|
12/8/00
Decision Support Release 4.1 went into Production 12/8/00. This release contained mainly minor changes to existing reports. There is one new report, and two old reports are being removed.
The more significant changes are listed below. For a complete list of all changes made in this release, click on the What's New link on the Decision Support home page.
New Report - 217) STIP Transactions
For those organizations that receive STIP, this report allows you to view the ledger entries sent by the Office of the President for your organization and/or OP Fund. This report totals budget and expenditure entries by Account and OP Fund. You may also select which STIP quarters you want to view. This report is in the Transaction Listing category.
Removed Reports
The Month-End Reports (Organization Account Balance Summary (127) and Month-End Account Ledger (128)) have been removed from the system. They were clones of reports 38 (Summary of Account Balances) and 110 (Transaction Listing by Consolidation) created near the beginning of DaFIS, and not substantially modified since then. Users of the 127 and 128 reports should find the features on the replacement reports useful. Queries 38 and 110 can now be found in the Month-End Folder on the General Ledger category page.
Modified Reports
The following queries have been modified. Check the Decision Support "What's New" page for complete details.
- Document Lookup (9)
- Contracts and Grants Account Lookup (198)
- Current Encumbrance Balances (46)
- Feeder System Transaction Detail (212)
- Summary of Account Balances (38)
- Summary of Project Balances by Consolidation (188)
- Transactions by Document (19)
A New Look
Decision Support will have a new look. New fonts and icons streamline the screens and lists.
Browser Support
With this latest release, Netscape 3.x will no longer be supported. If you are running an early version of Netscape, you can upgrade your browser for free at https://software.ucdavis.edu/ . Refer to your technical support with any questions on upgrading your browser.
Top
12/6/00
There are three new Desk References available (in PDF format):
These references give you information about the documents, their uses, and step-by-step instructions for completing them. They also detail any associated processes outside of DaFIS.
There are also two new guides:
The guides offer step-by-step instructions for some of the more common processes in DaFIS.
The desk references and guides can be accessed through the Documents page of our web site.
Top
11/8/00
There are two new Desk References (in PDF format):
- Interdepartmental Bill
- Statement of Cash Collections
These references give you information about the documents, their uses, and step-by-step instructions for completing them. They also detail any associated processes outside of DaFIS.
The desk references can be accessed through the Training Documents page of our web site.
Top
10/2/00
Transaction Processing Release 3.3 went into Production on 10/2. The changes that have the most impact on the average user involve the purchase of equipment, add-ons, and supply items designated theft sensitive.
Enforcement of Equipment Commodity Codes
If an equipment commodity code (one beginning with an alpha character) is entered on a Purchasing document, and the total per item does not reach the equipment threshold (tax included), then you will receive a message stating that you cannot use that commodity code. You should then select an equivalent supply commodity code (one beginning with a numeric character). (Note: There are some exceptions to the equipment threshold, such as firearms. These items are inventorial equipment regardless of value.)
Theft Sensitive Changes
There are now commodity codes in the system for theft sensitive items. These commodities are identified by a theft sensitive indicator, which can be seen on the Commodity Lookup and Commodity Detail screens. Searches for commodities can be done using the Theft Sensitive indicator on the Commodity Lookup screen.
If you use a theft sensitive commodity code, on any purchasing document, for an item priced between $200 and $1500 (the current equipment threshold), you will be required to enter information on the Equipment Certification screen: campus, building and custody code. If you use a theft sensitive commodity, and you exceed the equipment threshold, you will be required to enter an equipment commodity. If the purchase is not inventorial equipment, and you get the threshold message, then you should select an appropriate supply commodity code to complete your purchase.
Theft sensitive commodities can also be used on the Add Asset document. If you have questions about the Theft Sensitive policies, or commodities, sent them to eqhelp@ucdavis.edu. A list of Theft Sensitive commodities can be seen online.
