In acknowledging big changes to the ways we operate over the past year, we are providing an update on what is next for fiscal year 2023-24 and beyond and reflecting on what we have already accomplished.

Where We鈥檙e Going

There are still areas for improvement around roles and responsibilities between the central functions and those of the colleges and units. This is top of mind for us as we try to establish the 鈥渉and off鈥� protocols for improving the speed of transaction processing. We are mindful of the need for more focused training for all users of the system, in addition to the 300 Workday help articles and videos already created.

Our change management efforts continue with our focus on continuous improvement grounded in the 鈥淭hree Ps鈥� (People, Process and Performance). We are currently going through our first fiscal year end close and logging all instances of 鈥渓earning and execution鈥� encountered. We are placing them into workplans for our finance, human resources and budget units. We have also undertaken a full review of our policies, practices and procedures in our human resources functions. We engaged with two seasoned chief human resources officers from the higher education industry and paired them with two talent acquisition directors from industry. Their initial insights and observations have already spurred thoughts and strategies we will consider. Our focus on change management protocols in our human resources functions are geared towards getting as close to automation as possible, and even closer to industry effectiveness and efficiency that can fit within a higher education setting.

As we continue to learn about the new system and its capabilities, you can expect changes to improve and streamline our business processes and provide better information access and transparency.

Reflecting On What We鈥檝e Accomplished

We continue to measure our performance against the four tenets of 鈥済o-live鈥� in July of 2022. They were pay our people, pay our bills, close our books听补苍诲 hire our people.

Our payment of faculty, staff and students remains our highest priority. We were successful in meeting this tenet from the first pay period and continued throughout the entire year. This is a remarkable feat considering that we converted from several systems and multiple organizations into a singular platform. The teams in payroll, finance and information technology did an outstanding job to make sure that this key tenet was accomplished with an almost perfect record of 98% accuracy all year long. The items that make up the 2% were anomalies that were quickly resolved.

Our ability to promptly pay our bills saw significant improvements from the start of the fiscal year versus where we ended on June 30, 2023. These process improvements were no surprise as we knew they would come along with the ongoing focused training and consultations as more faculty, staff and students utilized the system and became more proficient using it. Training sessions and consultations will continue, and we will maintain our training protocols as we strive to seek ways to perform training more effectively with one-on-one consultations when necessary.

Here are a few statistics that highlight our improvements:

• Expense report processing times started at 27 days on average and it is now down to four days.
• Punchout purchases and transactions started at 3.44 days on average and it is now down to 0.44 days.
• Expense report transactions send backs started at 47% and it is now down to 27%. We continue to work daily with colleges and units as they become more familiar with university policies and procedures in an effort to drive this percentage down further.

Our ability to close our books and move expeditiously to monthly budget-to-actual reports and cash flow projections continue to be refined with both the main campus and all eight Direct Support Organizations involved in the process. This is a first for our university, but the progress made is phenomenal as we now have ability to have all entities operating within the ethos of 鈥淥ne 麻豆原创.鈥� We will continue to refine these processes even further in the coming year so we will be closer to having push button dashboard reports that will expedite decision-making for deans, vice presidents, managers and supervisors.

Our ability to hire our people continues to evolve from a manual and disjointed process to one that is integrated within Workday. We have added elements of our shared services approach to business operations to our efforts in human resources. That move will start bearing fruit in the coming months. Key improvements in this area include:

• A fully-staffed Talent Acquisition unit that standardizing recruitment and onboarding processes. We are now working with colleges and units on how to shape ongoing talent pools to ensure that our recruiting and onboarding processes are proactive throughout the year versus ramping up for each individual search request made.
• Faculty contracts were prepared and disseminated via Workday for the first time, versus the manual and spreadsheet-based process of the past.

Based on input from the HR Business Center leaders, we are considering how to best utilize the local Human Resources Business Centers to maximize efficiency, reduce cycle times and deliver faster services to campus stakeholders. Continued training, consistency in transaction processing, onboarding and appropriate accountability expectations will be key to moving forward more seamlessly.

In the meantime, there is much to celebrate thanks directly to the tireless efforts, feedback and patience of our dedicated 麻豆原创 community. I invite you to stay more regularly updated on Workday news and successes by visiting the .

We could not have made it this far without your valuable contributions. We thank you for your dedication and commitment to one another and our mission to Unleash Potential of our students, faculty, staff and community.

Part of the rollout of our transformation efforts around Workday, Adaptive Planning and Service Enhancement Transformation (SET) include these 鈥淔rom the CFO鈥� updates, Dollars and $ense campus presentations and forums, and small group trainings, such as one we had with the 麻豆原创 Libraries team last week.

I welcome the opportunity to visit with academic units to answer questions; dialogue about the past, present, and the future; and witness firsthand how new individuals are becoming vision carriers of our transformation efforts 鈥� encouraging signs that we are getting closer to realizing the concept of 鈥淥ne 麻豆原创.鈥�

Everything we are working on will assist us as we continue to transform our financial and administrative management capabilities. Here is a snapshot of some broad updates of our transformative efforts:

Workday

Our four Workday 鈥済o-live鈥� tenets remain in place:

• Pay our people
• Pay our bills
• Close our books
• Hire our people

All four continue to improve with each passing week as we learn more about what Workday can do and how we can make it work for our university鈥檚 needs. A key part of our ongoing work is deep dives into how we work collaboratively across campus to improve customer service and execution.

As an example, Faculty Excellence and Human Resources have not historically collaborated extensively on faculty hiring. Based on a review of our past practices, we learned that it takes almost seven months to hire faculty. While that is not uncommon, with the new capabilities of Workday, we endeavor for these two key offices to work more closely together to reduce the time to hire for our faculty. This is just one example of the process improvements we continue to diligently work on each day.

