CASIP Update - October 2024

We hope that the first month of the new academic year is off to a smooth start. 

As the administrative needs of faculty and staff evolve, CASIP continues to work in collaboration with service providers, offering expertise and delivering solutions to transform services and ensure positive user experiences for the university community. 

That said, we would like to provide the following update on some CASIP projects, some which have been delivered, ones nearing the finish line and others reaching significant milestones in their projected timelines. 

Finance Stream: New Chart of Accounts (COA) October 1, 2024

On October 1, Finance, Procurement and Planning, through the CASIP program, rolled out a number of changes as part of the modernization of the Chart of Accounts. These changes will enable more consistent use of chartfields across the university and simplify the preparation of institutional reporting to the provincial government and other stakeholders. 

In collaboration with Senior Finance Partners, the CoA and existing chartfields were reviewed to lessen redundancies and address pain points shared by users. Going forward, the revised chartfields will better categorize operating activities into higher-level functions allowing for more robust analytics and reports. A system clean up was conducted resulting in the deactivation of approximately 10,000 inactive values (expense codes for programs, classes, projects) that have not been used in the last five years. 

Under the Financial Management and Practices Policy, a new procedure also comes into effect in October, to govern and enforce the modernized chart of accounts. Specifically, the chartfield request procedure will describe the updated definitions and parameters for the eight chartfields and will identify the Finance, Procurement and Planning portfolio as the owner of the university’s chartfield structure. 

Accordingly, updates to the chartfield request forms, the PeopleSoft Finance system, and CoA web pages will also reflect all the updates taking place. 

Further improvements related to the Chart of Accounts will be implemented later this fall, with more automation on the chartfield request forms to make them easier for users to complete and submit. 

Research Administration Stream: Research Finance

CASIP is currently working with the office of the Vice President, Research and Innovation (VPRI) to develop and implement a dedicated stream of work that will identify, prioritize and address pain-points for researchers, and improve their administrative service experiences and journeys during their research lifecycle. 

This work will look to improve the end-to-end service experience for researchers, including solutions for simple and integrated administrative processes, clarified roles and responsibilities, user-friendly tools and systems, timely data and processes to support research project administration and customer-centric and value-driven administrative services.

A rapid response team has been assembled to identify the key finance processes used by researchers. The team is leveraging past community feedback and currently working with faculty level administrators, research leadership, Shared Services, Human Resources, Health, Safety and Environment, the Finance Partner Network, and Research Administrative Services to understand the current state and to co-create possible solutions. 

Human Resources Administrative Process Stream

Oracle: Transforming Recruitment 

The implementation of Oracle Recruitment is another step in the transformation of the university’s recruitment practices. A key outcome of the project is to improve and enhance functionality and the recruiting experience for both the university staff involved as well as for applicants. 

When fully implemented, Oracle Recruiting simplifies and automates the complexities of recruiting with complete end-to-end functionality, including job requisitions, sourcing campaigns, approval workflows, screening, interviews, candidate selection and electronic offer distribution. This will streamline the whole recruitment process, providing better user experience for both the candidate and hiring manager and reduce recruitment timelines. There is also the potential to explore Artificial Intelligence to further improve.  

The Oracle project team and implementation partner (Accenture) are currently mapping a system design to configure a test environment for quality assurance and for select user groups to offer feedback. 

Full implementation and deployment to end users is expected to be in place by June 30, 2025. 

Medical/General Illness Leave: New Process September 1, 2024

On September 1, 2024, the task of keying medical and all general illness leave requests in PeopleSoft shifted from supervisors/managers to Shared Services. This process is now applicable to NASA staff following 10 consecutive illness days. (Below 10 days would remain the responsibility of the employee.) The change reduces the number of administrative steps required of supervisors/managers and is part of a larger endeavor to improve how benefits and entitlements are managed when medical/general illness leave is taken. This Shared Services News contains more details. 

Forms & Checklists: Improving HR Forms  

Additional HR forms have been updated to align them better with HR standards and make them more intuitive for users to access, fill out and submit, and easier for service providers to process. The most recent changes are detailed in this article: Some HR forms are changing - here is what you need to know. More improvements will be rolled out at critical points throughout the year and other categories of HR forms will be reviewed. Where it makes sense, forms will be consolidated to avoid redundancy, automated to leave less room for errors, or enhanced with clearer instructions. 

CASIP Town Hall - CLICK HERE TO SAVE THE DATE

*Note: Be sure to save the invitation to your Google calendar.*

The next CASIP town hall is scheduled for Wednesday, November 13, 2024, from 11 a.m. to noon. This will be an online event and details will be shared soon. We look forward to seeing you. 

As always, if you have questions or concerns about any of the CASIP projects, please reach out to us or contact the University Initiatives Office team at uio@ualberta.ca. 

Please distribute this to your teams as appropriate.

Regards,

Matina and Todd 

Matina Kalcounis-Rueppell
College Dean and Vice Provost, College of Natural and Applied Sciences

Todd Gilchrist
Vice-President, University Services, Operations and Finance

October 2, 2024 - This communication has been shared with the following groups: Vice-Provosts, Vice-Presidents, College Deans, Faculty Deans, Chairs, CGMs, FGMs, ADMs, AVPs, CoS, Directors, USOF.