Finances, UX iteration 4

Here is a link to the prototype: http://ux.folio.org/prototype/en/finances

and here is a link to the video walkthrough: https://vimeo.com/241590284

Finances, UX iteration 2
Finances, UX iteration 3

I shared this with one of our selectors at Chicago, and she has some feedback. I asked her to consider if this gives her what she needs when managing her funds. In general, she said “yes,” but also had some additional thoughts/questions. I’ll group them below:

1. In addition to tracking funds by subjects, we have endowed funds. The structure of these can be quite different from how we manage our funds by subject. Management on the amounts of these funds occurs outside of our current Kuali OLE system.

• Sometimes we have general endowments that can be applied to a wide range of subject areas. Currently, acquisitions staff apply a code to purchased items so that electronic plating will appear in the catalog. When an endowment is spent out, they stop plating with it (tracked outside of Kuali OLE).
• Some endowments are shared between several specific subject funds, e.g., biology, medicine, and history of science. The exact apportionment is flexible, but the funds must be spent on these fields.
• Sometimes endowments are all assigned to the a single subject fund.
• Subject funds can have multiple endowments, in addition to general unendowed money.
• We keep track of endowments to report to donors and to electronically plate items in the public catalog.

We’d be interested in discussing ways to explore how to manage the subject allocations alongside the endowments without needing to keep a separate system.

2. We would like to see what titles have been purchased on the fund. I thought this was available, so apologies if I am just missing it. Currently, the transactions log is only displaying numbers and amounts. This seems like the best place to list titles and link to the descriptive data.

3. She is interested in a way to display more than one fund at a time. She writes, “I would like multiple fund displays so that I can get a birds-eye view of two funds or a mono & an approval line, or a book & serials fund. Or be able to look at French and English at the same time. Or I might want to do what I did yesterday, which is to look at, compare, and then print out all of my funds together onto one sheet of paper and highlight the remaining balances & percentages so that I know where I stand at this point in time.”

I could see rolling up the funds into a big chart view across them, and then maybe drilling down, if they are hierarchically related. Or being able to use the tags to bring together a set of funds (e.g., Sarah’s funds), and view that information.

4. She also asked about how printing would work. This seems like a UI issue well beyond simply funds. I don’t know if printing has been discussed elsewhere? See the use case in number 3. I could see an individual doing a quick look-up and then wanting to print out the information or portion of the information directly from the screen.

I a spot for a link to a General ledger which would [quote=“kmarti, post:2, topic:1371, full:true”]
I shared this with one of our selectors at Chicago, and she has some feedback. I asked her to consider if this gives her what she needs when managing her funds. In general, she said “yes,” but also had some additional thoughts/questions. I’ll group them below:

1. In addition to tracking funds by subjects, we have endowed funds. The structure of these can be quite different from how we manage our funds by subject. Management on the amounts of these funds occurs outside of our current Kuali OLE system.

• Sometimes we have general endowments that can be applied to a wide range of subject areas. Currently, acquisitions staff apply a code to purchased items so that electronic plating will appear in the catalog. When an endowment is spent out, they stop plating with it (tracked outside of Kuali OLE).
• Some endowments are shared between several specific subject funds, e.g., biology, medicine, and history of science. The exact apportionment is flexible, but the funds must be spent on these fields.
• Sometimes endowments are all assigned to the a single subject fund.
• Subject funds can have multiple endowments, in addition to general unendowed money.
• We keep track of endowments to report to donors and to electronically plate items in the public catalog.

We’d be interested in discussing ways to explore how to manage the subject allocations alongside the endowments without needing to keep a separate system.

2. We would like to see what titles have been purchased on the fund. I thought this was available, so apologies if I am just missing it. Currently, the transactions log is only displaying numbers and amounts. This seems like the best place to list titles and link to the descriptive data.

3. She is interested in a way to display more than one fund at a time. She writes, “I would like multiple fund displays so that I can get a birds-eye view of two funds or a mono & an approval line, or a book & serials fund. Or be able to look at French and English at the same time. Or I might want to do what I did yesterday, which is to look at, compare, and then print out all of my funds together onto one sheet of paper and highlight the remaining balances & percentages so that I know where I stand at this point in time.”

I could see rolling up the funds into a big chart view across them, and then maybe drilling down, if they are hierarchically related. Or being able to use the tags to bring together a set of funds (e.g., Sarah’s funds), and view that information.

