May 19, 2005
MyFinancial.Desktop: New software tool saves time, effort on records
There’s good news for UW researchers and fiscal staff weary of wading through paperwork every month to track expenses for grants, contracts and state budgets: A new software tool called MyFinancial.Desktop offers an online expense reporting and query capability, saving time and effort for those needing timely, accurate budget information.
You can access the application at http://ucs.admin.washington.edu/myfd/Home.aspx .
Jeanne Marie Isola, project manager, said the new application is one of the first of three applications or “deliverables” UW faculty and staff can expect from the Financial Desktop Initiative. The Initiative, paid for by the University Initiative Fund, is part of the USER Project and has been created in partnership with Computing & Communications and the Financial Management and Planning and Budgeting offices.
Bringing the application to life, Isola said, were the dedicated members of the Financial Desktop Process Improvement Team and the Reporting User Task Group. These individuals represent a cross-section of University users and have dedicated long hours and significant effort since 2002 to designing a user-driven reporting tool. (See below for list of Fin-PIT team members.)
Soon after the team determined the Financial Desktop Initiative scope, they kicked off the Reporting User Task Group, made up of volunteer business staff and full-time developers. Members of the task group have been hard at work since 2003 designing and building the budget expense, reporting, and query application. (See below for list of Reporting User Task Group members.)
Isola said the new online application will enable researchers and others who work with fiscal management to access their accounts quickly and confidentially, anywhere, over the Internet. Until now, she said, researchers worked with cumbersome paper reports generated by the University’s mainframe computer to monitor their accounts.
With implementation of the new application, Isola said, “If principal investigators log on to MyFinancial.Desktop they will immediately see their budgets — they have already been set up in the system.” She added that access also can be shared across the University among co-investigators, by creating official “designees” to whom a principal investigator’s administrator can grant access to the grant budget information.
“I’d use the analogy of online banking,” said Linda Nelson, who led the task group that created the application, in describing the new program. “Basically, the Budget Summary Report and Activity Report are like your monthly statements from the bank. And this is simply moving the University reports from being paper-based into the 21st century, on the Web.”
John Horne, a research associate professor in Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences who was involved in early interviews during development of the application, praised the system for eliminating — some day soon, not right away — the Budget Activity Report and Budget Summary Reports, two paper documents issued to researchers each month.
The new application also will allow users to view charges to accounts in a timely manner, rather than having to wait up to several weeks for transactions to appear on the monthly reports.
“As a user, I can see the current status of any budget, and it really is much more current,” Horne said. “The biggest advantage for me is the accessibility and the elimination of the lag from the paper reporting.” He added that the improvement might enable him in time to drop his own in-house grant accounting system.
Horne said he looks forward to the system someday being able to trend and forecast data. Isola said that’s among the improvements scheduled to be made over the next few years. First, she said, the most immediate needs of program users will be addressed, after which forecasting and account reconciliation abilities will be addressed.
“There’s going to be a dedicated level of development support so these enhancements can be worked on incrementally,” Isola said.
The Budget Expense Reporting and Query Application is the first of three major new projects being created by the Financial Desktop Process Improvement Team. The other two are the Online Internal Transactions Application, which will enable users to make transactions between different University accounts, and the Project Cost Accounting Tools, including help and training support for any department interested in using project cost accounting to generate department specific reports.
Isola listed specific properties of the new Budget and Expense Reporting and Query Application, including:
- the ability to use the query application to download data on specific budgets into Excel, Text or HTML programs.
- the freedom to use the program with most platforms or operating systems.
- a complete glossary of financial terms and definitions, as well as comprehensive information on a specific budget or transaction.
Some fear change in any form, and for that reason, there will be ample training, and help available by phone or e-mail for users of the new program, Isola said.
“There’s a real cultural change for the whole principal investigator community to get used to this. But this is going to open paths for the future and allow the University to better manage its grants, and in a more streamlined fashion,” she said.
“It’s change, and it’s a really positive thing.” Plus, she said, such updates are necessary if the UW is to remain competitive in the research world.
Nelson, of the Reporting User Task Group that created the application, applauded both the innovation and the way it came into being.
“This has been a really cool project to work on,” she said. “I’m really very excited, particularly about the opportunity to participate in this user-based way of having change happen, so the people who use the product are the people who designed it.
“It’s a really practical way of doing this stuff,” Nelson said.
Get trained:
You can register for hands on training for the MyFinancial.Desktop Budget and Expense Reporting and Query Application at http://www.washington.edu/computing/catalog/gen/1/R940.html.
Learn more:
To learn more about the USER Project and the Budget and Expense Reporting and Query Application, visit online at: http://www.washington.edu/admin/finacct/office/fd/help/?p=home.
Help is available:
Support for the new application will be available by phone at 206-543-3877, or via e-mail, at myfdhelp@u.washington.edu.
The Financial Desktop Team
Thanks to all the folks contributing to the design, development and implementation of the Financial Desktop Reporting Application:
Financial Desktop Process Improvement Team:
Jeanne Marie Isola, project manager, Financial Desktop Initiative
Steve Boerstler, assistant to director, Health Sciences Budget and Administration
Mary Clark, administrator, The Information School
Darlene H. Feikema, director, Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs
Amy Floit, budget analyst, Office of Planning and Budgeting
Jeff Follman, director of Financial Accounting and Reporting
Kim Jaehne, project assistant, Financial Desktop Initiative
Linda Rose Nelson, administrator, Physics
Gary Pedersen, administrator, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences
Gary Prohaska, technology manager, Information Systems
Hank Williams, finance administrator, Psychiatry
Erick Winger, Financial Desktop Client Services Support
Financial Desktop Reporting User Task Group:
Linda Nelson (Reporting Team Lead), Physics, College of Arts and Sciences
Michael Aly, School of Medicine
Joan Bodey, College of Ocean & Fishery Sciences
Bill Christensen, Financial Management
Jelena Curless, Administrative Information Services/C&C
Leota Day, Business Services
Amy Floit, Fin-PIT member
Sharon Frucci, College of Arts & Sciences
Ivy Kinyanjui, Administrative Information Services/C&C
Maja Ortner, Administrative Information Services/C&C
Gary Pedersen, Fin-PIT member
Edith Shen, Administrative Information Services/C&C
Technical Coordination Team : Pat Benson, AIS Productions Services Rupert Berk, ASTRA Team Heidi Berrysmith, ASTRA Team Jim Blankenship, ITI Admin Platforms Tony Chang, Data Warehouse Program BK Chen, Data Warehouse Program Scott Clark, Data Warehouse Program Eric Donohue, Data Warehouse Program Pete Libbey, ITI Admin Platforms
Sid McHarg, ITI Mainframe, Database, & Storage Systems
Bob Salnick, Data Warehouse Program
Bill Shirey, AIS Production Services
Cathy Sullivan, Data Warehouse Program
Ian Taylor, ITI Security Middleware
Ann Testroet, ASTRA Team
Jeani Wells, Data Warehouse Program
