This justification will be added as an internal header note on both Credit and Rebill Invoices created.

New Method for Requesting Matched Funds for PUF Income Distribution

Current: For PUF income distribution, departments needed to create a manual invoice in EFS to request the matched funds from the related foundation(s).

Enhancement: Effective with the December 2011 PUF income distribution for all University PUF Endowments (Participants) that are not reinvesting, EFS will automatically generate an invoice in the billing module to request the matched funds from the related foundation(s). Billing Specialists will no longer have to create a manual invoice in EFS to request these funds from the foundations. The automated quarterly invoices to the foundations will be for PUF endowments only. Departments can expect to see these invoices generated at the end of January 2012. The foundations will disburse the funds to the University in subsequent periods in accordance with their standard payment processes

To accommodate this process, two new Bill Sources are being released. '206' for UMF and '207' for MMF, these Bill Sources are reserved for use with this automated process and should not be used on a manually created invoice."

Improvements to EX (travel, expense reimbursements) Reports and Report Printing

Current: Printing a Crystal Report was not possible from the Cash Advance or the Travel Authorization detail page.

Enhancement: Printing a Cash Advance or a Travel Authorization Crystal report has been made easier and less costly but with more content. Not only the Crystal report can be printed for a Cash Advance or Travel Authorization directly from the detail page, additional information (such as the name and the status or the comment of the document) has also been added to the report. The column shading used in the report formats has been lightened so that less ink is used in creating the reports while still maintaining the clarity of the reports.

Spell checker is also available now when a comment is being entered or modified.

EX Payment Inquiry (travel, expense reimbursements)

Current: When searching for the payment details of an Expense transaction, either the Employee Expense History or the Payment History is employed. Both provide limited search capabilities and neither provides any comments related to a payment cancellation.

Enhancement: Starting November 20, 2011, researching the payment details of an Expense transaction may begin with the View of the Expense Report or Cash Advance. Both have been enabled with a Payment Inquiry hyperlink that appears when payment data exists for the transaction. When employed, the related payment information will be displayed. A second Payment Inquiry hyperlink has been enabled on the resulting page that, when employed, will display the related payment information in the Accounts Payable payment inquiry page. Here is found any payment related comments including payment cancellation notes.

Creating Voucher from Copy Receipt Function

Current: After the October release (Oct 23rd) of PeopleSoft code updates there were instances where completed receipts were being copied to a voucher, when one would use the copy from receipt functionality.

Enhancement: Completed receipts no longer copy to the Voucher.

Vouchers Not Routing for Approval When the Preparer is the Alternate Approver

Current: When the voucher preparer is also the alternate approver for the DeptID specified, the voucher approval process is not routing the voucher for approval even though a valid primary approver exists. As such, the voucher approval remains un-worked until someone realizes that the voucher has not yet been approved. At that time the primary approver is able to access and approve the voucher at the following path: Accounts Payable > Vouchers > Approve > UM Voucher Approval

Enhancement: Starting November 20, 2011, the voucher approval process will now correctly route a voucher where the preparer is the alternate approver. If a valid primary approver exists, they will receive a work list and email notification. If a valid primary approver does not exist, the Workflow Administrator will be notified.

Ability to Prompt Category by Account Code (procurement)

Current: When prompting for a category on a requisition line, requesters have the option of searching based upon description, category, or drilling into the category tree. Often times the requester has to repeat the process after returning to requisition only to find the category selected was not associated with the desired account.

Enhancement: Starting November 20, 2011, requesters will now have the option to search for a category based upon account. Searching by account will be the default when entering the page. Regardless of the search option employed,
account will be displayed in the search results to facilitate the selection of the category. All of the other searching functions for finding a category still remain as options for the requisition preparer.

Burn Rate Report - Include Requester ID and Start Date from Rolled POs

Issues exist with the current Burn Rate report; so as a result the report has been redesigned and will be available November 20th, 2011. The navigation to this report remains at: Purchasing > Purchase Orders > Reports > UM Burn Rate Report.

Some of the improved features of the redesigned report include:

Missing data on Rolled Purchase has been fixed
Report will have a columnar format
Ability to create PDF or XLS format.
Ability to create report by one or many Origins
The report will be scheduled monthly which will send e-mails to the Procurement Specialist.
The e-mail will contain an attachment that will contain specific Blanket/CPS orders for the Procurement Specialist being sent the e-mail.
Individual users will continue to have the ability to run the report adhoc.

V endor Location Changes to Default When CPS or Blanket Order is Edited in eProcurement

Current: If a vendor location, other than the default, is selected on a CPS or Blanket Order requisition, and that requisition is edited, the Vendor Location is reverting back to the default after the edits.
Enhancement: Starting November 20th, 2011, a warning message will display when the vendor location reverts back to the default location to make the user aware that it happened. The message will read:
'The Vendor Location on the Line has changed from ABC to XYZ. (24000,4)
If this is not correct you must go to the Line Details page and change it.'

Change the PO Recon Process to Identify Blanket/CPS orders Past the End Date

Current: The PO reconciliation process does not close expired Blanket and CPS orders because they do not meet the close eligibility requirements. This results in Blanket and CPS orders that are in an Open status that are no longer used.
Enhancement: A new front end process to PO Recon has been created that will select Blanket and CPS orders where the end date is greater than or equal to 30 days in the past and force them close. This process will continue to run monthly along with the normal PO Reconciliation.

Detailed Budget Page - Performance/efficiency modifications (budgeting)

Current: Users loading a large amount of budget data on the Detailed Budget page will sometimes encounter timeouts or long load times. Also, when users are entering budget data, there is sometimes a lag when navigating between chartfield values.

Enhancement: Performance enhancements have been made to the page that should reduce or eliminate the number of timeouts and also reduce the time lag when entering chartfield values.

Updates installed October 23, 2011 (posted 10/24)

Travel and expense change
Voucher approval search/view change
New hold Reason code for vouchers
VCPS receiving change
PCard attachments delete feature updated
New approval routing for reqs that include certain chemicals
Set final flag on all POs that have changes
Cancel receipt page performance
Project budgets page change

Travel and Expense transaction preparers need to see approval comments

Prior to the change: After a travel or expense transaction (Expense Report, Travel Authorization, or Cash Advance) is submitted for approval and sent back for revision, it is difficult for the transaction preparer to view the comments from approver(s).

After the change: Beginning October 24, 2011, comments from travel or expense transaction approvers can be viewed by the transaction preparer, other approvers, and anyone who has access to view the transaction. The Internet IDs (X.500) of the approvers will also appear on the detail page of a transaction. This added feature, combined with the Notify button, will allow those who interact with travel and expense transactions (especially preparers) easy communication with any approver who may have questions.

UM voucher approval search/view

Prior to the change: Only those with voucher approver access could search vouchers by using workflow approval information. People without a voucher approver access role did not have the ability to search for non-PO vouchers in the approval workflow. This made it difficult for clusters to easily identify and then access denied vouchers or vouchers pending approval. There also was no way to search for vouchers by approver IDs.

After the change: A new view only approval search page has been created. The new voucher approval view page contains multiple search criteria that allow all with financial system access to search for vouchers in relation to approval workflow. The search results link to the UM Approval History page within the voucher. The page can be accessed via the following navigation path:
Accounts Payable > Vouchers > Approve > UM Voucher Approval View

Voucher Approval View search screen

New hold Reason codes for vouchers

On the voucher payments page, more payment hold reason codes have been added. The codes will better identify why a voucher has been put on hold. The new codes are:

DUP - Duplicate Research
VND - Vendor Research
WIR - Wire Process Hold
CBR - Credit Balance Review
RMR - Return Mail Research order

VCPS receiving – no receiving required

Prior to the change: VCPS transactions could to be received on the Receive Items page. (Receiving was not recommended or intended for use the VCPS transaction.)

After the change: Receipts related to VCPS transactions will no longer be populated on the Receive Items page located here: eProcurement > Receive Items

PCard attachments delete feature updated

Prior to the change: When the 'Delete' button was clicked there was no indication on the page that the deletion was activated, nor was there a message stating that a 'save' must occur to actually delete the file.

After the change: In the 'Comments & Attachments' section of the PCard Transaction Details page there is an 'Associated Document' function where people with access may add or delete attached files. When deleting an attached file, the 'Delete' button must be clicked, then the page must be saved. The file is actually deleted when the page is saved.

New approval routing for requisitions that include certain chemicals

A new level of approval is now required on any purchase of chemicals designated as 'chemicals of interest' by the Department of Homeland Security. These chemicals are identified by the Category code L0121000. Following departmental approval, requisitions over $100 that include this Category code will be routed to Environmental Health and Safety for approval. These chemicals should be purchased through UStores.

Set Final Flag on all POs that have changes

Prior to the change: When a change order is issued for a dollar amount on the PO, one needed to select the pink "Finalize Flag" on the PO. This would ensure that any remaining balance would not be applied to the pre-encumbrance of the requisition.

