The following information from DFA appeared in the Nov. 12 Research Newsletter.
Procurement
The CBS2 team has focused on training our new hires this week. As a result, tickets are holding steady relative to last week, but we anticipate a reduction soon with the addition our new hires, and some of the new team members are already actively processing tickets within the system. Should you work with one of the new members please be sure to welcome them to UCM. The largest number of tickets are in our travel and reimbursement area, which comprises approximately 43% of our entire ticket backlog. This was anticipated, as we had to reduce the staffing in this area to reduce the research ticket backlog. The new staff will soon help provide bandwidth to reduce these tickets as well.
This said, we have been able to maintain our priority in focusing on supporting research purchases and the ticket numbers are approximately 17% of our backlog and significantly lower than they were a month ago. We encourage everyone to continue to meet with your local CBS2 support staff to assist with your purchasing and to facilitate training of the self-service portal in Oracle. This includes reaching out to them via MS Teams for existing purchasing tickets or requesting them to meet with you in your office or lab for in-person support. These resources are under-utilized, and the team is eager to support your needs. Self-service remains (and will remain) the fastest way to procure your critical research needs. The CBS2 team can help you better understand how to use self-service as well as the alternative ServiceNow portal.
Financial
The DFA team initiated training Nov. 10 to support your RA’s use of the Oracle system. Training will continue over the next few weeks as we partner with the Office of Research and Economic Development (ORED) on the support of your contracts and grants. Work on the Oracle Data Integrity Project continues. This work has highlighted the need for users to ensure that you provide your COA and POET information for all financial transactions under your contracts and grants. If this information is not provided the balances within your contracts and grants will be inaccurate. Therefore, it is imperative that we partner together to ensure that is information is provided accurately so that your RAs can best support your contract and grant’s management.
