Project Update: Oct. 5-9, 2015

TOPICS:

October 9, 2015

PROJECT-WIDE

  • Project Director Pete Zipkin held a Core Team Project Update Oct. 5. It included:
    • Recap of Workday Rising, the national Workday user conference held in Las Vegas the previous week, which a contingency of iNtegrate 2 team members attended. Participants benefited from a variety of keynotes, sessions and opportunities to meet with representatives from Workday’s roughly 1,000 customer companies and organizations to compare notes on the enterprise software and the best ways to configure, implement, run and mine it.
    • A review of the Project’s Guiding Principles, upcoming timelines for Testing and Playback Sessions, and goals for the Playback Sessions.
  • A training strategy is under development by Training Coordinator JoAnn Porter. The plan will be shared with institutions once it’s finalized. Training activities are scheduled to begin next year.
  • We’re beginning testing activities, known as Unit Testing. During Unit Testing, Designees and SMEs will practice hypothetical workplace scenarios to assess the way we’ve configured Workday to accommodate our unique business processes. The testing results will help us refine our Workday configurations and business processes. The initial timeline is:
    • Unit Testing, Phase 1: Designees and select SMEs (Mid-November-to-mid-December)
    • Playback Sessions: “Day in the life” work tasks by Designees (Early-to-mid January 2016)
    • Unit Testing, Phase 2: Involving Designees and all SMEs (February 2016)
  • Training Coordinator JoAnn Porter hosted a conference call involving Procurement Directors from CSN, UNLV and UNR regarding Workday’s Supplier module and how it will affect interactions with our suppliers and vendors. Jo Ann and the Procurement Directors will develop a communications plan to educate our suppliers about the coming changes and their new responsibilities once Workday is live.

FINANCE

  • Greg Morgan, who served as the inaugural iNtegrate 2 Finance Lead, has decided to retire to spend more time with his family. We wish him the best. CSN iNtegrate 2 Project Manager Steve Creswell has joined the Core Team as our new Finance Lead. Steve’s office is in the iNtegrate 2 area of SCS South on the UNLV campus. He reports to Project Director Pete Zipkin.
  • Working sessions this past week in Reno focused on:
    • Procurement – Changes for purchase orders and associated business processes and approval paths, and refinement of spend categories and expense types.
    • Banking & Settlement – Different options for accounting for petty cash.
    • Grants – Worked with SCI to submit to Workday five “brainstorm ideas” (system enhancements requested by customers, partners or employees) specific to the Grants module.
    • Financial Accounting – Completing Financial Data Model (FDM) workbooks, which are data mappings of financial accounts in our legacy system that we must prepare for use in Workday.

 HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

  • The HCM Team hosted a videoconference involving all NSHE institutions to discuss differences in how our campuses classify, administer and manage student workers/employment. Notes from this discussion will be compiled for analysis by our consultants, Leads and Business Analysts. The larger group will then meet again to be presented with an architect solution for configuring Workday to accommodate this important group of employees.
  • Recruiting – Designee Michelle Hughes hosted a second videoconference demonstrating further development of the online recruiting tool that was first demonstrated two weeks ago. About 30 SMEs and campus representatives participated in the call, which focused on online application completion/resume upload and the associated candidate questionnaire. Feedback was again overwhelmingly positive.
  • Working sessions this past week in Reno focused on:
    • Compensation – Completing design workbooks that will be used to write the computer code that will convert our HR Management System (HRMS) legacy data into Workday.
    • Payroll – Began validating FICA/Medicare, W-4 and direct deposit files for Prototype 1 (P1) upload, and began validating accuracy of Benefits files. SCI also shared initial generic test scenarios to be used in P1, which will be evaluated and configured for our specific needs.
  • We’ve confirmed the tool that will be used to report issues/problems uncovered during data validation. Instructions on how to use it will be distributed next week.

UPCOMING EVENTS

  • HCM Working Sessions for the week of October 12 have been suspended so that the Designees, Team Leads and Business Analysts can focus on validating logic and data for the P1 build files.
  • Work continues on the data validation process. More information will be distributed in the coming weeks to offer direction and ensure that this important step runs efficiently.