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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 application 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 because the amounts are not stored, they are calculated on the fly.  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 amounts 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 from your grid 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 to remove the calculated columns and then add back any necessary columns as needed. 

Helpful Tips for Audit

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

• Do you have a recommendation on the level of access that should be granted when creating an auditor user account?

USAS-R: You can create a user account granting the USAS_RO role which is equivalent to the OECN_USAS_RO (USAS Read-Only) identifier in Classic.   Read-only access will allow them to run reports themselves as well as query transactions and view monthly and year-end reports under File Archive.   TIP: Creating a generic auditor user account allows them to mark reports as favorites or create custom reports which can be recalled in future audits.   You can set an 'account expiration' date on the user account in order to time it with the audit period so once the audit is complete, the account is disabled.  The following year, you can re-enable the account and it will contain the custom reports and reports favorites the audit team used in the prior audit.  If you do not wish to grant read-only access, you can create a custom role for the auditor selecting specific permissions you would like them to have access to.  For example, if your prefer to run reports/query data for your auditor but would like them to have access to the reports under File Archive (equivalent of MONTHLYCD/FISCALCD in Classic), you can create a custom role (i.e. 'Auditor Archive Reports') including the MODULE_FILE_MONTHLYREPORT_VIEW and MODULE_FILE_FISCALYEARREPORT_VIEW permissions and include the custom role when creating their user account.

USPS-R: You can create a user account granting the STANDARD_READONLY_USER role which is equivalent to the OECN_USPS_RO (USPS Read-Only) identifier in Classic.  Read-only access will allow them to run reports themselves as well as query employee data.   TIP: Read-only does not automatically grant access to the reports under File Archive.  You will need to create a custom role (i.e. 'Auditor Archive Reports') including the MODULE_FILE_PAYROLLARCHIVE_VIEW permission to this role and include that additional role to their existing user account.  If you wish to provide access to the File Archive reports only, remove the read-only role from their user account.  As mentioned in the prior paragraph, the auditor can mark reports as favorites with their own account or create custom reports which can be recalled in future audits.   Also, the account expiration can be set and the account re-enabled for future audits as well. 

• Auditor is requesting a report of User Account information. 

  • We have three different levels of this report available in both applications. 
    • SSDT User Listing AOS Extract: This recently added report extracts user account data into a tab-separated value format. per request from state auditors.  It contains the Username, Name, Last Login, Enabled, Locked, Password Expiration, External Authentication  as well as the Roles assigned to the user and associated permissions for each of the roles.
    • SSDT User Listing Report: similar to the AOS Extract but it does not contain as much information.  Included in the User Listing is the Username, Name, Last Login and Roles assigned.
    • SSDT USXS Role Listing Report: The data from this report is not pulling user account data.  It is pulling the SSDT and custom roles the district has created along with the permissions assigned to each role.

• Auditor is requesting a USAS 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 they need the report as of June 2020, you do not need to re-open June 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 06/30/2020, the the total amount will be as of June 2020.
  • For transaction based template reports, you can generate the report retroactively without re-opening 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' checkmark icon to make June the current period (will highlight the period green) and then run the needed reports. Make sure to change the current period back when finished.   

• What audit reports are available in USXS-R to assist the auditors?

  • Both USAS & USPS contain template reports called SSDT Audit Trail and SSDT Auditable Events.   The Audit Trail report displays every change made in USXS-R to any object. It will require heavy filtering since it contains so much data.  The SSDT has an existing JIRA issue in USAS-R to improve the usability of the USAS Audit Trail Report .  The Auditable Events report includes things like 'Rules Reloaded Event' and 'Modules Installed Event'. Different events in the system will be captured in this report.     TIP:  As an alternative to the USPS SSDT Audit Trail report, we have a canned report called 'USPS Audit Report' allowing the user to select specific objects (i.e. employee, payroll item, etc.) and/or users, date range and type of operation performed (add, modified or deleted) displayed in a column format listing the field name, old value and new value making it much easier to read than our traditional Audit Trail report.      TIP: In order to access and run the audit reports, the 'MODULE_AUDIT_VIEW' permission is required.