Financial Reports Migration to CREW
On March 20, 2006, financial reports currently available in AWS2/HUDINI – including the Detail Listing, Budget Variance, and Summary Actuals reports – will be migrated to CREW (Common Reporting Environment for the Warehouse), culminating a multi-year, cross-business project to create a single reporting environment.
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Before we jump in, we think you probably have a few questions... |
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Remind me again...why are my financial reports moving to CREW? |
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Financial reports join Human Resource, Sponsored/GMAS, and IU reports in a unified reporting environment. This means Harvard supports and uses one reporting application instead of several. For report users this means less time and effort spent learning multiple applications. Learn one and you learn 'em all...
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Will AWS2 and HUDINI be shut down when reports move to CREW? |
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No, AWS2 and HUDINI will remain current and available for four to six weeks after the migration of the financial reports to CREW to provide report users with time to transition.
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Will my scheduled reports automatically be migrated to CREW? |
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Unfortunately not. If you have scheduled reports, request sets, and/or chart of accounts sets set up in HUDINI and/or AWS2, you will have to recreate them in CREW. The good news is that CREW now has "events-based scheduling" which will allow you to schedule reports to automatically run the day after the month-end closes, quarter closes, and year-end closes.
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I'm an AWS2/HUDINI user but have never logged into CREW. Do I need to do anything to get access? |
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If you are a current AWS2/HUDINI report user, you will automatically be given the same access you have in these applicatons in CREW. (As always, if you need changes made to your financial reporting responsibilities, contact your local authorized requestor.)
A nice feature of CREW is that you only see reports you do have access to run. Current AWS2 users only see a subset of Financial reports. CREW will house the much longer list of reports that reside in HUDINI. Use the "My Favorites" tab to limit the number of reports you see on CREW's Report Library Page.
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What changes should I expect to see to my report output? |
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Very little to none. The reports that run out of AWS2 and HUDINI today are the same reports that will run out of CREW. What you'll see are differences in the input parameters screens. CREW actually has more parameter "types" available and we took the opportunity to standardize the parameters you use to define your report results. So, the only place you should notice any differences are on the "parameter pages" of reports.
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I would love to take advantage of all CREW has to offer. What training resources are available to me? |
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On-line tutorials are available on ABLE and hands-on workshops are scheduled starting the week of March 20th and will continue through the first week in May.
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If I have specific questions I'd like answered, where should I direct them? |
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Just call or e-mail the UIS Help Desk (at 6-2001 and uis_helpdesk@harvard.edu). As always, we'll address any issues you are having as quickly as possible.
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Okay, you've got my attention, what else do I need to know?
Read on to learn more about CREW features as well as what specific changes have been made to report input parameters screens... |
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Changes to Report Input Parameter Screens Some changes are global and some are report specific -- we're covering them here.
A Miscellaneous Laundry List of Helpful Hints and Info. There is a difference between a Report and a Report Request, a Report Code and a Request ID...if you call the Help Desk, this terminology will get you results faster! Also, did you hear about the 30-minute session time out?
Using CREW Now! Hear what people have to say about using CREW. See our usage stats climbing and learn about a couple of bugs that got flushed out and when they'll be fixed.
Updates Section Check here for up-to-date messages, key dates, comments, reminders, etc.
CREW Features and Functionality Some are familiar features of AWS2 and/or HUDINI, some are brand new, and some are enhancements to current CREW features, but all are available to you starting March 20th.
Quick Links To ABLE, Help Desk e-mail/phone, etc.
Changes to Report Parameter Input Screens
CREW has a richer graphical user interface than what we have in AWS2 or HUDINI today. Although the underlying reports (the report output you get) has not changed, the parameters that feed the values to reports are different in some cases. Most will be so obvious as to be transparent, but for some reports, there were changes that should be highlighted and explained.
Also, some changes are all across the board, whereas others are specific to individual reports.
| Some Global, Across the Board Changes
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"Responsibility" Parameter
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Unlike HUDINI where you choose your responsibility when you log in, and then through the "change responsibility" hat icon and AWS2 where if you have more than one reporting responsibility you choose it from an interim screen when you submit a set of parameters, in CREW you choose the responsibility to run reports with from the report parameters pages.