After the change: An online edit has been created to call the finalize action on any change order. This will assist in applying the correct encumbrance amount to the Encumbrance Ledger.

Cancel receipt page performance

Department staff identified the cancel request page as a performance problem—slow to process when someone selected the red X icon on the receipt page. Performance of the page has been improved. Navigation to the page:

Casual Receiver - eProcurement > Manage Requisitions
Power Receiver - Purchasing > Receipts > Add/Update Receipts

Project budgets page modification

Navigation: Grants > Awards > Project Budgets

Prior to the change: Budget rows are added one at a time by selecting the "+" button at the end of an existing budget row.

After the change: When the '+' button is selected at the end of any budget row a pop up box will be displayed asking how many budget rows should be added to the page. For this feature to work, pop-ups must be allowed on the web browser being used (do not have pop-up blockers enabled). A number from 1 - 999 may be entered and once the OK button is selected, that number of blank budget rows will be added to the page.

Updates installed September 25, 2011 (posted 09/26)

All changes and enhancements visible to the community for this month are related to procurement.

Enforce Category, Asset Profile and Account relationship on the purchase order.

The Category code, Asset Profile ID, and Account code fields on asset-related orders create a relationship in the system that is critical to departments' ability to track key asset information. Central units also use this relationship to help manage the capital assets of the University. It is important that these fields be locked so asset-related purchase orders keep this relationship intact during order creation or when change orders are entered.

Prior to the September release: Procurement specialists had the ability to change the relationship between the Category code, Asset Profile ID, and Account code on purchase orders.

After September release: When creating or modifying purchase orders (change orders), the Asset Profile ID and Account code fields cannot be edited. The intent of this change is to ensure the relationship between the Category code, Asset Profile, and Account remains as set up per the Category code and the Asset Profile. If an Account code need to be updated, Procurement Specialist may enter a change order to change the Category code. Category to Account code mapping is found here. (xls)

Receiving Required field locked for line changes on asset purchase orders.

Receiving is a key step in ensuring asset information is properly recorded in the financial system. The Receiving Required field on the purchase order is no longer available for editing on asset-related orders when a change order is created from the Line Details page. Locking this field will prevent changing the value to 'Receiving Not Required', or 'Receiving is Optional' on an asset purchase order.

New warning message on requisitions when a non-asset Category is used for items with a unit price that meets the asset threshold ($2,500).

Requesters will now see a warning message when they enter a line on a new requisition for a non-asset Category item with a unit price greater than or equal to $2,500. The message will remind the Requester that an asset category should be used when the equipment unit price meets the asset threshold of $2,500.

Procurement Specialists will also see this message if they attempt to add a non-asset equipment category item with a unit price greater than or equal to $2,500 to an existing requisition in the Purchasing module.

Updates installed August 21, 2011 (posted 08/22)

Accounts Receivable/Billing

Accounts Receivable Aging by Dept ID Tree Node Report

A minor change to how the two aging reports are accessed occurred with this month's EFS enhancement/fix release. The navigation path itself remains the same:

Accounts Receivable > Receivables Analysis > Aging > UM Aging by Dept ID Tree Node Report

The change is procedural:

When the Process Monitor page indicates the job is successful, click on the 'Go back to UM Aging by Dept ID Tree Rpt' in the lower left of the Process Monitor page.
The Run Control page will open in a new browser window.
Click on the link for 'Report Manager' at the top of the page.
Your report(s) can then be selected for viewing or printing.

Accounts Payable

PCard enhancement, search functionality

A new page has been created so people can search for a closed PCard transaction using Billing Date as search criteria.

Prior to the new page: Billing Date was not a searchable field on the Reconcile Statement Search page when CLOSED was selected for the Department Approver Status. This made work difficult for those who needed to add comments or attach documentation to closed transactions, or review historical transactions.

After the change: A new page is available specifically to facilitate searching closed transactions by Billing Date. The Closed Transactions Search page can be found by following the navigation path:

eProcurement > Procurement Card Center > Reconcile > Closed Transactions.

Vouchers: Single Payment Vouchers using asset account codes

The system will now prohibit voucher preparers from entering asset account codes on Single Payment Vouchers (SPVs).

Prior to this change, voucher preparers had the ability to enter SPVs using an asset account code (1680xx). Asset information is not captured by the system when using asset account codes on SPVs. Because of this, the related asset information is not included appropriately in financial reporting. The use of asset account codes on SPVs is not an approved business process.

Reporting

General Ledger PeopleSoft delivered report GLS7002 updated: additional characters added to the Line column

Prior to the change, the GLS7002 PeopleSoft Report 'General Ledger Activity' contained only four characters to display the line number field. The first 9,999 journal line numbers would accurately display but any with line numbers beyond that would be truncated on the report. Old report format:

Journal Lines	Report Display
9998	9998
9999	9999
10000	1000
10001	1000
...	...
10010	1001

After the change, the Line field will properly display line numbers up to 999,999 (six characters). Updated report display format:

Journal Lines	Report Display
9998	9998
9999	9999
10000	10000
10001	10001
...	...
10010	10010

Grants, Projects, and Contracts

Modification to the F&A accounting date calculation

Prior to this change, when there was a delay in processing the Cost Collection of expenses from the General Ledger, Accounts Payable, or Expense modules into the Grants Modules, the accounting date on the F&A transaction did not always match the accounting date on the source transaction. This caused reconciliation problems.

F&A charges for transactions cost collected on or after August 22, 2011 will have the same accounting date as their source expense transactions.

Other changes

There were two additional changes made over the weekend that are still in the process of being verified. Watch this page for updates. If all went as planned for the changes, the details will be posted here, once verified.

Updates installed July 24, 2011

Reporting

PeopleSoft XML Publisher Reports

When the PeopleSoft Tools upgrade migrated to the Production environment, all XML Publisher reports had their report descriptions removed from the Report Manager. There are 45 XML Publisher reports affected. OIT and MST are working together to fix this; it is anticipated that all of the report definitions will be fixed and in the production environment by August 21st.

Prior to the fix: When running an XML Publisher report people are only seeing the report technical name, e.g., UMFGM004, on the PDF line instead of the technical name plus the report functional name, e.g., UMFGM004 – F & A Recovery Report, as used to display in Report Manager.

After the fix: The full technical and functional names will be displayed again within the Report Manager, e.g., UMFGM004 – F & A Recovery Report. There is also a change being made so that the Process Type for these reports, as shown on the Process Monitor will be XML Publisher instead of Application Engine. Within the Process Detail, Message Log, the parameters/criteria that were entered on the run control to initiate the report will also be displayed.

Accounts Receivable/Billing

AR Monitor access to update conversations

Prior to this change, people with the AR Monitor access role could only view customer conversations. Now they have the ability to create conversations.

Fix subtotal amount in Billing Invoice Reprint form

There was a bug in the invoice reprint form where the line subtotal or tax subtotal might not be reported correctly. While the invoice total was always correct, the two subtotal fields might not be correct when the invoice contained multiple lines. The report error has been corrected. Note: The subtotal fields on original invoices were always correct and were never affected by this bug--only invoice reprints were affected.

Credit card payments for AR items

Last month functionality was added that allows customers to pay their EFS invoices by credit card via an online web application. This month phase 2 of the web application was implemented, which will fully integrate the application with EFS. This functionality is available to customers receiving EFS invoices from clusters that have chosen to accept credit cards as a form of payment. If your department would like to take credit cards as a form of payment for EFS invoices but your cluster has not yet chosen this option, please work with your cluster director.

Procurement Disbursements/Purchasing

Improvement of Manage Requisition page and edit functionality

We have enhanced the performance of the Manage Requisition Page and the Edit Requisition Page, once selected.

Add notification to requisition approvers that requisition contains an asset purchase

New message alerting approvers to capital asset purchase
An alert message will now be displayed when an Approver clicks the Approval button for a requisition line that contains a capital asset category. The message will remind the Approver that they are about to approve a line for a capital asset. It will allow the Approver to continue or cancel the approval process, giving them the opportunity to review the requisition for completeness prior to approval.

UMNIS voucher approval: Certified Approver

Sponsored account expense lines in UMNIS for greater than $1,000 will now route to the certified approver rather than the alternate certified approver.

Expenses: Project Summary link does not display all ChartField strings

Prior to the fix: The Project Summary link allows an EX (travel-related transaction) preparer to see all ChartField strings of an Expense Report or a Travel Authorization in one page. The links were inaccessible to the approvers and the format of the ChartField display was awkward, inconsistent, and often incomplete.

After the fix: The project Summary links are now accessible to everyone from the detail page of an Expense Report or a Travel Authorization regardless of the navigation paths taken. We have also standardized the ChartField display in a more friendly format that is easy to read and can be downloaded to Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

Enforce the asset profile and account on vouchers

Background: When a requisition is created for a capital equipment asset, a capitalized category code is selected for each item. The category code drives the item's profile ID and account value. The category code, profile ID, and account value carry over to the item on the PO. When a voucher is created for a capital equipment asset from a PO or receipt, the item's profile ID and account value carry over to the voucher and the category code is linked behind the scenes.

