Department or Functional Area Finance Administration (FAD)

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1 Department or Functional Area Finance Administration (FAD) Document Author(s) Mitch Rogers/Jay Wells Current State Describe the current state of your Department or Functional Area as it relates to or is enabled by technology. It is not intended to be a marketing pitch but an accurate depiction of your As-Is state and your current challenges. FAD has made significant investment in technology to support its business mission in the past year. The Oracle Assets project will complete deployment in December 2014, and the Oracle Archiving Planning project has begun. The Modernization of Financial Reporting project deployed the initial set of CREW replacement reports in mid-2014 and has continued to deliver throughout the year. The GMAS 2.0 Planning Project is nearing completion and preparing for a transition to the implementation phase of the project in Q3. And many other smaller projects are underway that are helping advance the mission of FAD and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Financial and Sponsored Research stakeholders across the University. There is still a great deal of work to be done to better manage the technical and business process debt that exists in many of the financial systems that Harvard depends upon to be a viable business entity. Many key financial processes in use by University stakeholders require transactions initiated outside of the financial systems a situation which is inefficient and labor intensive, disconnects the transaction data from the source, and prevents us from making other investments that could provide significant financial support to the University and our teaching and research mission. We must continue to improve access to data for the thousands of finance and sponsored research information workers across the university. As the pressure on controlling administrative costs continues to increase, a key to controlling this growth is better reporting and analytics. Given that a significant percentage of our time every day is spent collecting and organizing data and information, investments in improving our efficiency in this space will pay significant dividends in the future. Building a robust financial and sponsored research reporting platform for the future will be complex and requires a significant investment of time, resources, and money. It is essential for University leadership to take a strategic, holistic approach to addressing this need but equally important to act with a sense of urgency. Critical investments still need to be made to ensure that financial systems continue to support the business and improve business decision-making. The financial systems roadmap reflects a balance between investment in fundamental systems architecture and deployment of new functionality and systems. We must continue to support and in some circumstances help accelerate the University s transformation by ensuring that the right combination of people, process, and technology is leveraged to optimize the efficiency of Harvard s most valuable assets: faculty, students, and staff. Finance Administration Roadmap February 11, 2015 Page 1 of 6

2 Academic / Administrative Vision Where are you going? Looking at your department or functional area five years from now, where do you want to be? What is your vision of the future as it relates to technology? FAD has for a number of years sought to play an enhanced leadership role in the University s efforts to transform the quality of its financial management. We believe this remains critically important in light of facts and circumstances suggesting fundamental, structural challenges for the entire higher education sector challenges from which Harvard certainly is not immune. Leadership in financial management has required investment, and our investment in the central finance function has achieved a clear return in recent years in terms of (among other things) greatly increased transparency; more coherent policy frameworks in critical financial management realms including liquidity management and budget management; greatly improved engagement with the University s fiduciaries; and improved collaboration with our School colleagues. FAD s top multi-year objectives are in support of and aligned with our three thematic goals: managing risk, engaging our customers and supporting senior leadership. While these themes have remained consistent over the past several years, the work in which we are engaged in service of those priorities has evolved as we have pursued transformative change in the University s financial management strategies and operations. Benefits Streamlined financial and research administration business processes Increased transparency / understanding of financial results and challenges Reduced residual risk for liquidity and budget performance Improved information to support engagement with the University s fiduciaries More robust support for fact-based decisions across the University Improved compliance with regulations and best practices More efficient financial operations, management, and strategic planning Increased ability to quickly respond to changes in the fiscal climate Improved support for research activities across the Schools Finance Administration Roadmap February 11, 2015 Page 2 of 6

3 Objectives Which interim objectives will help you meet your five-year vision? Short Term (This Coming Fiscal Year) Mid-Term (2-3 Years) Long Term (4-5 Years) At the end of FY16 FAD systems should be moving toward several of the goals listed above, as well as the following: Two major financial systems, GMAS and Oracle, will have specific plans that will lead to significant technology and business process improvements. Financial decision-making and operational management will have been improved due to the continued implementation of Business Intelligence tools and technologies. A roadmap for further deployment of this critical technology will be in place that coordinates and aligns across HHR, AAD, and FAD. A strategic plan for improvements in the Procure to Pay process will also be in place, as will a roadmap for implementing sub-ledger accounting solutions for some key transactions that get made directly in the General Ledger. All of the FAD technology roadmaps will continue to evolve with a renewed focus and commitment to governance, engagement, and strategy. FAD business partners will see greater operational productivity resulting from improvements to delivery processes and backlog governance and prioritization. FAD will invest significant resources into supporting the HUIT cloud initiative. A business roadmap will be in place that prioritizes opportunities to move from the data center to the cloud, including planning efforts to refactor future initiatives and retool the workforce in preparation for this fundamental change to the way Harvard delivers information technology. In 2-3 years FAD should be able to support the schools with more robust information technologies that improve the efficiencies of financial business processes. The first generation of business intelligence tools and technologies for the finance and research administration community will be fully deployed. We will be moving towards an architecture that allows reporting to be integrated into the business process workflow instead of in disparate, disconnected systems. GMAS will have evolved into a more user friendly, highly performing system that provides greater service to the sponsored community from pre-award through post-award fund management. There will be a plan in place that continues to integrate GMAS functionality with other tools used across the sponsored community. A P2P Strategic plan will have been adopted and projects will be underway to implement technology components of that strategy. This will include major overhauls to HCOM and iprocurement. There will be more centralized and standardized procurement business processes. Improved engagement models with the schools will be in place that will allow for systems projects to be delivered more quickly and less expensively, with less impact to end users. There will be a large number of FSS managed business solutions that have been migrated to the cloud. The FSS team will be continuing to evolve into an organization that is less productcentric and more integration and data-centric. Over the long term, financial systems will evolve to support improved decision-making by the schools and central groups. Business processes will be streamlined and more holistically understood and where possible standardized across stakeholder groups, greatly reducing Change Management costs and timelines. There will be less reliance on the General Ledger as tool for cost accounting changes which will greatly enhance analytical capabilities since the entries in the GL will be traceable back to their source transactions. GMAS will form the center of a constellation of systems which communicate seamlessly across the entire lifecycle of research administration and compliance processes. BI and Data Management tools and technologies will put better data in the hands of decision-makers who will have a fully-deployed business intelligence framework that support operational activities as well as tactical and strategic decision-making. We will have more solutions in the cloud and a robust framework to measure and manage the risk of cloud based solutions. Finance Administration Roadmap February 11, 2015 Page 3 of 6

