Be Prepared for the Oracle Release 12 Upgrade-November 2012

Important financial processing deadlines have been published in a special e-News to help staff prepare for the Oracle Release 12 Upgrade in November 2012. This issue will provide schools and departments with ample time to plan and prepare accordingly. Remember: Oracle users should view the Oracle Release 12 Upgrade Video for a preview of what's to come and the Oracle Release 12 Upgrade wiki site to keep track of the project.

Stayed tuned for more information concerning the Upgrade, including contingency and emergency payments criteria, training schedules and the impact of the upgrade on other systems, such as CREW, PeopleSoft, HUBS, GMAS, etc.

Please remember that you can always send questions about the Oracle Release 12 Upgrade Project via email to oracle12_upgrade@harvard.edu. You will receive a response within three business days.

Human Resources Reporting News: August 2012 and HR DW Release 33

Release 33 is scheduled for production release for both PeopleSoft and the HR Data Warehouse on September 10, 2012. A list of HR Data Warehouse (EUL) Objects impacted by the upgrade is attached to this e-News announcement.

Special note about changes occurring with HR DW Release 33:

• Job Costing object enhancements
• Accomplishments object changes
• Miscellaneous objects (dropped views and other updates)

The following outlines changes to CREW HRMS reports that were impacted by Release 33:

CREW Report: Functional Notes

COSALDP240 - retrofit (DEP15445,16264)

CONOCDP241 - retrofit (DEP15445,16264)

HRACCDP221 - Sync (DEP 16278)

HRFINDP105 - Sync with DB (DEP REL15445)

HRJOBDP007 - Sync with DB (DEP REL15445, 16278)

HRJOBEE003 - Sync with DB (DEP REL15445, 16278)

SCUSRSC046 - Sync with DB (DEP REL15445)

SCUSRSC078 - Sync with DB (DEP REL15445)

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the HUIT Support Center at 496-2001 or dls@harvard.edu.

Thank you,
Harvard Human Resources Analytics and Reporting (HRAR) and Information Technology Teams (HUIT)

Calling Harvard Research Administrators: REACH Program Applications Due August 31

Applications are now being accepted for the fall 2012 Research Excellence in Administration Certificate at Harvard (REACH) Program. The application deadline is Friday, August 31, 2012.

Under the direction and management of the University-wide Research Administration Training Team (URATT), the REACH program is an interactive and engaging cohort-based certificate program specifically designed for Harvard research administrators and other personnel engaged in assisting in the management of sponsored funds.

The program has two levels:

• Foundations of Research Administration (click here for application)
• Intermediate Level (click here for application)

For more information about the program, including FAQs and a list of local REACH Program contacts, visit the REACH Program site at the Office for Sponsored Programs.

Applicants will be asked to complete an application and a short essay. An admissions committee will review these applications and each applicant will be informed of admission status. The goal of the admissions committee will be to create a balanced cohort with University-wide representation.

Please send any questions to your local REACH contact or via email at: REACH@harvard.edu.

HUBS Update: New Smart View Reporting Option Available

A new reporting option is available for Smart View users. Instead of exporting reports from the HUBS Workspace to Excel, users can import reports directly in Excel with Smart View. Users must establish a new Smart View connection in order to open the reports directly in Excel, and once connected, the list of reports from the HUBS Workspace displays in the Smart View panel as shown below:

Users simply click on a report, then click Open at the bottom of the panel, and a window displays to select the Point of View members. After members are selected the report opens in a preview mode where users have the option to import the report into the worksheet as a fully formatted report or a query ready report - that's all.

The query ready option imports only report rows and columns that contain data values in HUBS; as opposed to the Export feature in the HUBS Workspace which exports into Excel values calculated in the report in addition to the data values from HUBS. Many Smart View users find the Export query ready report cumbersome, and not really "query ready", since they must delete all calculated rows and columns if they wish to query the database from the exported query ready report; with the new import query ready report this is not an issue.

To establish the new reporting connection in Smart View, and learn more about this new option, see the work instruction Smart View Reporting and Analysis in Eureka.

Send any questions to hubs@harvard.edu.

Research Administration Systems Updates

Grants Management Application Suite (GMAS) Updates:

With the release of two important conflict of interest (COI)-related policies for the University and the Public Health Service (PHS) funded sponsored projects, GMAS has been significantly enhanced in order to facilitate compliance. The enhancements made to GMAS on August 20, 2012 can be divided into three general categories:

• Link to the annual FCOI system
• GMAS will pull in data from the annual FCOI system
• Proposal Stage
• New PHS investigator flag
• New COI approval screen
• COI-related notifications sent to research team members
• Award Stage
• Confirm research team after award notice is logged
• COI-related notifications sent to research team members, COI Administrators, and Department Administrators

For a full description of all the enhancements in support of the new COI policies, please see this page. Or, visit the Release Notes page.