Here a few other examples of recent improvements that will benefit our financial and administrative processes for years to come:

• Colleges and units can now charge expenses to Foundation funds at any time versus waiting until the end of year for a reimbursement of funds expended.
• Faculty now have the capability to sign their summer contracts electronically. The elimination of a physical contract is a major convenience for faculty who are traveling or working remotely, and it reduces time and effort for both the employee and the department. This builds on the capability to upload all summer appointment variables into Workday in a single push, making the production of summer agreements more efficient.
• Punchout purchasing times have decreased significantly for transactions properly entered and documented in the system from 3.27 days at 鈥済o-live鈥� down to 0.62 days. Much of this improvement is because of adding new team members, along with existing team members within the finance business centers getting more comfortable with the system鈥檚 capabilities.
• Expense report processing is down from 22 days at 鈥済o-live鈥� to 3.5 days or less. We continue to see improvement in processing times, and that is a testament to the team members working here at 麻豆原创 who want to see us all succeed.
• For the first time in the university鈥檚 history, we have all organizations inside a singular system. The main campus and our eight Direct Support Organizations are now in one cogent, integrated system, allowing for the expediting of transactions and monthly closes.

Adaptive Planning

One of the key tenets of our financial and administrative transformation is to have a clear, efficient budgeting process for both our capital and operating budgets. Adaptive Planning has been launched by the university鈥檚 Budget Planning and Analysis office. This budget system has replaced our reliance on spreadsheets to manage our budget allocations and to monitor budget versus actuals during the fiscal year. We also now have the capability to do cash flow monitoring and forecasting inside the system pulling on live data.

We are currently using this system to prepare the budget for Fiscal Year 2024, which will see the campus wide implementation of our new Responsibility Center Management (RCM) budget model.

Currently, colleges and units have uploaded their budgets into the system, and scenario planning is underway with several colleges and central support units providing refined data. The system has afforded us the opportunity to have all budgets for colleges, units, and DSOs housed in a single system that is integrated with Workday.

The preliminary FY2024 budget is being finalized and will be taken to the University Budget Committee for discussion before taking a final recommendation forward to President Cartwright, and ultimately to our Board of Trustees for adoption in June.

For a reminder on the tenets of the new budget model and how colleges, units, and others will be funded, .

Service Enhancement Transformation (SET)

Our efforts to implement a shared services operating model continue to evolve as we learn more about the capabilities of Workday and Adaptive Planning, and the staffing needs in colleges and units. The data and surveys utilized to establish the service centers prior to 鈥済o-live鈥� are still being juxtaposed against the realities of volume, complexity, and timeliness of transactions.

We did a review at the three-month mark, which revealed the following:

• Continuous training will be necessary for everyone across campus.
• Investments are needed in the professional development of our team members across all colleges and units to provide cross-functional opportunities and training on transactions.
• The ability to collaborate among peers inside the service centers is beneficial, versus having individual departments trying to solve problems on their own.
• We will continue to work with deans on the needs of our research faculty for one-on-one support. There is no uniformity in how colleges established their service centers, but there is an opportunity to return to this topic in the coming weeks and months.

We continue to listen to the campus and are finding ways to better communicate the accomplishments and status of open items. In early May, we will launch a blog that will capture all the improvements that have been made since 鈥済o-live.鈥� It is clear that updates might not be getting to the campus at large, which leads to misinformation and erroneous conclusions. This is a major effort for our university, and we cannot communicate enough.

I am happy to see that we are starting to see how our processes can become more seamless and efficient. Our goal of 鈥淥ne 麻豆原创鈥� will require us to continue to work together to stay engaged, provide feedback, and become carriers of this vision to see our beloved 麻豆原创 rise to the next level of operational excellence.

Thank you for your contributions to our transformation and for all you do for 麻豆原创.

These changes are important because they continue to make the university more efficient and nimbler, with faster budget reporting and real-time financial data to aid in key decision-making. We are also focused on reducing procurement costs and improving recruiting and retention.

We have talked before about our four tenets of 鈥済o live鈥� for these systems: (i) pay our people, (ii) pay our bills, (iii) close our books, and (iv) hire our people. Now is a good time to update the campus on where we stand on each of these tenets.

On the first tenet we have been successful from day one, with our faculty, staff and students being paid accurately and on time. There are nuances like timesheet adjustments or wrongly inputted data with every payroll, but they are easily addressed.

On the second tenet, we are now paying our bills with greater alacrity after adjusting for vacancies in staff that impact how we process transactions. There are some transaction types that still need improvement. Two areas of specific interest are ordering through the new Punchout e-procurement system and reimbursing travel expenses. Both are high priorities for the teams, and they have been placed in what we call 鈥減roject sprints.鈥� These sprints bring key stakeholders to the table to resolve issues.

The Punchout system is important for us as we move to a more efficient procurement enterprise to take advantage of negotiated contracts and volume discounts. In the coming months, you will be hearing more about the concept of 鈥渟trategic sourcing鈥� that will govern the way we procure products at the university. That will eliminate inefficient pricing and duplicate purchases, and more importantly avoid unnecessary costs.

The third tenet of closing our books is occurring. There are some elements of the closing that need additional time. The process is evolving because the goal for us is to be as close as possible to full automation for the monthly and year-end closing processes.

We are pleased to share that we have built out a full 鈥渂udget versus actual鈥� reporting tool that will assist us in getting our financial information recorded, summarized, and reported faster. We now have access into all areas of the university鈥檚 financial operations. That will allow us to get real-time data to assist us in key decision-making during an academic year. This report also has drill-down capabilities so we can engage in meaningful monthly conversations with budget directors, deans and vice presidents about budget targets and forecasting. It is our desire to move from this report to financial dashboards that will aid our budget and financial planning immensely.

Our fourth tenet on hiring people also ramped up as we streamlined our background check process with a new vendor that is a partner with the Workday system. We expect fewer backlogs and faster onboarding of new employees. A more seamless process is being evaluated for how we can work on continuous improvement in this area. The Office of Human Resources also recently made some organizational changes to prepare for our shift of some local responsibilities to colleges and units.

Some exciting news about this fourth tenet is that we were able to stand up our first Talent Acquisition Group here at the university. This group will be solely focused on assisting with recruiting and retention strategies. It will allow us to get stronger pools of candidates that are built through their efforts while reducing expenses for search firms that we will need less often to help recruit employees.

