MFR By the Numbers
- 524: Number of distinct users that ran financial dashboards in OBI.
- 26,240: Number of distinct requests made using the financial dashboards, almost half of which were made of the “Transaction Listing All” dashboard (10,583 requests).
- 135: Number of individuals registered for the Introduction to OBI Financial Dashboard training
- 517: Number of users who have completed training
- 33%: Percentage of target audience who is trained on OBI. If you are one of the other 66%, register for OBI training today!
Monthly Sprint Review
The MFR Project Team held its first monthly Sprint Review for the school-wide Engagement Councils, MFR Executive Committee members, and the MFR Project Leadership Team. This session was a resounding success, allowing the Project Team to update key constituents about the work that has been completed in the last month and upcoming priorities.
The next monthly Sprint Review will be on Friday, 9/29 from 10:30am-11:00am and will be open to all CREW and OBI users. Users can join the Sprint Review WebEx by clicking this link and by calling 866-890-3820, with a participant passcode of 29534685#.
Dashboard Update
The MFR Project’s primary focus continues to be addressing the showstoppers identified by the Finance Working Group and to improve system performance overall, with the performance of the Transaction Listing with Balance Forward of utmost importance.
The performance of the Transaction Listing with Balance Forward is greatly improved. The speed with which it takes to render results has been reduced by 66% since July, e.g. a dashboard that rendered results in 12 minutes before, will now return results in 4 minutes. The Project Team encourages use of this dashboard as the Project Team continues to work to reduce the run times.
All items identified as a showstopper will be addressed before we decommission the CREW reports.
September 15 Off-Cycle Release
The Project Team will be implementing an off-cycle release on Friday, September 15 at 6pm. OBI will be down until the release is completed; we expect the release to be complete and OBI accessible by 7am on Monday, September 18. This release will increase the performance of the Transaction Listing with Balance Forward All and Transaction Listing with Balance Forward Summary Comp dashboards. Additionally, two data attributes will be updated. The changes to the data attributes will affect users’ customizations with these dashboards.
Key Changes with this Release:
- The amount of time it takes for the Transaction Listing with Balance Forward dashboards to render results will be reduced by 50%.
- The subtotal function will be removed from the Transaction Listing with Balance Forward dashboards. Users should export to Excel and include subtotals in Excel.
- The Grand Total for all results and the Row Count will be shown in a separate section below the results.
- The AR – Oracle Receivables-Invoice Number column will be removed from inclusion via right-click.
- The AR – Oracle Receivables-Invoice ID column will be available for inclusion via right-click.
- The AR – Oracle Receivables-Receipt Number column will be available for inclusion via right-click.
September Monthly Release
The next OBI release will begin on Thursday, September 28 at 6pm. OBI will be down until the release is completed; we expect the release to be complete and OBI accessible by 9am on Friday, September 29. More details will be sent out closer to the release date.
Financial Dashboards Instructor Led Training
The MFR Project Team continues to deliver Instructor Led Training (ILT) on the OBI Financials dashboards to schools and departments. Users can view availability of training sessions through the Harvard Training Portal or the OBI Training Calendar. School-specific training sessions will run through October 31 with university-wide trainings available in November and December. The Project Team recommends attending training as soon as possible to ensure users are prepared for when CREW is no longer available (November 1st).
Webinar Update
Weekly webinars for each of the 19 financial dashboards are also available to users as a resource for learning more about the new dashboards. These webinars are the main source of training for those dashboards not covered in ILT. More information on the webinars can be found on the OBI Training Calendar. Key dates and topics for upcoming webinars are as follows:
- Thursday, September 14, 10 am: Journals General (replaces the CREW Journals – General report)
- Thursday, September 21, 10am: Budget by Major Fund Groups (replaces the following CREW reports: CINA Flex Comparative by Fund Group Report and the CINA by Major Fund Group Budget)
- Thursday, September 28, 10am: Change in Net Assets (replaces the following CREW reports: Stmt of CINA – Comparative, Stmt of CINA, and CINA by Fund Type)
- Thursday, October 5, 10am: CIP Funding and Balances (replaces the CREW Funding and Costs Summary report
- Thursday, October 12, 10am: Disable Impact Report (replaces the following CREW reports: Disable Impact Detail, CSMA Disable Impact Summary)
Additional Resources
OBI Financials ILT will also be supported by readily accessible online simulations and job aids on the OBI wiki pages.
One-on-One Help
OBI Drop-In Hours are held twice a month through December. See the OBI Training Calendar for details.
MFR Project Questions
If you have questions about the MFR Project, please visit the MFR Wiki or reach out to your Local Implementation Manager.