Q&A with Student Programme Manager Pat Furze

Pat Furze has recently joined the Business Transformation team as Programme Manager on Phase 2 of the programme – student. Pat brings with him a wealth of experience in the student implementation lifecycle having worked for universities across the US including the University of California, Berkeley, as well as Glasgow University.

What’s your main role as programme manager in the Business Transformation team?
It’s a wide-ranging role overseeing a large team for the Phase 2 programme design, build and delivery.

What do you see as the key priorities?
The streamlining of our processes to effectively deliver a successful next phase of the Business Transformation programme which will bring positive change to the University.

What’s your career background?
I have 35 years’ experience in higher education, including 20 years delivering student systems in the US and UK. During that time I’ve delivered 12 full-cycle student implementations.

Where were you brought up?
I’m originally from Phoenix, Arizona but have spent the last five years in the bay area of Oakland, California.

Why leave the sunny climes of California for the chilliness of Scotland?
It’s a great opportunity to make a real, positive impact on the ambitions to transform and deliver such an important project for the University.

What do you do in your spare time?
I’m an avid reader, I love to travel, play golf and I also play the guitar. Well, I say play, I mess around with it and I like to strum out Neil Diamond or Bob Dylan songs.

I love American football and follow the Patriots, and also the Cardinals and Raiders, although the biggest challenge I see being in Scotland is managing to stream any of the games as they will be on at around 1.00am UK time!

What’s your favourite cheese?
Brie.

OneUniversity Finance – we’re here to help!

Team members Emma McDade, Lyle McDonald and Joanna Stephens modeling the latest fashion in Business Transformation attire.

We’ve been getting asked what will happen when we go live, especially with technical support.

In the days immediately after go live we’ll have people on hand locally to help you with general queries – this might be your change champion, someone from IT or the BT Programme, or someone who’s taken part in Key User Training.

We’ll publish a list of who these people are on Box but they’ll be identified by their bright blue t-shirts with the OneUniversity logo!

In addition to this we’ve created a bank of Frequently Asked Questions within the IT portal which will be available soon. Just login, select the OneUniversity tile and search! We’ll update this daily so you can be guaranteed that the latest information and support will be there.

If you still can’t find the answer you should raise a ticket with the Service Desk where it will be assessed and allocated to the appropriate group/person to resolve and respond.

We know that it’ll be busy, particularly during the first week, so help us to help you by trying the FAQ’s before raising a ticket and, unless absolutely critical, avoid calling the Service Desk.

Raise a ticket with Help4You and they’ll get on it ASAP.

Thanks in advance for your support and understanding!

A day in the life of Carrie Masterton, PMO analyst

Q. Hi Carrie, what’s the P for in PMO?

A. I’m asked this question a lot! It’s P for programme. I’m the analyst for the Programme Management Office of the Business Transformation group.

Q. What does the Programme Management Office do?

A. We are the overarching support structure helping all the workstreams that combine to create the new OneUniversity solution. We work in phases and they’re all at different stages so our job is to bend and flex to meet the needs of the Programme

Q. What’s it like collaborating with different workstreams?

A. We’re here to support all of the workstreams, not just one area. This means we have to have a wide knowledge across the Programme. We also need to have an awareness of other activity happening across the University.

Q. You’re an analyst. What do you analyse?

A. Our analysis helps to support decision making, planning and reporting to name a few areas. We support all the workstreams – HR and Payroll, Research and Projects, Student, Enquiry Management – but right now we’re heavily focused on the Finance and Procurement workstream. In the run up to our December go-live date the PMO have created a new planning framework. ‘How long will it take? What resources will it require?’ These are the key questions we address to assure Finance and Procurement have workable timescales and available means.

Q. What is your favourite part of the job?

A. When you work on a project, especially one of this size, there is a broad scope of things you are working on, so no two days are the same.

Q. What are the top three skills required in your role?

A. Planning, being able to apply your continual learning and risk management. That’s having a good back-up plan!

Q. You celebrated one year working on the project this month. What’s the most rewarding thing that’s come out of it for you?

A. I’ve really enjoyed being part of the Business Transformation team working on OneUniversity. The team is made up of a wide array of people from across the University and from other organisations who bring a wealth of experience to the programme. It’s nice knowing that you are part of a programme of work that will support the University in achieving its strategic goals.

