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In keeping with the Brown Bag outcome, we have found a new venue for next week’s (Wed May 4) Account Management training: it will be in HGH 225. In order to reserve this room, we have had to change the time of the training slightly: it will be moved up a half hour earlier, to 1:00-3:00 pm.

We have updated our training schedule page to reflect this, as well as the uncertainty of locations for future trainings: http://www.humboldt.edu/~fiscal/topics/psfin/class_sched.html.

HGH 225 is a “smart” classroom on the second floor, southeast corner of Griffith Hall (corner of Rossow and B, home of Psych &etc). It is an old-fashioned classroom with 44 low-tech seats, plus an instructor workstation with overhead projection. So the training will be lecture/demo only, no hands-on.

We plan to structure the training as follows: I will deliver an opening “beginning” segment highlighting the Web pages and introducing the 4 main covered reports and their content (30-45 minutes?). It is assumed you already know how to navigate and produce reports. Kathleen and Denise will take the rest of the class to deal in depth with uses and accounting issues.

See you there!

Kevin Creed in EHOS has brought to my attention that people are asking about ergonomics in PeopleSoft, due to its mouse-intensive nature. He’s pointed out a list of keyboard shortcuts available in PeopleSoft. This list is available online in two places:

1. In PeopleSoft’s PeopleBooks online documentation. We’ve added a link on our Fiscal Web pages (in the PS Finance main page, near the bottom of the Information section) to point to this particular item.
2. By pressing Ctrl-K on any actual page (not the Home page) within a PS Finance online session. This method is now noted in our PS Finance Navigation information page on the Fiscal Web.

Both these PS sources are printable via provided Print links, though the second source is better for this purpose, since you’ll get an entire PeopleBooks chapter when you print the first — an informative chapter, to be sure, but possibly more than you bargained for.

Reference our PS Finance pages on the Fiscal Web at http://www.humboldt.edu/~fiscal/topics/psfin/psfin.html.

Thanks, Kevin.

Following up on last week’s CMS Brown Bag session, we have decided on the following approach to enduser support in May:

• We will carry on with the weekly enduser trainings as scheduled, since these continue to address the common needs of users. We will seek to move them to a bigger venue, to accommodate more people comfortably and emphasize lecture/demonstration instead of hands-on. We will announce changes of location as they are known. Also, we have updated our training descriptions Web page (http://www.humboldt.edu/~fiscal/topics/psfin/class_descr.html) to include lists of the informational pages on our Fiscal Web site that relate to each course’s content. We hope this will help you make better use of the existing information, as well as answer the question “Do I have to take notes on this?”
• We will plan to offer one extraordinary session in a large venue to address “hot topics”, if such topics are made known to us. In the Brown Bag, we agreed that the various user groups — Student Affairs, Academic Affairs budget liaisons, academic coordinators, and Administrative Affairs via S Dodson — would email us with their own consolidated lists of topics to this end.
• We would like to devote the scheduled May 10 CMS Brown Bag session to the business of organizing a definitive campuswide user group, so that ongoing communication between the Finance team and endusers can be as efficient and effective as possible.

Thanks for your patience, work, and participation. We’re going to have to ask for more of it as we turn to devote our time to the pressing accounting issues related to closing our first year in PS Finance.

The first payroll corrections have been posted to the ledger in period 10, with a journal date of 4/01/2005.

In order to distinguish these HR transactions more clearly from the regular monthly HR payroll feed, we’ve made a slight modification in the way the HUMGL015 report and query display both. Both kinds of transactions have a Source of “HRS”, but now in the Tran Type column, the regular monthly payroll transactions will show a value of “HRLABOR”, whereas the payroll corrections will show a value of “HRADJ”. (Previously, the HR transactions showed a Tran Type of “PAYROLL” in the report. In the query, the value was blank, and that has also now been fixed to show the same value as the report.)

Regular HR transactions are described as “Labor Distribution from HR”, whereas the corrections are described as “Labor Adjustments from HR”. Both types have a journal id that begins with “HR”.

These HUMGL015 changes will now appear in any period for which you run the report & query. That is, we’ve just changed the report & query to look to a different place to retrieve the values; the underlying data has not changed.

A reminder that there will be a Navigation training offered tomorrow (Tue Apr 26) afternoon, 1:30-3:30 p.m., in the CMS Lab (GH 211c). This training is primarily directed at new users, but is open to anyone who wishes to attend. Only new users must apply for access and register; the training is required for new users who wish to get access to PS Finance.

The material I intend to cover is represented by the information pages on the Fiscal Affairs Web site (http://www.humboldt.edu/~fiscal/topics/psfin/psfin.html) in the Technical category: Navigation, About Inquiries, About Reports, About Queries; as well as selected parts of the Terminology/Concepts page. The purpose is to teach the mechanics of PS use, not the accounting.

I would appreciate if any existing user who plans to attend and use a laptop makes sure in advance of the class that they are able to log in. If they cannot, then we can resolve the problem now, and save class time for teaching and assisting new users. Thanks for your consideration in this.

Denise Isaac has announced that March 2005 (FY 2004, accounting period 9) is now officially closed in PS Finance. No further accounting entries will be posted to this period, making it static for reporting purposes.

A reminder that there will be a training on Chart of Accounts tomorrow afternoon (Tues, Apr 19, 1:30-3:30) in the CMS Lab, GH 211c. Denise Isaac, Fiscal Affairs accountant, will be leading the session. Attendance is on a drop-in basis; anyone is invited to attend.

This class is intended as the first in the 5-class training cycle. For more information on the PS Finance training cycle, see http://www.humboldt.edu/~fiscal/topics/psfin/psfin.html.

A reminder that the Account Management class for PS Finance will be offered tomorrow afternoon, Tues April 5 from 1:30-3:30 pm in the CMS Lab (GH 211c). No registration is required; attendance is on a drop-in basis only, and all are welcome up to the capacity of the room. However, the format will be a structured presentation, not free-form Q&A.

For more information on course content, see the PS Finance Training Class Descriptions at http://www.humboldt.edu/~fiscal/topics/psfin/class_descr.html.