Owner Account Will Not Display on Purchasing Documents
The Owner Chart and Account fields have been removed from the Equipment Certification screen on the DPO, PR and PO documents. You can still view the Owner Account fields by double-clicking on the Property Number field on this screen (which will open the Capital Asset Inquiry screen). Financial ownership of equipment will now be tracked using a new "Original OP Fund Number" field, which is not related the Owner Account fields and whose access is restricted to Capital Asset Accounting.
Rule Changes for Accounts Purchasing New Equipment/Add-ons/Fabrications
When an inventorial equipment item (a commodity whose object code is 9xxx) is being purchased, the system will check the OP Equipment Indicator of the account being used. If that indicator is "Y", the purchase will be allowed; otherwise, you will receive an error message that will advise you to select a different account.
Add-on Threshold
All supplies purchased as add-ons to existing equipment must be expensed unless they meet the equipment threshold (currently $1500). If you enter a supply commodity code on a purchasing document, you will not be able to mark it as an Add-on unless the per item cost is $1500 or more (tax included).
Top
5/9/00
Transaction Processing Release 3.2 went into Production on 5/9. Although most of the changes in this release are minor fixes, the following items will be noticed by the user.
Vendor Invoice - Warning on inserted lines
When an equipment related commodity is inserted on a Vendor Invoice (e.g. FREIGHTEQ), and there are no equipment items on the invoice, the user will receive a message indicating that they should select another commodity. Likewise, if a non-equipment commodity is inserted, and there are equipment items on the invoice, the user will be prompted to confirm that they have selected the correct commodity.
Tracking Number on GL Financial and AP documents
If an equipment object is entered on any of the documents listed below, the user will receive a message prompting them to enter a Purchase Order number in the Tracking Number field. If the initiator overrides the message, another message will appear prior to an approver opening the document. The documents affected by this change include:
Error Correction, Distribution of Expense, Statement of Cash Collections, Direct Charge - Pre-DaFIS, Interdepartmental Bill, AP Credit Memo, Accrual Voucher, Journal Voucher
Modified Message on the Organization document
When an existing organization is entered on the Organization document, whether active or inactive, the user will receive a more visible caution message, that will list the reports-to organization and organization manager for the org entered.
Top
4/26/00
There are now three Desk References for the Accounts Receivable system in DaFIS (all in PDF format):
These references give you information about the documents and features found in DaFIS Accounts Receivable, and step-by-step instructions for completing them. There are also online reference manuals for the Accounts Receivable documents, as there are for all other DaFIS documents. These online manuals give you descriptions and requirements for each field in an AR document.
The desk references can also be accessed through the DaFIS Documentation page of our web site.
Top
4/3/00
It's been a while since the last release of Decision Support and there are lots of changes this time around:
Object Grouping System
The Object Grouping System is a major enhancement to Decision Support. It allows you to ignore the predefined manner in which financial information is grouped in DaFIS. With this system, you can assign specific object codes to Groups of your choosing. You can create up to a 5-level hierarchy of Object Groups that sub-total within each other. These Object Groupings may then be used on specially designed reports (new with this release): Annual Summary by Object Group (210), Transaction Listing by Object Group (215), and Summary of Object Group Balances (216).
For more information on how to use this system, and the accompanying reports, download the Object Grouping System Desk Reference.
Report Caching System
Another major change in this release of DS is the Report Caching System. This system, while mostly transparent to users, offers some performance benefits. When most reports are executed, the results will be saved on the server. If the same report is requested that day, the saved report will be returned to you immediately, without having to wait for the report to re-execute. This will also boost performance by not allowing users to execute the same report multiple times. When a user attempts to do so, they are put in the queue to receive the results of the original report. Finally, the new way reports are sent to your browser should eliminate, for the most part, the "Data Missing" error some users get when attempting to print reports.
Document Approval Workload (211)
Similar to the Document Workload Report (40), this report displays how many approvals of each type of document a user has made. You can enter an organization and get a report of all users in that department (as set up on the FIS User document), and how many of what types of documents they have approved. Initiators are considered approvers too, so this report has the option of ignoring the approval of the document initiator. Note: The Organization field on the query parameter page refers to the organization of the approver, not the organization the transaction was created under.