4 Performance Measurements How will you measure success? Short Term (This Coming Fiscal Year) Mid-Term (2-3 Years) Long Term (4-5 Years) Robust lessons learned activities from recently completed projects are completed with improvements incorporated into active projects. Projects in-flight continue to be managed effectively and optimized. Significant focus will be placed on continuous improvement and organizational design on the most optimal way to collaborate with the schools to deliver solutions. GMAS 2.0 Planning, MFR Phase 1, Oracle Archive Planning, HMS GMAS-OAR, Hyperion Upgrade, ESTR Product Path, MFR Phase 2 Planning, FRAP Stabilization, Hyperion Upgrade projects in-progress or completed. Continued improvement to the FAD governance processes and improved engagement with center and school stakeholder groups, resulting in a reduction is cost to implement solutions. Better data and information in the hands of information workers across the University will have resulted in streamlined business processes Financial and Research admin systems will be moving into the cloud, reducing cost and complexity in the infrastructure P2P Strategic Plan and Systems Roadmap will be in place, and the initial projects will be underway or completed. GMAS will be continuously improving and will be evolving into the central hub for all research administration systems New, streamlined, modern financial systems will be making University teams more efficient, freeing up resource time that is reallocated to higher value add activities. You will start to see a shallower growth curve across the university in financial administrative headcount as a result. Systems teams will be evolving from technology based competencies to data and business process based competencies. Financial systems and architectures at Harvard will continue to evolve to more modern platforms, reducing the cost and latency for keeping tools current. Business system teams will be spending more time understanding data and providing data and integration services to business stakeholders. Administrative costs and headcount growth will continue to slow as newer technologies are updated P2P Systems strategy will be in midprogram. The University will be starting to realize the potential of 8 figure cost savings from vastly improved P2P business processes and data that can be used to build and leverage strategic partnerships. Finance Administration Roadmap February 11, 2015 Page 4 of 6

5 What IT initiatives will contribute to meeting your long-term vision? Short Term (This Coming Fiscal Year) Mid-Term (2-3 Years) Long Term (4-5 Years) Oracle EBS Archiving Project Oracle EBS move from the data center Sponsored Research Post Award (Oracle GMAS 2.0 Project Procure to Pay Program Grants or other solution) Sponsored Research Reporting, phase I Sponsored Research Budgeting Cost Transfers no longer in G/L Finance BI Program Sponsored Research Reporting, phase II EBS Release 12.2 Procure to Pay Strategy Planning Project OBI Program Escheatment, ireceivables, HUBS Upgrade Travel and Expense deployment Endowment/Fund Accounting projects as Oracle EBS move from the data center HUIT Cloud Initiative determined by the business planning Oracle OBI Program Phase Travel and Expense (pilot) Procure to Pay Program HUIT Cloud Initiative Projects should not be entered here. Database accessed via SharePoint: Data that will be entered in the database for each project includes: Group: Organizational Area Sub-Group: The specific grouping within the Organization Fiscal Years Start: Used to define reporting years Document Library: View the SharePoint library of roadmaps for the selected Group Post PDF: Publish the Sub-Group Report to SharePoint. Used when Roadmap exercise is complete for the selected Group. Preview [Sub-]Group Report Buttons: Used to generate Roadmap Program/Grouping: The grouping within this sub-group for reporting purposes (optional) Initiative Name: The name of the initiative being described Initiative Funding Source: The expected external spend for the Project (should include facilities, fee-for services, 3 rd party spend, etc.) Operating Tail funding source: Source for Operational tail (after project, out years) Tier Type: Project categorization Primary Strategic Initiative: Main initiative supported by project Renewal/Refresh: Project will refresh legacy implementations Green Initiative: Supports Harvard s green goals Reduces Operations costs: Project will reduce out-year spend Expected Outputs: Expected outcomes of projects Roadmap Phases: Stages and expected Start/Finish dates for each Finance Administration Roadmap February 11, 2015 Page 5 of 6

6 Appendices Please feel free to attach any additional resources that can help provide insight into your current state, vision or roadmap. Appendices are not required but can be helpful to provide additional information to audiences unfamiliar with your Department or Functional Area. Finance Administration Roadmap February 11, 2015 Page 6 of 6