FAQ: Special Topics

Topics

Faculty

What is the character length for the Chart of Accounts and POET(AF) chart strings?
Each segment of the Chart of Accounts (CoA) and POET(AF) strings has a designated number of characters. You can find the CoA segment details outlined on the Chart of Accounts Quick Reference Guide, and the POET(AF) details on the PPM/ POET(AF) Quick Reference Guide.
How do I see my portfolio of funding?
The PPM Faculty and Department Portfolio Report can be run to provide summarized data for all PPM activity for an individual Faculty (PI). This report includes all available funds from that PI’s external and internal funding sources.

Users can run the report immediately. or schedule the report to run and be sent as an Excel file at regular intervals.
Am I able to view the indirect cost rate in the PPM Faculty and Department Portfolio Report?
The cost rate is not included in the report. That information is in the PPM subledger itself, associated with the award when it is first set up.
Can you clarify what "burden" on commitments means? How does this work in Aggie Enterprise?
The "burden" on commitment means that when a commitment is created when a Purchase Order (PO) is approved, if the transaction is subject to burden/ICR, the system will automatically calculate the amount and add it to the amount of the PO.
For example: If a PI approves a PO for 20K and it is subject to burden/ICR where the rate is 25%, the system will do the calculation. The amount that will appear in commitments will be the 20K plus the 5K for burden/ICR.
Does the "burden"/ Indirect Cost Rate (ICR) on commitments show under commitments or expenses?
The "burden"/ ICR on the commitments will appear under commitments.
How can I see transaction details?
Detailed costs for PPM Projects can be viewed by searching under the “Manage Project Costs” function in
Aggie Enterprise. These searches can be run by Project Name or Project Number, and search parameters can be saved to simplify re-running the search in the future.

Search results can be customized to show more than 80 fields, allowing users to change the output to show the information most relevant to their needs. Transaction numbers will be included in the search output, and can be clicked on to drill down to the detail on individual costs.

Instructions for running this search can be found in the “View Detailed Costs for a PPM Project” section of the PPM007: View Summary and Detailed costs for Individual Sponsored and Non-Sponsored PPM Projects Knowledge Base article.
How do I approve sub-award invoices?
After review and approval by the fiscal officer, the system automatically routes the approval request to the PI via email notification The PI approval can be completed directly in the email.
Who approves Sponsored Project budgets in PPM?
Once the budget is entered by Contract and Grants Accounting (CGA) and submitted, it requires the approval of the department project manager.

Tracking Guidance

How do we track Faculty Recruitment and Removal costs?
Departments can track Faculty recruitment costs using a PPM Department Project.
• Separate tasks can be created for each search.
• If needed, units could use one task for Recruitment costs and one task per search for Removal
costs, when they are reimbursed by different units.
Watch the informal demo: Using PPM to Track Faculty Recruitment Costs
(Please note: This is an informational video with visuals from a non-production Oracle environment. This is not designed to be training.)
How can we track Faculty start-up in a way that makes it easily visible to Faculty?
Departments track Faculty start-up using a PPM Faculty Project.
• A separate task can be created for each bucket of start-up funding.
• Units can use standard abbreviations in the task value to help indicate what the task is capturing.
– For example, a unit might use “SU” at the beginning of the Task value to indicate “Start-Up”.
– Please reach out to your CoA Mapping Lead(s) to understand how your unit is structuring Task values.

• Task Transaction Finish Dates can be applied to align with offer letters.
– Example: For a faculty who has 5 years to spend their start-up allocation, the department
may enter that 5-year date. Costs will not be allowed to accumulate after that date.
Watch the informal demo: Using PPM to Track Faculty Projects
(Please note: This is an informational video with visuals from a non-production Oracle environment. This is not designed to be training.)
How do we track temporary teaching?
Temporary Teaching is tracked using the Temp Teaching Activity value – 300101.
• If additional detail is needed, departments can use a PPM Department project.
– Separate tasks can be created for each course.
– Be sure to use the Temp Teaching Activity value for anything related to temp teaching.

Watch the informal demo: Using PPM to Track Course Expenses
(Please note: This is an informational video with visuals from a non-production Oracle environment. This is not designed to be training.)
How do we track Student Orgs?
Student Organizations can be tracked using Activity values.
At the Parent 1 Level, units will find activity categories including:
• 81000B - Student Academic and Special Interest Clubs
• 82000B - Student Academic and Special international Clubs

Watch a walk-through example of Tracking Student Orgs Using Activity
How do we track Course Materials Fees?
Course Materials Fees will be tracked using a GL-only project for each course.
These GL Project values will be structured as:
• Beginning characters: GL
• Secondary characters: CMF
• Value descriptions will include the course number and name
• Example: GLCMF00004 – ANS 2 Introductory Animal Science

Download the Project Value Guide (GL-only) for value logic for the different types of GL-only Projects.
How do we capture Bench fees?
There are specific CoA values for tracking bench fees:
• Fund: 50000 - Bench funds
– All bench fees should be assigned this value

• Activity: 202081 - Bench fees
If the bench fees are part of an existing faculty member’s portfolio, they will be captured as a task in that Faculty Project.

If they are not part of a Faculty Project, they can be captured in the General Ledger, or units can choose to capture small and/or short-term bench fees as part of a Department Project for more detailed tracking.
How do we track Summer Sessions?

