Finance Systems Stabilization

Of all the Enterprise Systems Renewal (ESR) program’s system implementations, the financial systems launch has been the biggest challenge for our campus community. The launch required significant change in how we conduct financial management and was unfortunately impacted by the considerable change and resulting stress of a global pandemic, intense racial injustices across the country, and unrelenting change in our professional and personal lives. We are grateful for the resilience you’ve shown and are excited to move forward to share how things are going now that we are on track.

 As project manager for Finance Systems Stabilization, I am working closely with key leaders and business units to support and resolve on-going issues for end users. Here are four improvements that are in progress to specifically respond to end user feedback.

Reporting

One of the most talked about topics within the new financial landscape at UC San Diego has been reporting. Currently the Faculty and Researcher Dashboard, which is now in testing, has been redeveloped in Cognos to deliver better speed and add payroll projections. The summary page will include balances of net payroll projections and the drill-through pages will include projection details. Look for more on reporting changes and improvements at Reporting Development on the BI & Financial Reporting Blink page.

New Finance Customer Help Desk

Business and Financial Services (BFS) is preparing to launch a centralized UC San Diego Finance Help Desk, a call center which is aimed at improving the client experience by expanding their service support framework. In addition to procurement, payables and travel-related inquiries that are already accessible by phone, they are expanding the phone service to include financial operations, accounting and sponsored projects research topics.

Staffed by knowledgeable representatives across BFS finance units, the help desk will be available to you by phone to ask finance questions and receive timely responses. The help desk is currently in soft launch phase preparing for full launch on February 1, 2022.

Financial Management Website

With so much happening and changing in the worlds of OFC, budget, and finance, it can be difficult to know where to go for reliable, up-to-date information. The Main Issues list is a resource intended to provide transparency and awareness to our campus community about on-going implementation issues, whether technical or functional in nature. We launched a new finance website, financialmanagement.ucsd.edu, where you’ll find an overview of how financial management works at UC San Diego as well as recent information about improvements and related updates via the Main Issues list, links to finance-related websites and more.   

Finance Systems Quarterly Survey

We launched the Finance Systems Survey that will be distributed quarterly to anyone who has used OFC in the past year. By participating in this survey on a quarterly basis, you will help our finance stabilization project team develop better solutions to ongoing challenges, identify any new issues because of system upgrades, policy/process changes, and future integrations as well as strive for sustained progress and success along the way. The January launch was January 10, and the survey is open for submission until Monday, January 24. Please check your email for an invitation to participate. We look forward to your ongoing input to inform overall strategies and priorities.

More Improvements Coming Soon

While these improvements are steering us in the right direction, we plan for continued and sustained efforts to improve our financial systems and operations.

We are immensely grateful to the campus community for staying the course during such a monumental change. We are committed to ensuring your needs and concerns are addressed to achieve our overarching goal of reshaping the way UC San Diego manages its financial operations.