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Redesign Performance Improvements

With districts of various sizes migrating to Redesign this past year, some of the larger districts expressed concerns with performance and if the redesigned applications can accommodate them.  We have taken those inquiries very seriously and over the past several months have made vast improvements on the speed of the software.  Both the USAS-R and USPS-R teams have been hard at work to increase the speed of various canned and template reports and improving problem areas in each package that we have received frequent feedback on.  The improvements are impressive with the average increase in performance speed at 70% for both applications.  Listed below are just a few of the heavy hitters:

• USAS-R: 
  • Financial Detail Report: 94% improvement in performance
  • Posting/Updating Purchase Orders: 57-70%
  • Cash Reconciliation: 75%
  • Appropriation Resolution Report: 99.9%
  • USPS/USAS Account Sync Process: 89%
• USPS-R:
  • Employer Retirement Share Report/Submission: 98% improvement in performance
  • Payroll Posting: 5-10 times faster
  • Unposting Payroll: 30 times faster
  • AFFORD Report: 98%
  • Payroll Report: 60%
  • Payables Summary/Detail Reports: 78-98%

Improving your Custom Grid Performance

We will continue to improve performance in both applications but a frequent question we receive is how to improve performance when filtering on a grid.  If filtering on the grid is causing delays in retrieval of the data, you need to review the columns included on your grid.  The number of columns containing calculated amounts can impede performance.  If you have 10 calculated columns included in your expenditure grid, the harder the page has to work to calculate and display all of those figures.   We advise a maximum of 1 or 2 calculated fields per grid, especially for districts with a large chart of accounts.   It becomes increasingly difficult if you add columns that come from associated grids (i.e., on the expenditure grid, you include calculated amounts from the associated cash or appropriation accounts) or columns that include a complex calculation (i.e. FYTD Expendable calculation takes into account initial, adjustments, and prior year encumbrances to calculate the total).  

One thing to consider is a more convenient way to pull data with calculated fields.  If you frequently generate a report from the grid and purposely include a number of calculated columns on the grid for the purpose of running that report, we instead recommend creating a report for all of those calculated amounts.   For example,  use the “Save as” option on the Report button to capture all of the columns you want and send those to a Report definition that you can generate any time you want.   You can then reset the grid to the default columns using the "Reset" icon on the top right side of the grid and then add back any necessary columns as needed. 

Helpful tips/tricks for Audit

We have received some FAQs regarding Auditor access in the software.  Listed below are some tips/tricks to assist you with access questions/requests your auditor may have during your next financial audit.

• Auditor needs a template report generated from the prior fiscal year.  What are my options?
  • First check to see if the report needed already exists in the archived fiscal year end report bundle 
  • Account-based template reports contain a 'Total as of Period' parameter which should be entered in MM/DD/YYYY format.  So if you need the report as of June 2020, you do not need to open a prior period nor do you need to set June as the current period.  The 'Total As of Period' will calculate amounts for the entire period based on the date entered.  So if you enter 06/15/2020 or 06/30/2020, you'll get the same results.. the total amount as of 06/30/2020.
  • For transaction based template reports, they can generate the report retroactively without reopening June.  Simply enter the prior year start/stop transaction dates. 
  • If neither option is available for a specific report and you need to change the period to generate the report, you can do so without re-opening June. Under Core > Posting Periods, leave June closed but click on the current check mark icon to make June the current period (will highlight green) and then run the needed reports. Make sure to change the current period back when finished.   
• Auditor is requesting a report of User Accounts and their permissions.
  • SSDT User Listing AOS Extract - USPSR
  • SSDT User Listing AOS Extract - USASR

  • Change the current SSDT User Listing to the attached .json file (sample also attached) as soon as possible.

    • The user list showing roles and permissions though should be a tab separated text file and include the following columns; Username, Name, Last Login, Enabled, Locked, Password Expiration, External Authentication, Role and Access Identifiers. should be requested by all of the State Auditor’s performing the SOC 1.  We will actually create files for each district as well and provide them to the financial auditors performing the district audits.would be incredibly helpful for our users when we do our spring user accounts audit for the SOC1, as we are usually asking them to run it from the grid as the SSDT User Listing provided does not give quite enough detail.eports will be added as SSDT Template reports in the Report manager. 

• User accounts for auditors
  • In USAS-R, it is recommended an user account be created using the USAS_RO role which is equivalent to the OECN_USAS_RO (USAS Read-Only) identifier in Classic.  The permissions on this role can be found here in the manual under USAS_RO  https://wiki.ssdt-ohio.org/display/usasrdoc/Roles.  USAS-R would be USAS_USER_REPORT.  Thus, create a ROLE (for example something like. 'Audtior Standard Report') and then add the permission USAS_USER_REPORT to this role.  Then go to the auditor user record and apply this role (along with USAS_RO) to the auditor's user account.
  • For USPS-R, the Auditor user account can be set to the role of USPS_STANDARD_PAYROLL_VIEW. To view reports under File Archive, create a ROLE (for example something like. 'Audtior Standard Report') and then add the permission USPS_STANDARD_REPORT to this role.  Then go to the auditor user record and apply this role (along with USAS_RO) to the auditor's user account.
• USPS Audit Trail Report
  •  It's under Reports/Audit Report.
  • I told this Treasurer to use the audit report from the Reports dropdown menu but it doesn't show up for her. Need to have 'module_audit_view' permission to run it