UNI WORKS will bring mobile convenience and improved efficiency
UNI WORKS will bring mobile convenience and improved efficiency
UNI WORKS is the cloud-based solution that will replace Oracle E-Business for all financial and human resources transactions at UNI beginning July 1. It’s a major change that will come with a period of adjustment, but the UNI campus can expect many benefits with the new system.
Employees will have the convenience of accessing UNI WORKS on their mobile devices, something has been very popular in training sessions thus far.
“The new system will be more intuitive and easier to use,” said Michael Hager, senior vice president for finance and operations at UNI. “You can use it on your mobile device. Training will be easier for new employees. For existing employees, I think what they will find is a richness of information and easier reporting capabilities.”
The reporting capabilities of UNI WORKS will include some useful dashboards with information to leverage. For example, departments will be able to pull procurement reports showing the top companies they are spending with. These new dashboards will also be helpful for travel spend reports, time card reports and payroll output reports.
Christina Geweke, director of business operations at UNI, echoes the overall sentiment that UNI WORKS will be a big improvement for campus. “We're gaining a number of efficiencies in our business processes because we will no longer be slowing processes down,” she said. “We've streamlined workflows by eliminating steps and processes that are redundant.”
Overall, Geweke believes the new system cuts waste and serves as a seamless one-stop shop for transactions related to business operations.
“One of the things that I think end-users on campus are going to celebrate is that we are reducing the number of systems that employees have to use to get business done,” she said. “Employees will have human resources and financial data all in one place and won’t have to try to learn a number of different systems. They'll have one source of truth for information, which will be nice.”
Another example of this efficiency Geweke provides is paying bills. Overall, employees can expect to see more information in real-time rather than waiting for it to post to the general ledger.
While UNI WORKS will not change the day-to-day tasks a person needs to accomplish, it will change the way those tasks are done for the better.
“In addition to improved business functions, the UNI WORKS technical architecture is also enhanced, integrated and fully featured,” said UNI’s Chief Information Officer Marty Mark. “The new system allows UNI to streamline our technical environment further through the retirement of a variety of purchased and custom applications, originally implemented to fill functionality gaps present in current systems.”
UNI WORKS training will be available for sign-up starting May 6 and continue throughout the spring semester, with additional training and support available at the beginning of fall semester.
“I think the most important thing for our campus to be mindful of is that we recognize this is a huge change for campus, but we're going to be there to support them and help them through the process along the way,” said Geweke.
UNI employees can follow along with the implementation progress at uniworks.uni.edu.
