Grants Project Frequently Asked Questions:

The PeopleSoft Grants Project is an important campus initiative and has been an ongoing effort for the university since the beginning of 2009. As we approach our go live date, we want to provide department and business users with the information needed to operate successfully during our cutover period and after the new system is in production. The questions below have been assembled from the contributions of members of our Grants project team, project sponsors, members of our change management group and members of the business manager’s community. This document will be updated frequently as questions are received or additional information is available. If you have a question that you do not see addressed below, please send the Grants Project Office an email at grantspmo@ouhsc.edu.

The new Grants PeopleSoft System will be put into place during the Cutover which starts April 9th, 2010 and ends April 15th, 2010.

Project Questions

Question:
What is the Grants Project?

Answer:
The Grants project is work being done to replace the systems currently being used by the Office of Research Administration and Grants Accounting and Contracts with PeopleSoft. 5 modules in PeopleSoft will be utilized: Grants Management, Projects, Contracts, Billing, and Accounts Receivable. In addition, The Commitment Control Module and General Ledger Module will be configured to accommodate Grants Processes.

The project runs from 2/09 to 5/10. Important dates are on the home page of this web site.

Question:
What will change for departmental users?

Answer:
For faculty whose salaries are funded through research, where the University is cost sharing, you must create a source change through ePAF to add the appropriate chartfield spread to that particular individual. This change is required for accounting processes to work properly after the Grants go live. The perfect time to do this is after March 22nd or anytime during the Grants Cutover, but be sure to complete this before April 15th in order to make the April payroll.

Question:
Will the proposal submission process change?

Answer:
New routing forms will be required. The updated forms will be posted on the Office of Research Administration website once we go live. The revised forms are necessary to capture information needed in the PeopleSoft grants modules. Forms for non-system related changes are being revised to make them more user friendly.

Question:
Will payroll detail records in the HR system now match the General Ledger when transfers are processed?

Answer:
You will be able to query detailed information for the payroll data as it came from HR as well as detail from cost transfers. You will also be able to see detailed records for all HR journals. If for example John Doe was paid with a STATE COM001 00116 CFS but there was no available budget when General Accounting processed the journal then the department would be contacted. Assuming they provided a different CFS for John of CLNOP COM001 00124.

Then the resulting detail might look like the following:

The paytype identifier tells you how the data came from HR originally with HRO. HRF denotes that once the journal was loaded the original CFS was changed based on the detail you see. The HR journal would only show the new CFS information.

Question:
Will the new Cost Transfer process be used for all cost transfers or just those containing salary transfers?

Answer:
The new cost transfer template will be used for ALL cost transfers. Two additional fields have been added for salary transfers. They include Empl ID and Pay End Date and must be populated for all salary transfers. For non-salary transfers these two fields will be blank.

Question:
New cost transfer template—Will it be used for all cost transfers or just those containing salary transfers? I thought I understood it would be a new template for all transfers, but someone asked me to confirm this

Answer:
The new cost transfer template will be used for ALL cost transfers. Two additional fields have been added for salary transfers. They include Empl ID and Pay End Date and must be populated for all salary transfers. For non-salary transfers these two fields will be blank.

Question:
Will the re-budget process change with the Grants implementation?

Answer:
Yes, now all re-budget requests will go first to Grants and Contracts Accounting for approval. Grants and Contracts Accounting will only forward them to Office of Research Administration if it requires sponsor approval. If no sponsor approval is required, the re-budget will be processed in Grants and Contracts Accounting. It is hoped this change will streamline the re-budget process.

Question:
How will the ECAV process change?

Answer:
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Cutover Questions

Question:
When does the Grants project cutover?

Answer:
Cutover is when we bring the new system online. The Financials system will be taken down at 2:00 PM April 9th and will come back online April 15th, 2010. During this time existing data will be converted and moved to the new system. It will be tested by and validated before being released to the campus.

Question:
Why was the go-live date changed to May 7th??

Answer:
In order to ensure that we have the best possible data and processes in place for the PeopleSoft Grants System the cutover/go live event has been moved from April 9th-15th, to May 7th-13th.
This decision is based on a readiness assessment performed by the project team, business owners and executive sponsors.

Question:
With fiscal year budgets do shortly after, what can I do to get Financial data during the cutover?

Answer:
To avoid impacting the Fiscal Year budgeting process, the project team will be providing a Financials environment to use during the cutover that will enable departments to retrieve information needed for budgeting purposes, but will not be used for processing any financial transactions during the cutover window.

The HR system (Human Capital (formerly Human Resources) - http://hc.ouhsc.edu) will be available for all business functions during the Grants cutover. The Financial system will only be available as a read only system. Transactions conducted in the Fin READ ONLY system WILL NOT BE moved into the Upgraded Fin System. Transactions that are entered into HR that affect processes in Fin such as payroll can be performed, but the parts of those processes that take place in Fin won’t be executed until Fin is back online at the end of the cutover.

Question:
Will the entire FIN module be unavailable from 4/9 – 4/15 to enter cash receipts, AP vouchers, requisitions etc? Will we have “view only” access”?

Answer:
No access to PeopleSoft Financials will be available during the down time. No entry on any of the modules will be permitted during that time. Entry will resume on 4/15 once users are notified the system is available for log-in. Due to the time and resource constraints of getting everything in place in such a short window of time we won’t be able to setup a view only version of the system.

Question:
Will we be able to enter ePAFs during the cutover?

Answer:
Yes, ePAFs are part of HR and will still be available.

Question:
Will I able to submit applications to the Office of Research Administration during the time period when Grants is going live and the Financial System is unavailable?

Answer:
Yes, ORA will be accepting applications, approving documents, and making submissions to grants.gov.

Question:
University departments do not have the authority to place orders for over 5K or for some specific categories like animals and radioactive items that require special approvals. How will these types of orders or emergency orders will be handled or will departments just not be able to place any orders during that period of time?

Answer:
Departments should plan ahead and order equipment and supplies before the system goes down for cutover. However, if there is an emergency, departments should use the standard purchasing process and ask for a manual documents until the system is available again.

Question:
How will departmental deposits (including EFTs) be handled during the cutover?

Answer:
All deposits must be held until the system is available for use at Go Live.

Question:
I understand the accounts payable system will be down. Is there a way for emergency payments to be processed?

Answer:
A manual voucher (One Demand) can be processed for extraordinary circumstances.