Business Mileage Rate Change

The IRS announced changes in the standard business mileage rates for the calendar year 2018. Beginning January 1, 2018, the standard business mileage reimbursement rate for personal vehicle use on approved University business will increase from 53.5 cents to 54.5 cents per mile. The standard mileage rate for moving expenses will be 18 cents per mile as non-taxable and the remaining 36.5 cents per mile as taxable. Business mileage incurred in 2017 but reimbursed in 2018 should be reimbursed using the 2017 mileage rates. The Employee Expense Worksheet (UM1612) and the Moving/Relocation Expense Documentation Form (UM 1357) are being updated to reflect the changes in the mileage rates.

1099 Reporting for Payments processed outside of EFS Accounts Payable

We need your help! IRS regulations require the University to report payments to non-University employees totaling $600 or greater during a calendar year. Please review your unit’s AP activity. Some departments may have used one or more of the methods below to pay non-employees $600 or more without gathering W-9s (including but not limited to):

• cash disbursed through cash advances
• gift cards from Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover
• reloadable prepaid debit cards (ClinCard)
• store gift cards
• gifts
• payments made via SPV (not allowed for payments of $600 or more)
• zero balance account (ZBA) checks

For those non-employees who received or exceeded the $600 reporting threshold, please obtain a W-9, which should include the payee’s name used on their tax return, address, and Social Security Number. Note: This does not apply to regular vouchers that were entered for those who have supplier IDs in EFS. That information is already captured in EFS. Starting this year, Accounting Services is using Secure Box Storage technology for submitting W-9s. Social Security Numbers are classified as private, highly restricted information, and this cloud storage can provide the required level of security. Accounting Services will create a secure folder for your research study/project and share the folder with your designated staff member. To request a folder, contact the University Financial Helpline 612-624-1617 or controller@umn.edu. To share the secure folder, the designated staff member must create an account with Box Secure Storage: https://it.umn.edu/technology/box-secure-storage. 1-HELP can assist with any Box Secure Storage issues or questions. 

What can you do to make this process easier next year?

Use the University’s prepaid debit card program (ClinCard), ensuring tax identification, address, and legal name is collected and stored securely. Or use the regular voucher process to pay non-employees (including setting up a supplier code) any time there is a possibility the individual will be paid $600 or more in a calendar year.

• Open POs for The Commons Hotel are still valid. You will see on those open orders that the supplier name has been updated to Graduate Minneapolis. No action is needed.
• Search EFS for Graduate Minneapolis instead of The Commons Hotel. (You will no longer find "The Commons Hotel" in EFS.)
• Invoices may continue to say "The Commons Hotel" for a brief period--pay Graduate Minneapolis instead.
• The U-Wide contract remains the same, though the name of the hotel has been updated.

Expense Reports Not Processed

Due to a delay in the overnight processes, expense report transactions may be delayed. Our team is working on the issue and will communicate updates as appropriate.

Payroll Accounting Improvements to Retro Distributions

By recommendation of the Payroll Accounting Work Group, several changes have been made to improve the readability of the UM Retro Review/Approval page:

1. The transactions are now summarized by default. The reviewer/approver will be able to easily see where the overall earnings started, where they went, and the specific pay begin/end dates for each earnings row.
2. 
   
3. Users will still have the option to switch to a detailed view, if desired. The ordering on this page has also been improved to make the transactions easier to follow.
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5. A 'View Retro Entry' link has been added. This link displays a popup window which replicates the look and feel of the retro when it was entered by the preparer.
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7. A 'Credit Total' and 'Debit Total' have been added to the bottom of the page.

Updated Job Aid "Billing for Sponsored Project Income"

The new updated job aid can be found on the Accounts Receivable Billing webpage.

ALL

11:20 a.m.
Residual extreme slowness in EFS seems to have cleared. Thank you all for your patience!

9:25 a.m.
Production EFS is again available, as of 9:25 a.m. Please be patient, as screens may take slightly longer to load for a period of time.

Earlier today:
There have been widespread reports about people being unable to access production EFS, or getting hung up/kicked out if they were able to access the system. System support staff are investigating. Reporting instance IS available.

My Wallet Detail Page – Saving Information 
The Return to My Wallet link on the My Wallet Detail page has been made more prominent and renamed as Save and Return to My Wallet. People were often clicking the Return to Searchbutton instead to save their updated transactions, since the other link was not as obvious. 

[RESOLVED] Landline DUO verification intermittent

Due to the Telephone Services issue reported this morning, incoming calls to landline University phones remains spotty, including verification calls from DUO.

