FAQ: Special Topics

FAQ: Special Topics

Topics

Faculty 
Tracking Guidance
UCPath

Faculty

Leading up to go-live:
  • What resources are available to support faculty with the Aggie Enterprise transition?
  • An Aggie Enterprise Faculty forum was hosted on October 20, 2023, covering important project dates, day-in-the-life scenarios, and resources to support faculty in this transition. The session recording is available for those who were not able to attend live.

    At-a-glance details about key faculty impacts are outlined in the Aggie Enterprise Faculty Quick Reference Guide. The resource section of the guide links to the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) webpage for those interested in learning more about the PPM subledger functionality.

    Units are also encouraged to leverage the fillable take-away document. Designed for department staff to customize for individual faculty, this fillable document helps guide conversations between faculty and department staff about Aggie Enterprise. Content covers project deadlines, new chart strings, and who to contact with questions.
  • When is the last day I can make a purchase in Kuali (KFS)?
  • The last day to create new Requisitions and Purchase Agreements in KFS is Wednesday, November 22, 2023. All KFS Requisitions and Purchase Agreements must be submitted by 5:00pm.

    We recommend asking your department staff about any internal deadlines that may precede the campus-wide deadlines
  • When is the last day I can make a purchase in AggieBuy?
  • The last day to submit and approve AggieBuy purchases is December 8, 2023. All AggieBuy requisitions must be approved by 5:00pm. We recommend asking your department staff about any internal deadlines that may precede the campus-wide deadlines.

    AggieBuy is being replaced by Aggie Enterprise. Beginning January 4, 2024, Aggie Enterprise will be used for purchasing items from catalog suppliers, purchasing against university agreements, and creating non-catalog and non-agreement orders.
  • What if I need to make an emergency purchase during cutover?
  • During cutover in November and December, when some Supply Chain Management systems and processes will be unavailable or limited, units can continue to use the Procurement Card for supply purchases below $10,000 (excluding capital assets). We recommend identifying your department’s Procurement Cardholders to help ensure access to delegated purchasing during the downtime.

    The AggieSupply Stores (Scientific Store, MRO, Chemistry Store) will be available for in-store shopping during the system downtime, with the exception of the last week of December (December 25, 2023 through January 1, 2024).

    If there is a need for purchasing items that exceed a total of $10,000, capital assets, and most services,
    Procurement & Contracting Services will be able to assist as needed. A Cutover Emergency Purchase Order Request Form will be available effective November 22, 2023.
  • When is the last day I can submit an expense report before the AggieExpense freeze?

  • The last day to submit an expense report in AggieExpense, using the KFS FAU, is Thursday, December 14, 2023. After this time, no new expense/reconciliation reports can be created in AggieExpense until the system becomes available again on January 15, 2024. 

    Travel booking, including airline/lodging/hotel reservations can continue to be made in AggieExpense during this time. 

    Expense reconciliation and report deadlines will be extended for transactions that post between mid-December and mid-January, beyond the usual timelines.  Tax Reporting & Compliance will extend the usual 60-day deadline to 90-days for expense reconciliation. 

  • I have a grant that is due during cutover. Will the transition to Aggie Enterprise effect Cayuse and grant submission?
  • You can still submit proposals during cutover. It is only the financial processes that are going to be affected by the transition to Aggie enterprise.
  • What can I do now to prepare for Aggie Enterprise?

  • Connect with your department staff:

    Investing time in account cleanup in KFS will help ensure a smooth transition to Aggie Enterprise. Faculty are encouraged to work with business office staff in their schools and colleges to:

           • Spend down small balances
           • Clear negative budgets (by Nov 21, 2023)
           • Address overdrafts and encumbrances (by Dec 1, 2023)

    A fillable take-away form is available to provide key information, unique to your department’s business practices and your portfolio of funding. Meet with department staff to understand internal deadlines, your new chart strings, and who to contact with questions.

    Plan ahead for Purchasing:

    We recommend purchasing ahead or stocking up on select items. Purchase the following ahead of time in AggieBuy or KFS, whenever possible and practical:

           • Class and Lab Supplies for Winter Quarter 2024
           • Office Supplies
           • Cleaning and Maintenance Supplies
           • Animal Feed
           • Medical Supplies
           • Controlled Substances (Note current supply chain issues)
           • Any other purchases that are normally made in November or December

    In addition, we recommend identifying your department’s Procurement Cardholders to help ensure access to delegated purchasing during the downtime

    Explore Training Resources:
    Faculty are not required to participate in training, but if you are interested in learning more, visit the Aggie Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (PPM) webpage for how-to videos, job aids and self-paced training.

After go-live:
  • What is the character length for the new 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.

    Please connect with your department staff to understand how your KFS Accounts have been translated to the new CoA and POET(AF) values.
  • Will I be able to see all of my available funds at go-live?
  • At go-live, Aggie Enterprise will show funding as of November close.
           • For internal projects, the budget visible will show unspent balances.
           • For sponsored projects, the total budget, total commitments and expenditures will be available.

