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Staff who use the Agresso finance system will be able to provide feedback to a newly formed user group. The Finance Systems team have recruited around 35 people to join the group, who represent every department and unit on campus.

The group will meet regularly to discuss constructive feedback  and work on possible improvements. They will consider how developments can best incorporate user needs through a system of prioritisation.

Members of the user group who frequently carry out a particular function within Agresso – such as handling purchase invoices or expenses  – will also be invited to join smaller sub-groups that will focus on enhancements to that specific area of the system.

The primary focus for the user group is on Agresso Self Service applications. Separate user group sessions will be arranged for Finance staff who use Agresso Smart Client.

Agresso went live at Sussex in May 2012. Since then, 1,800 members of staff have used it to process more than 114,000 transactions.

In that time, Finance Systems staff have dealt with 8,000 calls to the helpdesk and have been working to both fix problems and make improvements based on feedback. These enhancements include:

• Reporting: changes to the Committed Spend v Budget report.  This now includes purchase requisitions and shows VAT in all columns enabling users to check available funds
• Changes to the electronic Purchase Order so that it includes product / catalogue code and additional wording to help suppliers identify medical research orders as zero rated
• Purchase Card approval screens now include the card holder’s name against each transaction
• An expense claim enquiry showing a user’s expense claims to date
• A new programme of training courses
• Substantially rewritten web pages, which now feature quick links to training guides and courses

This update is the first in a series of communications. Monthly progress updates and further information, including the Finance Systems team priorities for the rest of the academic year, can be found on the Finance system web pages.

If you have any comments, you can feed these back to the user group representative for your area. A list of representatives will shortly be uploaded to the Finance web pages.