As announced in the July 8th OUC Newsletter, the Denver CIW Financial Web Reports are going away. These reports have web addresses starting with cms.prod.cu.edu and are sometimes called Denver Finance Data Inquiry, Denver Warehouse, or Denver CIW. The host system for these reports will be retired October 31, 2011. Rather than eliminating all of the reports at once on October 31, reports will be decommissioned weekly during September and October. As new m-Fin replacement reports become available we’ll put links to them on the Denver site reports.
Is my report going away?
- Does it run in a web browser? Examples of web browsers are Firefox, MicroSoft Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome.
- When you have filled in the prompts and are about to run it, look at the web address. After the double-slash does it start with cms.prod.cu.edu?
If the answer to both of these questions is “yes” then sometime in the months of September and October it will be gone.
PSLite and FishNet reports are not affected. PSLite runs in MicroSoft Access rather than a web browser. FishNet runs in a web browser but the web address starts with qf, not cms. CU will eventually retire these other systems, but not at this time with the Denver site.
Will the m-Fin replacement report be exactly the same?
No. The new m-Fin reports are created in Cognos and our strategy has been to use Cognos’s normal functionality. Also, we make improvements to the reports where we see opportunities to do so. We expect that after orienting yourself to a new report you should be able to accomplish the same business tasks with it. In some cases there will be more than one m-Fin replacement report.
Why do some of the new reports take more clicks to run?
A strength of Cognos is that it can run multiple speedtypes in one run, but this does result in a more sophisticated interface for entering speedtypes. Also, to run again with a new speedtype, the stock Cognos function is the blue triangle “run” button. We are always looking for ways to streamline speed and usability but we are balancing this with increased functionality and the benefits of standardization. When keying in a speedtype you can use the Enter key rather than mouse-clicking the Search button. Click Insert and Finish to run.
Is there training on the new reports?
Contact your campus finance office:
6-Oct-2011: We have made additional one-time training available Oct 10 through 17th. See Training Registration at the top of this blog.
Why is the cms site called the Denver site?
The cms.prod.cu.edu reports were first developed by Denver campus and were hosted on a server there. Later the system was transitioned to hardware hosted by University Information Systems and the web address changed to cms at that time. Many people who use the site, however, still call it “Denver”.
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