Shared Services Feedback Summary
Between June 10th and June 29th, there were 86 responses.
- 61 comments on travel
- 75 comments on proposal development
- 54 comments on purchasing
- 41 comments on other supported concepts
- 44 comments on implementation feedback
Travel
- The current system:
- It is great! Excellent customer service and help.
- It does not work. It takes too much time to get a response or items processed.
- Time/Response Concerns
- Worry that centralization would potentially slow down the processing time for reimbursement.
- Slow responses or availability if travel needs to be arranged short notice.
- If you have any kind of complicated travel requirements you have to have someone specifically to talk to, not just wait for the next available operator to take your call.
- Actual cost savings?
- Data provided does not give enough information of what actual cost savings would come from doing this.
- How reallocated funding will be determined (some units do not have a lot of travel compared to others, but would like to participate)
- Problems with Concur
- A centralized Travel office could benefit the University as the implementation of Concur was not without issues and some of those issues have yet to be resolved.
- Concur had poor implementation, and the enforcement of rules and regulations.
- Comments such as 鈥淐oncur is a nightmare,鈥 鈥淐oncur is horrible,鈥 鈥溾s painful to use,鈥 鈥渄oes not work for students and non-employees,鈥 鈥淧lease get rid of Concur,鈥 and 鈥淐oncur鈥as cost me countless hours in lost productivity.鈥
- Memo did not clearly define the proposal
- How to ensure the travel is routed appropriately and approved by the appropriate fiscal manager?
- More thought needs to be given to how existing travel coordinators in the units are melded into a shared office.
- Recommend an incremental approach: opt-in during FY21 and reevaluate in Spring 2021.
- Research/Field Work Related Travel
- Concerns this proposal will reduce quality of services to researchers and negatively impact research dollars.
- Having dedicated people who are knowledgeable on this kind of travel and can provide quick assistance.
- Highly recommended that field safety considerations/processes are clearly thought out and incorporated into a centralized travel structure.
- Communication, transparency, and flexibility are crucial in implementation and if a proposal goes through.
- Make a website that lists the problems and what the Travel center is doing to mitigate each issue. If this is a personnel training issue.
- Unit admin support should have access to the reporting feature to determine who is traveling and how much will be spent.
- Implementation needs to be clearly defined and user/customer focused.
Proposal Development Feedback
- Leave OPD in the GI
- If removed it could be detrimental to the faculty researchers who depend on it and depend on the service that the proposal coordinators provide.
- It takes time and effort for a PI and proposal coordinator to develop a sustainable working relationship. Centralizing this role would make 蜜桃影像 less competitive with grant writing and fundraising.
- Concerned if the proposed management structure change leads to a reduction of number of proposal coordinators on West Ridge.
- If "OPD has been pushed beyond capacity" how can their efficiency and cost effectiveness be gauged?
- 鈥淧refer the opt-in option.
- Like the idea of creating a West Ridge and Lower campus proposal office with each office taking on their share of department pods.
- Pods should be the responsibility of each office, rather than breaking them down by groups of individual coordinators within each office.
- Each pod would require 2-3 coordinators worth of staff to cover the proposal load, the large pods would require at least 4-5 coordinators.
Purchasing Feedback
- Support for the opt-in/opt-out options.
- Is it possible to opt in only for Banner Procurement needs? (Reqs/POs/Call#s/etc)?
- Can central administration cannot keep up with the demand of Researchers need?.
- Good idea for equipment purchases but ProCards and small purchases should remain at the department level.
- Support the opt-in option and the ability to use a central office for large scale processing.
- Support of higher purchasing limit with approval from unit directors prior to purchase.
- Eliminates the need for additional time and paperwork for the purchasing center.
- Concern what this would do to research.
- Research needs would be significantly impacted if ProCards are centralized.
- PI's should be given a purchasing card with a cap of $5k per unit purchase that requires some basic approval prior to making a purchase. This could be centralized and will be good.
- Relationship between individuals and offices is highly important when purchasing.
- Actual cost savings?
- Cost savings could also come from bulk purchasing copy/printer machines with a maintenance contract.
- How much money a shared purchasing service will save
- It is difficult to provide informative feedback on the proposed centralized Purchasing Office without data on staffing goals and overall costs.
- Who is responsible for what?
- Who's responsible for JV's if keying errors are made during reconciling?
- Who would have final approvals?
- Provide more training.
- To department fiscal officers to increase their purchasing authority.
Other Supported Feedback
- Support opt-in/opt-out options.
- Discourage the removal of HR from the units.
- Concerns with current HR set-up at UA.
- Opt-in for smaller units without HR support though.
- Support revisiting the JV process.
- The 60 day memo should either be eliminated or completely revised.
- Increasing Pro-Card limit is supported.
- Implement of Paperless Job Processing (PJP) is supported.
- Shared Services Advisory Board (SSAB)
- SSAB should include significant representation from faculty, the customers.
- SSAB does not seem like a good idea (increased workload on people).
- Other questions:
- How will staff reductions be managed in these partnerships?
- Will Deans and Directors manage "by committee" or rely on an "advisory group" to determine which staff are non-retain or if services are being provided equitably among the faculty in different colleges or institutes?
- Where will the funding come from?
- How would quality customer service be guaranteed?
- Like to know more about the recharge model, is it a percentage or based on usage?
Implementation Feedback
- Appreciate the time people put into the proposals.
- Continue to communicate, be transparent.
- Ensure that as the transition is being completed, a website is opened and dedicated to allow comments to be made.
- This process must be clearly defined prior to any movement in this direction.
- This should be tested and if services degrade then there should be opportunity to change course.
- Each of these departments have subject matter experts already in place at the department/administration level that should be consulted in the best way to implement a shared service.
- Actual cost savings?
- Where is the data to support any of this?
- December 2020 seems unrealistic.
- What are the timelines for shifting employees?
- The proposed changes to OPD and research support departments could harm the university鈥檚 research activities, which go against the goal of becoming a Tier 1 research institution.
- The memo was not clear on which services could be opted out of and what the fee structure for those services would be.