(Only the Financial "Public" reports don't require a reporting responsibility.) |
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Choosing "Other Specified Period"
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Don't be dismayed if you don't see "start" and "end" date input parameters on your report parameter pages. Instead, click the date dropdown parameter and scroll to the bottom. There you'll see the option "Other...". When you click it, it will generate a calendar pop-up box where you choose your start and end dates. (Be careful you are choosing the right year! That one snagged us a couple of times...)
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Using"Other..." with GL Period Names |
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When choosing gl periods, limit the list of returned values by entering part or all of a gl period name in the filter box.
Make sure you click the "Go" button to make the action happen!
When you've got the dates you want, just OK it. |
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Object Code Hierarchy Tree |
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You'll notice great new "lookups" in CREW to help you find the exact values your looking for. In particular, the Object Code Hierarchy Tree will allow you to see and choose roll-up segment values and/or child values (but be careful not to double-count by choosing a child value and their parents, e.g. G650 and 6650)
To quickly explode the tree to see child-level object codes, type in the first number of the object code class you're interested in and click the "search" button.
User the "filters" in lookups to narrow your search results.
Search by codes or descriptions, and in some lookups by "type" and "source"..
Wherever you see the magnifying glass "lookup" icon, go ahead and click on it!
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| Report Specific Parameter Changes
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Include Beginning Balances |
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- Summary Actuals and Budget, and
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- Funds, Gifts, Unrest Unexpd Bals reports
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| Use it in conjunction with the report period dates to include beginning balances or just display net activity. |
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| Lost in translation? Use this handy cheatsheet to help decode. |
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| Some Minor Report Output Changes |
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File Download prompt when clicking PDF output icon |
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Launching PDF report output is a little different in CREW. When you click on the report output icon in CREW you will always get a File Download window. From the File Download window you choose to Open or Save the file.
Note that the larger your report output is, the longer it will take to open.
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Parameter Page "Report Period" |
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On the "Parameters Page" the date period chosen for a given report will show through the start and end date of the period, not the resolvable named date (such as "Most Recent Month"). We've got reverting this back on our "enhancements" list. In the meantime, the Report Information page will provide you with most (if not all, and probably more) of the same info. as parameters pages of reports. See the Features and Functions section further below to read more about it. |
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Trial Balance Reports |
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Please take note if you are a user of the Trial Balance reports that in CREW, negative numbers are displayed with the minus symbol rather than having the number in parentheses.
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A Miscellaneous Laundry List of Helpful Hints and Info.
| Report Code |
Every CREW Report has a unique Report Code. Anywhere you see the Report Code, you can click on it to open the Report Catalog Page. This page provides useful and basic information about the report. |
| Request ID |
Once a report has been submitted, it becomes a "report request". Every report request has a Request ID. Click the request id to see info. about the parameters you chose, when the report started to run, and how many rows of data it returned. |
| Request Status |
Every report submitted has a "status". You'll see report requests that are "scheduled", "queuing", "pending", "running" and best of all, "completed". If you submit a report to run right away, don't be alarmed if the first status you see on the HOME page is "scheduled". The request is scheduled. It is scheduled to run "NOW"! |
| HOME Page |
Unlike AWS2 and HUDINI where the first pages that come up when you log in are the pages where you choose which report to run, CREW opens to the HOME Page. The HOME page is where you view your report output (and wait for report requests to complete). Don't be alarmed when you first log into CREW and see a blank page. Unless you run HR and/or Sponsored reports, your HOME page will be empty until you submit a report request. |
Session Timeout |
After 30 minutes of inactivity, CREW will automatically log you out of the system. This is a security measure to ensure sensitive data (especially with HR reports) is not accessed by anyone but you, the person logged in. |
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A few more things to be aware of...