The Peoplesoft system does remain accessible.

A temporarily workaround is to push DUO verifications to a personal cell phone.

Instructions can be found here: https://it.umn.edu/self-help-guide/duo-setup-use-two-factor-authentication-0

[RESOLVED] EFS Helpline Phone is Down

The EFS Helpline's phone system is down as of this morning. Please contact us by emailing controller@umn.edu. We are working with our colleagues in OIT to resolve the issue. We apologize for the inconvience.

Requisitions and Purchase Orders
Resolved: the issue that was stopping requisitions and purchase orders (POs) from dispatching to suppliers has been resolved. The regularly scheduled procurement jobs that source requisitions to POs and then dispatch the POs to suppliers are again running. Thank you for your patience.

[RESOLVED] Dear Community,

On Monday, September 25, MyU and PeopleSoft systems became unavailable or significantly degraded due to hardware issues in our primary data center. OIT technicians migrated systems to our secondary data center in order to restore functionality. While we have confidence that a majority of reported problems are resolved and users can resume their normal operations, teams are monitoring systems closely and resolving reported incidents. Your patience and partnership has been invaluable, and we thank you for your support.

More work remains. Our technicians continue to work with our vendor to address the hardware issues in the primary datacenter. When those tasks are complete, we will need to transition the MyU and PeopleSoft systems back to our primary data center. Our planning is being done in conjunction with key University business partners and with extreme sensitivity to minimizing disruption to your work and studies.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Report any issues you encounter to Technology Help (612-301-4357, help@umn.edu).

Visit the University’s Service Status page for updates. Please share this message with your user communities as appropriate.

Thank you,

Steve Nguyen, Service Owner, Collaboration & Web Content Services
David Imdieke, Service Owner, Student Administration Services
Ruth Dodson, Service Owner, Finance Administration Services
KT Cragg, Interim Service Owner, HR Administration Services

[RESOLVED] Payroll Accounting Processing Delays

Direct retro distributions entered and approved since Sunday, September 24 will be processed this morning between 11am and 12pm. These will be posted to the General Ledger this evening and available on UM Reports tomorrow.

There are no daily payroll encumbrance adjustments since Sunday, September 24. The biweekly run for the September 17 pay end date is scheduled to run tonight. Payroll encumbrance data will be available in reporting tomorrow morning per the usual schedule.

All direct retro distribution and payroll encumbrance data on UM Reports are current as of Saturday, September 23.

[RESOLVED] Residual Intermittent Peoplesoft Issues

The outage in the PeopleSoft systems yesterday have, for the most part, been resolved. Systems were restored as of approximately 1:35 am as indicated in the forwarded message below. This morning users in the systems are experiencing some inconsistent issues.

• Errors on log in - Most users are able to log in or have been able to do so on a subsequent attempt
• File attachments - In several areas of the system file attachments are not working
• Report output not posting to report manager - Includes Expense Reports, Payroll Verification Reports, and others.

Technicians are aware of these issues and are working to resolve them as quickly as possible.

If you experience any issues, please attempt to log out and clear your browser cache and cookies before attempting again.

If the issues persist after clearing the browser's cache, please contact the EFS helpline at 613-624-1617 or by emailing controller@umn.edu.

Reporting data in either FSRPT, DWEF and or UM Analytics will be as of 12:00 AM Monday, September 25th. Our reporting batch processing is scheduled to run again this evening and should be caught up by start of business Wednesday, September 27th.

An updated message will be coming later in the day on the status of any remaining issues.

EFS Module Support

Forwarded message from OIT from 1:59 AM 9/26/2017

Dear Community,

MyU and PeopleSoft, which became unavailable at approximately 8 a.m., Monday, 9/25, have been restored system-wide as of 1:35 a.m on Tuesday 9/26.

A full post-mortem analysis will be forthcoming. (Note: non-production PeopleSoft systems are unavailable until restart plans can be finalized.)

We realize that this outage has been disruptive to your work. We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience and thank you for your patience. Please share this message with your user communities as appropriate.

Best,

Steve Nguyen, Service Owner, Collaboration & Web Content Services

David Imdieke, Service Owner, Student Administration Services

Ruth Dodson, Service Owner, Finance Administration Services

KT Cragg, Interim Service Owner, HR Administration Services

Budget bevelopment worksheet: change calculation
The format of the budget development worksheet has been reorganized to improve clarity. It otherwise operates the same way it has in the past. The carryforward balance has been moved to the top of the page, and the O&M allocation has been moved to the resources section. The same data is reflected on the worksheet, only the organization of the rows has changed. More information about the columns and totals will be included in the Budget Instructions.