4. She also asked about how printing would work. This seems like a UI issue well beyond simply funds. I don’t know if printing has been discussed elsewhere? See the use case in number 3. I could see an individual doing a quick look-up and then wanting to print out the information or portion of the information directly from the screen.
   [/quote]

Not sure How I copied Kristin reply - sorry about that!

We have all of our funds linked to the University General ledger system - I am assuming Ledger A is where this particular fund would report or roll-up to. Is there a space to link the fund to the University ledger system

We currently have general appropriated funds, endowment funds and income funds. Could we setup funds by subject and have all the funding come in via tags and expend via tags. ( I am not completely sure how the tags are working or could work)

One flaw of Voyager is that we can’t upload our allocations, it is done manually every year during the rollover process. Will it be possible in FOLIO? This is extremely important to us here at Cornell.

Thanks so much for compiling these thoughts and contributing to the discussion Kristin.

(1) The idea could be to allow the administrator to indicate that a particular “Fund” has a “Seal/plate” and add some corresponding text. Anything purchased in associated with this fund could theoretically display the Seal.

It may be helpful to go through an example of how a system like this might be built using the FOLIO Ledger/Fund/Budget objects during the RM sig meeting. This way we can reference a diagram.

(2) Titles would be linked through a PO and PO Line to the fund or multiple funds. I believe an interface component like the “Transactions” area here, could be an effective display format for Titles associated with a Ledger/Fund/budget. However, we will need to look more closely at whether we can filter by title effectively within the current transactions view.

(3) This would currently be addressed by our “Tag” component as you would be able to search and filter objects (Eg. Funds, payments etc.) by tag(s). The question of printing capability has not yet been addressed, though with a filtered view like transactions we could allow you to print your selection. Printing is always tricky with web tools, but it can be done effectively with our current foundation. Agreed, this is a question that will concern more than just acquisitions and will require more design/UX discussion.

Comment from Kirstin / Martina:
Quote Kristin: “In addition to tracking funds by subjects, we have endowed funds. The structure of these can be quite different from how we manage our funds by subject. Management on the amounts of these funds occurs outside of our current Kuali OLE system.”

GBV/hbz: we mainly have funds by subject, too. But the structure needs to be as open, that other aspects can be taken as differentiator, e.g. departments, authorized staff, special cost centers, interdiciplinary funding. We understood the protoyp in that way that this is possible and flexible = ok for us.

Quote Kristin: “2. We would like to see what titles have been purchased on the fund. I thought this was available, so apologies if I am just missing it. Currently, the transactions log is only displaying numbers and amounts. This seems like the best place to list titles and link to the descriptive data."

GBV/hbz: Agreed. Additionally PO’s and invoices.

Quote Kristin: “3. She is interested in a way to display more than one fund at a time. She writes, “I would like multiple fund displays so that I can get a birds-eye view of two funds or a mono & an approval line, or a book & serials fund. Or be able to look at French and English at the same time. Or I might want to do what I did yesterday, which is to look at, compare, and then print out all of my funds together onto one sheet of paper and highlight the remaining balances & percentages so that I know where I stand at this point in time.”

GBV/hbz: Agreed. A display of a general overview over the implemented ledger organization will be helpful.

Quote Kristin: “4. She also asked about how printing would work. This seems like a UI issue well beyond simply funds. I don’t know if printing has been discussed elsewhere? See the use case in number 3. I could see an individual doing a quick look-up and then wanting to print out the information or portion of the information directly from the screen."

GBV/hbz: Agreed. Needs to be clarified in general. Important issue.

New topics:
• If more than one ledger is specified: overview over the ledger organization.
• Will there be a possiblity to import the budgets for the new fiscal year?
• In general we agree to the protoype. It seems to work in our environment.

Little display issue, for when it’s the appropriate time to fiddle with that -

The “Unavailable” number is bold, blue, and catches the eye, while the “Available” amount is pale gray and harder to see. In my experience (admittedly biased, since I’m on the buying-things end of the funds), if selectors are looking at things in a hurry, they’re more interested in how much money they have left to spend, not how much is over and done with. It would be super problematic to get them mixed up, especially at FY-year-end when they’re under pressure to spend down in a hurry.

I suggest switching the boldness to Available instead of Unavailable (if selectors agree on that point).