Problem: When people would modify asset account values or change or delete profile IDs for capital equipment asset items, asset purchases would not interface to the asset module.

Enhancement: This change ensures that for capital equipment asset-related vouchers, a profile ID exists and the account value, category code, and profile ID are in sync. If a voucher is created for a capital equipment asset and the information on the Assets tab is left blank, the voucher will not save until the asset information is entered. In addition, if a voucher is created for a capital equipment asset and the category code, profile ID, or account value do not correspond to each other, a warning message will display. The voucher will save, but the voucher's entry status will be 'Recycle'. Vouchers in 'Recycle' status will not process through the system until the issue is corrected.

Those individuals with access to prepare vouchers in EFS received a separate communication about this change, along with information about recommended training on working with recycled vouchers. A tutorial on this process is available from Training Services. If you have questions about this training or the new process steps, please contact the University Financial Helpline 612-624-1617, controller@umn.edu, or Training Services at 612-624-UOHR, orgeff@umn.edu.

Updates installed June 26, 2011

Fixes and enancements made to EFS last weekend as part of the regular monthly production functionality release.

Descriptions for XML reports (disrupted during the PeopleTools upgrade May 29, 2011)

During the Tools upgrade a number of report labels in the Report Manager were accidentally switched from a long/human friendly description to the name of the program that runs to generate the report. The process for fixing this is complicated and must be done to one report at a time. We've just finished one batch (list below) and will complete other batches in the coming months. The reports themselves are unaffected, it just affects the label that appears in the hyperlink on the Report Manager that you click to view the results.

In addition to fixing the labels, two enhancements were made: the "process type" was switched for these reports from "App Engine" to "XML Publisher" to more accurately reflect what is running on the process monitor; the parameters used to run the report are listed in the Message Log accessible from the process monitor.

More about the fix and the enhancements.

Labels have been fixed for these reports:
UMFGM001 - NOGA, Notice of Grant Award
UMFGM004 - F & A Recovery Report
UMFGM005 - Submitted Proposal Processing Statistics
UMFGM006 - Award Processing Statistics
UMFGM007 - Sponsored Awards in Deficit
UMFGM008 - Sponsored Fixed Price Balances
UMFGM009 - Flexible Period Expense Summary
UMFGM061 - Sponsored Transaction Detail
UMGPC001 - Sponsored Project Summary
UMGPC002 - Sponsored Award Summary

Credit Card payments for AR items
Customers may now pay their EFS invoices via an online web application. Customers visit a secure website to view a list of their open invoices and select invoices for payment. This functionality is available to customers receiving EFS invoices from clusters that have elected to accept credit cards as a form of payment. If your department would like to take credit cards as a form of payment for EFS invoices but your cluster has not yet selected this option, please work with your cluster director.

Updates installed May 29, 2011

Accounting Services
BPEL COA Request - email notifications now include request comments

The standard email notifications to approvers for COA Department ID, COA Program Entry, or COA User Def Entry request forms in BPEL now include any saved entries in the Comments section of the request along with a username and date/time stamp. The comments are available for viewing in the email message by clicking on the <view> notification attachment.

Accounts Receivable/Billing
Modification to Aging by Chartfield Report

If certain activities such as partial payment or partial write-off have been performed on an item, and a specific combination of report options were selected at run time, the item balance might not have been reported correctly prior to the fix. The report will now display the correct item balance. In addition, a report total field has been added to sum the 'Amount Selected' column.

Procurement Card modification

Problem: PCard sponsored ChartFields erased in error when populating the Account ChartField.

When reconciling and assigning a transaction to a sponsored ChartField string on the PCard Transaction Details page, the system erroneously cleared the Project ID and Activity ID fields when the Account field was populated. This resulted in people having to re-enter the values in the Project and Activity fields in order to complete the reconciliation. This problem has been fixed and people may now enter the sponsored ChartField string from left to right without encountering problems.

Investment and Treasury
Created a payment view for the reporting instance (FSUMRPT)

A new view, UM_RCN_PYMNT_VW, has been created to allow individuals to determine if a payment has cleared the bank. The new view can be queried using the Query Manager. Fields included in the view are Payment Date, Invoice date, Accounting Date, Date Reconciled, Invoice Number, Journal ID and User Character Field 2.

Purchasing Services
Receiving rolled purchase orders (merging roles)

The security for Requesters and Receivers has been globally updated to provide these roles to add access to the Power Receiving screen that the Procurement Specialist uses. This screen is available at Purchasing > Receipts > Add/Update Receipts.

This Power Receiving screen allows Requesters and Receivers to receive on any non-asset purchase order. For example, rolled purchase orders and PO lines added after the PO was dispatched that did not come from the original requisition.

New link on the CPS Amendment page

See new link on the 'CPS Amendment' page to help requisition preparers remember all the steps and attachments they may need when starting a change request. This link connects to Purchasing Services website for details on the process. Path for the new link: eProcurement > Manage Requisitions. Select 'CPS Amendment' option and click 'GO'. The new link 'Click here for AMENDMENT help' is below the screen.

Updates installed March 27, 2011

Expense Reimbursements to recently terminated or retired employees

The Expense module has been fixed to allow reimbursements to recently terminated or retired employees.

Until now, the system did not allow expense reimbursements to recently terminated or retired employees. When a reimbursement was needed, the department had to call the help line to 'activate' the employee's profile to enable reimbursement.

Now that this has been fixed, EFS will accept and process expense reimbursements for recently terminated or retired employees without requiring additional steps by departments or central.

Please note that the system still will not allow reimbursement to employees with future-dated employment status changes. This is due to a known Oracle processing error. In this situation the department will still need to call the University Financial Helpline at controller@umn.edu or 612-624-1617.

Performance improvement on Purchase Order inquiry (interfaces)

Voucher specialists and those with inquiry access reported slow performance when using a specific inquiry page to view receipts and vouchers associated with purchase orders. The performance for this page has been improved: Accounts Payable > Review Accounts Payable Info > Interfaces > Purchase Order.

Purchasing

As part of a larger Accounting and Inventory Services initiative to fix the recording and tracking of University assets, the four changes below were needed in the ePro and Purchasing modules. These changes were reviewed with a group of departmental representatives and EFS users who work with assets.

Requisitions: enforcement of Category, Asset Profile, and Account relationship

The Category Code is the driver of the Account code that is selected. The Asset Business Unit and Asset Profile ID are populated through the selection of the Category as well. Prior to this fix, the requester was able to override the Account by changing it on the Define Requisitions page and was also able to edit the Asset Business Unit and Profile ID on the Asset Information tab. The Procurement Specialist had similar access by updating the requisition in the Purchasing module.

Because maintaining the relationship between these values is critical to subsequent processes and reports, the ability to manually update the Account, Asset Business Unit, and Asset Profile ID has been disabled for the define requisitions tab and asset tab of the distribution on the requisition. These fields have also been disabled on the requisition in the purchasing module for procurement specialists.

Requisition preparers can continue to select a Category code that most accurately reflects what is being purchased.

A cross reference list of current Category to Account code mapping is available here. (xls)

Requisitions: enforcement of asset purchases on Special Request tab

As always, if one needs to order an asset, the Special Request tab is where the transaction can be created.

Prior to this change, requisition preparers could create a Blanket Order and select an asset Category code, and procurement specialists could create a Change Order on a Purchase Order and select an asset Category.

Now that this change has been made, requisition preparers will no longer be able to create a Blanket Order using an asset Category. Procurement specialists will not be able to add an asset Category to a blanket order by creating a Change Order. Again, the Special Request tab is the place to create all orders for assets.

Power receivers (procurement specialists): Account enforcement on Receipt

Prior to this change, procurement specialists were able to change the Account through the distribution icon on the receipts via the power receiver page.

Now that the change has been made, procurement specialists can no longer change the Account code on the receipt. Instead, they must update the Purchase Order by creating a Change Order and selecting the correct Category.

Power receviers (procurement specialists): Interface Receipt box disabled on the Power Receiver page

Prior to this change, procurement specialists were able to select the interface receipt check box on the Maintain Receipts page. If the check box was selected, it had negative impacts on the Asset module. This check box provided no benefit to departments or the process, so it was hidden. Procurement specialists will no longer be able to view the interface receipt box on the Maintain Receipts page.

Updates installed February 27, 2011

Non-Sponsored Accounts Receivable / Billing ARBI

Pro Forma Invoices

If a Pro Forma invoice was created by clicking the Pro Forma button on the Standard Billing page, people were prevented from making any further changes to the invoice or generating the invoice. Preparers had to close the page and reload the invoice to continue processing. Those with access will now be able create a Pro Forma invoice and, once the Pro Forma process has completed, make changes to the invoice and generate the invoice without reloading the page.