Project Budget Detail page improvements

Navigation: Grants > Awards > Project Budgets 
Budget Detail Page

Additional helpful information has been added to the “Project Budget Summary” section on this page:

• Finalized Sponsor Direct (sum of all direct budget rows that have been finalized)
• Finalized Sponsor Indirect (sum of all Indirect – F&A budget rows that have been finalized)
• Total Finalized Sponsor Budget (sum of finalized sponsor direct and indirect budget rows)
• Total Finalized Cost Share (sum of all cost share budget rows that have been finalized)
• Pending Sponsor Direct (sum of all direct budget rows that have not been finalized)
• Pending Sponsor Indirect (sum of all Indirect – F&A budget rows that have not been finalized)
• Pending Total Sponsor Budget (sum of pending sponsor direct and pending sponsor indirect fields or the total of the un-finalized sponsor budget rows)
• Pending Cost Share (sum of all cost share budget rows that have not been finalized)

A “Recalculate” pushbutton has been added to the page that will recalculate all budget rows entered but not yet finalized, and update the amounts displayed in the appropriate field of the new Pending Amounts section of the Project Budget Summary. This is an on-page amount calculation only. No change is saved to the database with this pushbutton. 

It is important to note that the “Save” pushbutton will both save the data and recalculate the Project Budget Summary amounts.

The “Budget Amounts for Period” grid has also been updated to provide additional functionality and information:

• A new Copy column and icon have been added directly following the Justification column. This icon appears in the 2nd column of the grid. When selected, a new budget row will be added to the grid that contains the Fund code, DeptID, Program code, Activity, Analysis Type, FinEmplID, Chartfield1, Chartfield2, Budget Ref, and Cost Sharing checkbox from the row the icon was selected on. 
• The lookup on the Budget Item now displays the Account value in the search results.
• A new “Entered By” column has been added on the far right of the grid. This field will show the OprID (Internet ID) of the person that initially entered and saved the budget row. If the budget row was created by the Generate Award process, the field will remain empty until a save is completed on the page.
• A new “Updated By” column has been added to the grid directly following the new Entered By column on the far right. This field will display the OprID (Internet ID) of the last person that saved a change on a particular budget row.

Position Budgeting Distribution Detail and Position Budgeting Distribution Summary

These two finance reports were modified to correct a bug in which the RRC/ZDeptID prompt path was using the Finance RRC and ZDeptID but filtering data returned on the report based on the HR Budget DeptID. In order to correct this, the RRC/ZDeptID prompt path was updated to filter data based on the Finance Distribution DeptID.

Please Note: The ability to run either report by HR DeptID without a ZDeptID remains as an option on each of the reports by using the alternate prompting path.

[RESOLVED] NOON UPDATE Financial Reporting: The EFS Reporting system and Finance UM Reports will be unavailable while technical teams resolve the reporting systems issue. 

As of noon today: Resolution is expected to take approximately 5 - 6 hours. During this time Financial UM Reports will be UNAVAILABLE. Data warehouses, UM Analytics, and HR/Student UM Reports will be available but will continue to reflect data from end of day on Monday, August 21. Data updates to data warehouses, UM Analytics and UM Reports are expected to be resolved with data warehouse loads on Friday, August 25. Visit the University’s Service Status page for updates. ServiceNow users can refer to PRB0045005 for more information.

Earlier today we posted:

The clone of data from EFS production environment (FSPRD) to the financial reporting environment (FSRPT) is having issues completing. Because of this, UM Reports, data warehouse FS_PS tables, EFS query tree, PS_UMR tables, and UM Analytics may be missing data posted in EFS on August 22, 2017 and August 23, 2017. Data is current in the identified sources as of Monday, August 21, 2017. System support staff are working to resolve the issues but have no ETA for resolution. Messages will be issued/updated as status updates becomes available. 

Sorry for the inconvenience this may be causing.

EFS Procurement Users
Yesterday during the 4:00 pm PO batch processing, the budget check job for Purchase Orders did not complete successfully. EFS Module Support is working to resolve this issue but we wanted to give you an update to allow people to continue business as needed. The current status is:

• POs in this batch have not completed budget check and were not dispatched to suppliers
• Today’s batch budget check processing is on hold until this problem has been resolved

In order to process a new PO today, Procurement Specialists will need to budget check the requisition and the PO manually. Please follow the steps below to complete this process as needed:

1. Create Requisition (Req Preparer)
2. Approve Requisition (Approvers)
3. Budget Check the Requisition (Procurement Specialist)
4. Wait for the normally scheduled job to source the PO or Procurement Specialist may expedite (Batch, Procurement Specialist)
5. Budget Check the PO or PO Change Order (Procurement Specialist)
6. Wait for the normally scheduled job to dispatch the PO or Procurement Specialist may dispatch the PO manually (Batch, Procurement Specialist)

The normally scheduled jobs run at 10 am, 1 pm, 3 pm, and 4 pm. Purchasing Services will be sending out additional job aid information on these tasks directly to Procurement Specialists soon.

