News

A new feature, Workday Assistant, has been enabled that provides more relevant and useful search results in the new Simplified Search view.

Workday Assistant uses natural language processing, so in many cases, you will not need to match Workday terminology exactly to get relevant results. And depending on your search, the information you are looking for may be included in the search results, no additional navigation necessary.

For example, try searching for "vacation" in the global search bar in the header. You should see upcoming absences for you (and your team, if you are a manager) or a list of university holidays if no upcoming absences are planned. There will also be links to related tasks or information. See the screenshot below for an example of the enhanced search results.

Workday Assistant also includes a chatbot focused on HR and Payroll self-service. Much of the functionality of the chatbot is available via Search but the conversational interaction may be helpful for employee self-service actions like requesting time off and viewing pay information. Click the chat bubble icon in the header to open the Workday Assistant chat.

If you aren’t seeing the enhanced results when you search for terms like “vacation” and “pay”, you may have disabled the Simplified Search view. Click the Simplified Search toggle on the search results page to enable (or disable) the new view. For more information about using Simplified Search, see the Workday Search Overview job aid.

A bid was done for gift cards and incentives, resulting in contracts being awarded to two suppliers – Virtual Incentives and Tango. These contracts are available for university-wide use for digital and physical gift cards. Contract information can be found on the appropriate contract book pages. (https://busfin.osu.edu/buy-sell-travel/purchasing/find-supplier?combine=&category%5B%5D=571)

Virtual Incentives should be the primary supplier of gift cards due to an 8% contract discount on virtual gift cards. This includes priority over direct orders from brands such as Amazon. Any Amazon gift cards should be ordered from Virtual Incentives, not Amazon, in order to receive the discount. Users can select from many different brands and products, including Virtual Visa and Amazon. Please see the ordering instructions on the contract book page for details. (https://busfin.osu.edu/document/virtual-incentives)

Please contact Steve Hronek.9@osu.edu, Commodity Manager, with any questions.

Need to reduce your email and file storage, but not sure where to begin? Microsoft Office Hours can help you get started.

The Office of Technology and Digital Innovation (OTDI) will be hosting its next Informational Microsoft Office Hours on Tuesday, Oct. 22 from 2-3 p.m. There is no cost to attend this session, but you must register to attend. This session is designed for faculty and staff within the university; instruction provided does not apply to staff using the medical center version of Office 365.

October's session is structured around upcoming storage changes, how you can reduce current storage, and developing habits that will keep your storage to a minimum, ensuring you are saving only what you need.

Presenters are Senior Staff Training Developer Mandy Gagliardi and Director of Unified Communications Jason Pollock. If you have questions, contact OTDI's Training and Development team.

Sources and Uses - Variance Analysis Changes

Based on user feedback, the "Sources and Uses – Variance Analysis" report was updated during the week of October 7 to provide a streamlined solution for viewing Actuals and Encumbrance columns side by side. Encumbrance and Pre-Encumbrance columns have been added alongside the existing Actuals and Plan columns. This will allow users to compare actuals and outstanding encumbrances to plan estimates in a seamless way. Additionally, new dynamic column headings were added to the report to provide greater clarity to the selections made at report runtime that drive the values in the Plan and Forecast columns.

A summary of these changes is listed below. Questions or concerns with these updates can be sent to ctl-businessprocesses@osu.edu.

1. “Plan” and “Forecast” column headings will now update dynamically based on the Budget Plan Name and Forecast Plan Name selected at report runtime.
2. Encumbrances and Pre-Encumbrances will no longer be shown at the bottom of the report but have been added as two columns to be shown in line with actuals.
   • This will allow users to view encumbrances by ledger account in line with their actuals and perform more detailed evaluations.
3. To accommodate the relocation of Encumbrances and allow greater analysis three additional new columns will be added.
   • Total with Encumbrances: This column will add Actuals and Encumbrances horizontally across the report.
   • Variance with Encumbrances $: This column will show the variance between your Plan, and total actuals plus encumbrances in dollars.
   • Variance with Encumbrances %: This column will show the variance between your Plan, and total actuals plus encumbrances as a percentage.
4. Ending Equity After Pre-Encumbrance and Encumbrance will no longer be displayed on the left bottom of the report but will now be located at the bottom of the new “Total with Encumbrances” column were it intersects with the “Ending Equity” row.

Effective Tuesday, October 1, 2024, the Travel Policy will be updated to reflect guidance for childcare costs and travel costs for children as outlined in the Code of Federal Regulations. Changes are listed below.

• Adding definitions for child, conference, and research
• Permits travel costs for children when a university employee is traveling for research with a trip duration of 6 months or more
• Permits childcare costs above and beyond normal childcare costs when traveling to a conference that lasts 5 consecutive days or greater
• Provides additional requirements for the approval and submission of these expenses

The Travel Office FAQs will be updated on Tuesday, October 1.