Feeder System Transaction Detail (212)
This report allows you to easily review transactions that have posted to your ledgers and did not pass through account manager routing. For the most part, these transactions are loaded directly into DaFIS by recharge units. This report is grouped by feeder system so you can review all the charges for each recharge unit at once. In addition, certain Transaction Processing documents do not route to the account manager, so you have the option of including certain non-feeder system documents (as the IB in the example above). This report can be a useful tool for anyone reviewing their ledgers at month end.
DaFIS User Responsibility (214)
This report displays information about the responsibility that a user has been assigned within DaFIS Transaction Processing. It will list the accounts for which a user is an Account Manager or an account delegate; what workgroup(s) a user belongs to; the review hierarchies a user is in, and the organizations for which a user is the organization manager. This should be useful when departments have staff turnover, to help ensure that all of a exiting staff member's responsibilities have been transferred to a new user.
The following reports use the new Object Group System.
You must have set up an Object Grouping to run any of these reports.
Annual Summary by Object Group (210)
This is a new style of report to Decision Support. This query runs for an entire fiscal year. The total budget for the year is reported in the first column. Then each fiscal period's expenditures is reported in its own column. Finally a total of the expenditures and a remaining balance is reported on the right. This report uses the Object Grouping System, and is grouped and totaled at whatever you have set up for the Object Group you choose. This report has an additional feature that makes it unique. For months that are not yet completed, you have the choice of projecting expenditure amounts. This report has 2 options regarding projections: either an average of all completed months; or, the actual expenditures from those months in the previous fiscal year. This report is designed as a high level managerial report. It can be run for an entire organization to get a highly summarized view of an entire year's activity.
Summary of Object Group Balances (216)
This is a conventional balance summary report that uses the Object Grouping System. It is similar to the Summary of Consolidation Balances (44). This report can include sub-accounts and can be inverted so accounts and sub-accounts are reported within each lowest level Object Group
Transaction Listing by Object Group (215)
Another standard report updated to use the Object Grouping system. Much like the Transaction Listing by Consolidation (110), this report lists transactions within Object Groups and sub-totals the transactions at each Object Group Level.
Object Group Object Summary (213)
This report is designed to be used primarily as a drilldown report from 216 and 210. It displays an Object summary of balances within a single Object Group. It is especially useful for researching any "Unassigned" object lines that appear in your Object Group reports.
Pending Entries on Budget Reports
All of the reports in the budget category (58, 59, 60, 196, 197) can now optionally include pending budget entries in their balances. Also, the Budget Transaction Detail (60) report can now display data for a range of months. (Previously, it would always show all transactions since the beginning of the year through the month specified.)
Additional Information in Headers of Transaction Listing Reports
The headers on all transaction listing reports have been updated slightly. The main addition is the display of Sub-account, Project, Object Consolidation, and Object criteria name if they are used on the report. This should be helpful for departments that print out different sub-accounts separately for distribution to faculty or PIs. Also, the award begin date has been added to the header.
Added Accounting Line Criteria to Open Purchasing Orders (138)
You can now query for open purchase orders by the Account, Sub-account, or Project that appears on their line items. With the new criteria you can see all purchase orders still outstanding against a specific account.
Enhanced Display and Summary Section of Trans. Listing w/Payroll Detail (179)
The overall appearance of this report has been updated to bring it in line with the other reports in Decision Support. In addition, a couple of new features were added. The summary report at the top now groups by sub-account and displays the titles of the sub-accounts. It can also be inverted so that the sub-accounts are displayed within Object Consolidations. The other major modification was to add a criteria that will cause all transactions in the INDR (Indirect Costs) consolidation to roll up to 1 line. If you only care about the total amount of Indirect Costs then select this option.
