1. SSC Update PPD Departmental Meeting 28 September 2010

2. Changes since the last meeting  Biggest change has been the move of Finance to SSC  Very recently changes to the SSC Portal –New URL (and some extra functionality) –If Password not valid now get “Authentication Failed” –Support for other browsers (this is not yet advertised, but it seems to work!)  Still pending –Change of password every 45 days  But note possibility to move to Federal id/password has gone away –Secure remote access without VPN  Possibility to provide a Citrix web-based solution

3. Finance Functions  iExpenses –T&S claims – takes a little getting used to – but works  Need to check on-line to see if has been paid –GPC – remember have to send receipts to SSC  iProcurement –Science Warehouse – quite a few issues – see below –Non-Catalog – believe generally OK  Setting up new Supplier requires you to do the work  Issues with delivery addresses for Universities  Payments –Many issues – see below  Budget reports –Only limited reports available so far – see below

4. iProcurement  Science Warehouse –Initially many problems  Getting goods delivered to you at right site  Long delivery times  Prices not consistent with suppliers own site  Units not recognised –Has been progress and it does now work, but still issues. (Please bring to attention of SSC, cc: FJW) –Surgery today to provide feed-back of user concerns  In emergency can use GPC to order directly from RS etc, but do charge to a GPC –(not to SSC! – as some people have done. You will be found out and you risk us being black listed!)

5. Payments  SSC underestimated resources needed to process the payments of STFC and the other RC’s which went live at same time  Resulted in a large back-log –From mid-June, not cleared until well into August  Since then many payments are going through reasonably quickly  However, a large number of payments were put into a query queue – which is still back-logged, but reducing  Delays in paying invoices has led to problems with Suppliers  If you have such a problem then Resource Team/retained finance may be able to help – so let them know  Note that invoices can only be paid if there is a matching PO – can be a problem for e.g. some University invoices

6. Budget Reports  Project Accounting Self Service module does give some limited reports –But details only at the single task level (and information only partial) –Not intuitive - easy to draw wrong conclusions  Better tools are coming soon, but standard reports need further work  Also need more Training –Sessions have now been scheduled for this – if you are a budget holder you will be invited to sign up

7. HR and Pay-Roll  Recording leave – Annual leave, sick leave, special leave –Remember to manually adjust number of days if leave period spans a Privilege Holiday –Special leave has requires prior approval via Retained HR  Pay-roll and pay-slips –Not aware of any remaining general issues –But do continue to check your pay-slips –Earlier issues included  Year to date totals  Some deductions for payments to third parties  At least one recent case in PPD where a SuperAnnuation deduction was not passed on!

8. Other issues  L&D Bookings – via SSC apart from SHE courses  Job Plans (& 10/11 Appraisals) –Remember to update your 10/11 Job Plans as these will form the basis for the 10/11 Appraisals

9. Help and Communications  See the various SSC links on the PPD staff web pages  Consult with our SuperUsers –Debbie + Denise  SSC Help Line  Also watch out for SSC Bulletins –Link from in-Brief e-News –Archive now available at http://staff.stfc.ac.uk/core/ssc/project/bulletin/Pages/default.aspx http://staff.stfc.ac.uk/core/ssc/project/bulletin/Pages/default.aspx  Note this URL has changed

10. Escalation of Issues  When you have a specific problem with any of the SSC services which needs to be resolved: –In the first instance you should always escalate your problem with the SSC Ltd Contact Centre.SSC Ltd Contact Centre –If, after reasonable endeavours, you do not get a satisfactory response escalate your issue to the appropriate STFC Functional Lead (see table below). –If the Functional Lead, after reasonable endeavours, is unable to resolve the issue they will escalate it to the STFC Relationship Manager (Richard Horton) – who if appropriate will escalate to the Customer Board Representative.  Finance - Philippa Foster  HR - Susan Merrifield  IS/IT - Tony Valente STFC  Procurement - Lindsay Glover  Payroll - George Rankin

11. SSC Summary  Moving Finance to SSC has been difficult –Many issues remain, but it is getting better  Useful budget reports are not yet here, but hopefully will have before too much longer –Can then start to look for errors and get them corrected  Do not expect major changes in the interface and esthetics –The aspects that make many people judge it to be “Klunky” are likely to remain  We will have to learn to use it to do the things we need and not expect it to change to the system we think it should be