4/16/13 Summit Upgrade is Complete

Over the weekend SUMMIT dashboards for Finance and HR Directwas upgraded to version 11G and is now available. This upgrade is mostly technical in nature however you will notice a few changes to prompts, navigation and general formatting. This upgrade puts us in a position to utilize new technology and featuresenabling us to roll out enhancements in the near future.

Below is important information you should be aware of regarding the upgrade.

Logging in for the First Time?

New URL ‘ If you log into Summit from the Empac home page or HR Direct, no action is required. If you have saved the Summit URL as a favorite, please use the new URL to access SUMMIT.For more information, please see

Summit Upgrade – updating your bookmarks.pdf

Home Page ‘you will notice the home page has changed. To access your dashboards use the ‘Dashboard’ drop down list found at the top mid right

summit1.jpg

A list of your available dashboards will appear, click on the dashboard you would like to access, note Finance dashboards are listed under FDM Reports and HR dashboards are listed under HCM Reports.


summit2.jpg


You do have the ability to save a default dashboard and bypass the home page, see detailed instructions—

Summit 11G Setting a Default Dashbaord.pdf

What’s New?

Filters ‘ now include the ability to access a search function to find criteria based upon text entered. Clicking the More/Search’ Box will open a pop-up window which allows you to search for the criteria.

Apply Button ‘ this button replaces the ‘GO’ button, use this button to retrieve your data.

Reset Button ‘ this button replaces the ‘Clear Filter’ button, use this button to clear your filter criteria.

Return to Summary link ‘ this now appears as a link rather than a button and can be found at the top and bottom of most Activity pages.

Export Link – replaces the Download/Print option on individual widgets, accessing this link will give you the option to download to PDF, Excel, PowerPoint, Web, or to download data only.

If you have any questions or issues please email Maura Shield at Maura_Shield@uml.edu or Nancy Ritchie at Nancy_Ritchie@uml.edu

4/12/13 Summit Upgrade has begun and….

As planned, the Summit system is now unavailable for finance and human resource dashboard reporting. The Summit system is being upgraded to version 11g of Oracle’s enterprise reporting / business intelligence software.The project team began the upgrade process starting at 5:30pm Fridayand expectto release the updatedsystem for all users byTuesday afternoon.

More information will be posted on http://empac.uml.edu as the new system becomes available.

11/5/12 Summit Training Scheduled

Summit Training sessions are being offered this Fall to support Finance System users. This training will focus on access to the Finance System dashboards that support department administrators, managers, and PIs.

Training is conducted by the Comptroller’s Office with Maura Shield as the lead contact.

Training dates:
Friday November 9 9-11:00 O’Leary 237
Wednesday November 14 2-4:00 Southwick 302
Monday November 19 9-11:00 O’Leary 237

Tuesday November 20 2-4:00 Southwick 302 (CANCELLED)

9/26/12 – New Report in Summit

NOTICE: Deans’ Quarterly Report by College ‘ Sponsored Projects

There is a new report that has been placed out on the Academic Admin & PI dashboards in Summit called ‘Deans’ Quarterly Report by College ‘ Sponsored Projects’. The report can be used by all who have access to the Academic Admin & PI dashboards in Summit. The report returns quarterly expenditure data based on the criteria that you select on the main page. Attached are instructions on how to run the report and retrieve the data.

Deans Report navigation Guide (pdf)

Planned Maintenance Outage on Sat.,9/22

NOTICE: Planned Maintenance Production Outage ‘ Saturday September 22nd.

During the morning of Saturday, September 22, a maintenance event will occur in the Production South Street Shrewsbury Data Center. This event will result in multiple services being offline as noted below. This is an expansion of a normal monthly maintenance window. It has been expanded due to the amount of work required and the estimated time to complete
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

WHAT: All services housed in the production South Street Data Center will be unavailable.

WHEN: Saturday September 22, 2012 from 4:00 am until 12 noon.

WHY: Primarily UITS will be upgrading data storage software and introducing new equipment into the data center. These changes will provide enhanced performance and reliability for the applications in the data center.

