Stanford University’s financial account structure identifies each organization by a four-character alphabetical organization (org) code. The Organization Code Hierarchy Tool enables effective governance of this structure by defining parent-child organizational relationships and group information, such as employees and financial data, and is used by authorized budget officers and “downstream” system administrators/financial staff to request and approve org code changes. The tool produces a “tree view” resource used by the university community.
University Budget Office (UBO), Stanford Financial Management Services, and University (UIT) have partnered to develop a new robust organizational hierarchy management tool in Oracle Financials that can more effectively and efficiently support a broader set of the university’s needs. The new tool will launch July 1, 2023.
Current State/Problem
The organizational hierarchy maintenance process relies on a combination of homegrown and outdated tools that are due for an update. In addition, it is mostly managed and disseminated through manual, inconsistent, and error-prone processes, which result in 50% of quarterly updates requiring rework.
Future State/Solution
This project aims to build a new hierarchy management tool in APEX (Oracle Application Express) that can better support budget officers, system administrators, and UBO staff. A simultaneous policy update will also allow org moves within budget units throughout the year. Benefits of this project will include a better user experience, efficiency gains by reducing total cycle and processing time, and improved accuracy by reducing processing errors.
New Features and Functionality
The Organization Code Hierarchy Tool will provide features based on users’ roles. The general Stanford community, or “public users,” will see the “tree view” with several new features. Authorized budget officers and system administrators/financial staff will have access to the Org Code Hierarchy Tool and various functions based on their role as detailed below.
Functionality Access by Role
| User Role | Authority Manager | Tool Functionality Access |
|---|---|---|
| Public user | Stanford user with SUNet ID. No authority privilege. |
|
| Budget officer | SU Org Hierarchy Requests |
|
| System administrator/ Financial staff |
SU Org Hierarchy Preview |
|
Functionality Details
- Enhanced request form (only available to authorized budget officers):
- Automated system validations to ensure accuracy prior to submission.
- Live preview of requested changes in tree view layout prior to submission.
- Workflow notifications and tracking capabilities (only available to authorized budget officers).
- Enhanced tree view:
- View org code details and history.
- The ability to compare Final and Published versions of the tree view (only available to authorized budget officers and system administrators/financial staff).
- Enhanced export files:
- Org Code Hierarchy: This file includes all active and inactive org codes with up-to-date attributes for a selected cycle (replaces previous two files, export_campus.xlsx and export_sys.txt files).
- Change Request Details: This file includes only approved requests for a selected cycle, capturing updated org code attributes. Format: One request per row. (Note: Historical attribute values, as well as deferred or canceled requests, will no longer be available in this file, which was previously titled “Change Log.”)
- Summary of Changes (new): This file displays final approved changes for a selected cycle, capturing differences from the previous version. Format: One org code (and its changes) per row.
- New org code attributes:
- Additional attributes managed by UBO to support different needs for reporting (management view) and budget processes (general fund allocations).
- Three optional custom fields for units to use at their discretion.
Project Timeline
- September-December 2022: Functional design
- January-April 2023: Technical design and development
- March-June 2023: Testing and remediation (including quality assurance and user acceptance testing)
- Expected launch date: July 1, 2023
Resources and Support
More information will be broadly shared with the financial community in the next month. Bookmark this page for more resources as they are updated below.
- Pre-launch information session (for budget officers):
Thursday, June 29, 2023; 11 a.m.-noon PT.
Register to attend (Stanford authentication required)
- Questions about the Organization Code Hierarchy Tool project: Please contact @email.
- Assistance with org code change requests: Please submit a support request.
