June, 2017
From the Editor
At the request of managers in two areas – one academic and one administrative – I conducted two custom sessions earlier this month. In one case, the focus was on the questions and issues that financial administrators typically try to answer using BW Funds Management reports. In the other, we considered how SRM reports and features of the reporting tool could be used to examine data related to the procurement process. In each workshop, the agenda was driven by attendees’ questions. The feedback offered by each group was that the session was valuable and was well worth the time.
I agree. I’m convinced of the value of small group sessions like this, in which a few employees and I can take our time to get beyond BW basics and dig in to examine the various reports and BW tools available to answer questions related to the tasks those employees complete on a daily or weekly or monthly basis. How to arrange for a personalized session like this for your department, school or center? Information is provided below in the section Custom Training Sessions.
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 (and videos!).
Bill Stewart
Reporting News
Fiscal Year-end Close Webinar
Did you miss the webinar and the presentations by representatives from the Financial Affairs, Budget, PAFO, and Sourcing & Procurement Offices? Don’t depair, we recorded it! The video, the accompanying slide deck, and a host of other resources mentioned during the webinar are available on this web page.
HCM News: Cost Distributions Soon to Expire Update
First of all, the existence of this report may be news to some of you. If you are a Payroll Coordinator and you’re not familiar with, or not using the report, I want to encourage you to give it a try. While not actually a BW report, access to the report is via the HCM/Personnel Administration Reporting folder. When run, the report provides data on any cost distribution scheduled to expire within the next two months. Regarding the update, the report has been enhanced to include Work Schedule Rule. More details about the report – how to run it, how to understand the Characteristics and Key Figures it contains, and so forth – are available in the Help Guide How to run cost distributions soon to expire.
Training Calendar
June/July Training Opportunities
Introductory Workshops
As always, an assortment of introductory workshops will be available. 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
Finding Open Commitments
Fiscal year-end is upon us, so it’s important to identify all of your outstanding commitments. The Funds Management Transaction Detail report makes it remarkably easy to view open commitments. This Help guide describes the process recommended to identify all open commitments for a Funds Center, grant or internal order as of a specified date: BW How to – View Open Commitments.
Create and use a Report Variant
Do you find that you frequently specify the same variable values when executing a BW report? Those values might include a set of grants or a list of vendors or a group of employees. By using a Variant, it is possible to save those variable values so they can be recalled, thereby avoiding the need to specify them again. Unlike a saved View (aka favorite), a Variant is available only to you and only to the report for which the Variant is created. You can create as many Variants as you need for any BW report (or saved View) and it’s easy to delete Variants when you no longer need them.
Read this Help guide to learn all about Variants: BW How to – Save and Use a Variant.
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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