November 7 , 2006 previous issue back issues index by topic e-News home Contact us at: admin_systems_enews@harvard.edu or via the UIS Helpdesk at 6-2001 The Administrative Systems e-News is a monthly electronic newsletter for users of Harvard's financial, human resources, and reporting systems. Click the links below to learn more about ... PeopleSoft Outage due to Open Enrollment processing Internet Explorer 7 not supported for Oracle Financials, PeopleSoft HRMS, CREW, or GMAS Change to the CREW and Oracle Financial Applications Hours of Operation November Early Deadlines for Time & Labor Reporting and Payroll Processing November Early Deadlines for PCard Processing GMAS Upgrade to Enable Electronic Submissions to Grants.gov About the e-News

PeopleSoft Outage due to Open Enrollment processing      top

Due to Open Enrollment processing, the PeopleSoft system, as well as HIRES transmissions to PeopleSoft, will be unavailable from Thursday, November 9 at 6:30pm to Friday, November 10 at 5pm (Veterans Day). During that time the system administrators will update the 2007 benefits elections for Harvard’s 16,000 benefit eligible employees. Once the system is available, employees will be able to review their elections on-line by going to the Benefits Summary Self Service page.

Internet Explorer 7 not supported for Oracle Financials, PeopleSoft HRMS, CREW, or GMAS      top

On October 19, Microsoft released the latest version of Internet Explorer (IE7) and set its November automatic updates tool to download and install IE7 automatically with other recommended updates. The Oracle Corporation has not yet certified IE7 for use with Oracle Financials or with PeopleSoft HRMS and has recommended blocking installation of IE7 for those systems until such time as it has been certified. Additionally, although updates are in development, IE7 is not supported for CREW or for GMAS. Further details, along with instructions on how to prevent IE7 from being automatically installed on your computer, are available online.

Change to the CREW and Oracle Financial Applications Hours of Operation      top

CREW and Oracle Financial Applications are moving their nightly schedules up by 1.5 hours beginning November 6.  This change will allow CREW to be available to end users earlier in the morning when reporting activity is at its peak.

Oracle Financial Applications, such as Web Voucher, General Ledger, Budget Tool, CSMA, CAPS, etc., will shift their 15 minute nightly outage from 9 - 9:15 pm to 8 - 8:15 pm.

Budget Journals will continue to be posted every five minutes but will stop posting at 8 pm every night, instead of until 9 pm.

CREW will come down for its nightly data refresh at 8 pm, instead of 9:30 pm; the new target “up time” is 6:30 am, instead of 8 am.

The Nightly Load Process and CREW

CREW refreshes data from its source systems on a nightly basis where transactions entered in systems such as GMAS, PeopleSoft, Budget Tool, Web Voucher, etc. throughout the day are copied into the Harvard Data Warehouse (HDW). This process takes many hours to complete, though, and can take even longer when large amounts of data are generated in the source systems such as occur when an accounting period is opened or closed or large numbers of journals during business cycles like the annual budget process or year-end close.  Starting the nightly load process earlier in the evening will allow an earlier CREW up time in the morning.

CREW Up Times and Scheduled Reports

CREW becomes available to end users, and scheduled reports begin to execute, when the data warehouse nightly load refresh process is complete. When scheduled report volume is high, and the nightly load processes run long - after a month-end close, for example - significant report backlogs occur in the mornings and scheduled reports may not be completed by the start of the business day.  Additionally, new report requests, submitted by users coming in to start their work day, will queue up behind the scheduled reports, which take precedence by virtue of having been submitted first, and greater wait times for reports will be experienced.

The greatest volume of report submissions occur between the hours of CREW up time and noon.

On-Going Efforts

Creating report run capacity during business mornings ensures that system resources are available for the greatest number of users.  Shifting the nightly refresh schedule to begin earlier is one step in the process to allow for earlier CREW up times and reduced morning backlogs.  Additional efforts to increase overall CREW availability and reduce backlogs on high-volume days are underway including:

• further condensing the time it takes to refresh data from the multiple data sources
• reducing report execution time on longer-running reports

November Early Deadlines for Time & Labor Reporting and Payroll Processing      top

To ensure for timely processing of time & labor and payroll information during the upcoming Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving holidays, the PeopleSoft deadlines have been adjusted as follows:

November Early Deadlines for PCard Processing      top

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, there will be a change to the PCard-sweep-schedule during the week of November 19. The PCard sweep regularly scheduled for Thursday, November 23 will be moved to Wednesday, November 22, at 5:00 PM.  This change will be reflected in the settlement system on November 13.

GMAS Upgrade to Enable Electronic Submissions to Grants.gov      top

Grant administrators will soon be able to electronically submit proposals from the Grants Management Application Suite, GMAS, to Grants.gov.  GMAS will be unavailable all day Friday, December 8, until Monday, December 11 for the installation of these enhancements.  The last time central administrators can activate sponsored accounts before this outage will be Thursday, December 7 at 4:00pm. Please plan accordingly.

On December 11, the electronic submission enhancements will be available to grant administrators who are participating in the GMAS System to System (S2S) Pilot Program and central administrators.  If you have any questions please email the GMAS Help Desk at contactgmas@harvard.edu.

Look for details about the enhancements in the December eNews.

About the e-News   top

The Center for Workplace Development publishes this electronic newsletter for users of Harvard University's financial, HR, and reporting systems, policies, and procedures. The e-News is generally published on or around the 15th of each month.

It contains:

• updates on projects underway to build or improve University administrative systems;
• information about new University policies, procedures, and forms;
• reminders about upcoming deadlines and cut-over dates;
• tips and tricks for working more easily or productively.

We welcome questions and suggestions for improvement from readers. If your questions are of general interest, we will answer them in future issues.

Please send comments, questions, or suggestions for improvement by email to us at: admin_systems_enews@harvard.edu.

For information about subscribing or unsubscribing to the eNews notifications, visit our who gets the eNews page.