Departmental Deposits

Some improvements are being made to the way in which Reference Information is collected on departmental deposits. These changes will allow for the validation reference information that is entered thus providing more reliable data. There will now be a direct link between reference data and a distribution line; previously no such relationship existed. Departmental deposit preparers who create deposits requiring reference information should refer to the updated job aids.

Disbursement Services AP

Upcoming Changes to the Voucher Payments and Single Payment Tabs

It was discovered that voucher specialists are able to make changes to certain fields on the Payments and Single Payments Vendor tabs after a voucher has been approved. A voucher that has been changed after it has been approved does not reroute for approval. This puts the University at risk for fraud, is not best practice and lacks financial controls.

As a result of this deficiency and the associated risks, changes have been made to the Payments and Single Payment Vendor tabs. These changes will prevent voucher specialists from editing the Payment or Single Payment Vendor tabs after a voucher has been approved.

On the Payments page, after a voucher has been approved, the only fields that can be edited are:

- Handling field
- Message text box
- Hold Payment checkbox
- Separate Payment checkbox
- Hold Reason field
- Payment Note text box

Financial Reporting FRBI

Sponsored Award Overview Enhancement PeopleSoft and UM Reports

The Sponsored Award Overview report has been enhanced to now include total amounts for current Cost Share Revenue (CSR) and Redistributed Facilities and Admin (RFA) for each individual project and at the award level.

These are inception to date totals through the accounting date entered on the PS Report run control page or the UM Report prompt path.

Purchasing Services PO

Revisions to UM_DPO_YE_PARTIAL_RECEIPTS Query

Current: The UM_DPO_YE_PARTIAL_RECEIPTS query is intended to identify purchase orders that will not roll at year-end because the amounts or quantities don't match between the POs voucher and receipt. These receipts and vouchers need to be adjusted by the department before the PO can be rolled. The query was returning POs where the amounts and quantities between vouchers and receipts do match. These POs require no additional attention from the department in order to roll and the inclusion of them in the query results is causing confusion for the Requesters and Procurement Specialists.

Change: The UM_DPO_YE_PARTIAL_RECEIPTS query has been revised to return only rows where the POs voucher and receipt amounts or quantities do not match and action is needed to ensure the PO will roll into the next year.

Updates installed January 30, 2011

Letter of Credit vouchers, UMNIS and PCard excluded

Current: Vouchers that have fund codes on the distribution line that are associated with Letter of Credit sponsored awards have the payment terms set to 'Due Now'. Please see information posted on 12/7/2010.

Change: UMNIS vouchers and PCard Vouchers are excluded from this process.

Fix to workflow in expense module

Current: Sponsored Travel Authorizations and Expense Reports that are pending approval are not escalated from the primary certified approvers to their alternates after five days.

Change: Beginning January 31, 2011 the workflow escalation process will re-route sponsored Travel Authorizations and Expense Reports that are pending approval to the work queues of alternate Certified Approvers. The existing escalation from the department primary to department alternate approvers will not be impacted.

Name change for Change Request in Manage Requisitions dropdown list

Current: The name of the action for creating a CPS Amendment in the Manage Requisitions dropdown list is 'Change Request'. This action is intended for amendments to CPS POs only but due to confusion over the name of the action, it has been used incorrectly for all PO types.

Change: The action name has been changed from 'Change Request' to 'CPS Amendment'. The functionality remains the same. This is only a name change and should continue to be used for CPS amendments $25,000 or greater. Making the name more specific should eliminate the confusion over its intended use.

New report for backup Procurement Specialists to identify and print POs on behalf of primary Procurement Specialists

Current: Backups for Procurement Specialists cannot print POs if the primary Procurement Specialist is out of the office or has left the department.

Change: A 'UM PO Backup Print Report' has been created that can be run by Requesters and Procurement Specialists to identify the report ID and process instance IDs of the primary Procurement Specialist's printed POs. There are two options for backup Procurement Specialists: ask the helpline to find the POs to be printed or add the backup to the primary's "print job".

The backup Procurement Specialist may contact the University Financial Helpline when necessary. The help desk staff can access Authorized versions of the PO and provide the electronic copy to the backup Procurement Specialist. For most situations contacting the University Financial Helpline is the easiest way to get PO copies for an absent Procurement Specialist.

To get access to the report as a backup Procurement Specialist, contact the University Financial Helpline to have the backup's User ID added to the primary Procurement Specialist's print job. This will allow the backup to open the .pdf files of the primary from the Report Manager. If the backup Procurement Specialist chooses to request this function, the backup will receive his/her usual daily email plus a copy of the email sent to the primary. The backup will be able to access the .pdf file for the PO from the link in the daily email. The additional email is sent whether there are POs available to print or not.

This report only displays POs that are printed through the batch dispatch job. If the PO was printed by manually clicking the Dispatch button or the PO has a status other than PRINT, it will not display on the report.

PO sourcing email notifications will resume on January 31, 2011

Current: Requesters are not receiving email notifications when their requisitions are sourced to purchase orders.

Change: Requesters will start receiving email notifications after their requisitions are sourced. Note that as a result of the fix, requesters may also receive e-mail notifications of past POs sourced during the time in which emails were not occurring.

Submitted Proposal Processing Statistics report

Due to a modification in the Copy Proposal job, the Award Version Creation Date column on the Submitted Proposal Processing Statistics report will now contain the actual date that the Awarded version of the Proposal was created. Previously this column contained the Submitted Proposal Creation Date. This change will ensure the accuracy of statistical data based upon this date.

UM Report - Account Detail Drill Down from the Sponsored Project Detail Report

Duplicate data rows were displaying in budget and encumbrance rows returned on the report due to description changes that were made on budget only accounts 700300 and 710300. The report logic has been modified so duplicate data rows will no longer return on the report.

Updates installed December 20, 2010

AR/Billing: Reprinting invoices--fixed

Full functionality of the reprint button has been restored. Prior to October 2010, Billing Specialists could select invoices on the Bill Search page and initiate the reprint process by clicking on the printer icon button. Ensuing clicks would display the process status. Once the process was successful the invoice would be displayed in PDF format. Since October, clicking on the invoice button initially would start the reprint process but ensuing clicks would do nothing. Billing Specialist would need to navigate to the Process Monitor to view processing status and to open the invoice file. This system change restores the full functionality of the reprint button.

PCard: Sponsored transaction approvals--updated

Prior to the change: All PCard transactions assigned sponsored ChartField strings require approval of both the Certified Approver and the Departmental Approver.

After the change: Beginning December 20, 2010, a certified approval will only be required in addition to Department approval when the:

Transaction amount is $1,000 or more, or
Transaction is travel related.

Sponsored PCard transactions less than $1,000 or for non-travel-related accounts will no longer require Certified Approval.

PCard: Approvers not being populated--fixed

Prior to the change: Approvers were instructed not to approve transactions from the Details page because of a bug that caused the approver's name and the approval date not to print (Approver ID field) on the Purchase Detail Report.

After the change: Beginning on Monday, December 20, 2010, approvers may resume performing approvals by using the 'Approve' button on the Details page. All pertinent approval information will print on the Purchase Detail Report.

PeopleSoft report: Sponsored Pre-Award Summary--fixed

Prior to a fix being installed, people were not able to run the Sponsored Pre Award Summary Report in the reporting environment (FSUMRPT). This has been corrected and the report may now be run from the reporting instance.

PeopleSoft Report: F&A Recovery Report--modified

The PeopleSoft F&A Recovery report has been modified to include ChartField1 as a prompt selection on the run control and will appear in the header section. The words "No Data Returned" will appear in the body of the report when no information is found corresponding to the prompt values entered. This should help clear confusion about whether the report completed running and no values were found or whether the report failed to run. Please note that the same changes were made to the UM Report version of the F&A Recovery report in November.

UM Reports: Sponsored Project Detail--modified

Prior to a fix being installed, all entered prompts were not appearing in the header of the UM Report Sponsored Project Detail, whether data was returned or not for the entered criteria. This has been corrected so that all entered prompts will now appear in the header.

Updates installed November 21, 2010

PO Sourcing Email notifications will resume on November 23, 2010 (part of the 11/21 release that was delayed by two days)

Current: Requestors are not receiving email notifications when their requisitions are sourced to purchase orders.

Change: Requestors will start receiving email notifications again after their requisitions are sourced.

Note: As a result of the fix Requestors may also receive e-mail notifications of past POs sourced during the time in which emails were not occuring.

Other release notes for updates installed November 21, 2010

Modification to UM Report: Chartfield String Budget Summary for Non-Sponsored Funds

This functionality has been added:

Ability to prompt and group by Function.
Column sorting capabilities.
Added flexibility to change fiscal year/accounting period prompt values and rerun the report using the same ChartField criteria.

