‘People can still work in the new software system’
Boelens states that the team is working hard to answer all the tickets (the written questions on the new system). ‘Together with our supplier AFAS, we’re working on finding fast solutions to the incidents.’
He also says the help desk isn’t quite running how the team wants it to, and that this should and will improve soon. ‘We as a project organisation are well aware that we’re currently in what people call ‘the valley of despair’. Switching to a new system is never a flawless process, and it’s no different for us.’
FSE concerns
Last week, UKrant reported that people at FSE were worried about the faculty’s financial administration. The problems mainly arose when people were putting in orders, since these couldn’t be linked to the correct money flows. This was due to, among other things, the implementation of project codes, and many employees didn’t know how to use those.
According to reliable sources, business coordinators – the people who manage project finances – now have no financial overview of the projects. The wrongly labelled orders would have to be checked by these people afterwards, possible even manually. This is not only a lot of work for them, but the question remains whether they’d even be able to fix all the wrongly labelled orders at FSE.
Wrong links
According to Boelens, analyses in the new AFAS system have shown that the number of wrongly linked projects is not that bad. Of the almost four thousand purchasing invoices, a hundred have been linked wrong. Of the four thousand purchasing orders, a little more than twenty have been wrongly linked, and almost forty of the over thirteen hundred expenses were.
‘There is an unequivocal link between project and cost centre. If the cost centre was filled out correctly, we can check exactly where the link is wrong. Afterwards we can check whether we need to make any manual changes’, says Boelens. ‘We have a clear overview for the purchasing invoices, purchasing orders, and expenses.’
Administratively necessary
Boelens also emphasises that changing the project codes has nothing to with the AFAS implementation and that it was administratively necessary. ‘We realise that the implementation of the set-up was not flawless, and we also realise people need more training and information’, says Boelens.
‘We could better supervise employees in their process of configuring the system, that’s something we want to make happen in the short term.’
Working fine
According to Boelens, the most important thing is that working in the front end of the system – where people can order things for research and education – is not a problem.
Now, the financial overviews have to be straightened out. ‘It’s of great importance that the business coordinators, among others, have a financial overview. We’re definitely seeing that we’re able to shift gears quickly and that we’re solving issues in close collaboration with AFAS. We’re working hard on offering the financial overviews to those people who need it.’