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Cardinal Planning & Budgeting (CPB)

Cardinal Planning & Budgeting (CPB) is our next-generation university budget management system that integrates salary and non-salary expense budgeting with all the various funding sources in a live, multi-user, database-driven system that automatically interfaces with other administrative systems within the Stanford environment.

Visit the CPB news page for timely updates, including launch resources (such as Phase 1A go-live training/support schedule), phased rollout timeline, and known system issues.

The Cardinal Planning & Budgeting system provides accurate and timely information supporting budget planning and decision-making. All budget components are planned, budgeted, and reviewed in a single environment, eliminating the need to aggregate disparate budget unit actuals and budget documents.

Below are three key benefits of CPB:

  1. Actuals will be brought into CPB nightly, just like in Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI), for up-to-date data. By 2025, this will include salary actuals by person.
  2. CPB will integrate directly with OBI, meaning there will be instant, drill-through capabilities to the transactional data needed.
  3. Through the Smart View add-in, you can access and manipulate data from CPB within Microsoft Excel. 

Additionally, CPB includes Endowment Planning specifically used to forecast endowment income for future years based on forecasted changes to endowment principal entered by users for new gifts, reinvestments, sale of shares, etc.

By the end of FY25, CPB will introduce new, non-sponsored forecasting functionality, allowing units to manage finances throughout the year instead of relying on local shadow systems and spreadsheets.

How CPB Supports Budget Units and the University

The CPB system will support budget units and the University Budget Office (UBO) through each of the four phases of Stanford's annual budget cycle:

  • Budget Proposal (Future Phase)
  • Budget Plan (March 2025)
  • Booked Budget (May 2025)
  • Year-End Variance Analysis (Available October 2024)

Cardinal Planning & Budgeting authority is granted to budget officers, who then grant authority to individual users via Authority Manager (Subsystem: Financial System, and Business Function: Planning and Budgeting), based on their budgeting responsibilities. Staff who need access to CPB should email their supervisors or budget officers directly. 
Note: A similar level of authority should also be granted for OBI Financial Reporting to enable drill-through capability and access basic data seamlessly across CPB and OBI.

  1. To log into the CPB system, visit https://SUcpb.stanford.edu/, and select Stanford SSO.
  2. Enter SUNet ID and password, if prompted.
  3. For support with the CPB system, please submit a support request.

Authority Roles

CPB authority roles are granted through Authority Manager and are divided into five levels of visibility, with Level 1 providing the broadest access and Level 5 providing the most restricted access. If a user is granted a role with Level 1 visibility for an organization, then they do not need additional authority roles granted at lower levels of visibility, which are more restrictive. Most users will have a role with Level 2 visibility for their organization.

The table below outlines current authority roles within the Financial System - Budget Management. When there are multiple roles at a level, the Budget Officer should grant the role that matches the person's job. Note: Some roles in levels 2-5 can be further limited down to specific Award(s), Project(s)/Task(s), Award Type(s) and Principal Owner(s).

For more information on how to use Authority Manager, visit the University IT Authority Manager website.
 

Level of VisibilityAuthority Roles (Choose One)Process Access
1

Typically for Dean's/VP Office Users:

  • Budget Officer
  • Budget Analyst
  • Formula School Budget Officer

Read-Write access for:

  • Revenue, Expenses, Salary Planning
  • Budget Unit Adjustments
  • Approvals
  • Task Management during BP/BB
  • Clin Ops - SoM Roles Only
2

Typically for Department Level Users:

  • Unit Manager
  • Unit Financial Analyst with Salary View
  • School of Medicine Department Finance Analyst (DFA) 
  • School of Medicine Unit Analyst (SoM)

Read-Write access for:

  • Revenue, Expenses, Salary Planning
  • Approvals (Manager and DFA only)
  • Clin Ops - SoM Roles Only
3

Typically for Read-Only Users:

  • Budget Viewer

Read-Only access for:

