Closing ServiceNow tickets: For the week of Oct. 18, CBS2 received 448 ServiceNow requests overall and closed 616 tickets. As for research-related purchasing requests, CBS2 reduced the backlog by to 329, with 261 unassigned, in the past week by shifting workforce to prioritize these requests over other campus procurement needs.
Total outstanding tickets have been reduced to 1,144 as of Oct. 21. Please note that about 90% of ServiceNow tickets have missing or incomplete information. This leads to delays in processing tickets.
The Travel & Expense Management team has been working diligently to expedite reimbursement requests and other out-of-pocket expenses to ensure campus users do not experience hardships due to reimbursement delays. Together with the Travel & Expense team, CBS2 cleared 162 reimbursements in the past two weeks. The number of ticket closures is related directly to requests with accurate and complete Chart of Accounts/POET information, accurate receipts and approvals. Tickets such as these can be processed 80% faster than those missing any of these items. In-person support and adding staff: Efforts to improve CBS2's service to campus are focused on two initiatives:
- Improving financial information on the front end to free up existing workforce to clear out the ticket backlog and train for the future.
- Hiring additional staff to work on the backlog and support campus purchasing. To help support improved financial information on the front end of requests, a CBS2 staff member is located at each school to assist with CoA/POET review, Oracle requisitions entry, assistance with customer updates, and inquiries and system training. Use of the embedded CBS2 staff has been light so far but is building day by day. Between Oct. 4 and Oct. 19, in-person CBS2 staff saw 29 visitors.
The embedded staff are complemented by three CBS2 staff members in the Faculty Support Center, located in Suite 108 of the Kolligian Library. Research administration staff also are available at the center to provide support.
CBS2 is hiring eight additional staff to help reduce the ticket backlog in the system. That's a 40% increase from current staffing levels. The eight will join the team over the weeks of Oct. 25 and Nov. 1.
More training on the way: UC Merced senior leadership are talking to school deans about what resources are needed to support faculty procurement and will be announcing additional support efforts in the near future. The goals are to reduce the ticket backlog as soon as possible, to facilitate training for self-service purchasing (still the most quickest way to purchase) and to provide support for submission of ServiceNow tickets.
In addition, Division of Finance and Administration staff met with Information Technology partners to work on data integration issues (e.g., UCPath, Concur) in the system and identify corrections. About 13% of project financials don't reconcile with the campus’ General Ledger each month and require manual correction. That's down from 32% a few months ago.
The DFA team is making considerable progress in increasing the reliability of financial information in the Oracle system and establishing processes that will support its long-run viability.
DFA has been working on scheduling Oracle training in November. The sessions will cover everything from the Chart of Accounts to project set-up to using Smart View for financial information. Details on training will be provided at least two weeks before each session.
