By Nora Isaacs, AVC-CFO-Office of Strategic Program Management
Berkeley Financial Systems has gotten a boost. In March, BFS — the financial application that provides our Actuals detail for financial management — was upgraded from version 9.0 to 9.2, resulting in a substantial yet seamless leap in stability and functionality. While vastly improving the system’s infrastructure, there has been minimal disruption to existing processes. This means that everyone wins: the system’s users benefit from improved functionality, and the entire campus benefits from a strong foundation to support future system implementations, all of which directly impact UC Berkeley’s systems stability.
Building a Strong Foundation
The upgrade keeps BFS aligned with the latest PeopleSoft release. In turn, BFS 9.2, as well as other campus systems, will integrate with the Contracts and Grants suite (C&G), a whole new system for managing sponsored award financials. The new modules, going live in July, 2014, will introduce supplementary chartfields, attributes, and functionality to improve Berkeley’s ability to capture and track the unique requirements of sponsored awards. Moving to the latest PeopleSoft release is a necessary step toward implementing C&G, which is responsible for tracking $700 million of campus funding each year.
“From a technical point of view, the BFS upgrade created the foundation for the upcoming Contracts & Grants implementation,” says Jane Valentine, BFS Manager, who headed the functional team with Dan White. “If BFS was a house, one weekend when the owners were away, we replaced the foundation and added steel beams to make it sturdier,” says Valentine. “The house looks the same, but it has more stable infrastructure.”
Reaping the Benefits
With the upgrade, BFS significantly improved or automated business processes with more than 30 new pieces of functionality. This includes a new web-like interface with pull down menus, breadcrumb navigation, and “recently used” links, as well as Accounts Receivable and Billing Work Centers, Approval Workflow (AWE), eBill Payment, T-Account, and Collections Workbench.
“Sometimes new features that seem like small enhancements are the most handy time savers on a daily basis,” says James Wheeler, a BFS user who works in University Relations. “The new ‘Recently Viewed’ drop-down in the latest 9.2 BFS upgrade makes navigation easy and fast to get to my four most common process choices. The web-based look and feel make me feel part of the modern world too.”
For the 2,000 BFS users across campus, the transition was a blip on the radar rather than a huge UFO flying overhead. And this is a good thing.
“For CSS B&FS, the upgrade was pleasantly smooth and minimally disruptive,” says Deputy Director, Business & Financial Services, Kerrie Andow. “We received advanced notice of the shutdown and were able to plan around it. In fact, we took advantage of the time to hold a division meeting so as not to disrupt our normal service!”
Like any transition, issues do arise, such as when journals were accidentally unposted, which was then reflected in BAIRS the next day. But the problem was quickly solved with the collaboration of three teams — BAIRS, EDW, and BFS.
A Standardized Approach
In the past, BFS was highly customized. This meant that programmers had to maintain the code and get involved with every small change, not to mention the difficulty with integrating with other systems. That has changed with 9.2.
“Moving [BFS] to the 9.2 architecture provides a web-like user interface, expanded product functionality, and also helps us reduce the total cost of ownership,” explains Upgrade Project Manager Sureshkumar Mothikuru.
The upgrade has reduced system customizations by over 20%. With standardization, tasks take less time, freeing up staff for other projects, while further minimizing the cost impact of future upgrades.
“The project was overwhelmingly a technical upgrade and reduced the customizations that Berkeley uses,” says Assistant Dean for Administration, School of Social Welfare Heidi Wagner. “The fewer customizations we have, the smoother future implementations will be.”
A Smooth Implementation
The reasons for the smooth transition were many. The upgrade team carefully prepared a strategy to make the campus feel comfortable with the rollout, deploying a multi-channel communication strategy. This included training videos targeted at individual level of expertise, such as Accounts Receivable users, eBill users, as well as all BFS users. Training Lead Rob Cannon, who created the training materials, also started the transition from the somewhat clunky User Productivity Kit (UPK) training tool to more modern videos using Adobe Captivate. Users were provided with a website and email address for questions and concerns.
“There was a huge revolution going on behind the scenes, and yet the impact and influence it had on the campus was minimal,” says Upgrade Communications Lead Lisa McLaughlin. “To keep users comfortable, we deliberately provided opportunities to explore and ask questions in advance.”
The BFS technical team, led by Francis Gomes, took a test database to campus a month before Go Live. Almost 200 users logged in and delivered valuable feedback. With Campus Shared Services involved early on, the Help Desk was amply prepared for questions that came their way. And strong support from executive management provided guidance for project leadership and supported corrective actions when necessary.
Looking Toward the Future
The numbers speak for themselves: The project was implemented three weeks ahead of originally scheduled go-live date, folding in the Cesar Chavez holiday into the plan to specifically minimize the number of business days without access to BFS. The accelerated project schedule allowed UC Berkeley to successfully complete the upgrade ahead of other institutions who began before our project team. About 30% of active users watched the training videos, which are also available on mobile devices.
“I think that the 9.2 upgrade was a success because it was finished on time, on budget, and on scope,” says Wagner. “The teams that implemented the system worked well together to make sure that the implementation was an overall success.”
But numbers don’t tell the whole story. The project helped build, and continues to maintain, a strong working relationship between many offices and departments.
“The BFS upgrade project was an opportunity to take a different approach to implementations,” says Assistant Vice Chancellor and Controller Delphine Regalia. “Collaboration was a priority, and in this project there was a synergy across the Controller’s Office, IT, Campus Shared Services, and representatives from campus that allowed us the level of success we were seeking. With focused resources and shared ownership, we were able to meet our implementation goals ahead of time and within our budget.”