The ConnectCarolina project team, along with the Campus Working Groups (comprised of representatives from across campus), is continuing on the long road to implementation of the Finance and HR/Payroll modules of PeopleSoft. Here is just a brief look at what we are working on.
Finance
With the go-live date set, the Finance team is working diligently on setting up PeopleSoft to meet the University’s needs:
- The team is heavily focused on development of functional specifications. These are documents that specify how the University needs the PeopleSoft software to be enhanced or changed to meet UNC’s needs. These specifications also determine what data will be fed into PeopleSoft or out of PeopleSoft from other systems.
- The initial configuration of the system has completed. Configuration means setting up PeopleSoft to work with our business processes. That requires that we make hundreds of choices to specify how we want PeopleSoft to work. Configuration will be an ongoing process throughout the development and test phases
- A Finance test coordinator has joined the team to begin test planning.
- Campus outreach continues as ConnectCarolina business analysts meet with representatives of each Major Operating Unit (MOU) across the University. Within the MOUs, people are beginning to understand and apply strategies to plan their use of PeopleSoft chart fields and the conversion of their FRS data into the PeopleSoft environment. In addition, the Finance Campus Working Group monthly meetings are helping to increase understanding of the power and flexibility offered by PeopleSoft.
- Wondering who is your school or unit’s Campus Working Group representative? You can find that here: All Campus Working Group Participants May 1 2012
Human Resources/Payroll
- The HR/Payroll team continues to focus on completing gap documentation. These documents will propose solutions to areas where PeopleSoft as delivered does not meet the needs of the University. Solutions could involve process change, reporting changes as well as software changes where business critical. Among the issues being worked through:
- Position Management – a Campus Working Group (CWG) session was held on to discuss how position management will be used at the University. The CWG members are reviewing the presentation and will provide feedback to the project team by April 3.
- Faculty Events – a Campus Working Group session was held that included discussion of the Person Model in PeopleSoft, the software requirements that have been identified, Faculty Rank Structure, and Tracking Faculty Events among other topics.
- Job Codes – a job code could be professor, IT specialist or other positions at the University, and the various attributes of jobs need to be tracked in PeopleSoft (such as contributing, journey and advanced job levels). The team has defined which fields need to sit where in PeopleSoft. This design will now be written up and submitted for approval.
- Commitment Accounting – a 101 session on this topic was held with HR and Finance team members demonstrating how Commitment Accounting works in PeopleSoft. Further sessions will be held to gather the detailed setups required in PeopleSoft that will ultimately transfer payroll costs to Finance.
- Workflow – a 101 session on this topic was held for the HR project team and later for the HR Stakeholders to demonstrate the workflow capabilities of PeopleSoft. This session was intended to foster discussion of workflow design and what workflows will be required at go-live.
- Wondering who is your school or unit’s Campus Working Group representative? You can find that here: All Campus Working Group Participants May 1 2012