We acknowledge that despite the tenets and our progress on them noted above, there are still some pain points. Those include the loss of functionality of some reports that were custom built into our prior system, new looks to data configurations, additional steps in some areas due to having former manual steps now being completed inside a uniformed system, and the need for additional training on the system鈥檚 functionality. These were expected with a conversion of this scope and size, and there are teams working to resolve them.

We are committed to ensuring that the campus remains informed when issues raised from feedback and other channels are addressed. You will be seeing communications coming from my office to the campus on those resolutions, and we are working on a final repository of feedback and their resolutions.

We are in a good position as we look forward to be in a stabilized mode where our new systems, policies, procedures and practices are aligned. 麻豆原创 is truly the University for the Future.

Workday is now our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. It is new, different and a disruptor of how we conducted the business of the university in the past. We have good success with the conversion, a high accuracy rate in our payroll execution, and just recently closed the month of July in our financial records. We are now in a phase of triaging and understanding aspects of our university鈥檚 operations that were not readily noticeable in years past. Paying our bills and hiring our people continue to be top of mind, but with each passing week we are getting better at understanding prior gaps in processes and how we can permanently address them. We are working on a path to get to stabilization and then continuous process improvement.

Despite being only one month and a half into the new system, we are fielding calls for us to return to the 鈥渙ld ways鈥� of doing things. We are hearing that the new system is a chore, and the functionalities of the old system were better. There is concern that this will not all come together as anticipated, and that it was better to have not gone to a new system.

I would like to share some insights into why the expressions of returning to the old system are understandable but not optimal for our future growth and operations. Our systems needed to be modernized such that we can manage our various components as 鈥淥ne 麻豆原创鈥� versus the collection of 13 colleges, 10 Direct Support Organizations (DSOs) and several administrative departments.

What has become evident since our 鈥済o live鈥� on July 1, 2022, is the complex nature of our operations as every college, unit or division operated by their own goals and objectives. From the way we hire faculty, to processing contracts and vendors, to tracking key purchases based on regulatory compliance, we have found instances where they are all different. Differences are not necessarily based on need, but how things matured over time in an incremental budgeting environment with allocations of revenues versus bottom-up budgets. That led us to less-than-optimal spending to meet objectives and mission. We heard how difficult it is to get financial information in a timely manner to make data-driven business decisions before, during and after a fiscal year. We knew that our policies, procedures and practices did not align with the functionality of the PeopleSoft system. The move to Workday has exposed it with data at the core, and 聽will now allow for correction and improvements. Workday is a disruptor for us, and now we are using this opportunity to tackle all known issues in a systematic way.

The opportunity costs of not addressing the mismatch between our systems and processes are real. We are now able to quantify both the costs themselves and their consequences. Duplicative work and systems are the most evident. Those are closely followed by a system that was configured primarily to report back to the state of Florida rather than the ease of financial and operational management. We also had the differences of process maps and inconsistent treatment by each college, unit and division of transactions and needs. All three make up the 鈥渟ystem鈥� that we must improve.

We have already started the journey of addressing the system to make it better. It will be an iterative process for the next several months as we move to stabilization. The first major step was to implement a new ERP that will bring one source of truth in all our financial and operational data. Below are some statistics for us to consider:

1. Twelve financial companies were brought under one system of operations inside Workday.
2. Four financial systems are now housed in one.
3. Twenty-two applications were decommissioned.
4. Over 2,000 grants were converted from an integrated external system into Workday.
5. Approximately 22,000 employees were converted.
6. Manual steps done outside the PeopleSoft system are now required to be completed inside Workday within transaction flows.

With us moving to one source of truth for all financial-related matters, we are now focused on the policies, procedures and practices that were a part of our former way of operating. We have started creating new Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for processes where gaps in processes are now being identified.

In the past, our various methodologies by college, unit or division prevented us from doing the following for several years:

1. Close our financial books monthly so that we could monitor spending by colleges, units and divisions, and ensure that financial stewardship was managed with the goals and objectives at the start of a fiscal year.
2. Cash flow forecasting by the 鈥渃olors of money鈥� was inadequate and led to surprises at the end of the fiscal year. Balancing cash flow to monthly budget to actuals was not possible without a manual process that would take a full quarter to reconcile. This led to hurried purchases in the last quarter of the fiscal year.
3. Treasurer functions were relegated to monitoring bank accounts, while colleges, units, projects, auxiliaries and others were focused on reconciling cash at their level. An inefficient way of managing cash flow for a $2 billion-plus enterprise.
4. Procurement to pay was episodic where we could not take advantage of volume discounts and other savings measures. Our process also led to multiple colleges, units and divisions working with the same vendor with different contracts on different terms.
5. The lack of tracking also caused multiple versions of software and other items to be purchased when only one was needed at the university level (e.g. Salesforce).

When we refer to our 鈥渟ystem鈥� going forward, it will be an integrated approach of having our policies, procedures and practices align with Workday. Items that do not fit into the system because of unique needs will be managed by exception. We do not anticipate having many unique cases as most of our expenses are personnel-related, and when other fixed obligations at the university level are factored in, that leaves a small amount of discretionary funding coupled with state, local and federal grants.

Since 鈥済o live鈥� we have been hearing excellent suggestions from various campus stakeholders, including from every level of the university. In the coming weeks, you will be hearing about ideation sessions with the campus to capture the best ideas to address some of the hurdles we must cross to get us operating as 鈥淥ne 麻豆原创.鈥� For example, after several conversations around the tracking of regulated assets, we discovered that one college had the 鈥済old standard鈥� for compliance. We are now working on an SOP for all colleges, units and divisions. We also envision the following to keep the momentum going on our change management journey:

1. Bi-weekly meetings with the Budget Directors from the colleges and units that represent each cost center on our campus.
2. Monthly meetings with the CFO Council that comprises all the CFOs of our DSOs and key administrative units.
3. Campuswide ideation sessions on issues that are not treated consistently. Examples of how we will work collaboratively as 鈥淥ne 麻豆原创鈥� to come up with workable solutions include the hiring of faculty, faculty overseeing hourly employees, tracking of 鈥渁ttractive assets,鈥� and vendor contracts and payables.
4. Continue with this monthly communication in addition to the Dollars & $ense town hall meetings after each Board of Trustees meeting.
5. Weekly CFO update to university leaders (i.e., vice presidents and deans) that should form discussions within colleges and units on a regular basis.