NEW Productivity Queries: Nine additional productivity queries have been created and are available using the Query Viewer in the Reporting Instance of EFS. The queries can assist departments in monitoring workloads for preparers and approvers for the following transactions:

Expense Reports

• UM_EX_ER_COUNT_APPROVER_DEPT  
• UM_EX_ER_COUNT_APPROVER_RRC  
• UM_EX_ER_COUNT_PREPARER_DEPT  
• UM_EX_ER_COUNT_PREPARER_RRC  

Vouchers

• UM_AP_VCHR_COUNT_APPROVER  
• UM_AP_VCHR_COUNT_PREPARER  

Requisitions and PO Change Orders

• UM_PO_REQ_COUNT_APPROVER  
• UM_PO_REQ_COUNT_REQUESTER 
• UM_PO_CHNGORDER_COUNT_APPROVE

These new queries supplement the existing productivity queries that count only preparer activity:

• UM_PRODUCTIVITY_ER_FY
• UM_PRODUCTIVITY_PO_FY
• UM_PRODUCTIVITY_REQ_FY
• UM_PRODUCTIVITY_VCHR_FY
• UM_PRODUCTIVITY_TA_FY
• UM_PRODUCTIVITY_CA_FY
• UM_PRODUCTIVITY_JE_FY
• UM_PRODUCTIVITY_BI_FY

PCard: Updated transaction detail display for expense preparers 
Expense preparers can now view information provided by the cardholder without having to click into each PCard transaction individually. Two fields have been added to the expense preparer view: Additional Details(justification) and Attachments. 
Navigation: Employee Self -Service > Travel and Expenses > Expense Reports > Create/Modify, and click on the My Wallet link.

RESOLVED: Daily payroll encumbrances delayed into UM Reports

Performance of the payroll encumbrance calculation process issues have been resolved. There is no longer a one-day delay for all daily payroll encumbrances being brought into UM reports. As always, updated payroll encumbrance data is available within HRMS via the online inquires UM Encumbering by Combo Code or UM Encumbering by Employee ID. Navigation in HRMS: UM Payroll Accounting > UM Encumbering

Due to system processing delays, biweekly payroll encumbrances processed on Wednesday night will not be available on financial reports until tomorrow August 4th.  Payroll encumbrances on financial reports are current through Friday, July 29th.

August 2 6:30 a.m. update
At 11:15 p.m. on Monday, July 31, the University’s primary data center experienced a sudden power outage resulting in many systems becoming unavailable including MyU/PeopleSoft. As of Tuesday evening, August 1, MyU/PeopleSoft data was restored to the same point it was at when the power went out at 11:15 p.m. Monday. Any work performed in the Enterprise Financial System (EFS, PeopleSoft Financials) after 11:15 p.m. on Monday, July 31, will have to be re-done.

Release notes, changes made over the weekend

Purchasing: Contract Administrator link on the Maintain Purchase Order page
Prior to the change, the Contract Administrator's information could not be updated once the requisition sourced to a PO. Procurement specialists can now click on the new Contract Administrator hyperlink when processing a CPS-related PO change order to switch the Contract Administrator to another employee or update the existing Contract Administrator's information on the CPS contract.

Purchasing: People are now able to see a voucher’s associated receipt(s) on one of the most commonly used Purchase Order (PO) inquiry pages: the PO Interface Inquiry page. This will be helpful to when reconciling blanket and CPS-related POs that have many receipts and vouchers. Navigation: Accounts Payable>Review Accounts Payable Info>Interfaces>Purchase Order

Accounts Receivable/Billing: The Accounts Receivable Item List page has been modified so the Customer Name displayed next to the Customer ID field will no longer wrap to multiple lines. Navigation: Accounts Receivable > Customer Accounts > Item Information > Item List 

Grants, Projects, Contracts: Several changes to the Notice of Grant Award (NOGA)  have been made, including: Improved formatting for greater definition and clarity; addition of new fields  fund code, function, contract administrator, project team, and long title; new messages have been added to direct the reader to appropriate resources if key information is missing from the NOGA (for example, no billing specialist listed, no Fund entered). Navigation: Grants > Awards > UM Noga Report 

Payroll Accounting Distributions: Review UM Inactive Combo Codes Report

Starting at 1:00 p.m. on Monday, July 24 all FY17 non-sponsored combo codes will be deactivated after the close of period 913. Departments will have until 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 27 to make distribution corrections or submit budget journals in EFS to activate needed combo codes. This will prevent salary and fringe payroll transactions from hitting departmental default strings (program 21853) for the July 23 pay end date.

