Upcoming April System Outages for Oracle Financials Systems - FINDINI 4.0.9 Release

The April 2016 FINDINI 4.0.9 release will be available to users on Monday April 25, 2016. The key features included in this release are: 

• Integrating the new Concur Travel and Expense system with the Oracle General Ledger & PeopleSoft. Processes include:
• Oracle GL COA List Import  to Concur T&E application
• Chart of Accounts Validator modification to dynamically insert valid code combos
• Oracle GL file created from import of Concur T&E Standard Accounting Extract data dump
• PeopleSoft Employee Interface to Concur
• Oracle GL Sponsored Fund Validation Table to Concur T&E

• Introducing some additional critical bug fixes and critical system enhancements such as:
• CAPS/CPATH preparation for the CPATH Cost Management implementation
• Vendor Request form Enhancements including needs for Foreign Vendor Glacier process

• Upgrading the CPATH application to the current version
• Upgrading the OBI Replication database to the latest Oracle database
• Updating the Solaris EBS servers to Solaris 10 patch set 11 to accommodate the OFPI project prerequisite
• Rewriting several processes, using the APEX method, that are currently written in Mod PL SQL that live on the expiring 10gAS application server to prepare for the future move for these processes onto a  new web-logic server (ie Web Reimbursement, PCARD, Image Retrieval); coding and testing will be part of this release, but delivery to PROD will come later
• Addressing the JAN 2016 Compliance Security updates for PSU, CPU, JDK, JRE, & Solaris Operating System patching for EBS, CPATH, & Replication

The University's financial systems will be unavailable from Friday, April 22nd at 6:00pm until the start of business Monday, April 25th at 6:00am to complete the installation of this release. The OracleEBS Financial systems that will be offline during this time include Accounts Payable, Accounts Payable Adjustment Form for Assets, Accounts Receivable, Bottomline, CAPS, Cash Management (CMRA), Chart Security Maintenance Application (CSMA), CoA Validator, Collections, FedEx, General Ledger, GL Validator, Harvard Oracle Assets, HCOM, iProcurement, iReceivables, PCard, Vendor Request, Web ADI, and Web Reimbursement. Also, the CPATH (Capital Planning at Harvard), HDW/CREW, & OBI environments will also be offline for a shorter period of time during this outage.

The next FINDINI release 4.0.10 is tentatively planned for October 22, 2016. We are already actively planning and working on this next release which will focus on the continuation of the rewriting of several processes using the APEX method that are currently written in Mod PL SQL that live on the expiring 10gAS application server to prepare for the future move for these processes onto a new web-logic server. In addition, we will be addressing the JUL 2016 Compliance Security updates, preparing for compliance with Microsoft Office 2016, as well as introducing some additional bug fixes and system enhancements.

Vendor Request Form – Enhancements: Please note the following enhancements will be included within this release for the Vendor Request Form:

1. The CITY field will no longer accept numeric characters
2. The vendor type ‘Registered Harvard Student’ has been renamed to ‘Harvard Registered Student – US Citizen’. Users will encounter a note that students who are not US Citizens should be set-up using the ‘Individual – Non US Citizen’ vendor type.
3. Reactivation Requests (both Vendor and Site) for US individuals/vendors will now display a banner noting that a W-9 will need to be submitted for reactivation. A link to the W-9 form is included to be filled out by the vendor.
4. Reactivation Requests (both Vendor and Site) for FOREIGN individuals/vendors will now display a banner noting that an email address in the ‘ReActivate Reason’ field will need to be submitted for reactivation.
5. A new vendor type called ‘Business Expense Reimbursement – Foreign Individual’ has been created. For more detail, please go to the NRA Tax Site at http://nratax.oc.finance.harvard.edu/reimbursement-business-expenses

Chart of Accounts Validator Modification:  Message Changes

The Chart of Accounts Validator error messages for invalid chart values have been modified to more clearly communicate the error being encountered by a user. In the example above, the new message clearly states that the entered chart value does not exist vs. the old message; Value 58111 for the flex field segment HARVARD_ORG does not exist in the value set HRVD_ORG.

Note that this change has been implemented for all 7 chart values; tub, org, object, fund, activity, subactivity, and root.

Chart Validator New Feature: Create CCID

We have added a new feature to the chart of accounts validator that allows users to click a button to manually create a code combination that is valid, but hasn’t been created in Oracle yet.

This feature will be used to add code combinations to Oracle which in turn will feed Concur, Harvard’s new travel and expense system. Once created in Oracle, valid CCIDs will be added to Concur.