Fine tuning financial management

General Article
January 22, 2004

FMS team enhances reporting, navigation for easier use by center staff

Ron Olshausen, FMS reporting portal architect for the IT Department, modified Crystal Reporting's navigation to work more like Windows Explorer. Changes were made based on user feedback about how to make the portal easier to use. photo by Todd McNaught

By YLANDA THOMAS

The Financial Management Information System (FMIS) and Information Technology (IT) departments are on a mission to improve users' experiences with the center's new financial management system.

Financial management system (FMS) users may have noticed changes to Crystal Reporting or enhancements to the requisition pages since they were first implemented in July 2003. These changes are the results of good suggestions from the users.

"Going live in July was not the end of the FMS project implementation," said Pam Johnson, an application specialist for the FMIS Department. "Fine tuning the system has always been part of the plan."

In November, FMS users encountered a new and friendlier reporting environment. Updates included a new navigational structure based primarily on user feedback. "Users wanted a tree-based navigational structure very much like what they experience in PeopleSoft and Windows environments," said Ron Olshausen, a reporting portal architect for the IT Department. The new navigation in Crystal Reporting now looks and feels like Microsoft's Windows Explorer navigation and, in addition, allows the user to minimize or maximize the window "tree" view, similar to how PeopleSoft works.

More recently, the FMIS Department rolled out a major enhancement targeted at requisition users. Users are now able to create templates that store commonly used information for purchasing items. These templates can be imported into new requisitions, thus automatically populating commonly keyed fields. In addition, FMIS held drop-in clinics for users seeking help or had questions about the new functionality.

New, updated reports

Other enhancements include updates or the creation of more user financial reports. Recently released reports include the "Labor Cost Distribution Report by Employee Name and Project ID" report, which displays payroll costs charged to projects for employees by project, and the "General Ledger Budget to Actual" report, which provides budget-to-actual comparisons for the current fiscal year on a monthly or cumulative basis for nonsponsored projects.

Look for future updates on the FMS listserv, which sends announcements of when enhancements are released and system maintenance occurs. You can subscribe to the "fmslist" listserv by entering your name and e-mail address at the center's listserv Web site, http://lists.fhcrc.org/mailman/listinfo/fmslist.

If you have a question or suggestion about the financial management system, e-mail fms_support@fhcrc.org.

Helpful hints

Users often can save time by following these FMS helpful hints:

• If you use a requisition template, make sure you update your project ID(s) and/or budget reference(s) when they expire.
• Can't approve your requisition? Check your authorizations in Crystal Enterprises by running the Funds Commitment Authority report.
• Have a question about how to purchase items in PeopleSoft? Contact
• fms_support@fhcrc.org or attend a requisition workshop that offers users a chance to ask questions about requisitioning and gain helpful hints from their peers. No registration is required. Both the requisition workshop and FMS training schedules can be found on the FMS Web site.

For more helpful hints see the FMS Web site: http://www.fhcrc.org/admin/fms.

[Ylanda Thomas is an application specialist for the FMIS Department.]

Center News Table of Contents