At the end of these processes, we will have a clear, cogent and transparent 鈥渟ystem鈥� that allows for the proper and timely recording, summarizing and reporting of financial and operating information to help drive university decisions at all levels. The 鈥渟ystem鈥� will work in tandem with the incredibly talented and engaged campus stakeholders we have here at 麻豆原创.

As with any new implementation or major change, we knew that 鈥済o-live鈥� was only the start of the journey and that as we implemented these changes we would uncover gaps, challenges, as well as opportunities for additional refinements. We are asking everyone to remain engaged as we push through this phase of our improvement process. We will continue to keep the lines of communication open as we work on how to optimally utilize our new ERP software.

As noted in last month鈥檚 edition of 鈥淔rom the CFO鈥� we focused on four key tenets that drove the decision to 鈥済o live.鈥� They were: (i) pay our people, (ii) pay our bills, (iii) close our books, and (iv) hire our people.

So, how are we doing? In a complicated implementation such as this, much still has to be done to finalize implementation after the go-live. On the whole, we are progressing as expected. Attempts to pay bills, or hire, uncover issues with workflows or security roles or a need for better training are all a part of this transition. As these issues are discovered, they are being addressed by the central team and staff across campus. Some are handled quickly, others taking longer 鈥� sometimes longer than desired. For complete transparency, the following describes what is happening in more detail.

Through three weeks of going live, we achieved the first tenet by paying our people with our first payroll processed in the new system on July 15. We experienced a 99.6% match on our files prior to conversion; the remaining 0.4% were unique cases that were handled separately – a feat that many were amazed by.

We were successful because of the dedicated and committed staff working within our Payroll Office, with the support of our implementation partners in Accenture and Huron. They spent an incredible number of hours at nights and the last three weekends around the clock to pull this off. Their efforts are greatly appreciated, and we are grateful for them all. As a bonus, we were pleased to hear the comments and feedback on the ease of use of the system to track time, book vacation and other Human Resources actions that would historically require LAPERS and paper timesheets. We learned that we can do better around time clocks and other matters that the team is aware of and will remedy in the near future.

The second tenet of paying our bills, is off to a slower start. The system itself functions as planned; however, we are experiencing issues with what are called 鈥渟ecurity roles鈥� that manage the individuals whose transactions automatically flow through the system. Our prior PeopleSoft system was highly customized, and what we would want to see in a natural 鈥渃rosswalk鈥� to Workday was not possible to get a 100% match like we had with payroll. That was compounded by bringing thirteen colleges and several central units into one process. That was known, and it was something we would have to manage on a prospective basis as colleges, units and departments started interacting with the system. To mitigate this reality prior to go live, we established a Command Center to receive and troubleshoot transaction flows from all sectors of the campus community. The Command Center is comprised of our own Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and representatives from our implementation partners. The chart below gives you a sense of the volume of transactions, and the areas that are the heaviest users of the ticketing system since 鈥済o live.鈥�. It also shows the cases that have been resolved and those that are in progress. The Command Center working in conjunction with our new kNEXT group has been responsible for assisting our campus community as we move toward stabilization.

As of July 22, transactions are now flowing through the system with the appropriate reviews and approvals. We have filled all of the 鈥渟ecurity roles鈥� and addressed prior gaps that were a result of staffing by augmenting staff through our implementation partner.

Another change that we are monitoring closely because of concerns and questions from the campus community is the way we are tracking the purchases of 鈥渁ttractive assets鈥� with credit card purchases. 鈥淎ttractive assets鈥� are items that cost between $0 to $5,000 and are prone to theft and other forms of misuse. Examples include computers, laptops, tablets, firearms, and smart devices. A state of Florida regulation requires that items in this category must be tagged, inventoried, and certified each year. In prior years, purchases on credit cards of such items were difficult to track and inventory. To put in place a more automated process to comply with this statute, a $1,000 limit was placed on the purchase of such items on credit cards. Purchases above $1,000 now must go through the Purchase Ordering process where they would automatically be flagged in the system, limiting the 鈥渂usy work鈥� of manually tracking these items within colleges and units. That has raised concerns in some sectors of the campus community as adding another step to procurement. The alternative is to have units be responsible for tracking and certifying all items each year. We are open to looking at other solutions so that units would not have to take on an additional burden. You will hear more on the resolution soon. A flowchart with exhibits has been prepared to guide individuals who will making such purchases.

The performance of the third tenet of closing our books is too soon to tell three weeks after going live. Our Accounting and Finance team recently closed the prior 2022 fiscal year and are pivoting to preparing our annual audits. We will keep the campus informed of how this tenet is progressing. We should all be mindful of our utopian goal of closing our books monthly inside the new Workday system. That was not possible within PeopleSoft, and it had the unintended consequence of not having timely data to make strategic and budget decisions during a fiscal year. We will improve upon that in the new Workday system, and there will be professional development training for key personnel in both the colleges and units to achieve this goal.

The fourth tenet of hiring our people has been impacted by the effects of the that all industries, including higher education, are facing. Our newly enhanced Talent Management Group has acquired temporary personnel from our implementation partner Huron to assist with staffing to ensure that we are successful with hiring our faculty, staff, and students. A pause in our hiring process for the final conversion ended on July 7. Since that time, we have processed more than 59 applications. Our cautious excitement about our enhanced Talent Management Group is that we will eventually start developing a full talent management apparatus where this group will be active in recruiting and finding the talent necessary to expedite the entire hiring process.

