UWS Delegations Register

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• UWS Delegations Register

• Presentation
• Paul Woloch Director Policy and Governance, UWS
• Ray Cauchi Developer, (TWEEK!)

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• UWS Delegations Register
• University Context

• In general universities are very decentralised
  organisations
• Large number of staff with delegations (e.g.
  research delegations involving 229 researchers)
• Large numbers of financial cost centres and
  projects
• Complexity and diversity of purchasing
• Extensive business travel
• Consultancy and other commercial activities
• Regular and extensive employment of casual staff
• Audit Review at UWS in 2002 pointed to the need
  to devise an effective mechanism to maintain
  track of delegates and generate greater awareness
  of responsibilities. Delegations included in 2009
  UWS Audit Program.

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• UWS Delegations Register
• What is it?

• The Register is an online database that enables
  extraction of data of individuals holding
  delegations
• Details of cost centre/project account
• The category of delegation held by the
  individual
• Auto extraction from the Policy schedules all
  relevant delegations
• Effective dates on which the delegate holds
  authority (especially relevant for acting
  appointments)
• The financial limit of any credit card
• A complete audit record of all delegations held
  currently and previously
• Notice that the delegates signature is in
  electronic TRIM file
• A notes field to describe any restriction or
  change to a delegation
• Accessible via web browser from any location

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• UWS Delegations Register
• What is it?

• The Register also
• Auto generates signature forms and emails
  delegates about their delegation and when it
  changes
• Emails delegates when acting in positions and
  sends reminders on expiry
• Has the capacity to email cohorts of delegates
• Provides complete audit records of all
  transactions in the Register
• Enables the generation of tailored audit
  reports.
• Provides searching facility to identify
  individuals or categories of delegates

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• UWS Delegations Register
• Organisational Framework

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• UWS Delegations Register
• The Solution (conceptually)

• The system was designed so that it
• Could be readily searched
• Would facilitate business processing (finance and
  audit especially)
• Could be comprehensive and accurate in its
  records of individuals and therefore auditable
• Could be kept up to date
• Contained cost centre, project code and credit
  card details
• Was able to accommodate acting appointments
• Could be intuitive and facilitate business
  processing
• Auto generated forms and notices
• Account code verification from Oracle financials
• Would result in greater awareness of
  responsibility and accountability
• Provided a reliable mechanism to handle specimen
  signatures

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• UWS Delegations Register
• Uses of the Register

• The Register is used for
• Verifying that an individual has a delegation
• Providing an auditable historical record of
  delegations held by individuals, including any
  acting appointments
• Providing information to delegates about their
  delegation including cost account details over
  which they have authority
• A searchable database to establish who might have
  authority over a particular account or list of
  delegates for a particular unit
• Reinforcing with delegates their responsibilities
  with respect to the exercise of their delegations
  in a highly decentralised organisation

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• UWS Delegations Register
• Uses of the Register

• Examples
• UWS processes some 5,000 invoices per month
  (2M-5M total). Prior to Register only random
  manual checks were possible now all
  transactions are checked.
• Transactions incorrectly approved can be rejected
  with confidence also transaction can be quickly
  routed to appropriate delegate.
• Submission of transactions with incorrect
  delegate has shown marked decline in frequency
  since the Registers advent.
• Used to scope fraud investigations to immediately
  define extent of potential risk/exposure
  financial accounts, credit cards, staff
  delegations, historical record of the individual
  under scrutiny. Remedial actions such as
  suspension of delegations, monitoring etc. can be
  put in place quickly. Used in tandem with CAATS.

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• http//delegations.uws.edu.au/

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UWS Delegations RegisterThe Search Engine
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UWS Delegations RegisterSearch Results
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UWS Delegations RegisterCreate Acting Record
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UWS Delegations RegisterDeclaration Sample
Signatures
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(No Transcript)
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• UWS Delegations Register

• QUESTIONS?
• Contacts
• ray_at_tweek.com.au
• p.woloch_at_uws.edu.au

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UWS Delegations Register The Solution
(technically)

• Built on a foundation of Open Source Software
• PHP 4 (currently operating in a PHP 5 environment
  via an Apache/Solaris cluster of web servers)
• MySQL 4.1 Database backend utilising both MyISAM
  and INNODB transactional tablespaces as required.
  
• Database abstraction via ADODB -
  adodb.sourceforge.net operable with database
  backends other than MySQL.
• Smarty templating system smarty.php.net
  abstracts the presentational code from business
  logic.
• Implements components of the PEAR library
  pear.php.net

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UWS Delegations Register The Solution
(technically)

• Design Methodologies/Standards
• 3 Tier software design methodology implemented
• Web Standards compliant and Accessible
• WAI AA standard
• CSS2/XHTML1 Transitional based layout (public
  site)
• User-centric interface design methodology
• Best practice techniques applied in database
  design, coding and security aspects.
• Interface to Oracle Financials
• Cost and Project codes are imported to the
  Register from Oracle Financials on a nightly
  basis.
• Further potential to share data bi-directionally
  with Oracle Financials, via data feeds and web
  services.

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UWS Delegations Register General System Features

• Multi-user, multi access level authentication
• Ability to Email system users with attachments
• Application configuration (Administrators only),
  including
• system email addresses
• reminder email time limits
• manual override of automated tasks, notification
  of last time of execution/failure to execute
• University Divisions and Positions Management
• Web page Content editing via WYSIWYG editor
• FAQ/FAQ category management
• Navigation management (public and admin sites)
• Flexible reporting features exporting data to
  CSV files.

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UWS Delegations Register Delegations Specific
Features

• Centralised Delegate management ability to
  pre-date expiration of a Delegate
• associated automated task that deactivates
  Delegates nightly
• Delegations creation functionality
• from scratch or by duplicating an existing record
• Create Acting record
• Amend existing insert end date, extend acting
  record, invalidate
• Automatic generation and emailing of Delegation
  Declaration and Approval Form
• Schedule creation and management (AJAX based)
• Intuitive search facilities (public and admin
  sites)
• Ability to export search results to CSV files
  (admin site only)
• Ability to limit search results to current
  (default) or all current/expired/invalidated
  records