Grip Team Moving Full Steam Ahead

by Marisa Honig

On November 1, 2002 the Grant Receivables Implementation Project Team (GRIP) officially kicked off the new Grant and Contract Accounting (GCA) receivables system project! The GRIP Team is: Denise Lim, Team Leader, Marisa Honig, Kris Jaeger, Hoang Ong and Kate Riley, Facilitator. The kick off meeting was held in the Pompeii Room in McMahon Hall. Attendees included the team’s Oversight Committee, as well as others from the Budget Office, Computing and Communications (C&C), University Stores, GCA and other areas of Financial Management, and members of the Office of Research and the Grant and Contract Initiative project team.

At the kick off, Denise Lim and Kate Riley provided an overview of the development of “Model Blue,” a comprehensive, integrated receivables system using J. D. Edwards (JDE) “One World” software with interfaces to University legacy systems. Representatives from AMX, Inc., outside consultants who specialize in JDE software, were on hand to provide a demonstration of the software. The presentation was very well received, and participants seemed very enthusiastic about the new system!

In mid-November the GRIP team, including members of C&C, met with Rob Marotta of AMX for an all day project planning meeting. As a result of the meeting, the team was able to develop a more detailed timeline, and schedule applications training with AMX (to be held mid-December 2002).

On December 2, 2002 the GRIP team met with the Oversight Committee (Bill Ferris, Ed Lightfoot, Frank Montgomery, Mona Goldsmith-West, Mike Pingree, Sara Gomez, Gary Quarfoth, Sandy Moy, Sue Camber, V’Ella Warren and Kathryn Waddell), to update them on progress and to present results of a survey conducted with peer universities. We also had our first regular project team meeting, which will included Denise Murillo, GCA Accounts Receivable supervisor, and Kirsten DeFries, Fiscal Specialist II in GCA Fiscal Reports. At present the team is taking inventory of current invoice and report formats. We are also working with GCA staff to identify critical data elements and business rules to be built into the new receivable system.