Empowering UF to Meet Our Future Needs

Over the past two weeks, more than 700 employees participated in product demos for Empowering UF, the multiyear initiative underway to replace the 19-year-old PeopleSoft application. Staff governing the initiative want to ensure UF’s enterprise systems meet today’s needs for security, data reporting, and other functions, while also serving our complex administrative environment, including human resources, research administration, finance, and procurement.

“Ultimately, while technical in nature, Empowering UF is really about people,” says Interim Vice President for Human Resources Melissa Curry. “Modernizing our systems will give us a competitive edge in meeting the needs of a modern workforce — helping to ensure we attract, recruit and retain the best and brightest while easing the administrative burden.”

The Empowering UF website includes the roster of the initiative’s executive sponsors, steering team, and project implementation team. There is also a robust and frequently updated FAQ page on the site. Anyone with questions about the initiative is welcome to contact the project implementation team: https://empowering.ufl.edu/contact-us/.

Organizational Changes Announced

VP and CIO Elias Eldayrie announced a reorganization of Enterprise Systems (ES) into two departments.

The reorganization will optimize how UFIT works, flatten reporting lines to create a more nimble management layer, and enable progress towards the 2020-2025 University of Florida’s Strategic Plan for IT. The new departments, their inaugural directors, and functional teams are:

Applications, Development, and Integrations (Nicole Garvey Jeffers)
● Systems and Programming (ERP/UX/EDM)
● Business Support & Change Management
● Student Life, Development Services, & CRM

Data Platform and Analytics (Jim Freymann)
● Master Data Management
● Integrations
● DBA & ETL
● Reporting & Analytics
● Data Science & Analytics

Nicole Garvey Jeffers is the director of Applications, Development, and Integrations. Nicole has been with the university since 2005, most recently as associate director of ES. Nicole has held many leadership roles with UF’s PeopleSoft (myUFL) environment, including significant contributions to the HR and Financial upgrades. She also served as the technical lead for the COMPASS program’s implementation.

Jim Freymann is the director of Data Platform and Analytics. Jim has been with UFIT for over 15 years, most recently as associate director of data analytics. He served as the COMPASS program director, led the ES operations and change and release teams, and managed UFIT’s Project Management Office for six years. Jim also was technical lead for UF’s COVID-19 Return to Campus data and reporting initiative.

Both Nicole and Jim are now members of the CIO Senior Leadership Team and report to the VP and CIO.

Sunset Date for Enterprise Reporting: September 30

The Enterprise Reporting environment in myUFL will cease on Sept. 30, 2021. UFIT is sunsetting Enterprise Reporting because the product is no longer supported by the vendor, and because a more robust tool–Enterprise Analytics–has been available for the UF community since May 2020.

Faculty and staff have multiple options to help maximize their work experience in Enterprise Analytics. Self-paced training resources and facilitated lab experiences (via Zoom) are available:

Enterprise Analytics Open Labs: Held each week on Tuesdays (9:30-11:30 a.m.) and Thursdays (1:30-4:30 p.m.). Email the Reporting Services group to receive the Zoom meeting ID code
Enterprise Analytics Toolkits: Easy to follow PDF documentation for help with dashboards, reports, and analysis studio
Intro to Enterprise Analytics: Available in myTraining, course number UF_ERA050_OLT
Analysis Studio Workshop (new FIT Cube training): Available in myTraining, course number UF_ERA300_ILT
Updated Reporting Tools Website: Quick start guides and best practices PDFs to help you master the financial data reporting environment.

Please email Reporting-Services@ufl.edu for technical issues or security related questions. Anyone with reporting-related inquiries may email General Accounting-Help.