TIPS

Team to Improve Productivity at Stanford

September 16, 2009

Faculty Financial Inquiry Tool and Stanford Benefits

Location: Hartley Conference Room, Mitchell Earth Sciences Building

Meeting Schedule

8:00 - 8:30 am
Informal networking
8:30 - 8:40
Welcome, Announcements
Susan Phillips-Moskowitz, TIPS Chair
8:40 - 9:10
Faculty Financial Inquiry Tool (FFIT)
Bryan Brown, Senior Business Analyst, Stanford Controller's Office
9:15 - 9:40
Benefits
Lori Branley, Benefits Manager

Meeting Notes

Welcome, Announcements
Susan Phillips-Moskowitz, TIPS Chair

Susan opened the meeting with a welcome to the first TIPS meeting of the academic year 09/10.

Susan also thanked Elizabeth Lasensky for being Chair last year and presented her with a plaque of appreciation.

Susan introduced Jo-Ann who did the announcements:

  • 9/11 Rolled out Stanford Instant Messaging (part of Work Anywhere initiative) Primarily to IM business info - right now only used for confidential data transfer. The two supported commercial clients are Adium-Mac, and Pidgin for Windows. For more information, visit: im.stanford.edu
  • TIPS survey is up - you can get to it by going to tips.stanford.edu - thanks to those who took the survey and sent in comments. The comments really help us identify what topics have been useful and what topics you would like us to cover. For this survey, we used the new Stanford Form Builder tool. The tool is in beta but when it goes into production, you will be able to use it for your school/department needs. Go to formbuilder.stanford.edu
  • last meeting for refreshments (due to budget cuts).
  • Check out tech training classes in your AXESS/Training tab
  • Buypay/Smartmart rolled out on 8/6 - any comments? They would like feedback.
  • Next meeting Charles Lee will be here to speak about Medical Benefits and Dr. Reijo Pera will also be here to talk about Human Embryo Development and Pluripotent Stem Cells.

Susan introduced Bryan Brown

Faculty Financial Inquiry Tool (FFIT)
Bryan Brown, Senior Business Analyst, Stanford Controller's Office

FFIT Presentation

The Faculty Financial Inquiry Tool was developed to improve productivity.

Project Background

Collaboration with CO, AS, ORA, and Univ Budget Office

Project goals

  • simple and intuitive online bank statement for faculty and their support staff
  • include complete list of individually owned faculty accounts (both sponsored and non-sponsored), account balances, and drill-down capabilities for investigating account details.
  • Improve response times over those experienced in RM3
  • Iterative design process began in Feb 09 and culminated with pilot eval in Feb 09
    • School of Engineering selected as pilot school because of their past exposure
    • Responses by both fac and staff have so far been very favorable

Demo: FFIT.stanford.edu

  • If you are able to log in, you have signed a confidentiality agreement.
  • Log in. Agreement form. Home page.
  • Need Help link includes Glossary of Terms, Contact Us, and a Quick Guide.
  • Data as of: date - updated nightly.
    • 2 minor exceptions:
    • The data is as of the prior day with some caveats: (1) why don't I see my gifts. If processing happens once a month, that's all we can show. (2) some student aid transactions are only posted semi-monthly. (3) at year-end, transactions for September of the new fiscal year are "held" until the prior fiscal year is completely closed.
  • Display Accounts for: includes everyone you have access to see.
  • When viewing a PI's info, you get all types of their accounts. - Government, Non-Government Contracts, Non Sponsored Funds
  • PI's need to be particularly careful and accountable for their receipts for clinical trials and fixed-price contracts.
  • Show Balances
  • Current (No commitments)
  • Projected (Hard Commitments)
  • Show Allocations (Include Allocations to Others...)

Drill down and see expenditures - click on account number to see summary. Click on amount and see all transactions that add up to that dollar amount.

Q. Are you running a query?
A. Yes. Nightly.

  • Can click on commitments to see month by month salary commitments.
  • Can select a Fiscal Year. Can only go back as far as 2008.
  • The " i " icons will show info about awards including the PTA and restrictions.

Download to Excel link on every page.

Q. Where are you getting the information on the award?
A. From Oracle.

Q. So when we go to the SeRA project, all that will feed?
A. Exactly, yes. SeRA is making that more transparent.

Q. Is this going to be part of a production database or a reporting database?
A. We are pulling from EDW. So more of a reporting tool.

Q. Authority. How does that work?
A. Authority Manager. Whatever you have access to in Authority Manager, you'll have access to in the FFIT.

Q. If we have a 5 year grant, will we see the whole grant's activity?
A. Yes, but only for non-sponsored accounts.

Q. How will the Faculty get authority to view these reports?
A. It's handled manually right now. If they own the account, they get to see it through the PTA set up.

Rollout Status:
Extensive data-clean-up has been necessary before the tool can be launched broadly in each academic unit

  • Fac owner names are sometimes incomplete/inaccurate (ownership can be vague)
  • Many old accts need to be closed (or zeroed out)
  • Authority is not always granted as intended
  • Some iBudget entries may be required (for allocations)
  • We all must take responsibility for maintaining accurate data or no reporting system in the world will be successful
    • Please ask if you have questions or concerns about how to set up your accounts
    • Business Ops (my group) is available as a resource
  • Each school has asked to manage its own roll-out process and is in a different stage of progress.

