Initiatives & Outreach is committed to providing professional services to both our internal teams and to our partners, helping them achieve the strategic goals of the university. We assist in evaluating business processes and advise on the effective use of our systems with our campus community. Our objective is to provide a collaborative approach to identify, prioritize, track, and successfully execute initiatives and projects that support the strategic goals of the university as prioritized by Financial Services leadership.
If your department needs UAccess Support, Business Analysis, or Project Management services, please submit an Outreach Request to contact Initiatives & Outreach with your specific needs.
Our project managers will...
Project List
Current Projects
The current Bottomline check printing system will no longer be supported and will need to be replaced with the new Bottomline PCM SAAS check printing solution. This project will ensure check files are stored, transferred via SFTP, and printed securely and efficiently. The project will also include testing the new solution, training, documentation, and post-go-live support structure.
TBDJune 2024
| Goals | This project will replace an essential Accounts Payable business process with a more modern solution. This will provide quality tools for our internal users to efficiently conduct University business and will further enable Financial Services to efficiently comply with external and internal policies and procedures. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Akhil Kanakkassery |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services, UITS |
| Leadership | Tammy Strom |
| Status | In Progress |
| Timeframe | TBD to June 30, 2024 |
This multi-phase, multi-year initiative to modernize the University financial system aligns with Pillar 5 of the University of Arizona strategic plan. The updated system will ensure the University of Arizona culture of adaptation, exploration and data-driven decisions continue as the University grows.
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January 2021 September 2024
| Goals | This system implementation will provide increased financial clarity, a more standardized Chart of Accounts, and more streamlined business processes for financial management at the University of Arizona. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Mary Baum |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services, Campus |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | In Progress |
| Timeframe | January 4, 2021 through September 30, 2024 |
Using automation tools, like Katalon and PowerAutomate, the Initiatives and Outreach team is actively supporting Financial Services business units to identify and implement opportunities for operational efficiency using automation.
| Goals | Identify potential process improvement opportunities and provide recommendations for implementing time-saving automation. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Akhil Kanakkassery |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Ongoing |
Financial Services is committed to supporting and ensuring the optimization of our financial system. We assist and lead upgrades and releases of new code.
| Goals | Ensure teams effectively carryout the strategic direction given for the financial system. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Mary Baum |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services, UITS, Campus Community |
| Leadership | UAccess Financials Governance and Strategy Committees |
| Status | Ongoing |
Project Gantt
Completed Projects
As a part of Shared Services, we will collaborate and support the Financial Services IT Team to migrate and replace all the unsupported MS Forms webforms and their coinciding Power-Automate processes. We will provide documentation and project management support to ensure the Risk Management Team can collect, track, store and manage information received via webform submissions.
June 2022 December 2022
| Goals | This project will replace 8 current Webforms and business processes with user friendly and easily supported Webforms. This will provide both exemplary service to our customers and look for time saving opportunities to support efficient financial and business services. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Phillip Valine |
| Stakeholders | Risk Management, Financial Services IT, Campus |
| Leadership | Dan Mayhew, Ada Korhonen |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | June 2022 through December 2022 |
As a part of Shared Services, we will collaborate with the Office of Budget & Planning team to develop a process to collect, track, and store organization change requests.
September 2022December 2022
| Goals | Using Adobe Webforms, Power-Automate, and SharePoint we aim to remove several manual steps in the organization change request process using automation tools. The process will be a user-friendly way to collect, manage, and store requests. This will provide both exemplary service to our customers and support efficient financial and business services. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Phillip Valine |
| Stakeholders | Campus, Office of Budget & Planning |
| Leadership | Ada Korhonen, Garth Perry |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | Septemeber 2022 to December 2022 |
The Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF or Fund) is an Office of Sustainability program, established to provide funding support for large and small scale sustainability projects. Utilizing existing tools, we will support the Financial Services IT team to build a business process capable of collecting, storing, reviewing, and managing grant submissions for the Office of Sustainability.
