Business IT’s Finance and Data Subcommittee Brainstorm Solutions

Posted on by Rob Watson

The Business IT Collaboration’s Finance and Data subcommittees held a joint brainstorming session to identify reporting and data solutions that will help answer real-world questions and enable better decision-making in campus units.  Focus areas where actions are already in process or identified as a priority include: 

  • Budgeted Personnel listing: 
    • an integrated report with personnel positions, budget amounts, expenditures, and encumbrances at the CFOAP level, with summarization and detailed options 
  • Cash Reserves report
    • designed to provide information on available balances in certain categories for annual reporting to the Provost Office and better internal monitoring and decision making 
  • Vacation and Sick Leave accruals and liability
    • an integrated report by person which calculates the payout liability on a real-time basis, with summarization and detailed options.    
  • Finance and Business report repository
    • A “landing page”, repository, inventory, or recommendation of a mechanism such as the Data Services Center to gather, search, and share finance and business reports; organized by topic or question.   
  • Point-in-time personnel/position listing 
    • a report/query that would facilitate the determination of position titles and employees in a unit at a given time and would allow comparison over time.  

The group spent some time considering reporting vs. analysis and how to achieve the aims of both while ensuring the campus is prepared to meet the needs of a data-rich and data-driven environment.  It was apparent that remediating data deficiencies and engaging with other stakeholders is required to improve the ability to identify and utilize data to answer key questions.  As these opportunities arise, the subcommittees may want to use their collective power to document and recommend use cases and then route to appropriate owners/stakeholders for remediation. 

Please reach out to the chair of the Finance subcommittee, Mike Wellens, and/or the chair of the Data subcommittee, Michelle Rome, with ideas, suggestions, or recommendations.