Reporting impact on July 30

There will be an impact to the freshness of the data warehouses and associated reporting in UM Reports, UM Analytics, and Web Query Tool on Sunday, July 30. Reports will be available but will reflect data as of Friday 7/28. Neither the legacy data warehouse or the Enterprise data warehouse will be refreshed that day. Finance, HR, and Student reports will be impacted on July 30. Again, reports will be available but will reflect data as of Friday 7/28.

FIXED: The Reporting Center run was successful last night. 

The reports are now correct. The data within the reports is as of Wednesday, 7/12/17.

A change was implemented in the Standard Billings Module this morning. 

EFS will display 25 bill lines per group now. The old display limit was 10 per group. If more than 25 bill lines are present, the buttons near the top of the line tab can be used to display the next group of bill lines.

The Period 12 deadlines will remain as published - closing tomorrow morning.  Period 913 will be open at 7:00 am tomorrow morning. We are aware of the issues caused by UMReports and are reviewing the Period 913 deadlines. Thanks for your patience.

FIXED: Reporting Center and FY18 accounts

Non-sponsored FY18 budget data is now being displayed in the Reporting Center as it should.

Fiscal year-end reminders!

Today is the last check run until July 3--all invoices with a due date of July 5, 2017 and earlier will be paid today. There are a number of other important transaction processing deadlines this week. Be sure to check all the deadlines for system processing on the fiscal year-end calendar.

Fiscal year-end: Sponsored payroll encumbering
In past years, on the last pay date of the fiscal year, all payroll encumbering was suspended until the start of the new year on July 1. This procedure is followed to facilitate the closing of the fiscal year for non-sponsored chartstrings, but it results in a short gap where no sponsored payroll encumbering data is visible on financial reports. As recommended by the Payroll Accounting work group, enhancements have been made which will allow sponsored payroll encumbrances to continue during this period. On June 21, only non-sponsored and cost-share payroll encumbrances will be zeroed out. Payroll encumbrances for sponsored chartstrings will continue to be available on reports throughout the fiscal year transition. All non-sponsored and cost-share payroll encumbering will resume on July 1. Reminder: No daily payroll encumbrance adjustments will be available between June 21 and July 7. 

Changes to undergraduate fringe charges
Currently, an employee's primary job determines whether they are eligible for fringe charges. While undergraduate job records are not typically assessed fringe, this will still occur if an undergrad employee has a primary job record that is fringe-eligible. As recommended by the Payroll Accounting work group, enhancements have been implemented which will ensure that no fringe is charged to a job record with an employee class of 'UND', regardless of primary job setting. This change will begin with the first pay period in fiscal year 2018 (pay end date 06/25/17).

Fiscal year-end reminders!

Today is the last check run until July 3--all invoices with a due date of July 5, 2017 and earlier will be paid today. There are a number of other important transaction processing deadlines this week. Be sure to check all the deadlines for system processing on the fiscal year-end calendar.

Fiscal year end: Sponsored payroll encumbering
In past years, on the last pay date of the fiscal year, all payroll encumbering was suspended until the start of the new year on July 1st. This procedure is followed to facilitate the closing of the fiscal year for non-sponsored chartstrings, but it results in a short gap where no sponsored payroll encumbering data is visible to users on financial reports.

As recommended by the Payroll Accounting work group, enhancements have been made which will allow sponsored payroll encumbrances to continue during this period. On June 21st, only non-sponsored and cost-share payroll encumbrances will be zeroed out.  Payroll encumbrances for sponsored chartstrings will continue to be available on reports throughout the fiscal year transition. All non-sponsored and cost-share payroll encumbering will resume on July 1st.  

Reminder:  No daily payroll encumbrance adjustments will be available between June 21st and July 7th. 

