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Welcome to 'Exploring Finance at UVA'! This is a recurring blog feature highlighting finance professionals from across Grounds, beyond UVAFinance. Meet a diverse array of staff members and delve into their roles and insights in the world of finance within the greater UVA framework.If you or someone you know would like to be featured in Exploring Finance at UVA, please email bv8h@virginia.edu_________________________________________________________________ Whitney Richardson, Astronomy Department

Introducing UVAFinance is a recurring blog feature created to introduce our team to our team, a couple of members at a time. Every other week, we present readers with a team member or two to get to know. Resource: UVAFinance by Department__________________________________________________________________Brad KurtzBrad Kurtz, Senior Business Intelligence AnalystWhat do you do as Senior Business Intelligence Analyst?My role works with data from a variety of sources to build data models th

Still Time to Join the 1% Challenge!In only 14 minutes (just 1% of your day), you can learn skills to build resilience, ease stress, and improve sleep. How? Join the 1% Challenge offered by Hoos Well partner eM Life. You can also earn $50 in awards!Start the challenge by October 11.You must have or create an eM Life account (it's free).Practice (at least) 14 minutes in live or on-demand mindfulness sessions for at least 25 days during a 40-day period from when you start the challenge.To earn $50

Hobbs (center) and his Cornerstone working groupLogan Hobbs,  2023-2024 Cornerstone GraduateLogan Hobbs, Compliance Manager in Financial Operations & Tax, was among the graduates of the 2023-2024 Cornerstone cohort who were honored at a graduation ceremony early this October.  The Cornerstone Program aims to identify and nurture exceptional talent at UVA.  Hobbs was part of a group that worked on Accessibility and Affordability at the School of Architecture.  As a part of

The Listening Tour is in full swing!In our ongoing effort to improve the Account Certification process, the UVAFinance Team has embarked on a “listening tour” to meet with finance partners across the University’s schools and units. We are committed to gathering feedback directly from the people who interact with this process daily, ensuring that any updates or revisions meet the needs of our diverse community.So far, we’ve had the opportunity to visit 27 schools and units, and we’re not done yet

43 new firms are ready to help!We’re excited to announce that UVAFinance's Procurement Team has successfully completed its latest Request for Proposal (RFP) process for creative and marketing strategy services. After receiving many proposals from talented firms, we are proud to share that 43 new contracts have been awarded.What makes this process even more exciting is the diversity represented by these firms. Fifteen of the group are small, local businesses, with several being woman- or minority

Celebrating Our VeteransVeteran's Day is Monday, November 11. We would like to pay tribute to those on the UVAFinance team & families who have served our country.Participation is voluntary; if you would like to share your own service or that of someone in your family, please submit a picture, name, rank, branch of service, and time of service to askfinance@virginia.eduPlease share submissions by Monday, November 4.Recognition will be shared in the UVAFinance blog and on the Carruthers Hall l

New alerts for missing rolesA good rule of thumb for Workday:  "When roles are empty, business processes stall."Our Business Intelligence Team has partnered with functional areas to proactively identify vacant roles and alert business process owners.  (See this article on alerts for missing roles from August.)Some new alerts are now in place to identify issues in these grants-related roles:Missing roles such as Grant PI, Grant Financial Analyst, Grant Account Certifier, Grant ManagerMi

Amanda Meares and Reshma Gali, UVAFinance's staff senators, recently dropped by to talk about the importance of the Staff Senate and how the UVAFinance Team can interact with them to everyone's benefit.  Listen in to the conversation above, or check out an abbreviated version below.Resources Mentioned:Staff Senate Website: https://staffsenate.virginia.edu/Form to share feedback: https://staffsenate.virginia.edu/contact-u

UVA Organizational Excellence has many events and learning opportunities going on in the month of October, but their presentation on AI tools in everyday work is especially of interest for any and all UVAFinance employees. Affinity Dialogue SessionApplying generative AI tools like ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot to your everyday workJoin OE's first affinity dialogue session and unlock the power of peer-to-peer collaboration and learning! Participate in small discussion groups, share and discov

Please note these upcoming updates to our Travel & Expense policies that will help streamline and enhance user experience. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to travel@virginia.edu.SAP Concur UpdatesSAP Concur has launched a new homepage experience. There haven't been any changes in the features or functionality of the system; it is only a visual user interface update.Users can now enable the new homepage through a banner at the tip of the homepage. Users can also r

Introducing UVAFinance is a recurring blog feature created to introduce our team to our team, a couple of members at a time. Every other week, we present readers with a team member or two to get to know. Note:  Garrett and Kellyn are both Morrises, but are not related ;)Resource: UVAFinance by Department__________________________________________________________________Garrett MorrisGarrett Morris, Senior Sourcing SpecialistWhat do you do as Senior Sourcing Specialist?We are respon

