UPlan Glossary
Below are frequently used terms. Included are definitions and examples for these terms.
A
Account
A dimension that represents an accounting container that identifies the primary nature of data. Its primary use in UPlan is as a representation of the Account segment of the chart of accounts, which tracks the type of accounting transaction (salary, travel, etc.). Other uses are to store data points (such as enrollment, tuition rates, FTE) needed for calculations or other measures.
Alias
An Alias is used to give a more readable name or description to a dimension member.
Application
A related set of dimensions, dimension members and plan types associated with a cube (database) that are used to meet a specific set of analytical and/or reporting requirements.
Approval Date
The date on which a planned commitment was approved. Approval date is a required field for a commitment to appear on the General Planning Revenue and Expense form for the Target Dept ID.
Approver
Name or title of the person that approved or authorized the commitment.
B
Business Rules
Business Rules are calculations written in scripts and are used to calculate data in UPlan. They often run in the “background” upon saving a data entry form change. For example: A business rule may be created for calculating benefit expenses from base salary and fringe rate associated with an employee. Or, a business rule may be created for calculating aggregated totals.
C
Cell
A data unit representing the intersection of dimensions in a data entry form or report.
Change in Net Position
The change in an individual or combined Fund, DeptID, and/or Project balance over a period of time, measured as Revenues minus Expenses plus total Other Changes.
Child
A dimension member that is below another dimension member (its parent) on a tree. For example, Jul, Aug, and Sep are the Children of the Parent, Q1.
Column
A vertical display of information in a grid or table. A column can contain data from a single field, derived data from a calculation or text information. The words column and field are sometimes used interchangeably.
Commitment
A planned transfer of funds. A commitment may represent a recurring allocation for general support or a specific allocation to support a particular designated activity. A commitment planned in UPlan does not replace or obviate the need for a PeopleSoft financial journal.
Commitment Tracking Module
The UPlan workspace provided to track commitments from a source Dept ID to a target Dept ID.
Composite Benefits Rate
A percentage of salary estimated to equal the ratio of an employee's total benefits cost relative to total salary. In Uplan, composite benefits rates are used to estimate benefits costs for each salary component. Rates are applied based on salary level, employee category and salary component.
Contingency
An issue that must be resolved before a planned transfer is executed.
Control Point Coordinator (Level 1)
A UPlan user representing the control point (Level 1 of the DeptID tree) who has permission to update global assumptions in both General Planning and Employee Planning. The assumptions entered by the Control Point Coordinator The assumptions entered by the Department Coordinator apply to all departments and other units below the control point, but may be further adjusted by coordinators at the department level (Level 2).
D
Data Access Permission
Access rights of Read, Read/Write, and None, associated with a piece of data.
Data Entry Form
Data Entry Forms are spreadsheet-like grids with rows, columns and pages that allows users to enter data into the cube from a Web browser or using SmartView. Certain dimension member values are fixed, giving users a specific view into the data. Forms contain members from the dimensions in the underlying cube.
Department Coordinator (Level 2)
A UPlan user representing a department (Level 2 of the DeptID tree) who has permission to update global assumptions in both General Planning and Employee Planning. The assumptions entered by the Department Coordinator apply to all divisions and other units below the department.
Dept ID
The UPlan dimension representing organizational units, which can be control points, departments, divisions, or other units.
Descendants
All members below a parent are called descendants. For example, in a dimension that includes YearTotal, quarters, and months, the members Qtr2 and April are descendants of the parent, Year Total.
DFP
Acronym representing a combination of DeptID, Fund, and Project. In the UPlan General Planning workspace, planners enter data on the Revenue and Expense form (either Level C or Level E) for a specific DFP.
Dimension
Dimensions are the elements that describe and hold data. In UPlan, dimensions are the categories in which data is arranged. Each dimension usually contains a hierarchy of related members grouped within it. Dimensions used in the UPlan General Planning workspace are Scenario, Version, Year, Period, Account, Fund, DeptID and Project.
Dimension Attribute
A classification of a member in a dimension. You can select and group members based on their associated attributes. You can also specify an attribute when you perform calculations and use calculation functions.
Distribution
A specific line item of a commitment, generally distinguished from other distributions by a different Fund, Target DeptID, Target Project, Transfer Type, or Approval status. Each commitment may have up to 99 distributions. All distributions within a single commitment share the same Source DeptID.
Drill-down
Drill-down Process is a specific technique by which you can navigate through levels of data, ranging from the most summarized (top) to the most detailed (bottom).
Duration
Indicates whether a commitment is temporary or recurring. This field is not required and exists solely for organizing commitments in reports.
Dynamic Calculation
A data value that is not stored, but is instead calculated as it is needed by UPlan.
E
Employee Planning Module
The UPlan workspace provided to plan salaries and benefits on an individual employee or group level.