Finally, the treatment of encumbrances on this report has been confusing to some. When Payroll Detail is turned on, all encumbrance information in payroll consolidations is loaded from the Payroll Data Warehouse (PPS). Because of that, DaFIS encumbrances for those consolidations need to be ignored. If this report was run for a month before the payroll information was loaded, the payroll encumbrances would disappear because the DaFIS liens are ignored and the PPS liens are not present. To help eliminate this confusion, Decision Support now checks for the presence of data in the PPS system before running the report. If no data is present, it turns off the Payroll Detail option automatically, allowing the DaFIS liens to be displayed.
Field Display is now Optional on Query List (168)
There is a new option on this report to suppress the display of the input fields on this report. Without the fields, this report can be used as a quick reference sheet for all the queries.
Eliminated Inactive Users/Accounts From Some Reference Queries
On the Organization Hierarchy (50) report, there is a new option to suppress inactive Accounts from the output. Previously, all accounts, even those which expired, were displayed. On the Organization/Account Statistics (77) report, inactive users and expired accounts were being included in the totals. Both of these are now gone.
Added Ability to Suppress Balance Sheet Accounts From Sub Fund Summary Reports
On reports Sub Fund Summary by Consolidation (55) and Sub Fund Summary by Account (57), there is a new option that will suppress any accounts with an account type of BS (Balance Sheet) or HB (Housing Balance Sheet) from these reports.
Updated Purchasing System Documents Log (27) To Use Suggested Vendor on PR
A minor update to the Purchasing System Documents Log (27) that could make a major change in the results returned. Previously, when you queried this report by Vendor ID, all Purchase Requisitions that matched the other criteria would be returned, regardless of the Vendor. This update makes the report search the Suggested Vendors on a PR. Only if the Vendor ID entered is present will the PR be part of the results.
Top
3/6/00
There are two changes in this release significant to campus.
New Screen: Document Approval Routing
The new Document Approval Routing screen allows you to view the current and future routing for a document. A new button, titled "Look Ahead", will now be on every routing log. This button will take you to the Document Approval Routing screen, which will detail the individuals whose approval will be required on the document. For full information on how this screen works, see Guide 26.
Change to Financial Documents - PO number for Equipment transactions.
There will now be a warning message if a financial document is processed using an equipment object (9xxx) and a PO number is not entered in the Tracking Number field. The following documents, available to normal users, will be affected:
| All Users |
UCDMC Users |
Accrual Voucher
Credit Memo
Departmental Encumbrance
Direct Charge Temporary
Distribution of Expense
Distribution of Expense - Special Routing
Error Correction
Error Correction - Restricted
Interdepartmental Bill
Statement of Cash Collections
|
Direct Charge Hospital
Medical Center Accrual Voucher
Medical Center Interdepartmental Bill
Medical Center Journal Voucher
Medical Center Statement of Cash Collection
|
Top
2/24/00
There is only one change in this release significant to campus.
New Document: Mass Change Account Delegate (MCAD)
The MCAD document allows multiple account delegate changes to be made on one document. These can be simple changes (changing one account delegate on many accounts to a new account delegate) or complex (many different delegations on many different accounts). For information on how to use the MCAD document, see theMCAD Desk Reference.
Top
2/4/00
The Purchasing documents have now been added to the Online Reference Manual. You can learn about the uses, procedures and fields for:
- Departmental Purchase Order
- Departmental Repair Order
- Cancel/Close Departmental Purchase Order
- Redistribute Purchasing Liens
- Purchase Requisition
Top
1/7/00
Below is a list of changes included in this release.
New Document: Mass Change Account Manager (MCAM)
The MCAM document allows multiple account manager changes to be made on one document. These can be simple changes (changing one account manager on many accounts to a new account manager) or complex (many different account managers on many different accounts). For information on how to use the MCAM document, see Guide 23.
Enhanced Reference Table Searches:
Several of the Reference Tables have been improved to allow for easier searches. Most notable of these are the Document Type and Special Conditions Routing tables.
Problems Resolved: Purchase Requisition
Previously, if a Purchase Requisition was intiated, and then saved to the initiator's InBox, information on the Item Information and Account Distribution screens would be lost. In addition, any information entered on the Equipment Information screen would be lost if there was no account information for that item prior to the save. All of these problems have now been resolved.
Top
|
