Project
LINK begins finance implementation
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Martinez LINKS to
new assignment
Vice
Presidents Judy Jones and Julie Weaks and Project LINK
Coordinator Fred Youberg recently announced that UNM Public
Affairs Department Director Frank D. Martinez has assumed
a two-year, special assignment as Project LINK director
of communications.
This is a role that requires a knowledge of UNMs
organizational structure and constituencies, as well as
the ability to communicate effectively. Frank brings more
than 25 years of experience with UNM to the assignment.
His time with Public Affairs makes him especially well-suited
to this position, Jones said.
While Martinez is on special assignment, Susan Moczygemba
McKinsey, director of UNM Marketing and Communications,
will manage the Public Affairs Department.
Campus News inquiries should be directed to Managing Editor
Laurie Mellas Ramirez and UNM News Minute and Web content
inquiries to Senior Public Affairs Representative Steve
Carr.
As Project LINK communications director Martinez will
be a member of the Project LINK transition management
team. My initial goal is to create more awareness
about Project LINK and its importance and implications
for faculty and staff, Martinez said. This
project is far-reaching and a lot bigger than most people
realize. Im looking forward to the new challenges
associated with this assignment.
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A series
of workshops is underway to train high-level administrators
and financial personnel to introduce a new Chart of Accounts
(COA) to their organizations, departments and offices as part
of Project LINKs (Linking Information Networks and Knowledge)
finance implementation.
The COA
rollout is an activity of the finance modules general
ledger component. Other finance module components include such
areas as accounts payable, accounts receivable, approvals, purchasing,
research accounting and fixed assets. The COA rollout
is an important step towards the implementation of this particular
module, says Project LINK Coordinator Fred Youberg.
Project
LINK is a multi-year, institution-wide undertaking designed
to update the universitys major administrative systems
and services in a variety of ways expected to be beneficial
to UNM faculty and staff.
Exactly
how beneficial is a question that will be answered completely
over time, Youberg says. However, there are a few
things that we can safely predict right now. LINK will allow
us to move to a much more electronic workflow world. Use of
paper forms will decrease; many documents will be electronically
and automatically moved from office to office; electronic edits
will prevent common mistakes like transposed digits in account
numbers and current information about recent transactions will
be available in near real time. Depending on your roles in the
organization, LINK will allow you Web-based access to a variety
of personal and business functions. It will provide integrated
and Web-based administrative services for finance, student,
financial aid, human resources and payroll functions at UNM.
It
is an evolving and developing project and were still defining
and refining scope and budget issues, he says. Nevertheless,
by any measure, this is a huge undertaking and the continued
positive support from the universitys leadership at the
highest levels underscores its importance.
UNM has
purchased software from the SCT Corp., a global information
technology solutions company currently serving more than 1,300
education and 200 energy and utilities clients worldwide. SCT
Banner is the name of its enterprise suite
of software designed to integrate and automate the core administrative
systems of educational institutions.
The finance
module is scheduled to go live July 2004, while
the student and financial aid modules will be phased in during
2005-06. Implementation schedules for Human Resources, Payroll
and other Project LINK modules have not been finalized.
The COA
rollout training is a key step toward meeting the finance implementation
schedule in which the university will replace its current Financial
Reporting System (FRS).
The COA,
which includes establishing new organization codes, will streamline
routing of electronic approvals and make security setup and
future business reporting more efficient. For example, in addition
to transactions being conducted in real time, the new COA is
expected to eliminate much of the need for shadow
tracking systems currently being used by campus departments.
Decision making and transaction approvals will occur at the
lowest appropriate levels, eliminating much of the need for
multiple approval signatures and documents.
The
expectation is that, by the end of November, we will have an
almost final draft of the new organization code structure for
the university and a crosswalk of FRS accounts to the new accounting
string, says Finance Implementation Project Director Judy
Cartmell.
Overall,
there is a lot of activity within the UNM Project LINK organization,
says Youberg. Across campus and at our branch campuses,
there are currently about 200 individuals working on Project
LINK on a full-time, part-time or voluntary basis. Ultimately,
we expect that Project LINK will impact everybody at UNM. It
will be a change in culture, a change in how we do things.
The LINK
Coordinating Team provides oversight of Project LINK. In addition
to Project LINK Coordinator Youberg, the team includes five
project directorsJudy Cartmell, Finance; Liz Jenkins,
Student; Ron Martinez, Financial Aid; Susan Carkeek, Human Resources/Payroll;
and Karen Abraham, Advancement. Each of the five project managers
reports directly to an Executive Sponsor on the UNM Executive
Cabinet.
The team
also includes leads from the three project-wide committeesCindy
Stuart, Institutional Issues; Helen Gonzales, Transition Management;
and Bill Adkins, Technical Architecture. Additionally, Alecia
Lavacot is the SCT project manager assigned to the projects
implementation and Dr. Laurie Schatzberg, assistant academic
vice president for Management Information Systems, is representing
the faculty.
For more
information, visit the Project LINK website at http://link.unm.edu/
or call the Project LINK office at 277-2522.