-The Booked Budget process opened June 24; entries are due Oct. 15. Refer to Booked Budget Deadlines.
-Year-End Variance Analysis process opens Sept. 24; narratives are due Oct. 31. Refer to YEV How Tos.
-Support: Refer to the Resources section below, including the open lab schedule.
(Page originally published Aug. 28, 2023.)
Stanford’s University Budget Office (UBO), in partnership with University IT (UIT), Financial Management Services (FMS), and university stakeholders, is undertaking a multi-year initiative to enhance the foundation of financial management. The initiative features the development of the new Cardinal Planning & Budgeting (CPB) system, which replaced Tidemark Budgeting on Oct. 1, 2024, and the design of new processes to support effective budget management. CPB is launching in a phased rollout approach to align with Stanford’s budget cycle and accommodate the needs of various schools/units, whose input via workgroups directly inform the design of CPB functionality. Learn more about the project goals or see below for current project progress.
Project status
With the generous support of budget units across the university and internal and external partners, the Cardinal Planning & Budgeting (CPB) project team has successfully completed Phase 1 (FY24-25), resulting in a robust new system comprising 12 distinct modules and nearly 400 active users (700+ with access)! We are especially grateful to our implementation workgroups, comprised of 121 staff members across 18 units, who completed more than 4,000 test cases, and our budget officers who acted as CPB power testers and collaborated with us to provide customized training for their units.
What’s next?
- Survey: In October 2025, a budget cycle/project feedback survey will be sent to all CPB users; its results will inform future CPB priorities.
- Strategic Stabilization & Success Enablement phase in FY26: A focused, year-long effort to strengthen the CPB system and empower units to get the most from the tools now in place. This intentional phase will lay the groundwork for future expansion of a range of functionality, including: continual forecasting, a replacement for the Transfer Administration System (TAS), budget proposals, and long-term forecasting. By focusing now on both system stability and user success, we are ensuring CPB delivers lasting value across the university.
Resources
For additional guidance and support, please refer to the following helpful resources.
- System status and known issues
- CPB system page: When CPB has outages - planned or unplanned, its most recent status will be posted at the top of this page.
- CPB In-App Training Hub > System Status Known Issues: This dashboard shows planned outage notices and known system issues (with estimated resolution times and workarounds, if available).
- Learning materials
- CPB system page > How Tos: Contains user guides, videos, and other key resources.
- CPB In-App Training Hub: Contains on-demand tips in addition to user guides and videos.
- Calendars
- Financial Close Calendar: High-level budget cycle deadlines; month-end and year-end close dates.
- Fingate Calendar: Budgeting-related dates include: CPB open labs, high-level budget cycle deadlines, and budget officer meetings.
- Stay informed
- Cbp_status email list: Self subscribe to get notifications about CPB system status, issues, and new features.
- Budgeting & Planning COP Slack channel: Opt in to receive timely CPB reminders, including system status and issues and budget cycle updates, and communicate with UBO and your colleagues.
- Get support
- Open labs (see schedule): Drop in for live assistance from CPB project team; no registration required.
- Support request: Get help on any CPB system-related issue. Your support request will be tracked and sent directly to the CPB project team to assist you.
To ensure all users feel ready to use the new system, timely and comprehensive training and support aligned with annual budgeting activities will be provided to staff before, during, and after go-live. Budget officers and their delegates, designated as CPB Change Leaders, will also communicate with their schools/units about additional CPB resources customized to their unit’s specific budgeting needs.
Live instructor-led training courses (via STARS)
Training has concluded. Access videos and user guides: CPB system page > How Tos (scroll to "Booked Budget" or "Year-End Variance Analysis").
Open lab schedule (all times in PT)
No registration required; drop into optional office hours for live help from the CPB project team (via Zoom; password: 123456).
Open labs occur once a week on Tuesdays through Oct. 14, 2025 and will resume again in March 2026 for FY27 Budget Plan assistance. At any time, you can always submit a CPB support request for assistance.
| Date | Time and event |
| Tuesday, Oct. 7 | 1-2 p.m. open lab |
| Tuesday, Oct. 14 | 1-2 p.m. open lab |
For all open lab dates beyond the conclusion of the CPB project Phase 1, refer to the Fingate Calendar > Events.
The vision for the future
Stanford’s current budgeting system, Tidemark, no longer meets the university’s needs. As a result, UBO and its partners collaborated to identify a future-state solution for planning and budgeting at Stanford that supports the long-term success and mission of the institution. The team identified four priorities to guide the Cardinal Planning & Budgeting (CPB) project:
- Streamline budget and planning practices to reduce manual processes, shadow systems, workarounds, and other external and burdensome steps.
- Seamlessly integrate with key systems, such as Oracle Financials and OBI Financial Reporting, as well as tools such as Microsoft Office, to support flexible reporting, importing, and exporting of data.
- Create a user-friendly interface and experience that is clear, intuitive, and provides real-time visualizations.
- Support long-term planning capabilities so that users will have a tool to support strategic decision-making efforts.
Project overview: A multi-phase approach
- Fiscal Year 2023
- Discovery: UBO, alongside partners which included FMS, UIT, and five large budget units, established an understanding of high-level requirements and which tools might be the best fit to support the university’s complex needs.