Changes to undergraduate fringe charges
Currently, an employee's primary job determines whether they are eligible for fringe charges.  While undergraduate job records are not typically assessed fringe, this will still occur if an undergrad employee has a primary job record that is fringe-eligible.  As recommended by the Payroll Accounting work group, enhancements have been implemented which will ensure that no fringe is charged to a job record with an employee class of 'UND', regardless of primary job setting.  This change will begin with the first pay period in fiscal year 2018 (pay end date 06/25/17).

Fiscal year-end reminders!

There are a number of important transaction processing deadlines tomorrow and next week. For example, an important deadline next week is that all vouchers with match exceptions and budget exceptions must have any issues resolved by 2:00 p.m. on June 23; any vouchers that require central approval must be fully approved by any departmental and certified approvers by that same time. Be sure to check all the deadlines for system processing on the fiscal year-end calendar.

Payroll Accounting Distributions for FY 2018
On Sunday, June 11th, Accounting Services will be completing the payroll accounting distribution roll for fiscal year 2018.  All current and future-dated payroll accounting distributions will be automatically copied forward into the new 2018 entry and available for review on Monday, June 12th.

Reminder: After the distribution roll is complete, if there are any distribution changes needed for the 26th pay period that should also apply to the 1st pay period in 2018 - distribution changes must be made in both 2017 and 2018.

Vendor/Supplier Setup

Due to the increase in volume of vendor setup and change requests, it is taking longer to get to each request. It may take between 5 and 10 business days to process vendor/supplier requests until the backlog clears.

Changes made to the system over this past weekend (routine updates/release notes)

AR/Billing
These pages have been updated to display up to 15 activity rows in the grid by default with an option to view more using the “View All” link for the Item Activity grid. The Payment Method for a payment activity will also be displayed:

• Accounts Receivable > Customer Accounts > Item Information > Item List, Item Activity tab 
• Accounts Receivable > Customer Accounts > Item Information > View/Update Item Details, Item Activity

These pages have been updated to display up to 15 activity rows in the grid by default with an option to view more using the “View All” link for the Item Activity grid. In addition, within each activity row it displays up to 15 Accounting Lines with an option to view more using the “View All” link for the Accounting Line grid:

• Accounts Receivable > Customer Accounts > Item Information > Item List, Item Accounting Entries tab 
• Accounts Receivable > Customer Accounts > Item Information > View/Update Item Details, Item Accounting Entries tab

Sponsored, PRF Number Search 
A new field has been added to the Maintain Proposal search page that will now provide the ability to search for a Proposal using a PRF Number. Grants > Proposals > Maintain Proposal 

Treasury
The investment pools menu in Cash Management has been simplified to focus on the specific work needs of the deparmental users.

Vendor/Supplier Setup

Due to the increase in volume of vendor setup and change requests, it is taking longer to get to each request. It may take between 5 and 10 business days to process vendor/supplier requests until the backlog clears.

Fiscal Year-End FY17

The fiscal year-end calendar for FY17 is available now: http://finsys.umn.edu/fye/index.html

Changes made to the system over this past weekend (routine updates/release notes)

Payroll Accounting, encumbering calculation prorating additional pay against job data.

Corrections were made to the payroll encumbrance process to more closely align with payroll actuals processing of additional pay and leaves of absence (including sabbaticals). 

• Will now prorate additional pay when an employee's appointment ends or begins in the middle of a pay period. 
• Will no longer prorate employees whose additional pay ends or begins in the middle of a pay period but their appointment does not. 
• Use of unpaid earn codes like TUP and SLU in additional pay will now reduce encumbrances. 
• Leaves of absence activity entered in Absence Management will now be considered, (including sabbaticals). 
• Unpaid leave activity will reduce REG earnings. 
• All full or partially paid leave activity will be reflected using the LVL or LVP earnings code rather than REG. 

There will be no payroll encumbrance processing on Monday April 24 or Tuesday April 25. Processing will resume on Wednesday April 26 and updated payroll encumbrances will be available in reporting the following day.

Budget Justification link name display update  

Navigation: Grants > Awards > Project Budgets 
The Budget Justification link display was updated to "Justification" if a justification has been added to the budget row. If no justification exists for a budget row, the link will display as "Add Justification".

Billing customer contacts security updates to allow people to select links when they have View Only access to the component . 

Navigation: Customers > Customer Information > General Information: "General Info Links" 
Security was updated to allow people to select the "Contact Info" link (from the above navigation) for people with access to the Customer Request or Customer viewing activities. From this link people can access the Customer Contact Information to see email addresses associated to the contact or select the "Documentation" link from the Contact Customers link to see the preferred invoice delivery method (mail or email). Security was also updated to provide the ability to navigate directly to the Customer Contact Information pages to access this same information using Navigation: Customers > Contact Information.

