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Oracle Financials Outage for Hardware Upgrade top
On Monday, December 15, the University will release a technical upgrade to the hardware supporting Oracle Financials. To minimize impact on the business community, the upgrade has been scheduled beginning Thursday, December 11, 6 pm to Sunday, December 14.
IMPACT: Oracle Financials will be unavailable all day Friday, December 12 until the start of the business day Monday, December 15.
To determine what impact this might have on you, please read through the key dates below to plan your work accordingly.
The Oracle Financial applications (later referred to in this document as “Oracle Financials”) affected by the system outage include:
| • General Ledger & ADI | • Electronic Shop and Pay (ESP) |
| • Budget Tool | • Harvard Crimson Online Marketplace (HCOM) |
| • Accounts Receivable | • Capital Project System (CAPS) |
| • Cash Management (CMRA) | • Chart Security Maintenance Application (CSMA) |
| • Accounts Payable | • Chart of Account Validator (CoA) |
| • Web Voucher | • Web Reimbursement |
| • Procurement Card (Pcard) |
The appearance and functionality of Oracle Financials will not change as a result of the hardware upgrade.
Impact on CREW & DWCENPRD
From Friday, December 12 through Sunday the 13th, CREW reporting (for financials, student and sponsored) and ad hoc access to DWCENPRD will be available with data as of the close of business as of Thursday, December 11. CREW will have a brief outage Saturday morning to accommodate patches and will be available at 2pm. A special Sunday night load on December 14 will refresh CREW with the latest financial, student and sponsored data. With the exception of the CREW Saturday morning outage, human resources reporting is not affected by the upgrade.
Key dates
| Date | Business area | Systems and/or service impact |
Tuesday, December 9 |
UFS- Reimbursement and Card Services |
GE corporate card payment requests must be received by 5 p.m. on December 9 for them to be posted by the next cycle and cut on December 15. |
UFS- AP Operations |
Any stop payment requests received by AP Operations no later than 3 p.m. will be placed at the bank and a new check will be issued prior to the Oracle Financials outage. |
|
Wednesday, |
UFS- AP Operations |
All wire transfer requests must be submitted to AP Operations by 5 p.m. Please note that the associated web voucher must be approved in the system and all paperwork submitted to AP Operations prior to the 5 p.m. deadline. |
UFS- AP Operations |
Special handling requests must be received by 5 p.m. on December 10 for check to be issued on December 11. |
|
Thursday, |
All areas |
Business as usual; Oracle Financials are available until 5 p.m. At 6 p.m., Oracle Financials will come down. Oracle Financials will remain unavailable until the morning of December 15. |
Purchasing |
Requisitions need to be approved prior to 4 p.m. to be sent to vendor. For HCOM users, further details will be in a HCOMarketplace report. |
|
CSMA |
Chart value requests must be submitted and, if required, approved via CSMA before 5 p.m. Chart requests submitted (or approved) after this deadline won't be reflected in the general ledger until after the first CSMA sweep on December 15. |
|
GMAS |
New sponsored accounts must be posted in GMAS by 4:15 p.m. This will be the last chance to post new sponsored accounts until December 15. |
|
UFS- Reimbursement and Card Services |
The PCard sweep regularly scheduled for December 11 will be moved to Wednesday, December 10, at 4 p.m. This change will be reflected in the settlement system on December 1. |
|
Friday, |
All areas |
Oracle Financials unavailable all day. General Accounting and University Financial Services including Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Purchasing, Pcard, Travel and Reimbursement services (including Web Voucher Travel Authorization forms), Cash Management, and Cash Receipts will be open and fully staffed, but will operate without access to Oracle Financials. |
Disbursements |
In the event of an emergency, please contact Mark Ford at 5-5693 or Pat Dick at 5-4204. |
|
GMAS |
No new accounts will be posted until December 15. GMAS will be available with financial data last refreshed as of close of business December 11. |
|
Student Receivables Office |
All emergency check requests for student refunds or stipends must be made through the Student Receivables Office (SRO) by calling Mary Galvin at 5-2736 or Gary Campagna at 6-0955. |
|
Reporting (CREW and DWCENPRD) |
CREW reporting (financials, student, and sponsored) and ad hoc access to DWCENPRD are available with data last refreshed as of close of business on Thursday, December 11. |
|
Saturday, |
Reporting (CREW and DWCENPRD) |
CREW reporting (financials, student, sponsored, and human resources) and ad hoc access to DWCENPRD unavailable until 2pm. There will be no Friday night load and financials and sponsored data will continue to be as of Thursday, December 11 through Sunday evening. |
Saturday, |
All areas |
Oracle Financials unavailable all weekend. |
Monday, |
All areas |
Oracle Financials are available on its new hardware. |
CoA Validator |
Please note the URL for the CoA Web Validator will change on this date. To log in, please go to the Financial Applications page (http://vpf-web.harvard.edu/applications) to access the system via the new URL. This change may affect integration between this application and local production systems. |
|
GMAS and Sponsored reporting |
GMAS will be available with financial data last refreshed as of close of business December 11. New accounts can be processed. |
|
Reporting (CREW and DWCENPRD) |
CREW reporting (for financials, student, and sponsored) and ad hoc access to DWCENPRD are available with data last refreshed as of close of business on Thursday, December 11. |
Questions should be referred to the UIS Help Desk, 6-2001 or via email.
