Common Solutions

Common Solutions is a collaborative and consultative initiative to support academic units and to improve their ability to work efficiently. The idea for this initiative first surfaced a few years ago in the context of general frustration with workload issues in academic units, lack of resources and tools to handle routine tasks, and major gaps between enterprise systems’ functionality and local needs. These concerns have been further exacerbated by budgetary constraints, when staff are asked to do so much more with so much less.

Over the last couple academic years, the Common Solutions Team has consulted with a number of campus groups, tool developers, finance and academic personnel analysts, functional and enterprise system owners, as well as managers and staff in the schools and colleges. We heard that staff are eager for tools that can handle the most routine, labor-intensive, and time-consuming tasks. And many welcome the idea of borrowing, or adapting to their own circumstances, tools that have proven efficient and successful for their peers on campus. In particular, the initiative was enthusiastically endorsed by the Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs) and department managers as a way to ensure they and their staff would have reliable access to useful tools tailored to our campus environment. The owners of the tools also have endorsed the idea of working with us to ensure proper coordination mechanisms are in place as they expand use of their solutions to other campus units. See Background slide

Structure: Oversight Group and Project Teams

The Oversight Group is comprised of staff and managers, representatives from both academic departments and central administrative units. Our main charge is to locate tools on campus to meet the support and administrative needs of academic units. We function fundamentally as a coordination mechanism. We facilitate conversations between local units and the owners of enterprise or local tools, all with the goal of providing the community with a simple and reliable set of proven solutions to common business problems. See the Oversight Group charge letter.

To fulfill our charge, we have set up a robust governance and coordination structure for the initiative. See Common Solutions Structure. Specifically, this year, we have established three project teams, each of which focuses on a specific tool or on a category of tools to be featured in the online inventory over time:

• Academic Personnel Tools Project Team
• Finance Tools Project Team
• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB) Tools Project Team

Additionally, we are in discussion about forming a fourth project team. If you are interested in contributing to this project, please contact us:

• Remote Work Tools Project Team

Once the needs of academic units are identified and potential solutions are located, the subject matter experts on the project teams work with the owners of the solutions to map out a path for offering the tools to other units. Together we develop implementation plans, adoption processes and mechanisms by which we can extend use of the tools to interested parties. For example, in 2016, we coordinated a demo of an endowment calculator tool developed by the Haas School of Business. That demo led to further conversations with University Development and Alumni Relations. We were delighted to find out that UDAR was developing a similar tool for internal use. With input from members of the Common Solutions Team, UDAR has now extended use of the tool to other interested parties on campus. See Endowment Payment Calculator Success Story

Objectives & Timeline

For FY 2021-2022, in addition to supporting the current project teams (Academic Personnel, Finance, and DEIB Tools), and discussing a new project team (Remote Work), the following objectives will guide the work of the Oversight Group:

1. Publicize the Common Solutions Initiative and Inventory

• Develop a plan to communicate the existence and purpose of Common Solutions as well as the tools in the online inventory; ensure all appropriate parties are engaged, including campus and academic leadership as well as functional owners, and analysts and managers in academic units.
• Encourage academic units to contribute tools and templates they’ve developed to meet a local need, and determine whether there are additional unmet operational needs for which a solution might exist on campus.

2. Extend the Multi-year Roadmap for Common Solutions

• In collaboration with the project teams, functional owners, and campus leadership, further develop the multi-year roadmap that identifies potential future areas of focus for Common Solutions, including specific target projects and estimated timeframes.
• Publish the roadmap on the Common Solutions website and publicize it to all interested parties.

At the end of each academic year, the work of the project teams and oversight group will culminates in three major milestones: 1) the release of a common solutions roadmap, 2) the release of a report documenting accomplishments and recommendations, and 3) a refresh of the Common Solutions roadmap and updates to the Common Solutions Online Inventory

Contact Us

If you have questions or would like to get involved, please contact the Common Solutions Oversight Group at commonsolutions@berkeley.edu. If you have a useful local tool or an idea for a much-needed tool, template, or best practice, please let us know

Oversight Group

Comprised of staff and managers from both academic departments and administrative units, the role of the Oversight Group is to carry out the mission of Common Solutions: to identify common business needs in academic departments and to locate existing solutions that could be offered more broadly to other interested units. The Oversight Group plays a strategic role in setting priorities, framing the work of the project teams, engaging stakeholders on an ongoing basis, and ensuring that the inventory of tools is shared comprehensively across campus, and especially with the users who need them most.

Common Solutions Oversight Group Project Team:

Documents:

• 2021-22 Common Solutions Oversight Group Charge Letter
• 2017-19 Common Solutions Oversight Group Charge Letter
• 2016-17 Common Solutions Oversight Group Charge Letter

Project Teams:

Academic Personnel Team

With representation from academic departments and the campus Academic Personnel Office, the Academic Personnel Tools Project Team works to: 1) provide a campus-vetted set of tools, including templates, database models, and automated programs to share best practices, provide training materials and user guides, inspire the creation of new tools, and build efficiencies in the UC Berkeley academic personnel enterprise; and 2) build a sense of community among the academic personnel professionals on campus, and enable better communication and shared knowledge between units.

For more information about academic personnel tools identified and vetted by the AP Tools Project team, visit the Academic Personnel Tools Inventory.

Academic Personnel Tools Project Team:

Documents:

• 2020-22 Academic Personnel Tools Project Team Charge Letter
• 2018-19 Academic Personnel Tools Projects Team Charge Letter
• 2017-18 Academic Personnel Tools Project Team Charge Letter
• 2016-17 Academic Personnel Tools Project Team Charge Letter

Finance Tools Team

With representation from academic departments, Divisional Finance Leaders (DFLs), and the Office of the Vice Chancellor of Finance, the 2021-2023 Finance Tools project team work to: 1) provide campus finance users with an updated set of vetted tools for their financial planning and analysis needs; 2) provide updated training materials and user guides for these tools, as well as best practices; and 3) develop a means for campus finance users to identify useful finance tools as they become available for the online inventory.

Finance Tools Project Team:

Documents:

• 2021-23 Finance Tools Project Team Charge Letter

If you have questions or would like to get involved, please contact the Common Solutions Oversight Group at commonsolutions@berkeley.edu. If you have a useful local tool or an idea for a much-needed tool, template, or best practice, please let us know