Q. Do the records include accounts that have not been closed?
A. Accounts with a $0.00 balance that have been marked in Oracle as CLOSED are removed.

Q. Would it help to send reports of the accounts we are no longer using but seem active?
A. I think it's best to wait for your school/unit to organize the roll-out themselves and to provide you with data on closed/active accounts for your review. However, if you are interested in gaining access to the tool, it would certainly help to contact your school representative to express your interest so that we can begin rolling out the tool in your unit.

Q. Will this work with Macs as well as PCs?
A. Yes, because it is a browser-based application. We have tested the tool on both Macs and PCs, on multiple browser platforms, and the only outstanding issue of which we are aware is a very minor shading issue on Macs using Safari.

Benefits
Lori Branley, Benefits Manager

Presentations: Stanford Enrollment Presentation, TIAA CREF Breakout Presentation, and Fidelity Presentation

Retirement Plan Investment Changes
General Enrollment Information

Stanford's Retirement Savings Program includes:
- Stanford Contributory Retirement Plan (SCRP)
- Tax-Deferred Annuity Plan (TDA)

Investment changes were announced in February
Changes will be fully implemented on November 2

See benefits.stanford.edu
From the Billboard image - click - Important Changes to Retirement Savings

New Investment Structure

Option 1 - Pick the year you want to retire then someone will do all the work for you
Target Retirement Funds
11 Vanguard
Default Funds
Project Status by Unit (see slide)

Option 2 - 5 Vanguard Core Funds
Prime Money Market
Total Bond Market
Extended Market
Institutional
FTSE All-World-Ex-US

Option 3
Annuity accounts
TIAA Traditional
CREF Stock
CREF Money Market

Frozen Account
6 TIAA-CREF Annuities
9 Prudential Annuities

Option 4
Expanded Choices
Brokerage

What is your next step. Decide to invest in 1, 2, 3, or 4
Key decision - what are you going to do with your accumulated assets
If you don't make a decision - Stanford will transfer you to Option 1

After Nov 2, you may continue to transfer your account, change investment selections, and change contribution amounts.

Stanford Retirement Manager (Fidelity Web site) continues to be your resource to:

  • enroll in the plans
  • make investment changes
  • keep track of your vanguard and fidelity acct balances
  • access texpanded choices through fidelity brokerage link

TIAA-CREF monitors your TIAA-CREF annuity investment

Option 1 - (Available Now) - what do I need to do.
Pick the year you are going to retire.
If you don't do anything by November 2, Stanford will elect Option 1

Q. If you're no longer contributing to a fund that is no longer maintained, will that remain?
A. Yes.

Option 2 (Available Now)
Institutional Funds. - you're using Stanford's Buying power to negotiate the lowest expense ratio.
Look at your portfolio and compare the institutional funds. You need to log onto Stanford /retirement Manager from Stanford Benefits.

Option 3 (Available November 2)
Three fixed and variable annuity accounts from TIAA-CREF
You have to sign a new contract to get into these funds. To do that, call TIAA-CREF at 800-842-2888 or log into their web site www.tiaa-cref.org/stanford403b to sign a new contract by November 5.

Investing in Option 4

Expanded Choices through Fidelity Brokerage Link

Over 4,500 mutual funds available through Fidelity brokerage LInk - Requires you to sing a Fidelity Brokerage Link application that acknowledges you understand and accept the added risk of investing outside the pre-selected Options 1, 2, or 3.

To invest in Option 4 Request and complete a Fidelity Borkerage Link app to open a brokerage account, select funds, direct your future contribution

Application deadline: October 5
Enrollment period to select investments Oct 26 through Nov 9

Q. What happens if you do nothing
A. Will default to Option 1

Exception - all existing balances in TIAA CREF funds will remain as is.

Balances already invested in Options 1 and 2 will remain as is in those funds.
Balances previous invested in the Vanguard Total International Stock Fund will default into the FTSE all-world ex-US fund

Key Dates & Deadlines:

Sept 15 - November 5 - Complete a new TIAA-CREF contract
October 5 - Last day to mail in a Fidelity BrokerageLink account application
October 26 to November 9 - Select funds for your new BrokerageLink account
October 31 1:00 PM PT - LAST DAY TO MOVE YOUR EXISTING BALANCE

Resources to help with above:
Decision Guide for your Retirement Savings were mailed to homes on August 31
Enrollment Workshops - Month of September
Financial Fairs
- September 30 at Tresidder

TIAA CREF Investment Meetings at Tresidder:

- Sept 23 2-3 p.m.
- Oct 6 10-11 a.m.
- Oct 20 12-2 p.m.

Your Investment Decision Resources

  • Fidelity BrokerageLink Representative - (888) 793-8733

  • A onehour confidential meeting with a financial advisor:
    - Fidelity (800) 642-7131 or online at www.fidelity.com/atwork/reservations

  • Vanguard (800) 662-1016, extension 14500 or online at www.meetvanguard.com

  • TIAA-CREF (800) 842-2888 or online at www.tiaa-cref,org/moc

  • Stanford Benefits at (650) 736-2985, option #3 - or online through the Retirement section of the Benefits Web site and look under Contacts

Your Retirement Savings Resources: