November, 2016
From the Editor
As I write this, I am waiting for confirmation of room requests for December training sessions. In the interim, you may get this message if you click on one of the links in the Training Calendar section below: “all BUworks sections have finished for the semester. There are no sections currently scheduled.” I will update the registration system as soon as possible, so wait a day and try again.
As always, I hope you find this issue of the Newsletter informative. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for future BW Newsletters.
Bill Stewart
Reporting News
Grants Management: Changes to existing reports
As announced in a recent email message distributed to Research Administrators, several GM reports were recently modified according to recommendations submitted by an RA focus group. Here are two changes made to the variable entry screen of the Budget vs Actuals report, which is a “go-to” report for many RA’s:
1. Any required fields are at the top of the list. The remainder of the variables are now listed in alphabetical order.
2. PI/Co-PI, when specified, now requires a BU ID number instead of the previously used employee personnel number
HCM: Changes to Labor Distribution Funds Center Payroll Report
In the April, 2016 Newsletter, we announced that the PA12 and PA15 Labor Distribution reports had been modified to display the percentage amounts corresponding to Salary, Salary Accrual and Total Gross Key Figure dollar amounts. The same feature is now available in the Labor Distribution Funds Center report. This means that a report user can now view activity against a financial cost object like a Funds Center or a grant instead of a view of activity by organizational unit. Here’s an example showing payroll activity for a single grant during a two-month period:
In this case, a $320 regular pay amount represents approximately 5.5% of the total paid an employee in one month, $2,263 represents 38.67%, and so forth.
Training Calendar
November/December Training Opportunities
Upcoming Intermediate-level Workshops
Reporting for Hire/re-hire and Termination Actions – the attendees and the instructor will work collaboratively to develop saved Views that display Hire/Rehire and Termination Actions for employees in a given organizational unit during a specified period. All Views will be based on the Employee Master Data History Range report. This workshop is intended for any employee who is responsible for reviewing hiring or termination Actions. Learn more / register to attend.
BUworks BW Reporting: Review of BW Basics – working at a slow pace, we will review the essential elements of Business Warehouse (BW) reporting. The workshop will be structured so that participants can apply techniques under discussion using reports from any of the functional areas they are familiar with, i.e., FM, GM, SRM or Payroll. Learn more / register to attend.
Introductory Workshops
As always, an assortment of introductory workshops will be offered. These sessions present to new employees – or employees assigned a new business role – the fundamentals of reporting for a particular subject area. The sessions are a great way to review material, too. Even if you previously attended an intro session, you are likely to learn new things about reporting – or to be reminded of concepts that you had forgotten.
Click on any of the following links for a course description and/or to register for an upcoming session:
Supplier Resource Management Reporting
Labor Distribution (Payroll) Reporting
Tips & Tricks
Two recent questions from departmental administrators provide the subjects for this month’s tips. If you have a question that you believe would serve as a future newsletter tip/trick, send me email.
Note: all of the Tips posted in BW newsletters are archived on this page.
Developing a Record of Employee Leaves of Absence
A new Help Guide describing the steps necessary to use an existing report, HCM Employee Master Data – History Range, to develop a list of all Leave Actions occurring with a specified period is now available. The process is quite simple. The document is here: How to View Employee Leaves of Absence.
Using Swap to Operate on Two Characteristics Simultaneously
As an experienced user, you are probably familiar with adding and removing Characteristics and Key Figures in a report. You may also know that multiple Key Figures can be added or removed in a single step, while the same operations involving Characteristics require one step per action (if you’re not familiar with either of these fun facts, take a few minutes to read these Help Guides: How to – Add, Remove, or Move a Column in a Report and BW-How-to-Hide-or-Show-a-Key-Figure).
Actually, it is possible to combine two steps into one when working with Characteristics. Here’s how:
In this example, we want to (1) remove the Characteristic Emp Change From Date and (2) add the Free Characteristic Action Start Date
To combine these two steps into a single action, click on Action Start Date and drag it into the Rows area until your cursor is positioned directly on top of the Characteristic to be removed. The light blue highlighting indicates that a swap will occur
When the action has completed, Action Start Date is displayed in the report and Emp Change from Date has been moved to the Free Characteristics area.
End Notes
Custom Training Sessions
Have you ever thought that it would be really useful if you could get members of your department together with a trainer to focus on BUworks functionality that is specific to the work your department does? I’m happy to work with any department or group that would like to develop and conduct a custom basic- or intermediate-level reporting training session. There are only two requirements for such a session: (1) input from the group is necessary to develop a relevant agenda, and (2) the group should include four or more employees. If you’re interested in discussing the development of a custom session for your department or school/college, contact me via email or give me a call at 617-353-6382.
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