All four of our tenets are in different stages. This is to be expected after a short time into a new system on any conversion, particularly one of our size. Our primary focus is that we are committed to ensuring that everyone is given the attention and support they need to be successful. Please rest assured that your voices are being heard and that you have a dedicated team of individuals working feverishly around the clock to ensure our collective business practices will reduce burdensome administrative tasks where possible. Here are the ways we are working to ensure that we are successful:

• SWAT teams are formed to assist service centers of colleges, units, and departments in understanding how the system works, and how they can make their work easier utilizing Workday. This includes working on security roles and process flows within colleges to expedite transactions.
• The kNEXT group continues to take calls in the order they were received and are closing their cases at a rate of 60% or higher each week. That will continue until we are at a point of stabilization, and can then pivot towards initiatives designed to improve campus wide initiatives that are not Workday related (such as Cobblestone and vendor payment issues).
• Training will continue to be offered to anyone who wants to register and participate. We understand the size of our campus is an issue as classes fill up quickly. Our commitment is to get everyone whatever training they need.
• The various ways to communicate cases is being streamlined to flow through a funnel and be tracked and handled sequentially. At conversion, we allowed for several avenues for cases to be submitted. With the experience of three weeks, we will pivot based on the types of question that are more frequent from the campus community. Customer Service remains a high priority because of the understandable anxiety that some are experiencing.

There are also other initiatives we are planning based on our experience and feedback from other R1 university peers who have adopted Workday within the past two years. Some examples are:

• Research faculty specific training on grants and the new system upon their return to campus.
• General faculty training on using the system to request time off and track time when necessary.

What we are experiencing was expected. We are addressing years of customizing our previous ERP system while not having standardized processes that would bring consistency to all our practices, policies, and procedures. We have standardized as much as possible tasks that are rote in nature, and impact every college and unit, and we have automated much of our prior manual processes. We have made significant strides, and we will continue to work with the campus to manage the items that are unique to particular colleges, departments, and units. We are in this as 鈥淥ne 麻豆原创,鈥� and we are grateful for your continued patience, support and understanding as we improve upon all facets of our operational effectiveness and efficiency.

Go Knights! Charge On!

These changes may bring some anxiety, but they must be undertaken if we are to become the university for the future. We have accepted this challenge because we cannot sustain our current processes and practices if we want to meet our mission and new strategic plan. Workday and Service Enhancement Transformation (SET) will help us collaborate and work as one 麻豆原创 toward these efforts. Using Workday will ultimately improve and streamline our practices, bring more transparency to our budget and provide better data more quickly that will allow strategic decision-making.

Many of you have taken advantage of the training available online to prepare for these changes. If you haven鈥檛 accessed the training catalog we encourage you to do so. The Knight Vision team has done a tremendous job in preparing a variety of helpful tips and resources in their weekly emails, and I encourage everyone to read and share the June 24 edition, if they have not seen it yet. It outlines how to interact with kNEXT, Workday Help and the Business Centers.聽 If you are looking for where to start 鈥� knext.ucf.edu is it when launched!聽 The site will be operational by July 1, as will the Customer Care Team if you need to call us at 407-823-NEXT (6398).

We checked off all the objectives for making our decision to 鈥済o live.鈥� They are, (i) pay our people, (ii) pay our bills, (iii) close our books, and (iv) hire our people. All four will be met. We have a dedicated and committed group working with our implementation partners, Accenture and Huron, to make our launch a success. We know that trying to modernize our system, processes, practices and in some instances policies that govern our financial and operational effectiveness and efficiency means we will have a bumpy road at the start. As we continue with testing and validation, we are finding processes and practices that we will visit and revisit multiple times until we can get as close to automation as possible.

You might have heard us talk about the desire to have our financial and operational effectiveness match our world-class research, academic rigor and public service. That is our primary goal. You might have also heard the expression 鈥渨e are moving from the Flintstones to the Jetsons with our financial and operating systems.鈥� That is our secondary goal. The two are mutually exclusive, but for purposes of lifting our university to that next level of operational effectiveness and efficiency, they are inextricably linked.

We chose several examples to highlight our journey to continuous improvement when Knight Vision is deployed and matured over the next several weeks, months and years. Here are a few:

1. For expenses, there is no need to submit paper statement packets monthly. All receipts and approvals will be included in the Workday Expense Report.
2. There is no need to submit paper reimbursement packets. All expenses and receipts are submitted and approved in Workday. Employees will be able to see where their Spend Authorization and Expense Reports are in the approval workflow within Workday. Photos of receipts can be added to Workday via the mobile app, making it easy to keep track of receipts during travel.
3. We have reconfigured our main finance and human resources systems to a modern approach around the timely and accurate recording, summarization and reporting of financial information.
4. We launched Adaptive Planning in March 2021. Although it still needs to be tweaked, that effort afforded us the opportunity to create the university鈥檚 first 鈥渂ottom up鈥� university wide budget inside our new Responsibility Center Management (RCM) budgeting model. Under the RCM model, revenue-generating units are responsible for managing their own revenues and expenditures.
5. In Workday, we will have a new accounting system that will get us closer to closing our books monthly. This will bring a nimbleness to our operations and financial reporting, providing data faster for decision-making.
6. We are reducing the number of departmental accounts from more than 9,000 to approximately 1,000. That will reduce the number of accounts that are available for entries to be made, thus tightening up on our main goal of having timely and accurate financial and human resources information.
7. We will now be managing our university wide operations using cost centers and various work tags, allowing users the flexibility to tag transactions with labels relevant to their business operations.
8. In the future we can move away from the number of unnecessary 鈥渢ransfers鈥� and 鈥渃hargebacks鈥� that do not add economic value but cause a tremendous amount of 鈥渂usy work.鈥�
9. We are bringing together our Direct Support Organizations (DSOs) into one cogent system that will allow for views into their financial operations that we currently do not have.
10. We are developing centers of excellence and creating career paths for individuals who would like to grow and develop within disciplines.
11. We are reducing the number of ways to procure and pay for transactions from approximately聽94, down to approximately 15.
12. We will be implementing/enhancing a formal Talent Acquisition Center within Human Resources that will serve the campus in more robust ways around recruiting, retention and talent management.
13. We will now have an integrated time reporting system that we can access from anywhere. No more LAPERS or Time Sheets!
14. We will have an ecosystem for our university that ties together systems, policies, practices and procedures. That ecosystem will be governed by standard operating procedures that we currently do not have.

