EPM User Group Meeting January 2004

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STATE OF CONNECTICUTCore-CT Project
EPM User Group MeetingJanuary 2004
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Agenda

• Introduction Jeanne Skellett
• System Issues Mark Malcolm
• System Enhancements/Updates Frank Scalia
• Agency Report Demonstration Jennifer Traynor
• BREAK
• EPM Training Steve Perkins
• User Comments/Issues/Request Frank Scalia
• Next Meeting Jeanne Skellett

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Reporting Team Structure

Jeanne Skellett State Dave LaPierre
State Mark Malcolm - Accenture
Janet Knopf - State Frank Scalia State Roger
Sherman State Mary Yabrosky - State Scott
Hagberg Accenture Patrick Dwyer Accenture TBD
State Agency
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EPM User Group Purpose

• Provide a forum for end users and the EPM team
  to
• Review and receive updates on EPM issues
• Exchange ideas
• Present EPM enhancements
• Host Agency to Agency presentations on EPM uses

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Agency Concerns
The Top Three User Concerns are
Description
Concern
Users need help in understanding the information
in the reporting tables.
Understanding Information on the Tables
Reporting table data refresh has been inconsistent
Data Refresh
Queries are executed but they take a long time to
complete
Performance
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Agenda

• Introduction Jeanne Skellett
• System Issues Mark Malcolm
• System Enhancements/Updates Frank Scalia
• Agency Report Demonstration Jennifer Traynor
• BREAK
• EPM Training Steve Perkins
• User Comments/Issues/Request Frank Scalia
• Next Meeting Jeanne Skellett

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EPM Fundamentals

• Security Principles
• Refresh Rate
• EPM Help Process
• Efficient Help Ticket Resolution
• Views versus Tables

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Security Principles

• General Security Guidelines
• Your role in the HRMS or Financials system will
  determine the EPM reporting tables to which you
  have access
• Your query result sets are restricted either by
  the departments or business units to which you
  have access
• In general, if you can see it in the
  transactional system you should be able to query
  it in EPM

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Refresh Rate

• The refresh goal
• Our batch schedule updates the EPM tables on a
  nightly basis
• Updates made in the transactional system should
  be available for reporting the following day.
• The refresh realities
• The EPM batch schedule is dependent on HRMS and
  Financials batch schedule
• Processing errors do occur. Attempts to fix
  occur during the night.
• Refresh exceptions
• CT_DET_PAYROLL Refreshed after payroll is
  distributed
• CT_LEAVE_PLAN Refreshed after leave accrual
  processing

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Refresh Rate (continued)
Updates appear on CORE-CT homepage when data is
not refreshed
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EPM Help Process
Users should follow the following process for
obtaining help
Job Aids
Help Desk
Data Dictionary
Agency Superuser
WLA
Labs
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Efficient Impact Ticket Resolution

• When contacting the help desk about a reporting
  problem communicating the type of report you are
  trying to create will assist the help desk in
  identifying the best resource for resolving the
  ticket
• For example
• Reports generated via EPM Reporting Tools will be
  resolved more quickly if routed to the EPM team
• All other reports should be routed to either the
  Financials or HRMS teams for timely resolution

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Views versus Tables

• What is a view?
• Views are subsets of data from one or more tables
• What are views used for in EPM?
• Views are being used to secure sensitive data
• Example Address information for certain employee
  groups
• Views are being used to segment table data to
  simplify reporting
• Example Specific ledger groups like allotments
  and appropriations
• How does querying from a view differ from a
  table?
• To the user there is no difference between query
  from a view or table

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Open Issues
Issue
Efforts / Solutions
Knowing the Data/Using the Tool - Users need help learning the information in the reporting tables and how to use the tool to create a report Working on securing additional support resources Adding query labs in January Meeting with users directly to resolve issues Need to create reporting table job aids
Sharing Queries - Users want to share Ad-Hoc queries they have created with others Roll-out approach and management plan created Plan just submitted for review by directors
Query Size Limits - Users requesting larger data set retrieval capability Scheduled queries circumvents the limits placed when displaying results on-line
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Open Issues
Issue
Efforts / Solutions
Reporting Table Refresh - Intermittent delays in refresh Running EPM batch earlier New logic added to batch schedule to enable dynamic processing
Run Hyperlink on Query Manager - Some users experiencing blank page or error message return PeopleTools upgrade expected in the Spring Use preview tab in the query
Performance - Navigation from page to page and running of some queries sometimes takes too long Tech Team has increased memory servers Indexes begin added to tables Queries are being evaluated Schedule Query
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Agenda

• Introduction Jeanne Skellett
• System Issues Mark Malcolm
• System Enhancements/Updates Frank Scalia
• Agency Report Demonstration Jennifer Traynor
• BREAK
• EPM Training Steve Perkins
• User Comments/Issues/Request Frank Scalia
• Next Meeting Jeanne Skellett

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System Enhancements/Updates

• Capability to Schedule Queries
• Chart of Account Trees Enabling in tree
• New EPM Reporting Tables/Queries
• Prompt Table Edits

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Scheduled Queries

• Benefits of scheduling queries
• Allows access to full result set
• Distribution of report results to any EPM user
• Schedule Query to run on a recurring basis
• Enhance Performance by running outside the
  Application
• When to schedule a query
• When a query returns the error Query Result Set
  too Large.
• When a query is run on a recurring basis.

