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New Leave Activity Report - The Wait Is Over!

Do you ever have moments you wish you could see balances (including accruals and absence information) for specific employee(s) and for a specific date range all on one report? The wait is over!  The newly added Leave Activity Report will provide you with just that.

Example of the new Leave Activity Report:  

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When running the Leave Activity Report, ask yourself a few questions:

• Would I like to provide a specific name to this report?

The report name is Leave Activity Report by default. 

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This can be changed to something more specific, if desired.

• How would I like the report sorted?

Employee Number or Employee Name.  Employer Number is the default.

• Would I like the report to page break by employee?

If so, then mark the Begin Each Employee On New Page checkbox.  By default, the checkbox is not checked.

• What date range do I wish to show the balance for?  

Enter those dates in the Begin Date and End Date fields. The Begin Date is used to determine the beginning balance 'as of this date' for the leave type specified.  The End Date is used to determine the ending balance 'as of this date' for the leave type specified.  

• Do I wish to include all leave types in the report? 

Sick leave, personal leave, and vacation leave can all be included in the report.  By default, all three leave types are selected.  To select a different combination, use the left arrow (or highlight the option and use the left arrow) to move the undesired options to the Available column.

• Are there specific employee(s) I want to run the report for? 

In the Select Employees section, begin typing an employee name or ID.  Then select the employee from the list and click Add.  Any number of employees can be selected.  By default, all employees will be selected.  

How the Leave Activity Report Works:

The report provides will list the leave balance as of the begin date entered, the leave balance as of the end date entered, and then all of the absences and accumulations that were entered and applied to the balance to show how the employee went from the begin balance to the end balance.   We used the applied date So when the employee's balance was truly affected.

The applied date is used because that is the date the absence and/accum or accumulation truly affected the leave balance.   If I'm not using If you are a district that does not use deferred absence posting and I enter , a day is entered and that day is immediately 'applied' to the leave balance.  For example, a personal day for is entered today for an employee who will be out a day next week, that employees .  That employee's personal balance in the system reflects the usage today .  So the report was setup to show this by using the applied date.  This and the employee's balance in the system as of today is lower by 1 one personal day even though that day off is not happening until next week.  So if I run . If the report is run with an end date End Date of today, it should the report will show the personal day being removed from the balance.  If the report worked using the activity date, the report would show a different balance for the employee as of today (the personal balance would be higher by 1 day) and would not match what the system shows for the balance as of today.So our thinking was that the report would show the absences/accums that have been applied to the balance between the dates entered on the report.  The 'Activity' part of the report name was not intended to mean 'Activity Date'.  It was just meant as this is the leave activity (absences and accumulations) that caused the balance to go from the begin balance to the end balance.   We may also want to see what the team thinks about possibly changing the report prompts for Begin Date and End Date to be something like Show Balance as of Begin Date and Show Balance as of End Date.  There is a tooltip in place on the report fields that indicates this, but maybe that is not being seen by the users.you are a district that uses deferred absence posting, a day is entered and that day is not immediately applied to the leave balance. Instead, the day is applied to the balance when the payroll Begin Date and End Date are inclusive of the leave's Activity Date. So in this example, a personal day is entered today for an employee who will be out a day next week.  That employee's personal balance in the system will remain the same today and be affected at a later time. If the report is run with an End Date of today, the report will show the personal leave balance unchanged.

Five Year Forecast: Review and Extract

It's Spring Update time! The Five Year Forecast update window for submitting to ODE is closing at the end of this month. There are some helpful tools available in USAS to help with reviewing and extracting your forecast data. These can be used to help with the current submission or to keep tabs on your forecast figures throughout the year!

Accounts

First, let's look at how USAS keeps track of forecast accounts. If you review Core > Account grid, the Expenditure and Revenue account records include a field for the Forecast Line #. This field is automatically assigned to the account by USAS when it is created IF that code meets the proper parameters. These parameters are based on the Category/Line Number fields as defined in the ODE EMIS Manual. This field can be added to the Account grid or used on reports.

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Spending Plan Reports

The Spending Plan reports compare the current fiscal year estimates with actual figures. Estimated figures can be entered under the Periodic > Spending Plan option in USAS.

• Spending Plan Comparison - Compare Estimated figures to Actual figures. The report will print three lines per Five-Year Forecast line number: one for the estimated amount, one for the actual amount and the third line will print the difference between the estimated and actual amounts.
• Spending Plan Monthly - Lists each monthly actual amount for each line number and will include a FYTD total. 
• Spending Plan Summary - List the current period's actual amount for each line number and will include a FYTD total. 

Expenditure/Revenue Reports

In addition to the Spending Plan reports, the forecast information can also be reviewed on basic expenditure and revenue reports like the Revenue Summary and the Budget Summary. The Forecast Line# is available to add as control break on the template version of the report found on the Report Manager or the Home page. This can be used to add headers/subtotals by Line number! This can be a really helpful way to view all the specific account codes within a line number and the amounts they are adding to that total. Here’s an example using the Revenue Summary.

• Choose to Generate the Report from the grid
• On the Generate Report options, navigate to the Sort Options tab
• Move the Forecast Line# to the top of the Selected Properties and check for Control Break
• Uncheck any other control breaks
• Generate the Report

Sort Options:

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Report Example:

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Additionally, the SSDT Financial Report by Forecast Line Number is available in the Report Manager. This report will show both the expenditure and the revenue line numbers on one report and doesn't require any custom sorting.

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Transaction Based Reports

Similarly, the Forecast Line# can be used with transaction based reports like the the Financial Detail report. The benefit of these reports is that they will show you all the actual transaction activity contributing to each line item's total. This can be very helpful in trying to review the specific receipts or expenses that are being included in each line item.

• Click on Financial Detail from the Report Menu
• Move the Forecast Line# to the top of the Selected Properties and check for Control Break
• Uncheck any other control breaks
• Enter a date range and any other filters desired 
• Generate the Report

Report Example:

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These transaction reports can also be very helpful when pulling data out into a spreadsheet for analysis outside of the software. The canned version of the Account Activity Report and Financial Detail Report have been updated recently to include all Sortable Property fields, including the Forecast Line# in the Excel-Data and CSV versions of the report. 

• Click on Account Activity Report from the Report Menu
• Choose either Budget or Revenue
• Enter a date range and any other filters desired 
• Select Format: Excel-Data or Comma Separated Values
• Generate the Report

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Five Year Forecast Extract

Last but not least, USAS provides a Five Year Forecast program for extracting the actual forecast data based on fiscal year of the current posting period. This page can be found on the Periodic menu > Five Year Forecast.  This page will display all accounts marked with a Forecast Line# organized into a grid along with the extract options.

There are two options available:

• CSV - Just the raw data sheet for the forecast information
• EXCEL - When the Excel spreadsheet opens, it is automatically uploaded it into the SSDT's Five Year Forecast spreadsheet. This output has multiple tabs, including the raw data, Forecast, Summary View, etc.