Activity values for each term, including Summer Sessions, have been added under Parent 1 – 20040B: Academic Terms

Example:

Activity
Parent 2	Parent 1	Child/ Posting	Description
	20040B		Academic Terms
		202401	Winter Quarter 2024
		202402	Spring Semester 2024
		202403	Spring Quarter 2024
		202404	Summer Semester 2024
		202405	Summer Session 1 2024
		202406	Summer Quarter Special Summer Session 2024
		202407	Summer Session 2 2024
		202408	Summer Quarter 2024
		202409	Fall Semester 2024
		202410	Fall Quarter 2024

How do we track Student Fellowships and Student Awards?
Guidance for this is split into two scenarios.
1. Payment of an Award directly to a student:
• Paid through the General Ledger (GL)
– Exceptions: The source is a Sponsored Project
The source is an allocation from a PPM Faculty Project
1. 2. The student is being allocated funds (e.g., travel, research, etc.)
• Will always be through PPM, using POET(AF) chart string.
• Allocations may come from one of three sources:
– Sponsored Project: The student can charge the project directly.
– Department PPM Project: Units will create a new Task for each allocation.
– Faculty PPM Project: Units will create a new Task for each allocation.
How do we track Student competitions?

For small events, the GL Project value set includes several generic values that can be used by any unit in conjunction with their Financial Department values, and the other segments of the GL chart string.

• When units use these values, the details of how they are using them will need to be tracked
outside of the Aggie Enterprise system.

Example:

Project
Parent 2	Parent 1	Child	Description
GLG000000A			General Ledger Only Projects
	GLPEV0000A		GL Only Projects University Events and Operations
		GLEVENT001	GL EVENT Project 1
		GLEVENT002	GL EVENT Project 2
		GLEVENT003	GL EVENT Project 3
		GLEVENT004	GL EVENT Project 4
		GLEVENT005	GL EVENT Project 5
		GLEVENT006	GL EVENT Project 6
		GLEVENT007	GL EVENT Project 7
		GLEVENT008	GL EVENT Project 8
		GLEVENT009	GL EVENT Project 9
		GLEVENT010	GL EVENT Project 10
		GLSEMNAR01	GL Seminar Project 1
		GLSEMNAR02	GL Seminar Project 2
		GLSEMNAR03	GL Seminar Project 3

How do we track Procurement Card/ Travel Card usage and clearing when multiple staff in a unit have cards?
UC Davis continues to use AggieExpense (Concur) to document and reconcile P-Card and Travel Card expenses. AggieExpense integrate with Aggie Enterprise as a boundary system.
• Note: The default account in AggieExpense can only be a GL CoA chart string, not a PPM POET string.

In Aggie Enterprise, at the GL level, units will see the summary of total expenses. GLIDE will show line-by-line detail for entries, including those that have been reconciled and those that haven’t.
• The GLIDE report will include:
– The default CoA chart string
– Traveler name
– Pcard vs. Travel card, and the last 4 digits of the card number
– Merchant information
– Expense report name

Supply Chain is creating a reconciliation guide for this process, which will be available pre-go-live.

Explore the GLIDE Reporting Demo materials for an overview of the General Ledger Interface Details Engine (GLIDE) reporting tool.
How do we track Dean’s office funded activities?

In the General Ledger:
• Each faculty will have a GL-only Project. This project can be used to track their leadership funds.
– Faculty-managed resources will still be captured in their PPM Faculty Projects.

In Project Portfolio Management (PPM):

• Some units are planning to use a PPM Department Project with the Dean’s Office as the
Project Owning Organization, with Tasks for each of the Dean’s, Associate Deans, etc. that they
are tracking.

• Activity values will also support tracking. (Ex: Leadership Support Dean, Leadership Support Associate Dean, etc.)

Activity
Parent 2	Parent 1	Child/ Posting	Description
	20201B		Funding Allocations
		202087	Leadership Support Assistant Dean
		202088	Leadership Support Associate Dean 1
		202089	Leadership Support Associate Dean 2
		202090	Leadership Support Associate Dean 3
		202091	Leadership Support Associate Dean 4
		202092	Leadership Support Dean
		202093	Leadership Support Executive Associate Dean

How do we track Administrative Coordinating Council of Deans (ACCD) initiatives?
If Office of Research (OR) wants to track which initiatives they are transferring funds for, OR-ACCD staff can request a GL-only Project value and include this value in the debit chart string. They can also include the ACCD Activity value.

Recipients will provide OR (and other contributing units) with the destination chart string (typically a PPM Project) to transfer the funds to. This is similar to the current-state process.
How do we track gift and endowment fund purposes and restrictions?
There is a Descriptive Flex Field (DFF) that can be used to document restrictions (e.g., "only for geriatric research").

This information will also be pulled into the Cognos Chart of Accounts segment report. An enhancement is in development to allow users to search/ filter the report by restriction.

UCPath

What changes were introduced to the Cognos reports as a result of the Aggie Enterprise implementation?
The Cognos 339 and 391 reports were updated to accommodate the new Chart of Accounts and POET(AF).
There are separate versions of the reports for looking at historical data that uses the former KFS FAU, and for looking at data that uses the current CoA/ POET(AF) chart strings. To compare data from before and after the adoption of the Chart of Accounts users will need to run the two separate reports; they cannot be combined into a single report.
Will we still have access to historical data in Cognos?
Yes, historical data from September 2019 (UCPath go-live) through the December 2023 accounting period, is available in Cognos. This historical data will be maintained in the former KFS FAU format.