End Date
The end date of the commitment or allocation. This date is used to determine whether a commitment will “roll forward” to new fiscal years as they are added. The actual day of the month is not relevant.
F
Faculty Portfolio
A TM1-based planning tool for projects "owned" by a specific faculty member or principal investigator. These projects are defined to fall into four Project Use categories: sponsored projects, recruitment projects, retention projects, and other faculty/PI projects. Expenditure plans developed in Faculty Portfolio (FP) are fed to UPlan on a regular basis in order to reduce duplicative data entry.
Financial Reporting
Financial Reporting enables one to create reports and charts for the Web or print for analysis and distribution of budget plans. All non-form reports in UPlan use Hyperion's Financial Reporting capabilities.
Forecast
A member of the Scenario dimension. Forecast refers to a scenario containing actual data for the part of the year that has elapsed and planning data for the remainder of the year. UPlan included four Forecast scenarios -- one for each quarter.
Form Report
A Form Report is a report that uses Hyperion Planning functionality to retrieve data, and therefore appears as a data entry form, but without any user ability to enter data.
Fund
The UPlan dimension representing the source of funding.
G
General Planning Module
The UPlan workspace provide to plan revenues and non-salary expenses.
Global Assumption
A percentage increase or decrease in values that will be applied to a group of values when seeding a new fiscal year planning scenario. In General Planning, global assumptions may be applied to revenue and expense accounts based on combination of Fund and Project Use for each Level 2 department. In Employee Planning, global assumptions will be applied to salary levels for employees grouped by Title Unit Code (TUC).
H
Hierarchy
A set of multidimensional relationships in an outline, often created in a tree formation.
Hyperion Planning
A centralized, Web-based planning, budgeting, and forecasting solution owned by Oracle Corporation. At UCSF, the Hyperion Planning application is called UPlan. Hyperion Planning enables members of an organization to track and monitor business plans and forecasts.
I
Income/(Loss) from Operations
The net operating change in an individual or combined Fund, DeptID, and/or Project, measured as Revenues minus Expenses.
Intersection
Intersection is a unique combination of dimension members. In Planning, intersection consists of a unique value (usually dollars) associated with a member from each dimension.
J
K
L
Leaf Member
A dimension member that has no children (also known as level 0 or base member).
Level 1 Coordinator
A UPlan user representing the control point (Level 1 of the DeptID tree) who has permission to update global assumptions in both General Planning and Employee Planning. The assumptions entered by the Control Point Coordinator The assumptions entered by the Department Coordinator apply to all departments and other units below the control point, but may be further adjusted by coordinators at the department level (Level 2).
Level 2 Coordinator
A UPlan user representing a department (Level 2 of the DeptID tree) who has permission to update global assumptions in both General Planning and Employee Planning. The assumptions entered by the Department Coordinator apply to all divisions and other units below the department.
Long Description
Description of the commitment. Limited to 255 characters. Useful for storing additional background information about a commitment.
M
Member
A discrete component within a dimension. For example, in the Time Periods dimension, “April” would be a member.
Metadata
The structural elements of an application that describe and hold data.
Module
In UPlan, module refers to a set of forms and/or reports designed for a particular type or level of planning. For Phase 1, UPlan modules are General Planning, Employee Planning, and Commitment Tracking.
MyOrg
A UPlan user variable that may be set to equal a planning or higher level member of the DeptID tree. The MyOrg value will determine what data appear on Uplan reports and landing pages.
MyReports
The primary application provided at UCSF for financial reporting. MyReports provides a series of standard reports and tools to develop queries. Management reports within MyReports will include plan and forecast data from UPlan for variance analysis.
N
Net Position – Beginning of Period
The balance in an individual or combined Fund, DeptID, and/or Project at the beginning of a period, typically the beginning of the fiscal year (July 1) or a particular month. Net Position -- Beginning of Period is equal to the Net Position -- End of Period for the prior month.
Net Position – End of Period
The balance in an individual or combined Fund, DeptID, and/or Project at the end of a period, typically the end of the fiscal year (June 30) or a particular month. The Net Position -- End of Period equals the sum of the Net Position -- Beginning of Period and the Change in Net Position.
O
P
Page Filter
The dimension intersections for a form view that are user-selected using drop-down menus.
Parent
A dimension member that has an aggregated branch (children) below it. Within UPlan, data cannot be entered at a parent level, with the exception of the Period dimension.
Payroll Distribution Department
For a specific employee, a planning DeptID in UPlan that is providing funds for some or all of that employee's salary and benefits.
Period
A dimension representing the period of time of financial activity. Period members include the twelve months and four quarters of the year, as well as a year total.
Plan
A member of the Scenario dimension. Refers to the annual resource “plan” developed by each unit, previously referred to as the budget. Plan contains no actuals.