Introducing UVAFinance is a recurring blog feature created to introduce our team to our team, a couple of members at a time. Every other week, we present readers with a team member or two to get to know. Note:  Garrett and Kellyn are both Morrises, but are not related ;)Resource: UVAFinance by Department__________________________________________________________________Garrett MorrisGarrett Morris, Senior Sourcing SpecialistWhat do you do as Senior Sourcing Specialist?We are respon

The UVAFinance Team was happy to participate in United Way of Charlottesville's 2024 Annual Day of Caring Event on September 18.  We're so grateful they chose to get involved and perform acts of service within our surrounding communities.  Way to be good neighbors!See our Day of Caring Video Recap:UVAFinance was well-represented at this year's Workday Rising conference in Las Vegas.  Team members reported learning much about what's possible and what's coming soon with Workday.Scen

Moses Foster, CEO of West Cary GroupNote:  This blog post is part of an ongoing series highlighting UVA’s small, women-owned, and minority-owned local businesses.  Have a suggestion for a business we could feature?  Let us know! Seventeen years ago, Moses Foster took a bold leap from his brand management role at Capital One to pursue his dream of running his own business. In 2007, with just one other person and a single computer, the creative firm West Cary Group was bor

Calling all construction-related local business!On October 10th, UVA is hosting a networking event for local construction and skilled trade businesses to learn more about doing business with the University. If a business you know or work with would be interested in attending, please feel free to share the information below!This event will be held at Alumni Hall on October 10, from 10am to 1pm. This event is designed to connect minority-owned, women-owned, and small businesses with construction c

Tammy and her daughter SarahTammy Kolotkin recently joined Payroll as a Senior Payroll Financial Analyst, bringing valuable experience from both the corporate world and higher education. As Senior Payroll Financial Analyst, Kolotkin will work with reconciliations, diving into the number aspects of payroll accouning.  Her path into specializing in payroll was not a linear one.  Kolotkin was initially interested in accounting, particularly tax work, but she found a passion for payro

AI Tech Powers the New Search FeatureWorkday's major release this fall will bring powerful new tools to enhance your user experience. The highlight of this update is the introduction of AI-enhanced search capabilities, designed to save you time and effort as you navigate through Workday.By integrating AI into the search experience, Workday now analyzes your search queries and displays the most relevant tasks and reports right at the top of your search results. This means you’ll spend less time s

New and Improved SearchWorkday's major release this fall brought powerful new tools to enhance your user experience. The highlight of this update is the introduction of AI-enhanced search capabilities, designed to save you time and effort as you navigate through Workday.By integrating AI into the search experience, Workday now analyzes your search queries and displays the most relevant tasks and reports right at the top of your search results. This means you’ll spend less time scrolling and more

Lunch & Learn flyer from T&E's recent visit to the School of NursingOur Travel & Expense (T&E) Team has been on the move! They’ve been busy scheduling presentations across schools and units, answering questions and providing guidance on everything from tips for booking with TravelUVA to the T&E card to Workday Expenses.Whether you need help navigating T&E Card processes or you need help managing expenses in Workday (or anything else T&E-related), the team is here to h

Export Data after filtering a reportIf you filter a report from within the report itself to reduce the data and then export it, it will still export ALL the rows returned in the original request.Try returning to the Prompts (Filter) page and selecting additional filters to narrow the data output to just what you want (if the filters are available on the Prompts page). You can return to the Prompts page by clicking the Change Selection icon at the top of the report.  _______________________

Welcome to 'Exploring Finance at UVA'! This is a recurring blog feature that will highlight finance professionals from across Grounds, beyond UVAFinance. Meet a diverse array of staff members and delve into their roles and insights in the world of finance within the greater UVA framework.If you or someone you know would like to be featured in Exploring Finance at UVA, please email bv8h@virginia.edu__________________________________________________________________Kim Blowe, Director of Finance fo

OCR & NimbelloAccounts Payable has recently introduced a new system of invoice organization with Nimbello, an OCR invoice processing AP Automation tool. The implementation has gone smoothly so far, and we wanted to share some information that you might find useful as we continue to work through the process. Before Nimbello, invoices were getting sent to vendor dashboards and a case was created in Salesforce immediately. Now, the biggest change will be that those invoices previously sent

Hope they had some SortkwikIf you ever feel buried in Workday transactions, emails, and Excel spreadsheets, just remember there was a time not so long ago when all of these things would have been physical paper piled up on your desk.  Imagine: Detailed and summary accounting reports used for monthly reconciliations were printed out on green and white tractor feed paper in one giant stack.  It would take two or three days for staff to separate the printouts (ripping them apart