Comments and attachments on requisitions and purchase orders

Current:
Requesters are able to attach several documents to one Comment on a requisition in the ePro module but can only choose to send, or not send, the comment and its attachments as a group to the vendor. This is preventing some attachments from being dispatched correctly with their purchase orders and allowing some comments, such as those intended for internal use only, to be incorrectly printed on purchase orders.

Change:
The Comments screens in the ePro and Purchasing modules have been modified so that every attachment is now associated with its own comment line and each comment/attachment will have its own Send to Vendor checkbox.

This means that Requesters can now add multiple comments and attachments to a requisition in the ePro module without needing to contact their Procurement Specialist when they need extra requisition comment lines. (Procurement Specialists will continue to be able to add comments and attachments in the Purchasing module.)

This means that for each comment line and its associated attachment, the Requester or Procurement Specialist will be able to indicate whether or not the comment and its attachment should be dispatched with the PO. People should keep in mind that the Send to Vendor checkbox now applies to the comment and the attachment.

If the box is checked Send to Vendor, whatever is in the comments box or in the attachment box will go to the vendor.
If a comment or its attachment is not intended for the vendor, the box should not be checked.

PO Sourcing email notifications will resume on November 22nd

Current:
Requesters are not receiving email notifications when their requisitions are sourced to purchase orders.

Change:
Requesters will start receiving email notifications again on Monday November 22nd, after their requisitions are sourced.

NOTE:

As a result of the fix Requesters may also receive email notifications of past POs sourced during the time in which emails were not occurring.

Modification to UM Report/PS Report: F&A Recovery

Addition of CF1 to report prompts.

The F&A Recovery report has been modified to include Chartfield1 as a prompt selection on the run control. Both the PeopleSoft and UM Report versions have been modified.

Updates installed October 24, 2010

Modification to UM Report:
Sponsored Transaction Detail

Drill down from the Sponsored Transaction Detail - Expenses report to ER Detail Report

This existing UM Report will now be available as a drill down accessible from the Sponsored Transaction Detail - Expenses report. The Source Number will be a link to the ER Detail report for transactions generated from an expense report. The ER Detail drill down contains detail on chart fields, specific expense report detail and preparer/approver tracking information. For the sponsored version of this drill down report, only the expense report data related to the specific transaction selected will be displayed.

Modification to UM Report:
Budget Prep Status for Non-Sponsored Funds

Modifications have been made to introduce the following functionality:

Ability to prompt and group by Function.
Added flexibility to change fiscal year/accounting period prompt values and rerun the report using the same ChartField criteria.

Updates installed September 26, 2010

Billing Specialists may now physically print 'No Print' invoices

Billing Specialists now have the ability to print a hard copy (pdf) of an invoice that was originally not printed (NO_PRINT) during the invoicing process.

When bills have an Invoice Form set to 'NO_PRINT', a hard copy of the bill is not produced during the invoice process. With this enhancement, a hard copy may now be produced at a later time using the reprint process.

Updates installed August 22, 2010

Enhancements and fixes have been made in these areas:

General Ledger

Modification to UM Report: Budget Account vs Actual Activity for Current Non-Sponsored Funds

Modifications have been made to introduce the following functionality:

Ability to prompt and group by Function.
Added flexibility to change fiscal year/accounting period prompt values and rerun the report using the same ChartField criteria.

Accounts Receivable/Billing

Modification to Departmental Deposit Report

The distribution line description field had been truncating values longer than 15 characters. The report has been adjusted to display the entire 30 character description.

Travel and Expense Reimbursement

Email notification to preparers of travel and expense reports

Current: When a Travel Authorization, Cash Advance, or Expense Report is sent back by an approver for revision or denied, the preparer is not notified by email.

Change: When one of the above documents is sent back or denied, an email will be sent to all of the authorized preparers for the employee for which the document was created.

For example, if Dr. Y is the traveler and five people are authorized to prepare travel-related transactions for Dr. Y, all five of those people will receive a message that the transaction has been denied or sent back for revision.

Purchasing and Accounts Payable

Receiving on UStores orders

Current: UStores orders are set to 'Receiving as Optional'. As a result, people in a receiving role have a receipt populate on their receiving workbench. In turn, the workbench has receipts for which no action is needed.

Change: The receipt will no longer populate on the workbench so people in a receiving role may better manage their receipts.

Purchase order formatting

Current: The formatting of purchase orders is inconsistent and can sometimes be confusing for vendors.

Change: System generated purchase orders will have a more consistent uniform display.

Dell receiving issues

Current: Concern has been expressed over receiving non-asset Dell orders due to the nature of Dell's invoicing and shipping methods. Dell's ordering Web site allows a requester to order with a quantity of one, as in 'one workstation'. Dell may then ship and invoice separately the various components making up that one workstation. This often results in receiving issues.

Change: There is a new Override Reason for use when overriding the 'No Receipts Found' match exceptions related to Dell. The new Override Reason is 'Override Partial Qty Dell'.

Treasury and Endowments

Endowment Transaction Detail Search

Current: After returning to the Endowment View Transactions from the Transaction Details page, the date fields are reset to the current date. Clicking the Search button does not return the expected results.

Change: The date fields on the Endowment View Transactions page will remain as input. Clicking on the transaction ID link will not update the search parameters.

Grants, Projects, and Contracts

Modification to UM Report: Sponsored Transaction Detail Report

Addition of drill down to PCard Report
This existing UM Report will be available as a drill down report accessible from the Sponsored Transaction Detail Report. The Source Number will be a link to the PCard report for transactions generated from a PCard related voucher. The PCard drill down report contains detail on the ChartField, voucher, bar code, employee, merchant, preparer, approver and amount. For the sponsored version of this drill down report, only PCard data related to the specific transaction selected will be displayed.

Updates installed on July 25, 2010

Accounts receivable/billing

Aging by ChartField Report updated

If certain activities such as partial payment or partial write-off had been performed on an item, the report would not calculate the correct item balance. Such balances will now be reported correctly.

'As of Date' functionality would only work if no optional ChartField filters were used. For example, if a person opted to filter the report on a specific DeptID and then ran the report as of a particular date in the past, the report would filter on the DeptID but results would be as of the current date. 'As of Date' functionality now works with the ChartField filters.

Travel

Listing Cash Advance information associated with a Travel Authorization Current - When an Expense Report is created from a Travel Authorization, the system displays a list of available Travel Authorizations from which to create the Expense Report. However, only the Travel Authorization information is displayed.

Change - When an Expense Report is created from a Travel Authorization, the system will display a list of available Travel Authorizations accompanied by basic information about the related Cash Advances. This allows the preparer to create an Expense Report from a Travel Authorization and apply funds from the related Cash Advance to the Expense Report.

Information that will be displayed for those Travel Authorizations associated with Cash Advances:
- Cash Advance transaction ID
- Cash Advance recipient's name
- Cash Advance amount

Note that for those Travel Authorizations not related to Cash Advances, no additional information will be displayed in these fields.

Procurement

PO sourcing email notifications to requesters will resume on July 25

Current: Requesters are not receiving email notifications when their requisitions are sourced to purchase orders.

Change: The PO sourcing email notification issue has been corrected. Requesters will start receiving email notifications again on Monday July 25, after their requisitions are sourced. As a result of the fix, on Monday July 25 requesters may also receive email notifications of POs sourced between July 1 and July 23.

Endowments

Excel icon on Endowment Participant Positions page
The download to Excel functionality has been restored to the Participant Position page. Clicking the Excel icon will no longer end your PeopleSoft session.

Grants, Projects, and Contracts

Sponsored Award Overview Report enhancedBoth the PeopleSoft and UM Reports versions of this report have been updated.

When a Project is associated to more than one Contract Line, this report was displaying inaccurate or duplicate data in the Invoiced Amount ITD, Open AR Amount ITD, F&A, Primary Project (PP), and Principal Investigator (PI) fields. The report has been modified to display correct values in these fields.
Sponsored Award Summary Report enhancedBoth the PeopleSoft and UM Reports versions of this report have been updated.
The report has been redesigned to improve performance, allow more options in report parameters, fix returned data that is incorrect, and change format of some content within the report itself.

The prompt pages have been expanded and more closely follow the design of some of the more recent sponsored reports. The report can be run by RRC, ZDeptID, DeptID From, DeptID To, Sponsor, PI, and any combination thereof. The logic behind the report was fixed so that the report will no longer display multiple data rows for a single Contract when the associated projects are assigned to different DeptIDs.

NOTE: For the PeopleSoft version of the report, run controls that were established with the old version of the report can still be used but the parameters will need to be re-entered and saved prior to running the report, this will be important for people that have this report scheduled. Scheduled reports WILL NOT run as expected until the run control has been updated and saved.

UPDATE 8/16/10

Sponsored Award Summary Report enhancement

One piece of the PeopleSoft Sponsored Award Summary enhancement was changing the report from a Crystal report to an XML publisher report. This change also affected where people would be able to access the report once it completed processing. Now the report is only available by navigating to Reporting Tools > Report Manager and then selecting the Administration tab.

