September 8, 2008
Monthly standard reports soon available in MS Excel
Purdue faculty with one or more sponsored research projects and other funding sources can look forward to greater flexibility in how they organize their monthly transaction reports. In early September, faculty who currently receive transaction reports will find their August data in both an Adobe Acrobat pdf file and as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
Prior to the implementation of OnePurdue SAP, faculty accessed the reports online in legacy AIMS or from their business offices via DSS. Since February, however, the reports have been available to faculty only as PDFs.
James Almond, vice president for business services and assistant treasurer, said continuously improving the reporting environment is a priority. After making the reports available to faculty as PDFs delivered electronically, further improvements included an Excel version of the reports.
Professor Howard Zelaznik, vice chair of the University Senate and professor of health and kinesiology, was one of the faculty members who participated in a demonstration workshop and provided feedback.
"This is a nice positive step toward returning functionality to grant reporting for principal investigators," Zelaznik said.
Purdue's IT Enterprise Applications, Business Services Support Group and Business Managers worked together in making the new delivery format available.
"The faculty asked us for some functionality," said Gary Yates, director, SAP Technical Competency Center for IT Enterprise Applications, "and we gave them what they wanted."
Jeff Whitten, associate vice president for IT Enterprise Applications and chief architect of OnePurdue, added, "We listened. We had several false starts, but we went back to the drawing board and got it to work."
Once the raw data is displayed in the Microsoft Excel format, the faculty will be able to reorganize the information in a variety of ways, including graphic charts, Whitten said.
"I think faculty are going to like this," he said.
The reports will be distributed at the beginning of each month after month-end close. Information contained in the report will reflect activity up to the last day of the preceding month. When reports are ready for access, designated faculty will receive an e-mail notification containing a link to their reports through the OnePurdue SAP Portal.
Each report, presented in a PDF and Microsoft Excel format, will be accessible through OnePurdue for two months. Faculty who will want to view the reports beyond that period may download them to a secure location.