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Are you a HUDINI user looking for the Detail Listing Heavy report? Well, the three additional sort parameters that distinguish it from the Detail Listing regular have been incorporated there. Now all of our Detail Listing report users can take advantage of having six sorting and subtotaling options. |
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When it comes to parameters, blank means "all". Instead of seeing the familiar All, All, All as the parameter defaults for chart and other parameters, you'll simply see blank but it means the same thing. |
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 ...... (just leave blank to get all!) |
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CSV output downloads differently in CREW. Check out ABLE to view the new set of steps to take when downloading CSV reports (it's actually easier). |
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Can't find the Vendor Payment report on the Report Library Page? It's there. It's just that it has the HUDINI report name "HU Vendor Detail" report (note, it's in the Accounts Payable sub-category). |
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CREW Features and Functionality
Financial users of the HUDINI reporting application will be familiar with some of the key functionality provided by CREW such as Request Groups, Selection Sets, and designating "Favorite" reports. The names are a little different and the steps in creating and managing them are as well, but essentially the purposes are the same. We think in CREW these features, as well as some CREW native features, will be more intuitive for report users, and certainly more accessible.
Click on the links below to read more on how these features can assist you in reporting . Detailed step-by-step "how to's" are on ABLE.
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Request Groups |
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Creating a Request Group is simple and it happens on the HOME page. Simply click a couple of report requests and click the "Create Group" button. Request Groups are a great way to organize a specific portfolio of report requests and schedule them to run repeatedly at given intervals over a period of time.
For instance, Tom, a Grant Administrator for several PI's, might create a suite of report requests for each PI that includes a PER, Detail Listing, and Summary Actuals report. If Tom were to take full advantage of CREW, he'd schedule the group to run after each month end close. And, if Tom was really advanced , he'd create a copy of the group and schedule it to run throughout the year end close.
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Selection Sets |
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Create "boiler-plate" sets of chart of account values to apply to all reports that use some or the entire seven-segment chart of accounts. For instance, if you routinely run reports with complicated combinations of values, use Selection Sets to set them up once and then just with one click, you can reapply whenever and wherever chart of accounts selection sets are accepted....
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Copy To Another CREW User |
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Great news. You can share your request groups, selection sets, and even individual report requests with any other CREW user. If you've set up a Request Group that you think another person in your area could use, just copy it to them. Selection Sets, the same thing.
When you copy to another user, be aware, this feature does not:
- copy report output (actual results)
- copy your security to another person
- copy the schedule associated with a request
So, the recipient will need to:
- choose the responsibility to run the report with (if recipient only has one reporting responsibility, this step can be skipped)
- schedule it to run!
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My Favorites |
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People who wear a lot of hats, get a lot of reports....To eliminate scrolling through a long list of reports, flag the ones that you run the most and copy them to your "My Favorites" tab.
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Events-based Scheduling |
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Why stand around counting the days? Let CREW do it for you! Schedule your reports to run on the month-end accounting period close, or quarter close. At year end, schedule your reports to kick off after every close...We plan to provide you with much more info. on this in June (by that time you'll probably have 'em all set up already!).
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Multiple Saved Parameter Sets |
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AWS2 report users are familiar with saving a set of default parameters for reports, however, CREW takes it step further and allows you to save multiple sets of parameters. Use them in conjunction with Selection Sets and you'll minimize the amount of typing (and typo's, if you're like us) you need to do.
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Request Information Page |
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Didn't get the report results you expected? Take a look at the Request Information Page to double-check your parameters and dates. A "Request ID" number is associated with every report request on the HOME page. It's a hyperlink, so just click it!
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Date Help |
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Always wonder what "Most Recent Month" is all about? What about "Last Closed Period"? Sure, you use them now, but what if you were new to Harvard? It might not be so obvious. Next to all of the Dates you can choose for a report request, you'll notice a little help icon. Click it to find out a little bit more about what these "named dates" mean.
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Quick Links
ABLE CREW Tutorials: http://able.harvard.edu/crew
Help Desk: tel. 6-2001. email: uis_helpdesk@harvard.edu
CWD to sign up for hands-on workshops:
Using CREW Now!
We have a lot of good news to report (and a couple of bugs). First the good news: since CREW FIN Go-Live, 586 (to be exact) of our users have run their reports in CREW. About one third of financial reports were run out of CREW instead of AWS2 or HUDINI. This confirms what an intrepid group of users we have.