March 2022December 2022
| Goals | Using Drupal Webforms, Power-Automate, and SharePoint we will replace three webforms and remove several manual steps in the grant process using automation tools. The product will be a user-friendly way to collect, manage and display the progress of these grants efficiently. This will provide both exemplary service to our customers and support efficient financial and business services. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Phillip Valine |
| Stakeholders | Office of Sustainability, Campus |
| Leadership | Dan Mayhew, Trevor Ledbetter, Ada Korhonen |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | March 2022 through December 2022 |
Created and executed automated archiving of COI/COC system to save estimated manual work time of 2500 hours.
July 2021 May 2022
| Goals | : Automatically archive every document along with connected attachments from COI/COC system for archiving. Create a SharePoint system that gives similar search functionalities as the COI/COC systems. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Akhil Kanakkassery |
| Stakeholders | Research Innovation & Impact |
| Leadership | Research Innovation & Impact |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | July 2021 through May 2022 |
This project will develop and implement automated testing of the functional processes for all the Financial Services IT developed business applications. Testing all the functional requirements of these applications with automation provides an efficient, trackable, sustainable, and cost-effective way to complete functional testing and will help ensure the quality of any new code introduced.
September 27, 2021 January 28, 2022
| Goals | Providing quality tools for our internal users to efficiently conduct University business will further enable Financial Services to efficiently comply with external and internal policies and procedures. In the case of our Tuition Calculator, automated testing will enable students to view accurate and timely rates in our application. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Phillip Valine |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | January 1, 2020 through June 30, 2022 |
Initiatives and Outreach will be coordinating the redesign and update of the Financial Services website
June 2020 August 2022
| Goals | Consolidate and make customer-centric updates to our Financial Services website. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Judy Miranda |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | June 24, 2020 through August 31, 2022 |
Coordinating the plan and timeline for the efforts leading up to the negotiations for the facilities and administrative cost rate.
May 2019February 2021
| Goals | Ensure project tasks are completed on time to meet deadline for indirect cost proposal submission. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Phillip Valine |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services, Planning and Design Construction, campus constituents |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | May 1, 2019 through February 26, 2021 |
Financial Services is process mapping the PCard business process from end-to-end to identify any opportunities for operational efficiency.
November 2020March 2021
| Goals | Identify potential process improvement opportunities and provide recommendations for implementing time-saving changes or automation. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Akhil Kanakkassery |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services, Campus |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | February 3, 2021 through March 5, 2021 |
The Unclaimed ACH & Wires application is being reevaluated for process improvements.
November 2020March 2021
| Goals | Implement process improvements for Unclaimed ACH & Wires process. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Akhil Kanakkassery |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services, Campus |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | November 4, 2020 through March 14, 2021 |
In support of the UAccess Financials Strategic Committee’s decision for staying as close to current code as possible, automate the financial system’s functional test deck to ensure accurate, timely testing for upgrades and releases.
January 2019March 2021
| Goals | Develop an automated functional test deck for the financials system. Onboard the Business Systems Analysis and UITS Enterprise Business Analysis teams to ensure shared knowledge for maintainability. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Akhil Kanakkassery |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services, UITS Enterprise Business Analysts |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | January 1, 2019 through March 15, 2021 |
The University transitions in April 2020 to JPMC as the provider of bank services. Due to COVID-19 and campus working remotely we have delayed onboarding our Outlet campus sites and BDEX solution until we are back on campus.
January 2019March 2021
| Goals | Transition Outlet campus sites to BDEX solution and complete the bank transition to JPMC. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Mary Baum |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services, Campus |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | October 5, 2020 through March 15, 2021 |
Implement a process/solution that will centralize Financial Services business process and procedures documentation.
June 2020December 2020
| Goals | Create efficiency for Financial Services units to access business process and procedures documentation. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Judy Miranda |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | June 1, 2020 through December 23, 2020 |
Financial Services Intranet content is being migrated to a SharePoint Hub. The goal of this project will be to launch a secure, user-friendly employee resource site.
August 2020December 2020
| Goals | Implement a new Intranet for Financial Services. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Phillip Valine |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services Units |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | August 14, 2020 through December 23, 2020 |
Our UAccess Learning administrators provide support for our instructors and learners related to the enterprise system. We administer and manage Financial Services trainings as well as participate in upgrades and releases to production.
