To: Finance Council
MOU Leads
Business Managers
From: Scott Jackson, Executive Director of Enterprise Reporting and Departmental Systems
Brian Smith, Interim Assistant Vice Chancellor for Finance and Accounting
With today’s much-anticipated release of InfoPorte 6.3.1, we wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the changes in this version that will result in substantial improvement in campus financial reporting.
Highlights of the changes include:
- Manual checks and balances run nightly to ensure data is consistent between ConnectCarolina’s (PeopleSoft) database and the Data Warehouse, which is InfoPorte’s data source.
- Please remember that balances in ConnectCarolina are real-time. InfoPorte’s balances represent the previous day’s activity.
- The accounts in InfoPorte have been updated to match how each fund type is budgeted in ConnectCarolina, resulting in a consistent presentation of data across the two systems.
- Changes are most notable on the Ledger Rollup and OSR Ledger Rollup tabs, which now display the chartfield strings and associated accounts that result from a ledger inquiry. Users can, at a glance, find and more easily understand their balances.
- Accounts are listed at a detail level with the complete account number and a clear description to make the information more user-friendly.
- The Ledger Rollup and OSR Ledger Rollup tabs now have links to the Transactions tab, making the connection between balances and corresponding transactions more evident. This change, along with the relatively new columns on the Transactions tab (Description, Trans ID, Reference 1, and Reference 2), make it easier to reconcile.
In short, the above changes will help to make information accurate, consistent, and more user-friendly.
An email was sent to several campus listservs this past Friday to announce the above changes users will see when they log into InfoPorte today. This email included references to resources to help users understand the scope of the changes and to help them benefit from these improvements:
- Release notes with screenshots and instructions. http://ccinfo.unc.edu/reporting/
- A live webinar scheduled at noon today that will be recorded and posted to ccinfo.unc.edu. Webinar link: https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/jwsdetect/meeting.jnlp?sid=2009099&password=M.068CA60A5810AEF378558E54D57893
Other training efforts include:
- Two large venue demos, Reconciling in InfoPorte: Balances and Transactions, scheduled for tomorrow (2/24). http://ccinfo.unc.edu/training/webinars/
- The ongoing class, Financial Reporting with InfoPorte, which focuses on the Ledger Rollup and Transactions tabs. http://ccinfo.unc.edu/calendar/
We would also like to thank the members of the Financial Reporting Task Force (“FRTF”) for their time, effort, and feedback in shaping these changes: Becky Arnold, McGregor Bell, Jennifer Blair, David Blakemore, Sharon Brooks, Steve Brundage, Christy Dodson, Scott Dwyer, Ryan Fulcher, John Gallagher, Chris Garriss, Carolyn Hagy, Tricia Hennessey, Troy Howell, Janet Kelly-Scholle, Susan McDonough, Carly Perin, Dennis Press, Eddie Roberts, Nicole Šebik, and Laura Yurco.
We would like to provide separate thanks to the following individuals for taking extra time to participate in the testing of these valuable InfoPorte enhancements: Jennifer Blair, Sharon Brooks, Tracey Conrad, Tricia Hennessey, Robin Larson, Carly Perin, Michael Perkins and Nicole Šebik.
In closing, these new features and upgrades represent a significant step forward in campus financial reporting, but much work remains to get campus financial reporting to where it needs to be (including the work of the ConnectCarolina project team in the areas of personnel encumbrances, distribution of payroll expenses to funding sources, retroactive salary source changes, and multi-year grants). Over the next several weeks, the FRTF will focus on the following areas: other reporting needs for year-end planning and budgeting; the impact of security on reporting; use and availability of reporting tools to complement InfoPorte; cash reporting; grants reporting; cost code reporting; MOU level reports; and development of a plan to review other InfoPorte and SAS reports. Thank you for your understanding and patience during this transition period.