Business Systems

My Finances enhancement for prospective students

IT Web Development (IT-WD) and Student Financial Services made enhancements to the My Finances view for applicants to UD. Prospective students now see a new tab, "Estimated family responsibility summary," which details an estimate of the total costs for the financial aid year—including books, supplies, transportation, and student loan options. This new view will enable families of prospective students to get a clear financial understanding of the investment required to attend UD.

New Functionality added to the Equipment Activity Web Form

In partnership with Asset Management and General Accounting, IT-WD has added two options for Loans and Funding Changes to the Equipment Activity Web Form.

• The new Property Loan Agreement form documents loans of University equipment to an entity outside of UD. The form produces a paper copy of the agreement so that an agent of the borrower can assume the risk for the asset while in that entity's care.
• The new Funding Change form is used to transfer the funding of an asset from one accounting source to another. Up-to-date asset records are crucial for UD business processes, audits, and compliance.

Payment Activity application

Procurement Services and IT-WD have released a new version of the Payment Activity application. Payment Activity allows UD employees to quickly find information for POs, requisitions, and contracts, and view reports for POs based on the purpose code or vendor. The application now uses responsive design, allowing it to be used effectively on most devices. It has also been re-written using a more secure architecture and has improved usability.

Database administration (DBA) updates

• Oracle database security – software patches
  The DBA team has continued to apply the latest security software patches to the PeopleSoft and Web Forms Oracle databases. The production databases are set to be patched in mid-May 2016, after testing the impact in the development environment.
• PeopleSoft and Oracle database software upgrade
  • PeopleSoft Tools upgrade
    Financial Accounting PeopleSoft Tools software has been upgraded to the latest version, security patches have been applied, and the Oracle databases have been upgraded to Oracle 12c. In addition, both the tools software and the primary application software are in the process of being upgraded for the Human Resources PeopleSoft instance. In conjunction with the upgrade, the Oracle databases associated with HR are also being upgraded to Oracle 12c and relevant security patches are being applied. The upgrade to development instances of the HR systems will start in late May 2016, with a target of November 2016 for completion of the test and production environments.
  • UD Time upgrades
    The UD Time application software is currently being upgraded in the development environment to take advantage of several enhancements. The goal is to implement in production later this calendar year.
  • Web Forms databases upgrades
    The database software version for the development and production Web Forms databases have also been upgraded to Oracle 12c.

• New database hardware changes
  Work continues on the project to move UD's PeopleSoft databases to the new Oracle Supercluster hardware and software. The first migration of a development instance of a PeopleSoft database has been successfully completed. Testing has led the DBA team to make several configuration changes and has yielded valuable information for future tasks.

  Work also continues on the transition to a new backup and recovery strategy that uses a Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance (ZDLRA). This project is being implemented in tandem with the Supercluster project. The work on these projects will continue throughout 2016.

Other Business Process Improvements

• The Web Application Firewall (WAF) in front of UD web servers was upgraded from WAF Layer 2 to WAF Layer 3.
• IT Management Information Services (IT-MIS) created a view of Development and Alumni Relations (DAR) related Journals. DAR had asked for timely and more comprehensive reporting of gifts and research dollars. IT has delivered a view for them to read any journals related to DAR.
• The spreadsheet journal import was put into production for the Controller's Office.
  Using PeopleSoft Financials, staff can upload a spreadsheet directly to a journal.
• To help the Controller's Office improve financial reporting of research grants at the end of a fiscal year, IT-MIS has invented a balance forward method that unravels some of the confusing situations that happen when updated end-of-year information becomes available. Specifically, the new process will assist the Controller's Office as they verify daily summaries throughout July.
• An improved method of loading new equipment into the "Asset" tables has been developed, saving several hours of manual entry.
• IT-MIS Implemented some code blocks, especially "19" accounting codes, so that they cannot be used to allocate credit card (Works) transactions. Some departments were allocating their Procurement Card transactions to account combinations that should not have been used. The new blocks will prevent improper use of those accounting codes with Procurement Card transactions.