Financial Administration

Campus User Procedures

Campus User Procedures

Roles - The following definitions apply through these procedures.

  • User is the individual who first encounters a question or a problem while working in SFS.
  • Department Technical Support is the individual(s) within a department that provides first level PC technical support to the staff within that department.
  • Campus SFS Help Desk is a group of individuals that provide support to the entire campus as questions and problems arise with the SFS. They will track the call, troubleshoot and escalate the call when appropriate.
  • DoIT (Madison) Help Desk is a group of individuals that provide support to all campuses for all types of computer environments. They will track the call, troubleshoot and escalate the call when appropriate.
  • Experts within DoIT are individuals assigned responsibilities of managing the hardware and data base structures of the SFS. They may also be DoIT programmers and analysts who have worked on the implementation of the SFS and are familiar with its operation. Also included would be DoIT production staff responsible for monitoring the nightly batch processing.
  • Campus SFS Functional Experts are one or more individuals who have knowledge of how SFS works functionally as well as the financial policies and procedures of the campus. They are generally central campus staff in the accounting, payables and purchasing areas.
  • UW System Functional Experts are individuals at the UW System level that have knowledge of how SFS works functionally as well as the financial policies and procedures of the entire UW System.
  • PeopleSoft is the support given by the vendor that is part of the contract.

Procedures

  1. Users need to make an initial determination if the problem or question is technical in nature or functional. Examples of technical questions include:
    · I can't get into the database.
    · My computer keeps locking up on me.
    · I keep getting an error that throws me out of the system.

    Examples of functional questions include:
    · I can't find my purchase order in the system.
    · How do I set up a new vendor?
    · How do I correct an error that I made?
    · How do I find the status of a purchase order?
  2. If the problem or question appears to be technical or if the user is unsure of whether it's technical or functional, they should contact the Campus SFS Help Desk. Or, some campuses may prefer that the user start first with the Department Technical Support and have them help determine if the problem is happening because of something on the user's PC or on the department network. If the department support person can not resolve the problem, then it should be escalated to the Campus SFS Help Desk. Campus help desk procedures need to be developed by each campus.
  3. If the technical problem can not be resolved at a campus level, then the Campus SFS Help Desk will contact the DoIT Help Desk. An example of this is if the problem is related to the server or the database in Madison or to the connection of the user's PC or network to that server.
  4. If it cannot be resolved at the DoIT Help Desk, the Help Desk agent will follow internal procedures for problem escalation and resolution. Communication of technical resolutions will go back to the Campus SFS Help Desk.
  5. If the problem or question appears to be functional, users should call either the Campus SFS Help Desk or the Campus SFS Functional Experts for assistance, depending on what procedures their campus implements. If they call the Campus SFS Help Desk they will track the call and then contact the appropriate Campus SFS Functional Expert to respond to the user. As the individuals at the help desk gain more knowledge, they may be able to answer some of the questions directly
  6. If the functional problem or question cannot be resolved at the campus level, the Campus SFS Functional Expert should escalate the problem to the appropriate UW System Functional Expert. Communication of functional resolutions will go back to the user who initiated the question.
  7. If the UW System Functional Expert cannot resolve the problem or question, that individual will contact PeopleSoft to get a resolution.