  • Revenue, Expenses, Salary Planning
4

Typically for Limited Access Users without Salary View:

  • Unit Financial Analyst without Salary View

Read-Only access for:

  • Revenue, Expenses
5

Typically for Read-Only Users without Salary View:

  • Budget Viewer Non-Salary

Read-Only access for:

  • Revenue, Expenses

CPB training sessions and open labs are offered at its release in October 2024 and throughout the year and align with the phases of the annual budget cycle. Training is open to budget officers and their designated analysts. View the CPB Phase 1A training and open lab schedule on the CPB project news page

Upcoming Instructor-Led Trainings on CPB

For the blended (hybrid) sessions, please enroll for either the in-person course or virtual course (denoted in STARS by the specific room location or "Zoom Conferencing"), based on the format you would like to attend. Alternatively, you may view the video training under the How-To section of this system page.

In-Application Training Hub for CPB

The In-Application Training Hub — available in a future update to the CPB system — will include process guides, tips, announcements, and links to resources. These guides and tips provide helpful instructions for navigating CPB, ensuring users can complete tasks accurately and efficiently.

Historical Tidemark Trainings

To view historical Tidemark trainings, visit the UBO page and STARS courses below:

Demonstrations and step-by-step user guides are available for CPB system processes.

General
Reporting
Smart View
Year-End Variance Analysis
School of Medicine Clinical Operations (ClinOps) Only

In addition to training and courses, the following resources are available to assist CPB users:

There are many reports available to budget officers and analysts to aid in the budget management process. Depending upon the budget management task, you may use one or a combination of the reports available in CPB and Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI).

OBI Financial Reporting

OBI Financial Reporting supports additional analysis of actual expenditures and comparison to budget amounts using the following reporting dashboards:

  • Consolidated Expenditure Reporting (CER) provides information about expenditure details, trend, variance, balance and budget, iJournals and commitments. The Expenditure Balance Summary report in the Expenditure Balance tab has a pivot table that displays summarized expenses for the period specified; shows summarized expenses to budget for FTD or PTD; and calculates the balance and percentage of budget consumed.
  • Revenue and Fund Management (RFM) provides information about beginning fund balance, activity (e.g., receipts, transfers, expenses) and fund balance; as well as variance of budget vs. actual and iBudgets transaction details. The Projected Budget Variance report in the Projected Budget Variance tab shows the projected difference between budget and actual, while incorporating commitments and anticipated remaining endowment payout.

The table below provides a comparison of data found on OBI and CPB reports. For information about getting access to OBI and available training and resources, refer to OBI Financial Reporting.
 

BusinessOBI Financial ReportingCardinal Planning & Budgeting (CPB) 
Daily update of data for financial analysisOBI data is updated daily with transactions posted on the prior business day.CPB data is updated daily with transactions posted on the prior business day.
PTA MappingThe current mapping of PAs/PTAs to Pooled PAs/Pooled PTAs can be viewed in OBI Expenditure and Revenue drill reports on the next business day, following changes in the mapping rules.The mapping of PAs/PTAs to Pooled PAs/Pooled PTAs can be immediately viewed in the CPB PTA Mapping application and viewed in CPB reporting on the next business day, following changes in the mapping rules.
Analysis of 9/1 Budget + iBudgets AdjustmentsThe Budget Amount in OBI includes the 9/1 Budget for the current fiscal year plus any iBudgets adjustments.

CPB does not capture iBudgets adjustments for initial go-live and they will be available by 2025.

CPB is the only source for reporting on budgets that are under construction. The 9/1 budget from CPB is available in OBI once the Booked Budget Process has been completed.

Ability to drill down to transaction detailsOBI supports drills from actual expenditure amounts by PTAE to transaction details such as Earnings by Employee, Expense Requests, Procurement and iJournals.CPB includes actual amounts by PTA and Object Code or Expenditure Type as the lowest level of detail. CPB has OBI drill-through capabilities to view expenditure and revenue transaction details.
Last Updated: Oct 31, 2024

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