Simultaneous question and answer sessions highlighted the Nov. 8 UCCS Staff Council meeting and staff in attendance had to choose whether to learn more about CU Marketplace or Microsoft Exchange.
CU Marketplace and the UCCS Exchange Migration Project are both current efforts to streamline and simplify processes necessary to university operations and activities. As a service to staff, the Staff Council executive board arranges for speakers, presentations or workshops with topics of interest to staff at the monthly meetings. The sessions were set up in response to numerous requests.
A divider went up in University Center room 116 and staff members each moved to whichever side they felt offered more pertinent information. Amy Gannon, director, Procurement Systems, CU Procurement Service Center, was on campus to conduct the CU Marketplace session. On the other side of the divider, Steve Werling, IT professional III, Information Technology, answered questions about the Microsoft Exchange server.
CU Marketplace is a software system familiar to departments and individuals whose duties involve procurement. The electronic procurement software manages the process of acquiring supplies and services and paying for them. This involves creating and approving purchase requisitions, placing purchase orders, receiving goods and services, and processing invoices through the internet.
Gannon said she wanted to bring down the frustration level for staff and began by describing some of the more common problems she observed. For example, some people are unclear on when to attach invoices. Purchase orders are requisitions, she said, and invoices should not be attached to them. Invoices should only be attached at the requisition when the form being used is a payment voucher; otherwise, invoices need to be sent directly to the accounts payable department for processing.
"How do I know if an invoice has paid?" one staffer asked.
Gannon responded that the information may be found by looking up the voucher in the Marketplace. After an invoice is paid, the system updates payment status on the voucher record. She added that there was an issue with this update process during the month of October, but it has since been resolved, with all outstanding payments now updated.
Other issues included communication with suppliers, some appropriate uses of a university travel card, and that a procurement card is not used for catalogue contract vendors.
Gannon said CU Marketplace is an established system, with more than 4,500 employees having access to it. She urged staff to become familiar with the Procurement Service Center web site and the PSC calendar for training opportunities. She added that questions from the UCCS session will be published on the web site and answered there in greater detail.
The PSC website is https://www.cu.edu/psc/index.htm.
Werling's session was a show and tell regarding Microsoft Exchange. A server is basically computer hardware providing specific services and the Microsoft Exchange server's major features include electronic mail, calendaring, contacts, and tasks that operate with Microsoft Outlook and the latest version of Mac Mail. Microsoft Exchange also provides support for data storage and wireless synchronization of email, calendar, and contacts with most mobile devices.
"Essentially Microsoft Exchange is the ability to store all your email, calendar, contacts and tasks information on one centralized server," states the exchange page on the UCCS web site. "All of this information will be available via an Outlook email client, a web interface and many mobile devices."
In some instances, Werling responded with step-by-step instructions. Someone asked how to add holidays to a calendar, and Werling showed the process of using the pull-down menu to find options under file, calendar under options, and the add holidays button under calendar options.
In the near future, Werling said, the IT department will offer weekly training sessions available to anyone interested in participating. He urged his audience to use, in the meantime, the video tutorials offered among the online training resources at http://www.uccs.edu/exchange/Training-Resources.html.
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