Updates installed on June 27, 2010

GENERAL LEDGER

New UM Report: Encumbrance Detail Report

New Encumbrance Detail hyperlink available from the Account Budget Status Report

A new hyperlink is on the Account Budget Status for Non-Sponsored Funds report. This link will allow people to access additional encumbrance detail for all non-payroll encumbrance balances that are greater than $0.00. Clicking the encumbrance balance hyperlink for a particular account will direct the user to the new Encumbrance Detail Report. This new report highlights Purchase Orders and Requisitions that have an available balance and any Journals or Travel Authorizations that were done for a given ChartField string.

NON-SPONSORED ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE/BILLING

Departmental deposit report fix

Current: Departmental deposit details do not appear on the report if the preparer is no longer an active EFS user.

Changes: The report has been modified so that the deposit details will appear whether or not the preparer is an active EFS user. The report now also displays the journal ID and journal line for deposits that have been finalized.

ACCOUNTS PAYABLE and PURCHASING

GL journal drill down to PCard transaction details

Current: When someone is viewing a journal in the general ledger related to a PCard transaction, they can drill down to see the voucher or vouchers it is related to but cannot drill to view the PCard transaction details.

Change: For GL journals that are PCard related there will now be a 'drill to source' icon that will allow people to drill down into the voucher and then further down into the PCard transaction as well.

PCard Purchase Detail report printing

Current: There are many, many steps that must be taken to print the purchase detail report.

Change: The new process has fewer steps and may be accessed by two paths.

The first path through the reconcile statements page where one will see the "Print Purchase Detail Report" link on the bottom of the page. Navigation:
eProcurement > Procurement Card Center > Reconcile > Reconcile Statement

The second is through the "Reports" path under the Procurement Cards Navigation. Navigation:
eProcurement > Procurement Card Center > Reports > Purchase Details

When one clicks the "Print" button a new run control page will appear. Once the run control parameters are set and the report is run, a secondary page will appear stating that the report is queued or processing status. When complete, the report will then appear for printing in the same window.

New RAR queries

Current: Since April 2010, when a change was made to the processing for RAR transactions, the queries related to RAR transactions are not valid. RAR transactions processed before 3/16/10 could be queried using the available RAR queries but data processed after 3/16/10 was not able to be queried.

Change: Five new RAR queries have been created to assist users in researching and reporting on their RAR transactions. These queries will be available in the PeopleSoft Reporting Instance (FSUMRPT). All data processed before 3/16/10 has been converted to match the data format of transactions processed after 3/16/10, therefore all RAR transactional data can be queried using the new queries:

UM_FAP_RAR_ACTIVITY
Selects vouchers created within a specific date range regardless of entry status.

UM_FAP_RAR_ACTIVITY_ENTERED_DT
Selects vouchers that are in a posted status that were created in the specified date range.

UM_FAP_RAR_ACTIVITY_NOT_POSTED -
Selects vouchers created during a specific date range that have not been posted.

UM_FAP_RAR_ACTIVITY_POSTED
Selects vouchers processed sent to the General Ledger during a specific date range regardless of Entered Date.

UM_FAP_RAR_DISTRIB_UPDATED
Selects vouchers where the distribution values passed by RAR are not the same as the distribution values of the current voucher in PeopleSoft.

TREASURY/ENDOWMENTS

Modification to UM Report: PUF Endowment

The UM report for PUF endowments has been modified to include a reinvestment column. Please note that reinvestments are dated on the first day of the quarter following an income distribution. The date range entered by the person running the report must include that date to have values display on the report.

GRANTS, PROJECTS, CONTRACTS (GPC)

BPEL Sponsored Re-budget Request form modification

The BPEL form has been changed to allow one to open and rebudget against an "ALL" budget period (9999). This ALL budget period (or 9999) is a summarization of all budget periods, by budget account, that have been established within PeopleSoft.

New UM Report and PeopleSoft peport: Sponsored Flexible Period Expense Summary

This new report provides a snap shot for a specified time period of all expenses that were incurred against a Sponsored Award or Project, rolled up to the budget item.

NOTE:

The Accounting Date From, Accounting Date To, and at least one additional prompt value are required to run the report, due to the large amount of data that is being summarized.

PeopleSoft report prompts
The prompts available to run the report are: Accounting Date From, Accounting Date To, RRC, ZDeptID, DeptID From, DeptID To, PI, Contract or Project, or any combination thereof.

UM Report prompts
The prompts available to run the report are: Accounting Date From, Accounting Date To, RRC, ZDeptID, DeptID(s), PI, Contract or Project, or any combination thereof.

NOTE:

If running this report for a larger RRC using a wide date range, you may want to run it in PeopleSoft to avoid the possibility of timing out (each tool has different performance criteria and thus don't handle large volumes of data the same way).

OFF CYCLE RELEASE notes for EFS functionality

Changes were made on June 6, 2010

GENERAL LEDGER (GL)
Modification to UM Report Transaction Detail for Non-Sponsored Funds. New report drill-downs: PCard Transaction Detail Report and ER Transaction Detail Report.

TREASURY/ENDOWMENTS (TREM)
New UM Report: PUF Endowment Report.

Release notes for May 23, 2010

GENERAL LEDGER

New UM Report: Actual Account Summary by Accounting Period for Current Non-Sponsored Funds

Similar in layout to the Account Budget Status Report, this new report does not include budget or encumbrance amounts (actual activity only). It provides a total carryforward amount, a total for each accounting period, a total for adjustment periods, and a grand total for each Account code. The report is organized in sections by resources, expenditures, and transfers. Please note if all periods are selected (including carryforward and adjustment columns), it must be viewed in .XLS or.CSV formats to display all columns.

ASSET MANAGEMENT

Security FSUMRPT: Asset Management Reports available

Access to Asset Management reports is now available in the reporting environment (FSUMRPT).
In a previous release, the asset management reports were made available in production but were not accessible in the reporting environment. The following reports are now available for use in both environments for those with the appropriate financial inquiry access:

Asset Transfers
Depreciation Activity
Asset Net Book Value
Depreciation by Period
Depreciation by Fiscal Year

NON-SPONSORED ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE AND BILLING

Non-Sponsored Billing Finalize and Print button error

Billing Specialists occasionally receive an error while using the Pro Forma or Finalize and Print button when entering bills online. The error message states the page is inconsistent with the database and forces users to close the page and navigate to the Process Monitor to retrieve invoice files. The bug causing the error has been identified and fixed. People will no longer receive this error message when using either the Pro Forma or Finalize and Print buttons.

ACCOUNTS PAYABLE

New public query: UM_FAP_BUDGET_EXCEPT_BYORIGIN - Voucher Budget Exceptions By Origin

This new public query is designed to assist people in monitoring voucher budget exceptions: UM_FAP_BUDGET_EXCEPT_BYORIGIN. The query is run by Origin code. The results will be the same as the exiting public query called UM_FAP_BUDGET_EXCEPTIONS. Performance of this new query was improved over that of UM_FAP_BUDGET_EXCEPTIONS by removing the TO and FROM prompts and replacing them with Origin.

ENDOWMENTS

Link on Endowment View Transactions page

A link in the Transaction ID field on the View Transactions page has been enabled. Those who hold the Endowment Specialist roll will no longer receive an error message when they click the link. Instead, the person will be able to drill down to the transaction on the UM Participant Transactions page. The link will display details for withdrawal, deposit, and income distribution setup transactions.

GRANTS, PROJECTS, AND CONTRACTS

New UM Report: Sponsored Fixed Price Balances

This new report provides summarized budget, pre/encumbrance, expense, and balance information for Projects associated to Fixed Price Contracts. The report may be run by RRC, ZDeptID, DeptID, PI or COI/CPI through a specified date. NOTE: The PeopleSoft version of this report was released last month.

New UM Report: Salary Cost Transfers Report

This report was developed for both sponsored and non-sponsored use. It shows transaction detail for Salary Cost Transfers. The report can be run only for expense transactions that originated in PeopleSoft, not converted data. The report can be run for up to a six month consecutive period of time and any one (or more) of the following options: RRC, ZDeptID, DeptID, Fund, Program, Project, FinEmplID, CF1, CF2, Account, and PI/CPI/COI. The report output, based on the input parameters, offers a drill down report by Journal ID that shows the full Journal detail.

New UM Report: Non-Salary Cost Transfers Report

This report was developed for both sponsored and non-sponsored use. It shows transaction detail for Non Salary Cost Transfers. The report can be run only for expense transactions that originated in PeopleSoft, not converted data. The report can be run for up to a six month consecutive period of time and any one (or more) of the following options; RRC, ZDeptID, DeptID, Fund, Program, Project, FinEmplID, CF1, CF2, Account, and PI/CPI/COI.
The report output, based on the input parameters, offers a drill down report by Journal ID that shows the full Journal detail.