    Expenses incurred in December will be loaded into Aggie Enterprise in mid-to-late January, following
    December close.
  • How will 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.
  • Will I be 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. 
  • Will the "burden"/ Indirect Cost Rate (ICR) on commitments show  under commitments or expenses?
  • The "burden"/ ICR on the commitments will appear under commitments.
  • How will 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 will I approve sub-award invoices?
  • Aggie Enterprise will standardize and streamline the PI approval process. After review and approval by the fiscal officer, the system will automatically route the approval request to the PI via email notification The PI approval can be completed directly in the email.

    An Aggie Enterprise report, under development, will allow department fiscal officers to see invoices awaiting approval.
  • Who approves Sponsored Project budgets in PPM?
  • Once the budget is entered by Contract and Grants Accounting (CGA) and submitted, it will require the approval of the department project manager.

Tracking Guidance

Answering questions about how to track specific information in the new system, with the new chart strings.

  • How will 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 will we track Faculty start-up in a way that makes it easily visible to Faculty?

  • Departments will 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 will we track temporary teaching?

  • Temporary Teaching will be 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 will 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 will 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 will 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 will 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 will 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 will 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 will we track Pcard/ Travel card usage and clearing when multiple staff in a unit have cards?

  • UC Davis will continue to use AggieExpense (Concur) to document and reconcile Pcard and Travel card expenses. AggieExpense will 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 Detail Entries (GLIDE) reporting tool.

  • How will 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 will 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 will 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

  • How does the Aggie Enterprise business transformation initiative impact UCPath transactors?

  • As the payroll system of record and a boundary system to Aggie Enterprise, UCPath will be reconfigured from the Full Accounting Unit (FAU) to align with the new “language” of the Chart of Accounts and POET(AF) strings.

    This reconfiguration will impact:
           • Funding distribution entries in UCPath
           • Salary Cost Transfers (SCT)
           •     Funding overrides
           •     Cognos reporting fields
           • AggieService ticket fields

    UCPath transactors will need to understand the CoA and POET(AF) structures when the UCPath system goes live with these changes on January 8, 2024.

    UCPath functionality will remain unchanged.

  • How will funding in UCPath be updated to the new CoA/ POET(AF)? Will UCPath transactors be required to make these updates?

  • The initial mapping of current and future-dated funding will be completed by the Central Office, using a mapping tool and a “snapshot” of funding in UCPath as of November 20th. UCPath transactors are encouraged to complete any known funding entry changes by 5:00pm, in order to be captured in this mapping.

    Units will have an opportunity to review and validate the mapping before the Central Office uploads it into the UCPath system.

    The mapping snapshot will include:
           •  The latest effective dated funding row that is not dated after:
                     -     12/24/23 (for bi-weekly)
                     - 01/01/24 (for monthly)   

    The mapping snapshot will not include:
           •  Future dated funding effective after the dates above.
           •  New hires hired after November 20, 2023  

    Users can continue to update Funding Entry distributions until December 19th.  For funding entries processed between November 21st and December 19th, funding must be entered using the current FAU format. When the system goes live on January 8th, departments will need to process a funding entry update to change these distributions to the new Chart of Accounts format.

  • What changes should users expect around Cognos reports?

  • The Cognos 339 and 391 reports are being updated to accommodate the new Chart of Accounts and POET(AF). Users will see different columns for those new values on the reports, and the search page will be updated to include CoA and POET(AF) fields in the search parameters.

    There will be separate versions of the reports for looking at historical data that uses the KFS FAU, and for looking at data that uses the new 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, will be available in Cognos. This historical data will be maintained in the KFS FAU format.
  • What kind of support will there be for UCPath transactors?

  • An Aggie Enterprise UCPath forum is in development for November 2023, focused on preparing UCPath transactors for upcoming changes, and providing resources to support a successful transition. This forum will include an introduction to a funding entry support tool, Segmentor, which is being developed to help users build Chart of Accounts and POET strings.

    In addition, a full review of UCPath GL training materials has been completed, with updated and new eLearning courses in development. 

    UCPath transactors will continue to use existing support channels for questions. Planning is underway for hypercare support during the first few months following go-live; additional details will be shared as these plans are finalized.

  • When will the payroll processing change from the KFS FAU to the new Chart of Accounts?

  • The final pay cycles charging to the KFS FAU will be:
           • Bi-weekly PPE 12/23/2023
           •     Monthly PPE 12/31/2023

    The first pay cycles charging to the new CoA will be:
           •     Bi-weekly PPE 01/06/24
                   Note:     This entire pay period will charge to the new Chart of Accounts, including working
                   dates from December 24 – 31.
           • Monthly PPM 01/31/24