HCOM Webinar Recordings Now Available-New Webinar to be Offered!

The PowerPoint presentation for the last HCOM Webinar: HCOM:Beyond the Basics, is now available at Eureka.

The Webinar recordings are also now available:

• Adding Items to a Shopping Cart: How to add an item to an existing Shopping Cart, whether a Marketplace Request, Non-Catalog Request, or Payment Request
• Making Changes to a Requisition that is "In Process" vs. a Requisition that is Approved : The differences between making changes to an unapproved vs. an approved requisition
• Viewing Invoices and Payment Statuses: How to interpret payment statuses and view scanned invoice images

New HCOM Webinar: HCOM Marketplace Tour, Wednesday, August 29th, 12:00 pm-1:30 pm

The HCOM Marketplace provides easy access to goods offered by 200+ vendors. But how much do you really know about the Marketplace and its vendors? In addition to the vendors that provide preferred Harvard pricing, the Marketplace catalogs also provide functionality to make it easy to set up a list of Favorite items for re-purchase and easily compare items offered by different vendors. Did you know that you can search for your Purchase Order in the Marketplace? This webinar will a tour of the vendors and functionality of the HCOM Marketplace, and how you can get the most out of your shopping experience. At the end of our session, users will be able to answer the following questions:

• How can I find the list of vendors in the Marketplace?
• What is a Science Catalog vendor?
• How can I search for and compare items between catalog vendors?
• How can I take shipping costs into consideration when shipping is not displayed at the time I create my order?
• How can I set up, use, and edit a Favorites list?
• How do I process special purchases, such as radioisotopes?
• How do I troubleshoot purchase orders not received by the vendor and resolve price discrepancies?
• How can I search for a purchase order in the Marketplace?
• What is an Unlisted Item Request and how do I use it?
• How do I find out how new vendors are added to the Marketplace and what discounts are offered?
• What other resources are there to help me make purchasing decisions, even for vendors outside of the Marketplace?
• And many, many more.

If you do not see your questions listed here, please have them ready for us. We will be taking questions during the presentation using the chat feature, and will attempt to answer as many as possible.

This is the last Webinar to be offered in the HCOM Summer Series. Next up for HCOM users: the sleek new look and feel of HCOM in Oracle Release 12!

Registration Information

Register for the session through PeopleSoft Self-Service:

1. Open a web browser and access HARVie.
2. Select PeopleSoft from the drop-down menu.
3. Navigate to Self Service > Learning and Development > Request Training Enrollment.
4. Once at the search screen, do the following:
   1.Select Search by Course Number.
   2.In the search screen, enter CWD in the Category field.
   3.In the course number field, enter WBX205 for HCOM Marketplace Tour.
   4.Click Search.
   5.Click View Available Sessions and select the session to enroll
   

Please take advantage of this opportunity to learn more about HCOM!

Upcoming Releases

Oracle Release 12 Upgrade

The Oracle E-Business Suite Applications will be upgrading from Oracle Release 11i to Oracle Release 12 in the late fall of 2012. Please see article 1 for the latest update concerning the Release.

The Oracle Financial Applications are:

CREW FIN Releases

The Common Reporting Environment for the Warehouse (CREW) is a reporting system that draws data from a variety of sources which are updated on a nightly basis. Users can submit report requests for immediate processing or schedule reports to automatically run on a recurring basis. Types of CREW reports include financial, budget, receivables, HR management, benefits, costing, payroll, pension, security, grants management, and sponsored reports.

The next CREW FIN release, 3.2.18, is scheduled for October 2012. Details will be available in an upcoming issue of e-News.

HR (PeopleSoft)

PeopleSoft Version 9.1 was implemented on April 23, 2012.

HDW HR Release 33

The HDW HR 33.0 Release is scheduled for September 2012. Please see article 2 for more information about the release.

CREW Reports

In addition to the CREW Financial and CREW HR releases which correspond with the FINDINI and HR releases listed above, changes and enhancements to new and existing CREW reports are also released the 3rd weekend of each month.

Release Number	Dates	Notes
8.8	8/25/2012

Sponsored Systems Releases

• GMAS Release 1_32 was released on August 18, 2012. Please see article 5 for more information.
• A HIRBERT release was deployed in Feburary 2012. Please see the April 2012 e-News for more information.

HUBS Releases

The Harvard University Budgeting Sytems (HUBS) is a set of web-based Oracle Hyperion Planning applications used for budget data entry, estimates, annotations, reporting, and submission associated with the annual budget and planning cycles. For the latest news on HUBS, please see article 4.

HUBS 2.1 was released May 18-20, 2012. Please see the May e-News for more information.

About the e-News

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.