Finance Systems Users Group

Next Meeting: Tuesday 9th April 2013 at 2:00pm

Location: Ramsay Lecture Theatre, Christopher Ingold Building (Chemistry, 20 Gordon St, opp. The Bloomsbury Theatre)

Agenda

1. Abacus Programme Plan - Bridget Boylan

2. Proposed Chart of Accounts Design

a. Overview - Lee Jenner

b. Worked Example - Liz Read

3. Abacus tasks for Departmental Finance Officers

Background

The FIS User Group started out as The Academic Departments’ Needs Group, which was set up as part of the project for procuring and implementing Oracle Financials (known to us as FIS) at UCL. Its primary remit was to elicit the most important needs of academic departments with respect to a finance system, to involve the departments in the evaluation and selection of a system, and to write test scripts for the shortlisted applications. Its membership was intended to be representative of all academic departments from Faculties throughout College.

Since implementation, the group has continued to meet on a quarterly basis, receiving update reports from the Finance Division's Projects Director or the Assistant Director, Financial Systems and providing feedback on the implementation of the system and implications to staff and departments generally. Representatives from Management Systems are also present and provide information on the technical aspects of the system. Since the 1999 go-live, the constitution of the group has changed gradually to incorporate members and representatives of other departments as they have migrated on to the system.

Current Situation

Once most of the bugs in the application were fixed, and the system had run in a stable condition for a reasonable period of time, attention turned to development and enhancement. The group, now considerably enlarged, still has an important part to play in deciding on future directions, providing Central Finance with feedback on performance of the system, and advising on training needs.

It is the intention to have representation from any user department within UCL, whether migrated or not, and whether academic or not. Nominations for representatives should be sent to the FIS User Group Chair which, currently, is Liz Read (Dept of Chemistry), (e.a.read@ucl.ac.uk).

A smaller, executive group was constituted as a sub-group of the FIS Users Group and has been named the Interface Group. It meets on a regular basis, usually before each FIS User Group. Its agenda is largely set by the main user group, and it feeds back to this group at its regular meetings. Its purpose is to concentrate more on strategic issues which can more easily be discussed in a smaller forum. Proposals made by this group are submitted to the FIS Users Group for final agreement.

This page last modified April 4, 2013 by Web Editor