Overview

1.Background

The BI suite has been in use for a number of years, and over time the number of Finance reports built by multiple users and the number of Finance-related universes available have increased to a point where it has become difficult to manage, and also difficult to ensure the accuracy of the BI outputs.  It was recognised that a number of improvements could be made to increase user confidence in the BI suite, in terms of confidence both in the users’ own ability to use the suite correctly, and confidence that the correct data is being returned by the reports. This project was initiated to address a number of these items, relating to the number of available Finance BI universes, access to universes, associated rules & permissions and BI reports.  A number of the enhancements to be delivered by this project were already raised as issues in JIRA from projects FIN109 (System Accounting Section (SAS) Essential Enhancements) and FIN112 (Strategic financial review).  c.33 days of development effort had been spent on these JIRAs, which it had been agreed would be charged to this project.  The priority order of these JIRA items has already been provided by SAS (John Bannaghan).  Further enhancements have also been identified, which will provide significant gains to Finance processes in terms of efficiency and data security (see Scope section for details).

The proposed changes should improve the Finance BI experience, encouraging better utilisation of BI suite as the main reporting and analytical tool.

2.Scope

This project has a fixed budget of 100 days.  Those enhancements agreed to be within project scope will be prioritised by the Finance team, in discussion with IS Apps.  Any enhancements that are not delivered by the close of this project will be considered for subsequent projects.

Additional enhancement requests may be added at any time during the project.  However, each addition must be agreed by the Project Sponsor before being added to the project list. 

Requests for system fixes are outwith the scope of this project.  These should continue to be raised as UniDesk calls, and addressed under Finance's Support budget. 

Existing JIRAs (from FIN109 & FIN112) – prioritised:

To be developed:

1. FIN109-17 - BI Objects to be added to Sales Ledger Universes
2. FIN109-18 - BI Outstanding instalment field in AR Universes
3. FIN112-102 – BI New eExpenses Universe Issues
4. FIN112-41 - BI eIT User Role Object
5. FIN112-99- BI Create Last Period and Current Period objects

Agreed to de-scope due to new FPM BI universe anticipated as part of eFin upgrade (can be assessed for re-introduction to scope if budget allows):

6. FIN112-8 – BI FPM Transactions for College Report

Completed:

7. FIN109-14 - BI Conditional Formatting for VAT Report
8. FIN109-15 - BI Show lines with blank Activity Code fields in 4.1 Universes *in progress under I140602-0852 by Anne Finnan.  If no action can be taken on this under support, can it please be added to this project to be looked at as top priority*
9. FIN112-1 - BI FINANCE User Roles 4.1 - Blank Lines
10. FIN109-16 - BI Problem with commitment Amount in GL Transactions 4.1 Universe
11. FIN112-100 - WebFirst Report 132 amendments
12. FIN112-97 – Correct issues with total commitments for salaries on 127 and 151 (I160504-1198)
13. FIN112-98

Further scope items:

1. Identify reports that have not been used for over 12 months, allow users the opportunity to review and if no longer required delete from public/private folders.
2. Universe analysis - identify universes that have no reports written against them and decide if these can be hidden or deleted  
3. Review all similar reports (e.g. using the same objects and query logic), with a view to deleting genuine duplications or streamlining by combing with other reports.
4. Identify the universes that have only a few reports written against them and, if required, upgrade the reports to the newest universe version.
5. Conduct a review of what universes are still required.
6. Group security review – identify what universes should be available to what group and what users should be in each group.
7. Set role-based restrictions on universes (e.g. visibility of Bank details / Salary details).

Items considered ‘Nice to have’ in terms of this project.  These will be assessed once the development effort of the above items is more clear and, if there is deemed to be sufficient budget within the project to deliver, will be proposed to be brought into scope:

8. Make the new Design Studio Dashboard facility available to Finance and provide training.
9. Universe conversion from UNV to UNX.

3.Objectives

The objectives of the project are to improve user experience of Finance BI by:

• Removing unused and duplicate reports
• Rationalising the Finance BI universes following analysis of reports linked with each
• Improve data security by reviewing group membership and access, and also set role-based restrictions
• Deliver outstanding enhancements from FIN109 and FIN112

4.Deliverables

In order to meet the above objectives, the project will deliver:

• Prioritised list of enhancements
• List of reports to be deleted (by analysing list of reports that have not been used for over 12 months and list of duplicate reports)
• Subsequent removal of reports confirmed as no longer required
• List of universes which are no longer required and can therefore be hidden/deleted (by analysing universes with no, or few, reports written against them)
• Subsequent hide/delete of universes confirmed as no longer required
• Definition of required universe access by group, and also which users should be assigned to each group
• Definition of the required roles for BI user access, what restrictions should be applied to each role, and the subsequent configuration/implementation.

   

5.Benefits

• Provides Finance with a more streamlined set of standard BI reports and universes which will contribute to:
  • improved user training on Finance specific universes and reports.
  • simplified process of producing and maintaining user guidance on BI reporting
  • raised user confidence in report outputs
  • increased user confidence that the correct universe/report/objects are being selected
  • reduces the need for users to define bespoke Finance reports
  • provides a foundation of checked and reviewed reports which can be built upon
  • efficiencies in future upgrade activities i.e. rationalised number of reports requiring to be checked/amended, and a lesser difference between ‘new’ and ‘previous’ universes if older universes have been removed from use
• Improved strategic and operational decision making based on increased use of Finance BI resources by making it easier for users to access and run standardised reports.
• Enhanced data security from user access review and implementation of role-based restrictions, by ensuring only a controlled group of users can view sensitive Finance-related data
• Finance users can access the Design Studio BI dashboard to obtain meaningful Finance-related data (‘nice to have’)

   

6.Success Criteria

• Rationalisation of Finance BI universes and reports
• Outstanding issues with the Finance BI universes and reports are resolved
• BI users can only view BI Universes defined as relevant/appropriate to their role