We are acutely aware that Knight Vision and its component parts of Workday, Adaptive Planning and our Service Enhancement Transformation (SET) are not panaceas that will solve all the challenges we have now with our current PeopleSoft system. However, with teamwork, patience, grace and focused attention we will rise to the level where several of our peers are already.

The entire kNEXT Team, under the leadership of Ms. Kathleen Winningham, is ready 鈥� and excited 鈥� about the Workday and SET transformation we are embarking on, and we look forward to supporting everyone that needs our assistance. We are embarking on this new journey as 鈥淥ne 麻豆原创.鈥� We will be successful.

Go Knights! Charge On!

For the past two years our campus has heard about Knight Vision. There have been town hall, budget, information, implementation and strategy meetings. We have produced newsletters, websites and other forms of communication to keep information flowing, so that the campus remains engaged and knowledgeable about the pending changes that will occur. Unlike the instantaneous changes that had to be made because of the pandemic, the ones that we are addressing at 麻豆原创聽through Knight Vision have been building for some time. Our financial and operational systems, policies, practices and procedures need to catch up to our level of excellence in academics, public service and research. Knight Vision is designed to do just that.

Within Knight Vision, there are different components when we talk about Go-Live: there is the technical Go-Live, which is the turning on of Workday, funneling our transactions through it, reporting from it and leveraging its data to make decisions. This technology is designed to enable our business, and it will do so in improved, new ways. There is also the business Go-Live, which includes changes to how the finance and HR functions operate, as well as the overlay of the Service Enhancement Transformation (SET) model.

Fundamentally, SET鈥檚 aim is to create a community of our people, organizing and structuring them in such a way to more effectively deliver services to faculty, staff and others focused on our academic and research missions, as well as bring a more standardized and seamless approach to specific finance and HR activities. Our finance and HR functions, the SET business centers and kNEXT support center will all leverage the new Workday technology as they provide these services. Workday and SET could exist independently, but they would not be as effective without each other. Simply put, the structuring and training of our people to best use Workday allows Workday to function in the best way.

The Go-Live date for both Workday and SET is July 1. Working alongside our Workday implementation partner, Accenture, and our SET partner, Huron Consulting, we are optimistic that we will meet that date. It鈥檚 important for our entire campus to understand that July 1 is not an end, but rather, a beginning. There will be things that need to be changed and iterated upon as we learn the Workday technology and our new roles and there will undoubtedly be bumps in the road as we implement both Workday and SET. I don鈥檛 promise an effortless Go-Live, but I do firmly believe that we will see many organizational and technological benefits once we鈥檝e implemented Knight Vision and worked through the learning curve of these changes.

Our final decision on Go-Live is predicated upon four key tenets that are nonnegotiable: our ability to (i) pay our people properly, (ii) pay our bills, (iii) close our books, and (iv) hire people. I am pleased to report that our work is trending to do just that come July 1.

After July 1, we will see:

1. The new service center models created by the Service Enhancement Transformation (SET) team have increased efficiency and streamlined processes to such a degree that we will be able to reduce the number of transaction processing units/departments from approximately 94 down to 13 (one per academic college). This reduction will bring us greater standardization of procurement, processing and compliance procedures so that transactions can be handled faster. It will also allow for us to have a dedicated group who not only are experts in the processing of transactions but will move the university to a place where we can close our books and generate financial and human resources reports monthly. This enhancement will add another element of financial management that keeps data current, and allow for pivots (if needed) during the course of a fiscal year.
2. The kNEXT (central administrative business services) unit will be operational. Members of this unit will not only serve as the subject matter experts on all aspects of our finance and HR processing and compliance but will also service all central support units and be a backup resource to the units in the colleges. You can get a better sense of kNEXT鈥檚 focus from this brief .
3. We will also see an enhanced Talent Acquisition Group that will work collaboratively with the campus to reduce the time to hire of employees. As the group鈥檚 effort matures, it will also assist with reducing the need for search firms and other consultants around our overall talent management.
4. Through the end of 2022, we will be in a stabilization period where we will be fielding questions and concerns about the system and engaging in both customer care and issues resolutions. This is typical for any ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) conversion. Our goal is to minimize interruption and discomfort as much as possible. We are a large university, and although we believe we have captured every nuance in every department or unit, inevitably, some will need attention after 鈥淕o Live.鈥�
5. Training has already started and will continue into the fall and beyond. Some of our university leaders have access to a 鈥渟andbox鈥� in a test environment so that they can understand the functionality of the system. They can assist with the questions or concerns that may arise. We will continue to encourage everyone to get trained on the system鈥檚 functionality. Those who have been a part of the User Exception Testing process have indicated how user friendly it is; however, attention to detail in the training on the system will be critical for everyone working with this new technology tool under the SET model.

This is both an exciting and anxious time with so much change happening together. As the teams have reviewed the different component projects, one thing stands out: the fact that we have not upgraded our ERP system since the early part of this decade. Our modernization of the system, and the processes, procedures and organizational structure of our people that enable it, needs to be upgraded to allow for a greater use of technology, new methods of financial and HR management, and proper execution around the recording, summarization and reporting of information.

I have been inspired to work with the teams on these projects that make up Knight Vision. It has been a very stressful time for all involved with the heavy lift that we are undertaking, and I am humbled and appreciative of the great work they have done to make this implementation a success. I was reminded recently by a colleague that if we answer the challenge of, 鈥測ou can鈥檛 fix what you won鈥檛 face,鈥� we can create a much more aligned, collaborative, and transparent organization. Greater opportunities will exist for us to all grow, develop and execute to ensure that we are meeting that overarching ethos of 鈥淥ne 麻豆原创,鈥� and we will all be able to say that we helped lay the operational and financial foundations for the future of this great institution.