What to expect in PeopleSoft when the GL Validator is Down top
Oracle Financials will be down from the evening of Thursday, December 11 until the morning of Monday, December 15. During this time, the PeopleSoft system be unable to perform costing validation against the GL validator.
Below are the results people can expect if they process the following types of tasks during the outage. We recommend that these transactions be performed prior to December 12 or after December 14. We apologize for any inconvenience.
| Task | Result |
Rapid Time – Online Entry |
No costing data will save regardless of whether it was previously used. |
Rapid Time – Upload |
No costing data will load regardless of whether it was previously used. The session will have a status of “SUCCESS.” |
Adjust Time Page |
You will only be able to use combinations that have been previously used. |
Employee Costing (Dept Budget Page) – Online Entry |
You will not be able to use combinations that have not been previously used. You will receive an error message upon saving that refers to the GL validator. It will appear as if the data has been saved, but it has not. |
Costing Upload |
You will receive an error message on the inquiry page that the GL validator is down for any new combinations. |
Additional Pay Page – Online Entry |
You will not be able to use combinations that have not been previously used. You will receive an error message upon saving with a reference to the GL validator. It will then appear as if the data has been saved, but it has not. |
Additional Pay - Upload |
You will receive an error message on the inquiry page that the GL validator is down for any new combinations. |
HIRES Interface |
No new combinations can be created. |
Quick Hire Forms |
You will not be able to use combinations that have not been previously used. |
Off Cycle Checks – Payline Transactions |
No new combinations can be created. |
Updated Harvard Chart of Accounts Presentation is Now Available Online top
An updated version of the “Understanding the Harvard Chart of Accounts” (CoA) presentation is now available online at: http://able.harvard.edu/coa/CoA_for_ABLE_2008.htm.
This online edition of the presentation is a shortened version of the class that is offered monthly at the Center for Workplace Development. It covers information about what the CoA is, how it is used at Harvard, how assets and liabilities are tracked, and how it impacts local, University, and federal reporting. This online presentation is not meant as a replacement for attending the CWD class, but as a supplement or refresher.
Upcoming Releases top
FY2009 FINDINI Release Schedule
A significant upgrade to the financial applications, known as a "FINDINI release", is done every two to four months. Each upgrade introduces needed bug fixes, enhancements, and technical upgrades into Harvard's financial systems. Generally, releases are performed on weekends to assure maximum availability during the business week. Most outages occur from 6 pm Friday evening-6 am Monday morning.
Here is the FINDINI Release Schedule for the remainder of FY2009:
| Release Number | Dates | Notes |
3.2.6T |
6:00 pm Thursday, December 11- |
Please note full-day outage on Friday, December 12 |
3.2.7 |
6:00 pm Friday, March 27- |
|
3.2.8 |
6:00 pm Friday, June 19- |
The Oracle Financial Applications are:
| • General Ledger & ADI | • Electronic Shop and Pay (ESP) |
| • Budget Tool | • Harvard Crimson Online Marketplace (HCOM) |
| • Accounts Receivable | • Capital Project System (CAPS) |
| • Cash Management (CMRA) | • Chart Security Maintenance Application (CSMA) |
| • Accounts Payable | • Chart of Account Validator (CoA) |
| • Web Voucher | • Web Reimbursement |
| • Procurement Card (Pcard) |
HR Release 22
The next PeopleSoft release is scheduled for the weekend of December 5-6, 2008. Complete outage details will be found in the next issue of e-News.
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.