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Chart of Account Trees

• Benefits of in tree
• Enable user to report based on a series of
  Accounts, DeptIDs, Sids, Funds, etc.
• Enables user to subtotal base upon the respective
  tree hierarchy
• Who will benefit from in tree querying?
• Primarily financial reporting users
• Agencies with a complex hierarchy of accounts,
  Sids, and Funds
• Agencies with a complex department structure

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New EPM Tables

• New Reporting Tables being developed for
  Financials

Table Name Description
Budget Transaction Holds all posted and unposted budget journal entries
Receiver Transaction Holds the detail information for all goods received, inspected, returned, and put away
Procurement X-ref Cross references all procurement transactions to each other
Vendor Withholding Transaction Holds the detail information for all withholding transactions for a vendor
Customer Contacts Lists all contact information for accounts receivable customers
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New EPM Tables

• New Reporting Tables being developed for HR

Table Name Description
Benefits Billing Holds information relating to employees who must send payments to the State of Connecticut to continue their benefits
Billing Activity Holds the detailed payment information related to Benefits Billing
Pay Check Summary Holds gross pay, total taxes, total deductions and net pay for a given paycheck
Additional Payment Holds information about payments processed through additional pay
Employee Deduction Holds information on all deductions that will be taken from an employees earnings
Employee Tax Holds information affecting an employees taxes like marital status, allowances and exemptions
YTD Payroll Holds earnings, deduction, and tax totals by Year, Month and Quarter
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Prompt Table Edits Added

• Why are prompt table edits important?
• They provide users with valid listing of values
• They assist users in creating criteria for
  queries
• The following fields now have Prompt Table Edits
• Business Unit
• Account
• Department
• Fund
• SID
• Program
• Project
• Chartfield 1
• Chartfield 2

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Prompt Table Edits Example

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Prompt Table Edits Example

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Prompt Table Edits Example

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Job Aids Location

• Job Aids can be found at the following location
• http//www.core-ct.state.ct.us/epm/

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Agenda

• Introduction Jeanne Skellett
• System Issues Mark Malcolm
• System Enhancements/Updates Frank Scalia
• Agency Report Demonstration Jennifer Traynor
• BREAK
• EPM Training Steve Perkins
• User Comments/Issues/Request Frank Scalia
• Next Meeting Jeanne Skellett

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EPM End User Demonstration
Situation Delivered payroll register not sorted
or summed in the way DEP needed Query Name
DEP Paycheck Details Summary Description
DEP Payroll Register Alpha by employee name.
(Subtotals on each transaction / deduction
type).
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DEP Paycheck Details Summary

• Steps followed to create report
• Identified an existing query that was useful
• Modified its Fields
• Modified the Criteria and Prompts
• Used the Sum function
• Using Reorder/Sort

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End User Demo

• Other helpful uses of EPM
• Data clean-up example -
• Personnel Directors Manager Listing

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Agenda

• Introduction Jeanne Skellett
• System Issues Mark Malcolm
• System Enhancements/Updates Frank Scalia
• Agency Report Demonstration Jennifer Traynor
• BREAK
• EPM Training Steve Perkins
• User Comments/Issues/Request Frank Scalia
• Next Meeting Jeanne Skellett

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In Tree Constraint Type

• What is a Tree?
• The graphical hierarchy in PeopleSoft systems
  that displays the relationship between items in a
  group.
• Trees add a convenient graphical layer that
  displays the relationships between chartfield
  values.
• Benefits in EPM
• Trees allow a user to restrict a query result set
  to only those rows of data which have values that
  exist in a tree node.

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Expressions

• What is an Expression?
• Expressions are calculations that PeopleSoft
  Query performs as part of the query.
• They can be used to compare values.
• Uses
• Numerical Manipulation.
• Substring.
• Concatenate.
• Decode (IF)

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Agenda

• Introduction Jeanne Skellett
• System Issues Mark Malcolm
• System Enhancements/Updates Frank Scalia
• Agency Report Demonstration Jennifer Traynor
• BREAK
• EPM Training Steve Perkins
• User Comments/Issues/Request Frank Scalia
• Next Meeting Jeanne Skellett

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Discussion

User Comments / Issues / Request?
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Agenda

• Introduction Jeanne Skellett
• System Issues Mark Malcolm
• System Enhancements/Updates Frank Scalia
• Agency Report Demonstration Jennifer Traynor
• BREAK
• EPM Training Steve Perkins
• User Comments/Issues/Request Frank Scalia
• Next Meeting Jeanne Skellett

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Closing
Thank You for your participation today. We look
forward to continuing our work together to
improve and make EPM a Success!

• Feed Back Forms
• Look for this presentation and meeting Q
  Ason the Core-CT Website (http//www.core-ct.sta
  te.ct.us/)
• Next Meeting March 2004101 E. River Drive,
  Room 1002 AB
• AR/GL/Reporting Meeting - January 26, 2004101 E.
  River Drive, Room 1002 AB