Stipends Phase for Financial Support Payments Tool (FSPT)

You may have read the article From Requests to Payments: Ramping up for the Financial Support Payments Tool (FSPT) in which the project phases were introduced for the FSPT Project. Since then, a new phase has been added to the project. The article below provides more information about the new Phase 0.

Updated Phases

Originally, the project had three phases in which stipends were part of Phase 1: Enhanced Payments. The phasing of the project has been adjusted to better reflect the anticipated progress of the development work. Phase 0: Stipend Payments has been added, which will precede Phase 1: Enhanced Payments and will focus on the functionality required to enter stipends into FSPT. 

The updated phases and go-live dates are listed below. Please note that the go-live dates are subject to change, pending system and stakeholder readiness.

Phases and Go-Live

Go-live for Phase 0: Stipend Payments of the FSPT Project is scheduled for Spring 2024 in preparation for Summer 2024 entries. The team has targeted the stipends go-live to be available in time for Summer 2024 payments so that a clean transition can be made between academic/fiscal years. 

Stipend Entry Deadlines

New stipend entry deadlines will be shared before go-live. The new deadlines will be posted in the Division of Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs (GEPA) Financial Support Unit (FSU) “Graduate Financial Support Calendar” Collab page once available. Deadline information will also be shared via mailing lists, Microsoft Teams channel and the GEPA FSU newsletter.

Please note that the deadlines to enter stipends into FSPT are not affected by the contract-covered payments for Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) Trainee/Fellows. GEPA FSU will separately provide information about the upcoming UCPath entries for July 1 as part of ongoing contract implementation. Appointment letters and notifications issued via the Instructional Assistant (IA) Data Management System are for contract-covered payments which will no longer be processed in the student financial system. More information was emailed to the grademployment mailing list.

Development Advancement

The new phase will include only stipend payments disbursed to graduate students. The implementation team is working diligently to complete development for Phase 0: Stipend Payments and ensure all the complex pieces involved are functioning and set-up to work properly. It’s all hands on deck for the Academic Affairs IT Services team as they prioritize this project. As soon as the required functionality is available in FSPT, testing by front-end users can begin. We currently anticipate user testing to begin in May, and users from across campus have been asked to help with User Acceptance Testing (UAT) for Phase 0: Stipend Payments. 

Zero In on Stipends

For Phase 0: Stipend Payments, the concepts will be familiar with an improved User Interface (UI). Users will still be entering the same information into the tool; however, there are improvements to look forward to with the new tool. Tiffany Swiderski, Director of Graduate Student Financial Support for GEPA, shares that “FSU is looking forward to sharing multi-transaction upload and real-time funding validation functionality with our campus partners–both features will help reduce processing time (or waste and rework, for those familiar with Lean Six Sigma) for coordinators, fund administrators and central offices.”

One improvement is that the aid identifiers (AIDIDs) are dropping out of the end-user process. Users will not have to separately navigate to the Graduate Support Accounting Setup (GSAS) application outside of FSPT. Instead, they will enter the project, task, and funding source, or non-project chart string (like users do in GSAS today) in the same interface used for payments. Validation of the project or chart string will occur for each monthly disbursement, not just one time when the project or chart is first used, which will help to reduce postings to default projects. The FSPT will now be a one-stop shop for graduate financial support payments validation. 

At Phase 0: Stipend Payments go-live, stipends will be disbursed via student accounts receivable (AR) in the ISIS system for domestic students and through the financial accounts payable (AP) Oracle Financial Cloud (OFC) system for international students. This mirrors the current disbursement process. The project team will work toward disbursing all stipend payments through the OFC system with a target start date of January 1, 2025. This will enact the change for domestic students at the beginning of a tax year and allow adequate time for process design and systems integration. 

Training 

The plan for training on Phase 0: Stipend Payments is being finalized. We currently anticipate holding regular office hours and a train-a-thon, as well as providing a user guide. The train-a-thon will be a time where users can test the application for stipend entries and GEPA FSU will be on standby to help, answer questions and collect feedback that will be shared with the development team. Training for users will happen before go-live and is currently anticipated for May-June. We will share training details via email mailing lists and add information to the Microsoft Teams FSPT channel. In order to prepare, we recommend joining the Microsoft Teams FSPT channel listed below. The training materials will also be added to the GEPA FSU FSPT Collab Space. 

Stay Informed and Engaged

The following are ways that you can stay informed and engaged: 

• Microsoft Teams FSPT: Join the team, Graduate Student Financial Support, where there is a dedicated FSPT channel. This channel will be a space to ask GEPA FSU questions, seek support and receive guidance from fellow colleagues. It will be especially helpful when the FSPT application goes live. 
• Enhancement Request Form: If you have an enhancement request or suggestion for FSPT, we encourage you to complete the FSPT Enhancement Request Form. While all ideas will be reviewed and considered, please keep in mind that there are limits to what enhancements are currently actionable, and we may be unable to address or respond to every idea.  
• Videos: You can watch the monthly two-minute videos that include an FSPT Project update each month on the ESR SIS Kaltura Channel. The FSPT Playlist currently has two videos, an introduction to the FSPT Project and a closer look at Phase 0: Stipend Payments. 
• Webpage: More information on the FSPT Project will be provided as the project progresses. You can view the FSPT Project webpage anytime to get the latest updates.
• Email: If you have questions about FSPT, you can email them to fspt@ucsd.edu. A Services & Support ticket will be automatically opened for each email, so that the FSU team can follow up with you. Additionally, this will allow the team to prioritize and organize the questions received.

We are thrilled that the new FSPT phase will assist with ensuring graduate students are paid stipends correctly and on time, too. We are also looking forward to Phase 0 reducing the manual intervention required from staff in processing stipends.