This month鈥檚 installment of 鈥淔rom the CFO鈥� continues sharing information with the campus about the change-management efforts underway at 麻豆原创.

We will be launching a new budget model on July 1 that makes several changes to how we have handled budgets in prior years. The new model is designed to help us strengthen our operations, expand our resources and invest in excellence.

The new model brings a greater transparency to how all resources are allocated to carry out the mission of the university. Additionally, it brings with it greater accountability and responsibility for vice presidents, deans, directors, and others to spend the funds allotted to their respective colleges and units with care and purpose.

Some key points are:

1. Our current 鈥渋ncremental鈥� budget model provides colleges and units the budget they had from the prior year, which might be increased or decreased due to changes in enrollment. This model assisted the university on its growth trajectory, but now we must have a more strategic focus to build budgets from the bottom up.

2. In the current budget model, funds first flow into the university from all sources, then central administration distributes those funds to colleges and units. The new model has all funds flowing into the university through the colleges, with the central administrative units providing their allocated costs for funding, and the provost sets aside funds to support colleges and fund presidential strategic priorities.

3. Education and General (E&G) revenues 鈥� including tuition, fees, and state appropriations 鈥� will be allocated in this way:
聽 聽 聽 聽a. The college teaching a course will receive 80% of the revenues associated with the student credit hours generated.

聽 聽 聽 聽b. The student鈥檚 home college will receive 20% of the revenues associated with the credit hours generated.

聽 聽 聽 聽c.聽State appropriated funds will be distributed using the following criteria:

1. 1. Instructional effort (42.5%)
   2. Student completion (42.5%)
   3. Research activity (15%)

4. Under the new model, all sources of funds will align with all future uses of those funds. Both the sources and uses of the funds will be completed within the appropriate colors of money for the university (i.e., E&G, Auxiliary, Contracts and Grants, and Fundraising).

5. Carryforward funds from a prior year will be highlighted to identify non-recurring expenses. These funds will follow the annual carryforward spending plan voted on by our Board of Trustees every June and tracked over the course of the next fiscal year.

Effective July 1, 2019, the rules around carryforward usage in a subsequent year changed, so it鈥檚 important that there be a clear understanding of how these funds may be used. This spring and into the summer, we plan to spend more time meeting with the campus community in small group sessions to ensure this topic is better understood.

There will also be enhanced discussions around budget development and deployment that include:

1. Budget presentations by Central Support Units
2. Budget presentations and management by colleges
3. Continued updates after each Board of Trustees meeting with Dollars & $ense webinars
4. Group meetings and events with President Cartwright and Provost Johnson
5. A new, comprehensive budget model web course that you can review at your own pace for a window into how the budget model will work. .

The model will take a couple of years to mature on our campus, but having it done with all the other changes presents some unique opportunities for us to continue to improve. We encourage you to visit the . Our future is looking brighter every day as we work together to solve some of these issues.

It was a revelation for some and a refresher for others. As we are going through our change management efforts, it is prudent to use this month鈥檚 CFO update to share the information.

The university鈥檚 budget for fiscal year 2022 is approximately $2.2 billion. However, when that total is categorized into the different 鈥淐olors of Money鈥� it creates a dynamic view of our operations and provides insights into why some units and divisions can operate in different ways although we are 鈥淥ne 麻豆原创.鈥�

The budget is categorized as follows:

1. Local Funds: $839 million
2. Education and General (Main Campus): $654 million
3. Contracts and Grants: $320 million
4. Auxiliary Enterprises: $306 million
5. Education and General (College of Medicine): $47 million
6. Education and General (FCSUA): $9 million
7. Faculty Practice Plan: $8 million

Local Funds are our largest component of funding. It includes several departments and restrictions on use. Approximately $728 million or 87% of the total is for all sources of student financial aid. That includes Title IV, Bright Futures, Scholarships, and state-mandated waivers of tuition and fees. Student Athletic Fees is the second largest component at $74 million or 9%. They cover all athletic-related activities that students are entitled to participate in and attend here on campus. The Student Activity Fees is the third-largest amount at $20 million or 2.3%. These fees cover the operations of Student Government and other student-related activities.

Other Local Funds that are immaterial in nature are Technology Fees, and Campus Concessions (vending machines). These amounts are typically less than 2% of the total Local Funds allocation within the budget.

Education and General (Main Campus) provides the funding necessary to carry out our operations. They are restricted to operating activities for educational purposes including general instruction, research, public service, plant operations and maintenance, student services, libraries, administrative support, and other enrollment-related operations. These funds cannot be utilized for any other purpose. They are comprised of funds from student tuition and fees, and state appropriations (general revenues and lottery). Unspent E&G funds roll over into 鈥渃arryforward鈥� at the end of each year, and they no longer are eligible for recurring expenditures. They can be utilized for 鈥渙nce off鈥� expenditures that are non-recurring (e.g. a special educational project).

Contracts and Grants are funds usually restricted by purpose and time (in the case of private grants). Most of the university鈥檚 research activities are funded within this category of revenues each year. The Office of Research oversees the administration of these funds and works with faculty, staff and researchers to ensure they are spent within established guidelines from federal, state and private entities. These funds cannot be utilized for our general operations.

Auxiliary Enterprises are the 鈥渂usiness鈥� functions of the university. They generate their own revenues and expenses through entrepreneurial activities. The Bookstore, Housing, Parking and Transportation, and Dining are all examples. These funds are not utilized for Educational and General operations; however, they do pay a fee to central functions for service rendered on their behalf for payroll, accounts payable, custodial services, etc. They are formed with the intention of supporting the university, but in instances where debt-financed activities have occurred, their 鈥渘et鈥� is restricted and stays within their operations. For example, Housing has debt on some of our residence halls, all activities for housing remain with housing until the bonds are paid off.

Education and General (College of Medicine) is like the Education and General funds for the Main Campus. The core operations of the facilities at Lake Nona are covered from this category of funding each year.

Education and General for FCUSA (Florida Center for Students with Unique Abilities) follows the same rules and regulations as Education and General for both the Main Campus and the College of Medicine. The main programmatic expenditure for this program is scholarships for deserving students.