Release notes for EFS Enhancements April 25, 2010

Previously posted as April 20, 2010 PRE-release notes for EFS functionality changes. Changes between the pre-release notes and the release notes are indicated like this: CHANGE FROM PRE-RELEASE.

CHANGE FROM PRE-RELEASE, ADDITION:

New PeopleSoft Report for Sponsored Fixed Price Balances
PCard notification to reconcilers of transactions that have been "set back" by approvers

THESE ITEMS INSTALLED AS EXPECTED:

Carryforward page and calculation
New information available for use in reporting environment (FSUMRPT)
Position Budgeting: UM_PB_FIND_EMPLOYEES query
New UM Report: UM Pay Abstract ChartFields
Modification to UM Report: Transaction Detail for Current Non-Sponsored Funds
Modification to UM Report: Chartstring Budget Status for Current Non-Sponsored Funds
Modification to UM Report: Account Budget Status for Current Non-Sponsored Funds
New Public Query: UM_FAM_EQUIPMENT_DEPTID
Employees now can view expense payments without having to log in to EFS
Non-sponsored Expense Reports and Travel Authorizations appear in certified approvers' Approval List
PCard: Consolidated detail transaction page
PCard: Save on Reconcile Statement page leaves user at the end of the retrieved data
Procurement Specialists will now be able to close individual purchase orders through the PO Reconciliation Workbench
Three of the four new queries to assist users in the Fiscal Year End process were installed
Two new queries have been made available to assist Clusters in oversight of vouchers entered for less than $100
PCard 3rd level data mapping inconsistency PCard Transactions
Enhancements made to Public Query UM_DPO_PCARD_TRANS_BY_BARCODE
Enhancements made to Public Query UM_DPO_PCARD_VCHR_JRNL_DTLS
RAR custom detail records added to Reporting Instance

Release notes for EFS Enhancements March 28, 2010

Previously posted as March 23, 2010 PRE-release notes for EFS functionality changes coming on March 28, 2010. Changes between the pre-release notes and the release notes are indicated like this: CHANGE FROM PRE-RELEASE.

CHANGE FROM PRE-RELEASE, ADDITIONS:

Extra items not included in pre-release notes:
- Update to UM Report: Budget Account versus Actual Activity
- Position Budgeting - Ability to Update Own Record

THESE ITEMS INSTALLED AS EXPECTED:

EFS news and message board launched from sign-on
New PeopleSoft Position Budgeting Reports

Position Budget HR Data Change Report
Position Budget Orphan Report

RAR voucher summarization
PCard: Reviewers' access to the Purchase Detail Report
Public query to review pending travel documents
Public query to review travel and expense documents still in the approval process
Modification to year end query for PO vouchers with budget errors (UM_DPO_YE_PO_VCHR_BCM_ERROR)
Modification to year end query for vouchers not approved (UM_DPO_YE_PO_VCHR_NOT_APPRV)
Creation of a new fiscal year end query for PO vouchers with match errors (UM_DPO_YE_PO_VCHR_MATCH_ERRORS)
ECEF endowment fee calculation
PUF page enhancements
Endowment Transaction Report: new UM Report for Endowments
Billing Pro Forma prompt message
New PeopleSoft and UM Report for Sponsored Fixed Price Balances
BPEL Sponsored Budget Request modification

EFS February 2010 release notes

These are the items that were released in EFS on Sunday February 28, 2010. Changes from the pre-release notes:

The ECEF fee functionality was not installed.
Two additional non-sponsored UM Reports were installed.

PCard: once daily notification to reconciler of "set back" activity
Email notification to an employee when an expense report is approved for payment
Email notification to an employee when a travel authorization is approved for payment
New non-sponsored reports (two additional reports installed)
GL approver access change
New position budgeting
ECEF endowment fee calculation (not installed)
Merchant payment card reconciliation process
AR aging reports
PeopleSoft Sponsored Pre-Award Project Detail report
PeopleSoft Sponsored Project Detail report
Project budgets finalization process

EFS January 2010 Release notes

Sponsored Awards in deficit new report
Program Income, shared query showing dept deposits corrected
BPEL form for sponsored re-budget updated
Position Budgeting training reminder
PCard reconcilers & approvers, new job aid for searching
GL JE workflow, info for preparers & approvers
GL JE workflow, for those with DeptID & certified approver roles
GL JE workflow, worklist entries for deleted JEs
GL JE workflow, remove approved JEs from alternate's worklist
GL print Journal from Journal Lines page
GL JE line search (for JE preparers/approvers)
Asset Management, new shared query for asset information
Asset Management, inquiry access updated to view pages/reports
Travel Cash Advance creation
PUF page updates

EFS December 28, 2009 Release Notes

Many updates were made to the system over this past weekend. Nearly every person who uses EFS may be interested in one or more of them.

PCard reconcilers and approvers have the most items of interest in this release. On November 16, 2009 we shared some pre-release notes for PCard updates. Many of those fixes and enhancements have been installed. The PCard items in this message replace the related notes that were sent in November.

Below are the release notes in HTML. Click here f you'd like to view a PDF version of the same notes.

Purchase Orders: allow requester to print internal (unauthorized) version of Purchase Order.
Sponsored travel approval: non-PO-related vouchers for less than $1,000.
RAR Activity Reporting.
Vouchers: navigation link from the voucher to the Purchase Order.
Vouchers: match exceptions query (UM_FAP_MATCH_EXCEPTION).
Voucher preparers: restrict 'Copy From PO Option' on the voucher.
Expense module: expense report printing.
Expense module: automated email "reply-to" address clarified.
Available Balance Deficit report: can run for specific period/group.
Endowments: improvements to the Endowment Participant Position page.
PCard: now with parallel approvals!
PCard: identifying sponsored versus non-sponsored activity.
PCard: notification to reconciler of "set back" activity.
PCard: change to the situation where the first transaction is selected for the approver by default.
PCard: approvers will no longer get into the "oops, I changed the wrong approver status" situation.
PCard: both sponsored and non-sponsored activity will use the same set of statuses.
PCard: no longer allows approvers to erroneously set status to Verified.
PCard: page inconsistencies error on CA Status field should no longer occur.
PCard: ability to search on the CA Status added.
PCard: field labels clarified for department approvers.

November 2009 Release Notes

Procurement Card (PCard) improvements for approvers and reconcilers

The improvements communicated on November 16th to the PCard Reconcile Statement page have been moved to the December release to allow for additional testing. Please look for an updated communication on the functionality to be released in December.

Requisition Name on E-mail for Sourced POs

The Name of the Requisition will now be included in the e-mail that is sent to the requester after the requisition is sourced to a Purchase Order. This will help the requester identify the requisition to the purchase order. The e-mail also includes the requisition number, purchase order number and requested delivery date.

Sourcing Workbench Change

The text on the Sourcing Workbench screen has been updated to eliminate confusion. The screen instructions have been updated. The screen text has been changed to instruct the Proc Spec to change the Error status to Reset / Purge. The reference to Recycle has been removed from the screen instructions.

ACH Remittance Advice email for Employees and Vendors

Currently, the system provides no notification to Employees or Vendors that a payment via ACH has been initiated. The system will now provide both with an email, approximately 2 days prior to deposit, detailing the transaction(s).

View Customer Conversations

The AR monitor role will now have access to view customer conversations via Accounts Receivables menu pages. This will allow Monitors to review documented discussions and conversations with customer contacts, which may be related to invoice and payment issues or other customer inquiries.

New PeopleSoft and UM Report for Sponsored Award Processing Statistics

This new report will provide the user with modification information processed for Sponsored Awards. It is a summary level report that will roll up by budget period and provide counts and totals based on entered run control criteria. The report is flexible in that the users will be able to run it by Modification Issue Date, RRC, ZDeptID, DeptID, Sponsor or PI/COI.

New PeopleSoft and UM Report for Submitted Proposal Processing Statistics

The Submitted Proposal Processing Statistics report will give Proposal level summary information and submitted and awarded Proposal counts and percentages based on entered run control criteria. The users will be able to run the report by Proposal Creation Date, RRC, ZDeptID, DeptID, Sponsor or PI/COI.

Correction to the UM Report - Sponsored Project Detail

The report has been correct to pull data based on the Deptid associated to the Project instead of the Award.

EFS Enhancements: October 2009 Release Notes

This past weekend, the October monthly "release" of fixes, enhancements, and modifications was made to the PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial System. The October 2009 release notes contain information on changes to the system or subsidiary systems, announcements, and process or procedure instructions/tips.

EFS Enhancements: September 2009 Release Notes

RRC budget development worksheet update

Upon submission of the RRC Budget Development Worksheet, the Save, Submit and Refresh Total buttons will now be grayed. These buttons will remain grayed and unavailable unless the Budget Office returns the budget back to the RRC for additional review.