IMPACT FOR FINANCE APPLICATIONS: From 4:00 am until noon on Saturday September 22, services in the Production, South Street, data center will be unavailable. This includes:

  • Finance Production PeopleSoft (e*mpac)
  • Summit Reporting
  • ECRT (Effort Certification)
  • SharePoint(Workspaces)
  • E-mail to umassp.edu. We will not be able to respond to any e-mails for part or all of this downtime window.

Apology for 9/10/12 Service Interruption

Yesterday afternoon, at approximately 4:45 PM,the University Information Technology Services (UITS) data center experienced a software failure at the storage level oftheir infrastructure. Unfortunately, although they designedtheir systems to be redundant and able to withstand this type of event, that wasn’t the case in this situation. Although roughly half ofthe (redundant) servers were not directly impacted, users could still not access many of our applications.UITS escalated tothe vendor immediately and their technical team was fully engaged to resolve the situation. Systems were starting to come up around 9:00 PM, that process continued for 1-2 hours. UITS and our Lowell campus resources will review this event thoroughly and will incorporate changes to systems and operationsas appropriate.

All IT groups sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and disruption this event caused.

If you have suggestions on how Lowell can better manage these outages, please email our Administrative Systems Integration team at asi@uml.edu

5/31/12 – Fiscal Year End Information

6/6/12 UPDATE – Powerpoint presentation added

The following was sent to campus finance system users by Tom Hoole on May 29th regarding fiscal year end:

Please find the annual Fiscal Year End memo and presentation with specific financial cut-off dates and open meeting schedule.

FY12 End of Year Memo.docx

FY12 Year End Meeting Presentation.pptx

There will be three open meetings to discuss year-end issues and answer questions. Please feel free to attend any one of the meetings listed below:

North Campus

Monday, June 4

11AM ‘ Noon

Cumnock Hall, Trustees Room

South Campus

Tuesday, June 5

1-2 PM

Dugan Hall, Room 105

East Campus

Thursday, June 7

1-2 PM

Wannalancit Business Center, Room 415

5/30/12 Summer Summit Finance Training

Summit Training sessions are being offered this summer to support Finance System users. This training will focus on access to the Finance System dashboards that support department administrators, managers, and PIs.

Training is conducted by the Comptroller’s Office with Maura Shield as the lead contact.

Training dates:
Wednesday June 13 9-11:00 Southwick 302
Wednesday June 20 9-11:00 O’Leary 237
Tuesday July 17 9-11:00 O’Leary 237
Wednesday July 18 9-11:00 Southwick 302
Wednesday August 1 9-11:00Southwick 302
Wednesday August 15 9-11:00 O’Leary 237

Please contact Norma Clark (norma_clark@uml.edu or x4764) to reserve your spot in one of these classes.

5/30/12 – Summit Finance Navigation Refresher & New Funcitonality

Summit Finance Navigation Refresher and New Functionality

  • When you log into Summit Finance, you will default to the Summary Page of the FDM: Academic Admin, FDM: Department Admin or FDM: PI Dashboard.
  • Without entering any information in the prompt section of the Summary page, you can scroll down the page and view a one line summary for all of the fund/departments and projects that you have security for. If you have security for a large number of departments, you may want to enter information in the prompt section (i.e. fund, department id, etc) and only view specific fund/departments and projects. (Remember, anytime you change information in the prompt section, you must hit ‘Go’.)
  • From the Summary page, you can then select the project or fund to review the project activity or fund/department activity further.
  • This navigates you away from the Summary page to an activity page. The activity page provides a snapshot of the project or fund/department, including a Revenue and Expense Summary. New Functionality – At the activity page, you will now have the ability to drill on any amount (month to date, year to date, project to date or encumbrance) in the Revenue and Expense Summary and see the transactions that make up the drilled upon amount.
  • Please note that there is a known issue with printing to PDF for all of the new transaction detail reports. If you do receive an error message, please print to HTML or download to Excel.

The new ‘transaction detail’ functionality should make it easier to review activity in your projects and fund/departments. Please continue to provide feedback on the Summit Finance tool as enhancements are constantly being made to Summit Finance.

FYI – In case you missed the original announcement, Summit Finance is now one day behind PS Production.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact Maura Shield at Maura_Shield@uml.edu or x3515.