An overarching tenet we should understand is that these various colors of money, coupled with their restrictions by state statute and donor restrictions, must be followed at all times. Therefore, costs for functions will fit into one of these categories. As we continue to look at the efforts around Knight Vision (WorkDay, Adaptive Planning and SET), we can see the connection between ensuring that the allocation of resources is prudent and impactful. We also need to ensure that as we build future budgets, we are trying to reduce duplication of effort, eliminate redundancy in our systems, and to simultaneously try to find new sources of revenue that provide greater flexibility. The revenue sources that will give us the most flexibility are unrestricted fundraising and greater Auxiliary Revenues net operations.

This budget categorization does not include our Direct Support Organizations (DSOs). We will cover those in a subsequent update as we continue with our efforts to educate the campus on our operations.

In next month鈥檚 article, we will speak about the new budget model and how it brings greater transparency to our budgeting process, while providing insights into resource allocations going forward.

CFO Gerald Hector and members of his team will host 鈥淭he Colors of Money,鈥� the next installment of his 鈥淒ollars and $ense鈥� webinar series, on March 4 from noon to 1:30 p.m. The webinar is open to all and can be joined here: .

The Higher Education Emergency Relief Act (HEERF) has provided institutions throughout the country with student emergency funds that institutions award directly to students to assist with expenses they incurred as a result of the pandemic. Additionally, institutional funds were provided to universities to help cover COVID-related expenses and purchases necessary to keep campus operations going. Universities are required to justify how the funds are used to address the effects of, or the prevention of, the virus.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other Minority Serving Institutions, including Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) like 麻豆原创, were granted an additional allotment of funds. Like with the other funds, institutions had the same requirements to follow the strict guidelines established by the U.S. Department of Education. Apart from HEERF funding, 麻豆原创鈥檚 experience with Minority Serving Institutions has led to increased graduation rates and higher social mobility rankings, transforming the future for our students and their families for generations to come.

At 麻豆原创, we have awarded $156.6 million directly to students. Examples of how we have spent our institutional dollars include adding UVC lighting and upgraded filters to enhance our HVAC systems, funding additional cleaning and disinfecting measures throughout the pandemic and purchasing equipment such as touchless faucets and hand-sanitizer stations and masks that we distributed to the campus community. Other funds helped to purchase technology and equipment that enabled 麻豆原创 to make the transition to additional remote learning courses during the early stages of the pandemic.

This program has been funded in three installments, or tranches: (i) CARES Act, (ii) CRRSAA (Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act), and (iii) ARP (American Rescue Plan).

Allowed expenses for the institutional dollars from the Department of Education include:

1. Expenses associated with coronavirus (including lost revenue, reimbursement for expenses already incurred, technology costs associated with a transition to remote education, faculty and staff trainings, and payroll costs as defined in No. 5).
2. Additional emergency financial aid grants to students.
3. Evidenced-based practices to monitor and suppress coronavirus in accordance with public health guidelines.
4. Outreach to financial aid applicants about the opportunity to receive financial aid adjustments due to the recent unemployment of a family member or independent student, or other circumstances.
5. Certain payroll costs, including employee benefits, if such costs are newly associated with coronavirus, and the costs were incurred on or after March 13, 2020, the date of declaration of the national emergency due to the coronavirus. Consistent with these principles, an institution may also use ARP funds to pay students for internships and job-training experiences that are aligned with local coronavirus-related recovery needs.

Here at 麻豆原创, we received a total of $314.4 million in HEERF funds, broken down as follows:
1. CARES Act – $54.8 million
a. Student Emergency Funds 聽 聽 聽$25.5 million
b. Institutional Funds 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽$25.5 million
c. HSI-Related Funds 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 $3.8 million

2. CRRSSA – $94.5 million
a. Student Emergency Funds 聽 聽 聽$25.5 million
b. Institutional Funds 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽$63.3 million
c. HSI-Related Funds 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 $5.7 million

3. ARP – $165.1 million
a. Student Emergency Funds 聽 聽 聽聽$79.3 million
b. Institutional Funds 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽聽$76.1 million
c. HSI-Related Funds 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽$9.7 million

The following is a breakdown of the uses of the $314.4 million in total funds 麻豆原创 has received through Dec. 31:

Student financial assistance and non-financial support. 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽$156.6 million
Remote Instruction and academic course delivery 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽$8.7 million
COVID-19 response and campus preparedness 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽聽$32.3 million
Technology enhancements 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽聽$17.8 million
Other Approved Uses (such as recouping lost revenues) 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽$32.4 million
Unallocated 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽聽$66.6 million

As of the writing of this article, there are approximately $26.6 million of proposals under review that would reduce the unallocated section of the report noted above. We also have the option to provide further assistance to our students who have exceptional need as we get closer to the May 2022 deadline to ensure we properly steward the funds provided to us. We will work closely with our Financial Aid Office to utilize any additional funds in line with the federal guidelines. That assistance can possibly address the remaining unallocated funds.

We are experiencing supply chain issues that could mean allocated HEERF dollars for some major projects may not be able to be spent by May 2022. For those funds, we have the option to request a one-year extension under extenuating circumstances. Because we request the funds on a reimbursement basis from the Department of Education, staying within the guidelines and in close contact with representatives there is key for our management of this program.

As we get closer to the May 2022 deadline to spend the funds, we continue to monitor our spending. Working with a broad constituency across the campus, we also continue to look at ways we can best utilize any remaining unallocated funds. The DOE sent out additional guidance on Jan. 20 about how we can assist students, faculty and staff. We will explore all options available to us to allocate the remaining funds.

If you have suggestions on expenses we should consider to address operations impacted by COVID 19, you can contact Ms. Kathy Mitchell, Associate Vice President for Financial Initiatives, at Kathryn.Mitchell@ucf.edu.

We are all in this together, and over the past two years, our campus community has been resilient and strong. My commitment to you is that we will continue our focused efforts to spend our HEERF dollars in line with federal guidance and in support of our campus community.