Payroll Accounting, Retro Distribution

After submission on the Review/Approval page: 

• Retros can now be deleted after submission as long as no workflow action or system processing has occurred. A delete button is now available on the UM Retro Distribution Review/Approval page. 
• A direct retro can only be deleted by the person who submitted it. 
• Auto-approved retros can only be deleted prior to system processing. 
• Retros pending Certified Approver or effort approval cannot be deleted once an approver has completed a workflow action (approve or deny). 
• Retros with a status of "Complete" cannot be deleted. 

Reminder, processing of direct retros in an approved status now occurs twice a day at 11:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. 

Unsubmitted direct retros are no longer available on the Review/Approval page. Previously, if a retro preparer failed to submit a direct retro, the retro ID was still returned in the search results on the UM Retro Distribution Review/Approval page. This caused confusion when viewing the direct retro as all accounting detail was highlighted yellow due to the missing information. Now when searching on the review/approval page, the unsubmitted direct retro will no longer appear in the search results nor will it display a "no results found" message. Preparers will need to return to the UM Retro Distribution Entry page and submit the direct retro.

WebNow changes for those not on campus

Beginning Sunday April 23, 2017, people will be required to use VPN to access WebNow from off campus. This will primarily impact people when working from home or other non-University locations. WebNow has experienced a notable increase in off capus activity that appears to be hacking attempts. This change to require VPN use will ensure that access to University data from off campus is protected and secured. VPN is not required for users accessing WebNow from any of the University's official campuses.

Please visit the VPN website, to download a supported VPN client and access setup instructions. If you need further assistance with VPN or have questions about WebNow, please contact the Technology Help Service Desk (1HELP): http://it.umn.edu/help or 612-301-4357.

UM Budgeting RESOLVED
HR Data Refresh button has been corrected. The Budget office will be contacting users that may have been impacted.

UM Budgeting
Please refrain from pressing the HR Data Refresh button on the Positions page at this time.  The data is dropping one pay period from the Current FY Salary column.

NEW! Introducing mid-day direct retro processing 

Based on your feedback, a mid-day run of direct retro processing will now occur Monday through Saturday between 11am and 1pm. This will begin today, Monday April 17. All direct retros eligible for the mid-day processing must be in an approved status before 11am to be picked up by this batch. Any direct retros approved after that time will be processed in the nightly batch starting at 5pm. Although the direct retros have been processed in HRMS, they will not be available on UM Reports until the following day.

Service Interruption for EFS Financial Helpline

During the week of April 24 the University Financial Helpline will be relocating within WBOB. We may not be able to offer phone assistance during our move. We will try to offer specific times as soon as a firm schedule is set. If we have any phone service intrruption, please email controller@umn.edu to open a self-service ticket.

Period 9 now is Closed

Mn Local Sales Tax Changes. The following new local sales and use tax will start on April 1, 2017: Lake County transit sales and use tax 0.5 percent. For more information about local sales and use taxes visit the Mn Department of Revenue website.

MyU and PeopleSoft applications will be unavailable Saturday and Sunday, April 1 and 2 

The systems will be unavailable as updates are made to the PeopleSoft development platform, PeopleTools, bringing it to version 8.55. This update helps our PeopleSoft systems remain stable and secure, and ensures that we retain vendor support. Please plan accordingly. Impacts:

• MyU and PeopleSoft applications, and some applications dependent on them, will be unavailable while the update is in progress.
• Since it is tax season, be aware that during the outage there will be no online access to W-2 and 1098-T forms. People are encouraged to download these forms in advance. Access will be restored April 2.
• Aside from downtime during the weekend, no significant impact is expected and no action is required as a result of this update.
• Extensive planning and testing has been completed.
• Scheduling was coordinated with all U business areas.

During the weekend of April 1-2, updates will be available on the University’s Service Status page.

Monday is a banking holiday

Banks in the United States are closed on Monday. Per the University's usual procedure, payments will be generated tomorrow evening (Friday) for anything scheduled to pay on Monday.

Accounts Payable batch processing did not run last night due to a system issue. Processing will resume again this evening.

Expense reports are impacted by this issue as well.

Retro Distributions did not process

Retro Distributions that were submitted Tuesday, February 14th were not processed in HRMS and sent to Finance. These transactions are not available on reports. Retro transactions will be processed today and available in reporting on Thursday, February 16th. Retro transactions in reporting are current as of Monday, February 13th. 