Planner
A UPlan user who has permission to enter data on various General Planning, Employee Planning, and Commitment Tracking forms. Planners do not have the ability to adjust global assumptions unless they are also a Level 1 or Level 2 Coordinator.
Planning Dept ID
A DeptID in the UCSF DeptID tree, either at the posting (leaf) level or a parent level that is designated as the organizational level for which plans will be developed in UPlan.
Planning-only Project
A Project in the UCSF Project list created solely for purposes of planning within UPlan and reporting in MyReports and that will not be used for posting of financial transactions within the PeopleSoft General Ledger. A Planning-only Adjustment Project is available for each Project Use, allowing users to make adjustments to departmental plans without identifying specific projects. In addition, several Planning-only Projects exist to capture aggregated expense plans imported from Faculty Portfolio.
Planning-only Transfer Accounts
A series of Account members included in the General Planning module for purposes of storing transfer amounts planned in the Commitment Tracking module.
Point of View (POV)
The dimension intersections for a form or report view that are pre-selected within UPlan (rather than user-selected).
Project
A dimension representing the Project chartstring in the UCSF chart of accounts. Projects fall into various Project Use categories.
Project Use
Project Use is a COA attribute of Project that describes the type of project or activity. Planning by project in UPlan is based in part on Project Use. Expense plans for specific projects within four project uses (sponsored projects, recruitment projects, retention projects and other faculty/PI projects) are developed outside of UPlan, in Faculty Portfolio. These expense plans are fed to UPlan on a regular basis. Planning also various by Project Use across UPlan workspaces. The Commitment Tracking workspace allows commitment planning for all project uses except sponsored projects. Capital projects are planned only in the Commitment Tracking workspace. For all other project uses, a planning-only "adjustment" project is available in all workspaces, allowing users to develop plans at the Project Use level.
Purpose
The purpose of a commitment. This field is not required and exists solely for organizing commitments in reports.
Q
R
Request Date
The date that the commitment was requested.
Requestor
Name or title of the person who requested the commitment.
Reviewer
A UPlan user who has access to reports but does not have permission to enter data on any forms.
Row
A horizontal display of information in a grid (form) or table.
S
Salary Component
A portion of an individual's salary. In Uplan, four salary components are used (base, negotiated, faculty bonuses and incentives, and additional/other) are determined based on PPS Description of Service (DOS) codes.
Salary Planning Department
The designated Planning Department that manages the salary level for a specific employee within UPlan. The Salary Planning Department is analogous to (and in many cases the same as) the PPS Home Department. Each employee is assigned to one Salary Planning Department based on mapping by DeptID defined by the control point.
Scenario
A dimension in UPlan that describes the type of data. Scenario members in UPlan are Actuals, Plan, and four quarterly forecasts. The Commitment Tracking tool contains a single scenario.
Short Description
Description of the commitment. Limited to 255 characters.
Sibling
A child member at the same generation as another child member and having the same immediate parent.
SmartView
SmartView is a feature available in UPlan that enables uploading/downloading of data in MicroSoft Excel spreadsheets, using the same functionality as UPlan. In UPlan, users can open Excel and utilize the SmartView to enter, format, analyze, report, and upload data.
Source DeptID
The organizational unit planning to transfer funds to another unit (the Target Department). For a specific commitment, the Source Department and the Target Department may be the same.
Source Project
Source project for commitment funding.
Start Date
The start date of the commitment or allocation. No functionality, only for reference.
Status
Indiciates whether a commitment is new, ongoing, anticipated, or completed. This field is not required and exists solely for organizing commitments in reports.
Supporting Detail
Calculations and assumptions from which values of cells are derived. Supporting detail can include text, values and operators that define how data aggregates.
T
Target DeptID
The organizational unit designated to receive transfer funds from another unit (the Source Department). For a specific commitment, the Source Department and the Target Department may be the same.
Target Project
Target project for commitment funding.
Task Lists
Task Lists guide users through the planning process by listing tasks that need to be completed, along with instructions and due dates. Tasks can be strictly informational (instructions, tips & tricks) or can launch data forms, calculations, and reports. Task lists can be different for different users.
To-be-Hired (TBH)
A provisional employee member within UPlan for planning salary and benefits that are not specifically identified as tied to a current employee.
Transfer
The movement of funds from one DeptID and/or Project to another DeptID and/or Project. Commiments are essentially planned transfers. Actual transfer occur in PeopleSoft.
Transfer Type
Type of commitment, helps identify whether a commitment is an operating or non-operating transfer. Operating transfers appear in the revenue section of the Revenue and Expense form, while non-operating transfers appear in the Other Changes section.
U
UPlan
The Hyperion Planning application provided at UCSF for planning and forecasting.
V
Version
A dimension representing different iterations of the Scenario. Version members include “working” and “final.”
W
X
Y
Year
A dimension representing the fiscal year.
Z