July 2020June 2021
| Goals | Ensure the optimization of the enterprise learning management system. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Alexa Rohr |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services, UITS, Campus Community |
| Leadership | UAccess Learning Governance |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | July 2020 through June 2021 |
The University of Arizona is working toward implementing a new Learning Management System for campus. Saba was the vendor awarded the RFP and we are branding the system EDGE Learning. Outreach is participating as a project member and is leading User Acceptance Testing for our internal units.
January 2020 November 2020
| Goals | Adoption of a new Learning Management system. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Alexa Rohr |
| Stakeholders | Financials Services |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | January 2020 through December 2020 |
As part of Financial Services IT routine maintenance, the Application Access Component enables Financial Services application administrators to grant and maintain user access. This component will replace Gatekeeper and will function in many of the same ways, but will also be able to interact and manage users for server-less applications.
September 2020 October 2020
| Goals | Implement a solution for managing users for server-less applications. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Phillip Valine |
| Stakeholders | Financials Services units |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | September 2020 through October 30, 2020 |
Upgrade the technical framework for the Tuition Calculator web application and develop a new administration dashboard to manage the tuition data.
December 2019 July 2020
| Goals | Optimize the technical framework for the Tuition Calculator web application. Develop a new administration dashboard to allow the Bursar team to easily manage all the tuition data displayed on the Tuition Calculator. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Phillip Valine |
| Stakeholders | University of Arizona Students, Faculty, and Staff |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | December 2019 through July 10, 2020 |
Upgrade framework for current application and implement functional enhancements.
October 2019 July 2020
| Goals | Optimize technical framework for the PCard Operation Center application and ensure requirements are met for both the PCard administration and Compliance teams. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Alexa Rohr |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services |
| Leadership | PCard Compliance, PCard Administration |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | October 2019 through July 20, 2020 |
Implementation team will form this Fall, JPMorgan Chase Bank will provide comprehensive banking services to the University that will not only save money but continue to provide excellent service to the University community.
Febuary 2019 April 2020
| Goals | Successfully transition the university from current bank to JPMorgan Chase. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Mary Baum |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services, Campus Community |
| Leadership | New Bank Steering Committee |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | February 2019 through April 30, 2020 |
Modify existing application to include an option for distributing checks through the Bursar's Office.
October 2019 December 2019
| Goals | Add functionality to allow checks to be signed for through the Bursar’s Office using already existing Special Handling Log application. Ensure documentation is updated for existing users and created for the new user unit. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Phillip Valine |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services |
| Leadership | Financial Services |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | October 2019 through December 2019 |
Implement a Capital Physical Inventory solution that interfaces/updates our financial system of record.
July 2018 March 2020
| Goals | Implement a solution that will meet Capital Finance and asset custodian’s needs for inventory purposes. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Alexa Rohr |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services, UITS Enterprise Business Analysts, Campus Community |
| Leadership | Capital Finance |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | July 2018 through March 2020 |
Lead RFP for Budget and Planning tool. Provide support for the successful implementation of Axiom software. Work with the Budget Office to develop on demand training.
November 2018 March 2020
| Goals | Work with the Budget Office stakeholders to ensure a successful implementation of Axiom and adoption from the campus community. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Phillip Valine |
| Stakeholders | Budget Office, Financial Services, Campus Community |
| Leadership | Budget Office |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | November 2018 through March 2020 |
Upgrade framework and migrate current application to Portal.
January 2019 October 2019
| Goals | Migrate application to a new server and take the opportunity to implement technical enhancements. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Phillip Valine |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services |
| Leadership | Accounts Payable |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | January 2019 through October 2019 |
Upgrade framework and migrate current application to Portal.
December 2018 May 2019
| Goals | Migrate application to a new server and take the opportunity to implement technical enhancements. |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | Juanita McCune |
| Stakeholders | Financial Services |
| Leadership | Accounts Payable |
| Status | Completed |
| Timeframe | December 2018 through May 2019 |
Initiatives & Outreach Team
Mary Baum, PMP, CSM
Manager, Initiatives and Outreach
maryb@arizona.edu
Alexa Rohr, CSM
Business Analyst, Principal
arohr@arizona.edu
Akhil Kanakkassery
Business Analyst, Senior
akhilashokk@arizona.edu
Judy Miranda
Business Analyst
ymiranda@arizona.edu
Jennifer McCabe
Project Coordinator
jennifermccabe@arizona.edu