- Vendor Selection and Proof of Concept: Upon deciding on Oracle’s Enterprise Performance Management suite (EPM) as the top finalist in a rigorous Request for Proposal (RFP) process, the project team selected implementation partner Performance Architects (PA) to test key functionality in a “proof of concept” process, given their previous experience with implementing EPM for several other higher education institutions. In summer 2023, they completed the proof of concept and a contract was finalized for EPM as the vendor for the new system. This new system will be referred to as Cardinal Planning & Budgeting (CPB).
- Fiscal Year 2024
- Led by PA and UBO, implementation workgroups comprising staff from 20 schools/units across Stanford were formed in October 2023 to give direct input to the system design/build and test base functionality.
- Phase 1A of Implementation: This phase focused on implementing base reporting functionality and launching new, critical processes and features. Transformation activities include collaborative process design, system requirements finalization, user engagement, and change management planning. This phase will complete by the end of 2024 with the initial launch of Endowment Planning and Reporting modules, including Clinical Operations and Year-End Variance Reporting.
- Phase 1B of Implementation begins summer 2024 and carries into FY25.
- Fiscal Year 2025 - finishing Phase 1B of Implementation: Completing the necessary functionality to launch the FY26 Budget Plan and FY26 Booked Budget in the CPB system.
- Future - Phase 2 of Implementation: Introducing new functionality, including Budget Proposals and continual forecasting/long-range planning.
Starting in October 2023 and continuing through the next two fiscal years, CPB implementation workgroups engaged budget officers and other staff who are involved in budget activities to provide input and test system functionality. Led by implementation vendor Performance Architects and working with CPB project team members, workgroup participants will help ensure that both the needs of their schools/units and the end-user experience are factored into the requirements and design of key features and functionality.
Workgroups have been formed for the project phases and the participants have been notified and invited to the CPB Workgroups site.
Workgroup components
Participating in a workgroup includes the following components (design, build, test) and corresponding time commitments. Most workgroups typically involve a comfortably paced commitment of 15-17 hours spread across a timeframe of two to three months.
Workgroup component | Time commitment |
|---|---|
Kickoff meeting | One to two hours, Oct. 12 |
Design: Requirement/Design sessions | Two 2-hour sessions; come prepared with thoughts or examples, including workflow and authority |
Build: Iterative build review sessions | Two 90-minute sessions |
Test: User acceptance testing (UAT) | Two 2-hour sessions; test build, workflow, and authority |
Test: Usability testing | One 2-hour session; ensuring user experience is considered |
Test: Core functionality testing | One to two hours; invited to return for core functionality testing before go-live |
Workgroup details and timeline
For current workgroup timelines, see the CPB Workgroups site (access granted to confirmed workgroup participants.)
Workgroups: Early input and Phase 1A
Early Input (November 2023 to January 2024)
Participate in a group session to help design overall system navigation (90 minutes) and/or an individual online exercise to help evaluate the intuitiveness of the overall navigation design (30 minutes).- Pooled PTA Mapping (November 2023 to early March 2024)
Ability to pool multiple PTAs to roll up to a summary level Pool PTA that supports managerial review. For example, pooling all faculty gift awards into one Pool PTA for budgeting and reporting purposes. - SoM Only: Clin Ops (February to early May 2024)
Led by SoM Dean's office; updating the Clin Ops reporting process. - CPB/OBI Reporting (April to June 2024)
Covers all aspects of CPB budget reporting, including review of short-listed Tidemark reports that will be available in CPB, reports used to research variances in the YE variance process, and drill-through functionality for transaction-level detail to OBI. - Endowment (April to June 2024)
Planning for additions to/withdrawals from endowment principal with resulting endowment payout calculations for use in forecast and budget scenarios.
Workgroups: Phase 1B
- Compensation Planning (November 2024 to February 2025)
Ability to forecast, budget and track actual salaries by person and by PTA, or to do the same at higher-level detail such as expenditure type. - Revenue and Expense Budgeting (Budget Plan/Booked Budget) (November to December 2024)
Ability to efficiently build general revenue and non-salary forecasts and budgets using various seeding methods, calculations, and direct entry. - Transfers 2 (split into Budget Plan/Booked Budget; January to April 2025)
a) Creation, budgeting, and tracking of funding allocations - commitments typically made by Dean/VP offices to support budgets of departments and programs, and
b) Forecasting, budgeting, and tracking fund transfers internal to a given organization, such as the transfer of restricted funds to support the Operating Budget. - SoM Only: SoM Budget Template (February to March 2025)
Led by SoM Dean's office; transitioning SoM Excel budget templates into Excel-based Smart View workbooks that are directly connected to EPM, enabling efficiencies and linked reporting capabilities. - Non-Sponsored Forecasting (April 2025 to September 2025)
Ability to track and update current-year forecasts each month as actuals become available. - Reporting 2 (Variance Reporting/Dashboards) - was absorbed into other workgroups. Participants who signed up will be notified with the option to join another workgroup.
Workgroups: Phase 2
- Transfers 1 (replacing TAS)
a) Replacement of the Transfer Administration System (TAS) that supports tracking funding commitments within and across budget units, and
b) Calculated intrafund appropriations, i.e., the provision of funding for a task when the task is owned by one organization but the award is owned by a different organization. - Non-Sponsored Forecasting
Ability to track and update current-year forecasts each month as actuals become available.