Project Teams

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

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

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

The primary objective of the Manager Tool Project Team was to consolidate information, resources, and tools into a manager toolkit to be used for orienting new managers as well as experienced managers support. Upon completion of the first iteration, the staff organization Berkeley Administrative Management Professionals (AMP) accepted the maintenance of the toolkit. Goals for the initiative were to enable better communication, enhance manager confidence and knowledge around UC policies and procedures, and facilitate best practices and knowledge sharing between campus units. 

For more information about the project visit the Manager Toolkit page.

Manager Tools Project Team:

Documents:

•  2019 Manager Tool Team Charge Letter

The Common Solutions Monthly Management Report group was tasked with ensuring that the monthly financial reports meet the needs of local financial analysts and managers. Prior to this project, financial staff across campus used a variety of methods to view, reconcile, and report their unit’s financial activity (e.g., BAIRS standard reports, custom BAIRS queries, SmartView, etc.). With the retirement of BAIRS rapidly approaching, the campus knew it needed to begin the transition to accessing financial information in the more flexible and analytical reporting tool known as Cal Answers.

This group was comprised of financial staff from a range of academic units who provided feedback on the design of a new Cal Answers General Ledger Financials dashboard (which provides the same information found in the most useful BAIRS reports), prompts and columns to customize the dashboard. This group collaborated closely on the dashboard requirements, provided user acceptance testing, and contributed to communications and learning materials. 

More information about the Cal Answers Financials tool can be found on the Finance Tools Inventory

Monthly Management Reports Project Team:

Documents:

•  2016-17 Monthly Management Reports Project Team Charge Letter

With representation from campus departments and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, the Finance Tools project team worked to: 1) provide campus finance users with a set of vetted tools for their financial planning and analysis needs; 2) provide 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:

• 2017-18 Finance Tools Project Team Charge Letter
• 2016-17 Finance Tools Project Team Charge Letter

The College of Letters & Science has, over the past three years, developed an online database that helps to document, track, and process funding commitments. The Commitments Database was built as an easily accessible and intuitive tool, that facilitates multi-year planning. Within the past year, L&S has expanded development of the tool to include revenue and expense planning functionality. In combination with beginning fund balance data, the user has the ability to run a comprehensive financial report for the current fiscal year across multiple future years. The tool is not intended to replace the existing budget system (CalPlanning), but rather to give units an effective planning tool that can inform their interaction with CalPlanning and that will ultimately feed directly into the system.

After an initial phase of heavy use in L&S, the Commitments Database has more recently expanded to units outside of the College, including the colleges of Engineering and Chemistry. The goal of this Common Solutions project is to increase awareness of this tool among campus units, to gauge interest, and to establish a strategy for accommodating, on a voluntary basis, larger numbers of users. Specifically, the project team is tasked with outreach to potential user groups (academic and administrative), identification of modifications that may improve user experience or address the needs of potential users, and establishing a strategy for ongoing governance, maintenance, support and communications issues. For the foreseeable future, responsibility for system development will remain with L&S, but there is a representation from the Office of the CFO on the project team to ensure that our efforts are aligned with central campus efforts.

More information about the Commitments Database tool can be found on the finance tools inventory. 

Commitments Database Project Team:

Documents:

• 2017-18 Commitments Database Project Team Charge Letter 
• 2016-17 Commitments Database Project Team Charge Letter