Available balance deficit report modifications

The Available Balance Deficit Report is now available from the UM Reports menu for RRC Managers. The report can now be run for a single RRC. Although the Run Control definition says that the report can be run by a selected period, please note that the report will always return a summary of all transactions for the selected year to current date.

Prevent more than 254 characters on journal description

Preparers were not receiving a warning or indication if the text entered on journal header description field exceeded the stipulated 254 character limit. A character counter has been added that displays the remaining number of characters available to the preparer in the comments field. The counter appears on the screen under this comments field. The system will also now prevent one from entering text beyond the maximum 254 characters.

Distribution information on internal PO print

Navigation: Purchasing > Purchase Orders > Add/Update Purchase Orders > Maintain Purchase Orders > View Printable Version (located on bottom left corner of page)
Currently this process allows a Procurement Specialist to print an unauthorized version of a purchase order. Unauthorized indicates that the printed version of the PO is not intended to be dispatched to the vendor. It is intended for internal departmental use only. The distribution information is now printed along with PO. This change is similar to the addition of the distribution on the Requisition Print program.

Procurement Specialists and Voucher Specialists ability to unmatch

Procurement Specialists and Voucher Specialists have the ability to unmatch documents through the match workbench functionality. One can only unmatch documents if the receipt is not closed and the voucher is unposted. The navigation to the match workbench is: Main Menu > Accounts Payable > Review Accounts Payable Info > Match Workbench. If one would like to unmatch a document, select the document on the left and then unmatch the document by running the process on the bottom of the page.

Summary approval change for transactions with budget check errors

Expenses approvers will now be able to send back Travel Authorizations and Expense Reports with budget check errors from the Approval List page: Manager Self Service > Travel and Expense Center > Approvals > Approve Transactions.

Imaging system hyperlink enabled for voucher approvers and reviewers

Voucher approvers and reviewers can now access the invoice image related to a voucher without having to open a separate internet session of the imaging system. There is now a "View Invoice Image" hyperlink on both the Invoice Information tab and the UM Voucher Approval that will connect the user to the invoice image for the specific voucher that is being reviewed or approved. The approver/reviewer will be required to log in the first time they are connecting to the imaging system. On subsequent attempts to view or approve vouchers within the same session the approver/reviewer will not need to log in again to view invoices.

Payment special handling enabled for VCPS

VCPS requisitions now have an additional feature whereby a hyperlink to enter the special handling details of the payment can be entered. The information that is required to be entered is: payment handling code, contact name, Internet ID (X.500 ID), phone number, and any check message to the vendor.

Billing: sales tax rate display on printed invoices

The sales tax rate is now correctly displayed on EFS invoices. While the tax amount has always been correctly calculated and displayed, the sales tax rate had been rounded since the state increased the rate earlier this summer. The invoice now displays the full tax rate to three decimal places.

UM Reports version of the sponsored project detail report

A new drill down has been added at the account level. This new functionality will display only transaction activity associated with the selected account roll up.

Return to Award Profile hyperlink on the Award Profile Additional Information page

The Return to Award Profile hyperlink that is located on the Award Profile, Additional Information page has been activated. This will enable the users to select the link instead of having to re-navigate to the Award Profile page using the menu selections.

EFS Enhancements: August 2009 Release Notes

Enhancements were made to the system over the weekend. A complete list can be found here. (pdf)

EFS Enhancements: July 2009 Release Notes

Year end receiving for quantity orders

We have a fix from Oracle for the above problem on Quantity based PO's that have receiving associated with them. This means that Procurement Specialists will no longer need to enter the quantity receipts. Casual receivers will be able to receive quantity based Rolled POs.

This fix does not apply those orders that were accidently received already and locked. Voucher Specialists will need to process vouchers with an override for No Receipt Found error. For these, be sure the item is received and forward any asset information to Inventory Services

New Requisition Printing Option

Distribution information will now be included when a requisition is printed from the View Printable Version link. This link is available to Procurement Specialists on the Maintain Requisitions page in the Purchasing Module. (Purchasing > Requisitions > Add/Update Requisitions > Find An Existing Value > Maintain Requisitions)

Requisition Category Fix

When requesters use the Look Up for Category on the 'Create Requisitions' page, the categories are no longer displayed in duplicate.

Attachment Issue

Recent attachments created in Internet Explorer and Microsoft 2007 or greater have not been viewable. This issue has been resolved and users now have the ability to use the two products in tandem. Attachments created in these versions are now viewable.

Chartfield string on Expense Reports
A change has been made to the hard-copy expense report to display chartfield information for each distribution line of the report. The layout of the new expense report is very similar to that of the existing report except that it also contains a new distribution line section listing the chartfields right below the expense line section. The new report format can be accessed at the following path: Travel and Expenses > Travel and Expense Center > Expense Report > Print

Accounts Receivable Direct Cash Journals

Financial Inquiry users will now be able to "Drill to Source" when reviewing Accounts Receivable Direct Cash journals from the Journal Inquiry Details page. The AR source information includes source module accounting entries and deposit id.

Participant Information

The links for the notes field and the donor intent have been enabled on the Participant Information page for Financial Inquiry users. Users may now review notes to an endowment and the donor intent.

Printing Journals

The Print Journal functionality on a General Ledger journal now displays the optional chartfield information on the report.

Sponsored PeopleSoft Reports and Sponsored UM Reports

Sponsored Project Detail, Sponsored Award Overview, Sponsored Pre-Award Project Detail and Sponsored Pre-Award Overview reports were modified;

The data source for non salary and fringe encumbrance related transactions has been changed. This will clear up the date and missing encumbrance data issues
The Run Control (for PeopleSoft reports only) has been modified to no longer save the Current Date in the Accounting Date Through field when it is left blank. It will now accept a null value on a saved run control. This will allow future scheduling of the reports, then when the report kicks off on the scheduled date it will use the system date (current date) as the Accounting Date Through value
These reports will now display the Funded F&A Base value instead of the Institutional F&A Base

Sponsored Award Summary report was modified;

The data source for non salary and fringe encumbrance related transactions has been changed. This will clear up the date and missing encumbrance data issues
The Run Control (for PeopleSoft reports only) has been modified to no longer save the Current Date in the Accounting Date Through field when it is left blank. It will now accept a null value on a saved run control. This will allow future scheduling of the reports, then when the report kicks off on the scheduled date it will use the system date (current date) as the Accounting Date Through value
The report will now populate based on the DeptID of the Primary Project, instead of the DeptID associated to the Award.

Sponsored Pre-Award Summary report was modified;

The data source for non salary and fringe encumbrance related transactions has been changed. This will clear up the date and missing encumbrance data issues
The Run Control (for PeopleSoft reports only) has been modified to no longer save the Current Date in the Accounting Date Through field when it is left blank. It will now accept a null value on a saved run control. This will allow future scheduling of the reports, then when the report kicks off on the scheduled date it will use the system date (current date) as the Accounting Date Through value

NOGA report has been modified to state the correct budget amount on the first page of the report

Award Modifications page has been changed to allow general users view access to the Comments Icon/pushbutton on the Award Modifications page

System enhancements made April 26, 2009

Click here for an overview of system enhancements made over the weekend (on April 26).

System Processing

A technical change has been implemented in both the PeopleSoft Financials production (FSUMPRD) and reporting (FSUMRPT) environments to improve job processing efficiency. This change will allow the system to better determine which server it should use based on processing requirements and capacity. As a result of this change there will be different Server Names in the drop down list on the Process Scheduler Request page when executing processes.

Although you may still specify a server to execute a process, we recommend that you now leave the Server Name field on the Process Scheduler Request page blank. This allows the system to determine the appropriate server based on current system capacity.

Within the list of new server names, do not select PSCDB and PSOS309. These servers are for internal processing only. If you accidentally select either of these servers, the process will not execute.

Output Retention

Since the July go-live, the system has generated a large volume of file outputs as part of its normal processing. This output has been increasing since July and the system's storage capacity is nearing its limit. In order to free up necessary space, a rolling six month retention policy will be implemented starting Sunday, May 2 for both the production and reporting instances of PeopleSoft Financials (please note that UM Reports is not affected by this change).

All output files older than six months will be removed from the servers. No data is being removed from EFS. Only the files generated from processes are being removed. Although most of the file outputs are concentrated around technical log files, report and transaction files are included. For example, if a report was generated in July 2008, the version stored in the EFS will be removed. Any copies of the report stored on the requester's desktop/computer are not affected. Since the data itself still remains in the system, the report can be re-executed using the same parameters to extract the original data requested in July 2008.

An example of a transaction related output file is the purchase order. If a purchase order was dispatched in July 2008 and the unit needs an output file from that PO today, the unit has two options:

The "View Printable Version" button on the purchase order page can be used to print an unofficial purchase order.
If an official version is required, a change order would need to be processed to recreate an official output file.

Again, no data is being removed from EFS servers. Only the file outputs older than six months. Some processes may need to be re-executed after the clean-up if the unit requires the output file.