Summary of 08/17/00 G/L Team Meeting

Attendees: Ben Martin

Jeff Quirico

Tim Miller

Linda Somers

Karen D’Amato

Excused: Kathy Zinszer

Dave Adkins

The meeting began at 2:00.

Ben presented the agenda beginning with a discussion of our preliminary Event List.

He stated that he submitted our Event List to the Executive Committee. Linda Ruggerio will review the list with people from PS and will get back to each team to explain the next phase for developing our Event List. Jeff asked us to prioritize our Event List using the following criteria.

1. How does the event effect external versus internal customers?

2. Does this event affect a lot of people and which people, such as customers or upper management?

3. What is the complexity of the event?

4. What is the volume of the event?

5. What is the length of time for the event to be completed?

The G/L team will use these criteria and rate the functions within each major category with a (1) less priority or a (2) more priority.

Ben opened the discussion on the next topic of the agenda, to identify peripheral databases. Jeff gave us a definition, which refers to database systems that University employee’s access outside of the General Ledger system to produce information needed to complete their jobs.

Jeff described these systems as, 1) complimentary systems or data which provide pieces of information people need that don’t exist anywhere else and are maintained by the individual. 2) Shadow Systems are systems that duplicate the General Ledger system and allow the employee to update it as needed. The G/L team needs to obtain information from the University departments about how they use these other systems. By obtaining this information, we will be able to see if PS will satisfy our needs.

There will be six fields with PS that will not be used by the system. These fields will be available to the individual users so that they can use them for complimentary information. That information will then become part of the PS system.

Jeff will request, from Marsha Lockard, copies of the surveys used by the Chart of Accounts Committee. Ben will make assignments via email to each G/L team member. The G/L members will go out to the departments and find out how they use their shadow systems to perform their job. The G/L members will report their results and feedback at our next scheduled meeting on 8/31/00.

Ben opened the discussion on the last topic of the agenda, required reports. He passed out a list of reports that he compiled. The team members will prioritize this list using the same criteria as the event, list plus one additional criterion, for our next meeting.

1. How does the report effect external versus internal customers who use it?

2. Does one person or a number of people use the report?

3. What is the complexity of the report?

4. What is the volume of the report?

5. What is the length of time for the report to be completed?

6. Is this report routinely needed? Required? (daily, weekly, monthly)

Another topic that was discussed was subsystems. How is the individual subsystem information generated? What is the detail? How can we see the detail, contents, and peripheral databases? This is another area that we will need to study to compare the way PS operates with similar data.

We as members of the G/L team need to make our colleges aware of the new financial system that is coming.

Ben and Tim will be attending a one-day training session in PC on September 28.

The meeting ended at 3:30. The next meeting will be held on August 31 at 2:00 in the Conference room at 910 South Chapel Street.