Author: Angela Hamilton

Finance and procurement training starts!

We have now completed our first training session on the OneUniversity Finance & Procurement solution, which kicked off on 29 August with two days of ‘General Navigation’ training.

We asked School Managers and Directors to nominate two members of their team to take part in Key User Training (KUT) and User Acceptance Testing (UAT). These sessions are taking place between 29 August and 2nd October.

What’s Key User Training and User Acceptance Testing?

Key User training is given to nominated staff who have good knowledge of the current system and will be using certain aspects of the new solution, whilst User Acceptance Testing is carried out to make sure that the system functionality actually meets the University’s requirements and is fit for purpose.

Those nominated will take part in one day of classroom based training which will be followed by a second day of testing. They’ll use the knowledge gained during the training, along with information provided by the Programme team, to carry out testing based on real-life university scenarios.

How are we going to roll-out training?

We need to make sure that everyone who needs to use OneUniversity to do their jobs has the required knowledge and understanding from day one! Some people will need very specific training whilst others may just need an understanding of how to do a particular activity such as submitting an expense claim.

Our challenge is to make sure that everyone receives the appropriate training. We’ll do this through a mix of classroom-based training plus a range of support from videos and “how to” guides to drop-in surgeries.

Interested? We want to hear from you!

Do you have an interest in training or do you currently have responsibility for training others? If so, then we’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch.

More information about training will be posted soon so please check back soon!

Top Five Tips on Expenses

As you will be aware, the way that we process our Finance and Procurement is changing.  Part of this change will involve submitting claims for expenses, which will be done online.  Here are some of the questions that we are frequently asked at drop-in sessions on the new solution, OneUniversity.

Q: How do we deal with the expenses of volunteers and others who are external to the University?

A: For go live these will continue to be processed in the same way as they are done at the moment, that is, you complete an external claim form which will be authorised and passed to Accounts Payable. We will continue to pay these as sundry payments.

Q: How will we deal with claims for expenses under £50?

A: This applies to staff-only claims and this amount is still to be confirmed.  These claims will automatically be processed for payment unless a restricted item has been purchased. The staff member will be required to confirm that they have read and understood the reimbursement policy. There will be regular checks as part of the audit process.

Q: What do I do with my receipts?

A: OneUniversity requires you to upload valid receipts which can easily be carried out using a scanned image or a photo capture by smartphone. You don’t need to retain the original paper copy but you may choose to in the event of a query.

Q: What is the policy on alcohol?

A: • When a claim is submitted, the staff member has to confirm they have read and understood the reimbursement policy. This includes a clear stance on alcohol. If you submit, process or approve expenses claims, you must ensure you are familiar with this.

Q: How will I claim mileage?

A: OneUniversity will have the mileage rate automatically applied. Staff will be required to confirm to and from locations (preferably confirming post codes). Any claims over £50 will be checked by the relevant approver, with under £50 handled through the pre-approved expenses process.

For further information please contact the team on business-transformation@dundee.ac.uk

Glossary of terms

Here are a few terms that you will see us using frequently when you hear us talking about key activities in Business Transformation. 

Benefits Realisation The practice of ensuring that benefits are derived from outputs and outcomes
Change Champion This role is a ‘people’ role rather than a ‘systems’ one. Change champions will help communicate the aims, objectives and outputs of the Programme to end users within their own functional area
Data Cleanse Looking at a set of data and remove/editing/archiving old or irrelevant data
Data Migration Moving large amounts of data from one IT system to another
Output The tangible or intangible product typically delivered by a project
Risk The potential of an action or event to impact on the achievement of objectives
Solution Design Document In the preliminary stages, the SDD will scope the parameters of the project, in later stages it will detail how the various processes will fit together.
Stakeholder An individual, group, or organisation, who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a change initiative
Stakeholder Management The systematic identification, analysis, planning and implementation of actions designed to engage with stakeholders
Target Operating Model (TOM) This defines the way we should work once the new ways of working are implemented. It provides a benchmark to make sure we’re doing the right things. 
TechnologyOne This is the software provider that is building our cloud based integrated software system
OneUniversity This is the name given to the solution that we are adopting

 

 

Finance Drop in Sessions

Almost 200 users of PECOS and other finance systems recently attended a series of information sessions in City Campus and Ninewells, to learn about the changes to the policies and procedures as we transform to OneUniversity.

The staff, who were drawn from Directorates and Schools, were welcomed by Director of Finance, Andrew Hewett, who talked through the need for change and how it would bring clarity and efficiency to our financial processes.

Staff were taken through the details of the new finance and purchasing solution with purchase flow charts and videos, and subject matter experts were on hand to answer questions from staff. There was also a chance for staff to log their most challenging and difficult finance tasks on a ‘Wall of Pain’ and these have been collated by the Programme Team to be used during testing.