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Reports run in AWS2 & Hudini vs. CREW since Go Live...(we're 1/2-way there)
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People Using CREW...(a steady climb in using CREW!)
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Bug Update
As with any implementation of new functionality, the project team plans for a "stabilization" period after the release during which they can address any issues that may be identified once real-life, end-users begin to use the new system. The CREW Financials release was no exception. The CREW product team has been standing by since go live to address the issues that have come up. The results of that work can be seen below. Special thanks go out to those users who documented the issues that they found, and worked with us to validate the fixes.
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Estimated Squash Date (ESD) |
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No new confirmed bugs...(stay tuned though, we continue to "stabilize" through April 30th) |
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Already Squashed |
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4/15/2006 |
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CSV version of Summary Actuals report using "Beginning Balance" parameter: Some of our very astute report users noticed a discrepancy between the PDF and CSV outputs in the area of beginning balances. This was due to the new "Include Beginning Balance" parameter not being fully integrated with the CSV version of the report. |
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4/15/2006 |
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Detail Listing "Journal Category" parameter: When choosing a "journal category" from this dropdown, the value was not being passed to the report correctly to limit the report results. We're testing this fix right now and should see it corrected in CREW next week. |
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4/15/2006 |
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Fiscal Year 2007 missing from Budget reports. For budget reports, our standard "date domain" needed to calculate a little differently to include the next upcoming fiscal year. |
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4/8/2006 |
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CINA Flex budget report using Actuals: If you ran the CINA Flex and chose to display Actuals, the numbers were not complete. In creating new pick-lists for the parameters, we had the most subtle typo (we used the word Actual instead of Actuals ). The report is programmed to accept the word "Actuals" and not "Actual". (This is why people are still smarter than computers...). Our thanks (and apologies) to Dave, Susan, and Ann for bringing this to our attention. |
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4/8/2006 |
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Disappearing Responsibilities: Merging the financial security into a shared environment required a very delicate timing act. In a few cases there was a bit of overlap which caused some users to have their reporting responsibility names (i.e. HDW^HMD^O1234n^etc.) not show up. We were able to quickly identify these cases and restore them. We continue to watch for any
anomalies
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4/1/2006 |
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Using Request Groups: Our good friend June was having a problem with Request Groups. Turns out, if you had more than one group, and in one of those groups you had a deleted child request, you'd get an error message when you tried to take an action. It's all fixed and June is thrilled with how using Request Groups can help organize her voluminous report portfolios. |
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3/25/2006 |
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CSV version of the Detail Listing: Okay, this was a weird one. If you ran a CSV of the DL, chose Other Specified Period as the date, and chose a 2 digit day and month, the report would error out. Turns out, the report was one character short. Thanks to Richard for
ferreting
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Other Great Stabilization Initiatives We're making reports run faster in CREW!
The CREW database architecture allows for a better organization of data which means it can be accessed more efficiently by reports. This means less wait time for you! You should notice gains in the run time of those reports we've been able to update. We will continue to integrate the performance enhancements through the next few months in order to ensure improved processing times at year-end. We’ve updated these reports below, try them out.
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Improved: |
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- Funds, Gifts, Unrestricted, Unexpended Balances
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Coming Soon! |
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CREW Testimonials (jump in, the water's fine)
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I thought I would be one of those folks who would stick to AWS and Hudini until the bitter end. Well, I'm not! I found the transition to CREW smooth and practically seamless. The screens are intuitive and very easy to navigate. |
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First, let me say that financial reporting in CREW is just fabulous! The functionality and ease of use are everything you promised and more. |
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I've had a chance to use CREW a bit today and it is GREAT! |
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One of my staff went into AWS2 to run a detail listing on a specific employee ID. She started the report, and then remembered CREW was up. So she went into CREW and requested the same report through there, and got the report very quickly. |
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I feel CREW has taken over well for AWS2, as I ran a series of reports last week and they took less time than in the past! Plus you have to love the Parameter Sets, because you never have to recreate reports that got erased after so many days on AWS2. |
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