Period is Closed

Period 7 is now closed

Mn Local Sales Tax Changes
The following new local sales and use tax will start on April 1, 2017: Lake County transit sales and use tax 0.5 percent.
For more information about local sales and use taxes visit the Mn Department of Revenue website.

Updated Feb 6, 2017

For 01/31/2017

Direct Retro Entry page and duplicate distribution lines - Resolved
A fix for this issue was pushed out on Friday night (February 3, 2017).

Orignial Message: When entering a direct retro that spans pay periods where an employee may have had a department or position change, the preparer will see two distribution lines representing the same combo code. The distribution lines will contain different pay period ranges, split at the point of department or position change. If both of the duplicated distribution lines are selected, upon saving the preparer will receive the error message: "Data being added conflicts with existing data." When this message is received, the direct retro is automatically deleted when leaving the page. System support staff are working on a solution. Until fixed, if you see duplicate combination codes separated only by pay period ranges, select only one range when completing the first retro, followed by a second retro to complete the remaining pay period range.

Release notes from changes made over the weekend

Standard Bill Entry 
Navigation: Billing > Maintain Bills > Standard Billing > Address Link or Address Info in the drop down menu 
We have corrected an issue that was introduced during the PeopleSoft image upgrade in November. The Contact Name field will no longer be available for edit if the Attention To field value is blank. To have a contact name appear in the Bill To: section of an invoice, the standard business process is to select a contact from the Attention To drop down list. If the contact is not in the list, please complete a Customer Maintenance Request so the contact can be set up in EFS.

UM Inactive Combo Codes Report 
The goal of these changes is to ensure that the report returns results only if action is needed in distribution entry to prevent future payroll activity from distributing to the department's suspense chartstring (program 21853). The updated report is a useful tool to monitor invalid distribution data throughout the fiscal year, including the fiscal year end transition. To access the report in HRMS, navigate to the UM Payroll Accounting folder and select UM Inactive Combo Codes Report. This report is available to all those with the following roles: Distribution Entry, Retro Distribution Entry, and Certified Approver. People who do not perform one of these functions who still need to view Payroll Accounting data in HRMS may request the 'Payroll Accounting View' role through the HRMS online ARF process. This view-only role grants people the ability to view in HRMS submitted retros, distribution information, UM Invalid Combo Codes report, and various other payroll accounting informational pages.

UM Retro Distribution Entry 
These changes are meant to provide people with more information about the salary expenses they are moving, avoid confusion, and also prevent common processing errors at the point of entry. 

• After selecting 'Get Distributions' on the Direct Retro Distribution page, the grid that displays will now show pay period range information for each employee record, earning codes, and combo code distribution line. New fields have been added to display first pay period begin date and number through last pay period begin date and number. This will make it easier to see which specific pay periods will be affected when adjusting a particular line. 
• Pressing the 'Get Combo CD' button on the Direct Retro Adjustment page will now function the same way that it does on the Distribution Entry page. Previously, the Direct Retro Adjustment page presented a 'Multiple Combo Codes Found' error in situations where the chartfields entered were correct but other optional chartfields existed. Going forward, any chartfields with no value entered will be interpreted as a blank, rather than a wildcard when retrieving the combination code. 
• People will now be prevented from entering a retro for an individual whose corresponding job code, position, or Department ID is inactive for the date range in question. The message will say 'The line you have chosen has an inactive job code, position number and/or HR DeptID.' Before proceeding, the underlying job code/position number/DeptID must be activated for the affected time period. Contact HR to resolve the issue, and then the retro can be entered normally.

Accounting Services has noted an increase in University departments using the adjusting periods in the General Ledger (915, 921, 922, etc.) for journal entries. Adjusting periods in the General Ledger are for Accounting Services use only. The only exception is at year-end when departments can use Period 913 only. Journal entries posted to these periods will be stopped from posting or reversed and deleted. Please make sure you are using the appropriate period for all journal entries. Thanks for your understanding an assistance.

Period is Closed

Period 6 is now closed.

10/28/2016

For 1/1/2017

Notification of new local sales and use taxes

The following new local sales and use taxes will start on January 1, 2017:

• Cook County transit sales and use tax 0.5 percent (pdf)
• Mille Lacs County transit sales and use tax 0.5 percent (pdf)
• Pine County transit sales and use tax 0.5 percent (pdf)
• Winona County transit sales and use tax 0.5 percent (pdf)

For more information visit the Minnesota Department of Revenue's local tax information web page.

11/21/16 update: The Fergus Falls local sales and use tax of 0.5 percent will be ending on December 31, 2016. See the Fergus Falls General Notice (pdf) for more information.