In response to the recent launch of Oracle Financials Cloud and Concur Travel & Expense, we wish to provide you with some guidance on actions that will help you and your staff navigate these new systems. Additionally, please find updates on reports and metrics that affect your fund managers’ ability to respond to faculty inquiries.
Topics included below:
Concur Travel & Expense
● Faculty Reporting
● How to Check Award Balances and Expenses
Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
● Faculty Reporting
● How to Check Award Balances and Expenses
Being patient with staff while they are learning the new systems
We will continue to provide faculty action items and updates as necessary through local VC offices, fund managers and faculty assistants.
Concur Travel & Expense
In addition to launching a new financial system, UC San Diego made the decision to upgrade its travel and expense system. We moved away from 7 different home-grown systems into one, Concur. In addition to offering a single place to request new trips, book travel, and process expense reports (for both travel and procurement card transactions), Concur also offers access to great features such as TripIt Pro and an enhanced mobile app.
For business travel expenses, UC San Diego faculty and staff have been required to provide some level of certification per UC policy. In MyTravel, the traveler was prompted to provide Traveler Certification after the preparer submitted the trip claim. Similar to MyTravel, designated individuals may continue to prepare the travel expenses on an Expense Report in Concur, but they just cannot submit the report on your behalf. The traveler’s action of clicking the ‘Submit’ button on a Travel Expense Report in Concur serves as electronic certification. Record of the certification action is kept in the audit trail right within Concur, which is why it is so important to submit your own expense report.
This also applies to requests for new Procurement Cards and Procurement Card expense reports. The act of submitting either a request or an expense report deems the action as valid and accurate.
One new concept that comes with Concur is the notion of a Delegate. For preparers to do what they used to do, you must make them a Delegate under your Concur profile. Delegates can prepare the travel and card transactions on your behalf; they just cannot submit the expense reports on your behalf.
1) Creating a Delegate
For step-by-step instructions on how to assign your colleague as a delegate, please refer to the following Knowledge Base Article in Services and Support.
Note: You will only have to add a delegate once for Concur Request or Expense. You can also update delegate settings at any time if for instance, a Delegate leaves a department or is out of the office.
2) Certifying Expense Reports
For step-by-step instructions on how to certify an expense report prepared by your delegate, please refer to the following Knowledge Base Article in Services and Support.
Oracle Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is the subledger in Oracle that is used to manage sponsored projects, capital projects and general projects (such as faculty startup funds).
1) Faculty Reporting
Several reports are currently under development to assist faculty and staff with managing financial portfolios. As reports are released, their availability will be communicated broadly, including to faculty. Please refer to the following Knowledge Base Article in Services and Support.
2) How to Check Award Balances and Expenses
Fund Managers can assist faculty with viewing details on Oracle Projects, including Awards, through various screens in Oracle Financials Cloud.
For step-by-step instructions on how to view award budget, costs and balances within Oracle, please refer to the following Knowledge Base Article in Services and Support.
Services & Support
Friendly reminder to be patient with your fund managers as they continue to learn new systems, validate converted enterprise systems data, ensure expenses for May-August are correct, and clean up known payroll corrections.
Please be aware that central office staff are responding to departmental inquiries and requests as quickly as possible. Services and Support metrics for Budget & Finance related cases from June-July 2020:
● Approximately 1,000 cases per week are generated
● 87% closed same day, 95% closed within 2 days
● 139 agents are dedicated to providing departmental support
We truly appreciate your support, the time taken to review this update, and the set-up of Concur delegates and certification of expense reports.
Sincerely,