Video star

Business Transformation’s very own film maker-in-chief, Emma McDade, is the creative behind our videos.

Emma, and colleague Joanna Stephens who provides the voice-overs, were the first ones to use the new Tay Bridge Studio in the University Library. It will be a hive of activity over the coming weeks as Emma and Joanna flex their artistic skills, creating more videos to give you a good understanding of the new OneUniversity system’s key functionality.

A UoD graduate in Fine Art, Emma joined the Business Transformation team in September from DUTE (Dundee University Temporary Employees).

Joanna and Emma about to record another creative session at Tay Bridge Studio.

It’s a string thing

How long is a piece of string? Well, in operational ledger terms, this piece of string is six components – two more than the old string.

Expanding the data we capture at source in the string will help us to structure the information we hold in a more organised way and will standardise reporting across the University. This will make reporting quicker, easier and more detailed.

The animation below will explain the components of the new string and how these changes will benefit you in your role. The Finance and Procurement workstream roll-out happens on 4 December.

If you have any questions or feedback please email business-transformation@dundee.ac.uk.

Student Workstream Established

We’ve been working hard over the summer in preparation for the launch of the OneUniversity Finance solution in November, but in addition to this and other workstreams that make up Phase 1, we’ve also recently started the Student worksteam in earnest.

The Team

The Student Programme team currently comprises of:
– Two project managers (Stuart Moorhouse and Richard Cassells)
– Senior UoD Business Stream Solution Manager (Gwen Hunter)
– Two business analysts (Andrea Byrne and Lana Smith)
– A project officer (Nadege Minois)
– Four business process change managers (Gillian Sharp, Duncan Brown, Judith Milne and Rachel Smith)

Others will join the team in due course.

In addition to this we have four TechnologyOne consultants on-site and working with team. They are Sam Curtis (Senior Consultant), Ian Henry (Project Director), Philip Gorse (consultant) and Lauren Wood (consultant).

Solution Verification Workshops

The team have recently attended a number of workshops to get a feel for what the OneUniversity Student solution offers, and from next week (25th September) through to December, a series of solution verification workshops will take place with key stakeholders.

School Managers and Directors have been issued the dates and times of these workshops and have been asked to select suitable individuals to attend each. The schedule for these workshops is as follows:

26 – 29 September – Managing Curriculum – courses, units, structures
5 – 10 October –        Fee Schedule Maintenance
13 – 17 October –       Student Self-Service
23 – 24 October –     Student Administration
27 – 3 November –    Enquiry Management
10 – 17 November –   UCAS/UKPASS
23 – 26 November – Access and Security
4 – 7 December –      Applications and Admissions
13 – 15 December –   Scholarships and Rewards

We’ll be sharing the output of these workshops with staff early 2018.

If you have any questions about the Student Workshop please get in touch.

PECOS Changes

What’s happening to PECOS?

We’ve had a few queries recently from people wondering what’s going to happen to Pecos when we launch OneUniversity Finance on 1st December, so we thought we’d explain how this will be done.

The three things you really need to know are:

1. We’re not technically switching off PECOS, but at some point prior to the 1st November all requisitioning rights will be removed. This means you can still log in to PECOS and see your current and historical orders, but you will not be able to raise new requisitions or receipt previous purchase orders.

2. All orders that are open on PECOS from August 2017 to the time we remove requisitioning rights will be transferred to OneUniversity. This means that any work on existing open orders will be carried out in OneUniversity.

3. All new requisitions from 1st December should be raised in OneUniversity.

Don’t worry, we’re keeping PECOS beyond the go-live date to ensure that we have contingency for any unexpected issues.

We’ll be issuing a timetable soon detailing what will be happening and when so that you know exactly what’s going on.

If you have any questions, please get in touch.

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 2^nd 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!

Kody Everson Joins Research and Projects Workstream

As our Research and Projects Workstream enters its build phase, Kody Everson has joined the team to work on the build of the solution. He joins Cara Breingan the CiA Solution Architect who has been supporting the Workstream for some time now.

Australian native Kody is enjoying working in Scotland and he’s endeavouring to experience all the facets of our culture.

“The air quality up here is much better than in London, although the weather is not amazing. I’ve been seeing a bit of Dundee and am looking forward to visiting the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this weekend.”

He’s also tried traditional Scottish cuisine.

“Last night we tried a deep fried Mars Bar and Irn Bru ice cream. That was an experience!”

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