CSUBUY Takes Flight! Celebrating a Strong Week One at SJSU!

What an incredible start for CSUBUY! The Administration and Finance division is thrilled to report on the fantastic engagement and progress during the first week of our new procure-to-pay platform, which went live on January 26. CSUBUY is a singular platform used by all California State University campuses.

The enthusiasm and proactive participation from the SJSU community have been truly inspiring. Our dedicated Finance Support team held nine hands-on introductory sessions, two drop-in office hours and two immersive in-person training sessions throughout the week, reaching an impressive total of 260 participants! A huge thank you to everyone who attended a session - your engagement will make this transition a success!

Early Adopter Spotlight

The Finance Support and Innovation team would like to give a special shout-out to five individuals who dove headfirst into CSUBUY and have already become early champions of the platform.

Let's celebrate:

• Jocelyn Pollack, Film and Theatre, College of Humanities and the Arts
• Ricky Gong, '02 Accounting, '07 MA Education, College of Human and Health Sciences
• Rachel Jones, Project Rebound
• Maria Bones, Hammer Theatre Center
• Maria Moore, College of Social Sciences

The Finance Support and Innovation office caught up with Jocelyn Pollack, the department analyst for Film, Theatre, and Dance within the College of Humanities and the Arts; Rachel Jones, administrative coordinator for Project Rebound in the College of Social Sciences; and Ricky Gong, senior college financial resource analyst for the College of Health and Human Sciences, to learn their first-impressions. Here's what we heard:

What was your initial impression of CSUBUY, and what aspects stood out to you most?

Jocelyn Pollack: "I like that the basic layout of CSUBuy remains largely the same in terms of navigation and the Shopping Home Page updates are clean and organized. There is great potential here for clear communications from Finance to users and enough familiarity to not be shocking."

Rachel Jones: "It's nice to have a way to track exactly where the purchase is in the approval process. It's pretty transparent."

Ricky Gong: "My initial impression of CSUBUY was that it is more structured and detailed than our previous process. What stood out most was how much information is captured upfront, which I can see being helpful for tracking and consistency across purchases."

Which feature do you think will save the most time for your department?

Jocelyn Pollack: "The Department of Film, Theatre and Dance does a lot of purchasing for our performances and productions, and we have a lot of ProCard holders to support that. "Converting that purchasing to requisitions will save our purchasers, approvers and myself a lot of time reconciling ProCards at the end of every month. This will also relieve the ProCard admin of a lot of work reviewing and processing our transactions with Amazon and Staples, especially at the height of productions."

Ricky Gong: "The default funding source will save the most time for our department. Having it pre-set reduces repetitive data entry and helps streamline the requisition process."

How would you describe the user interface compared to our old process?

Jocelyn Pollack: "There's a familiarity but also clear improvements such as how the shopping home page is organized and formatted. I've done a lot of change management and I hope the familiarity fosters adoption across the university and as I train and support new requesters in my department."

Ricky Gong: "The new interface is something we need to get used to because it requires entering more detailed information compared to the old FTS system. I do like that receipts, invoices and other related documents will all be housed in one system, which should improve organization and visibility."

What's one pro-tip you discovered during your first few logins?

Jocelyn Pollack: "Get familiar with how to find your suppliers, like Amazon, before you have an urgent purchase to make to avoid frustration. Spend time in the portal to learn where things are and get some key defaults set-up. I plan to gradually add more defaults over time since our department is a complex matrix of funds and that makes it feel more manageable."

Rachel Jones: "I like the 'favorites' for inputting chartfields [internal account identifying information] I use often, so I can switch between different completed strings without having to re-enter in the values each time."

Ricky Gong: "Pre-setting your funding source as a default is a must. My first requisition without presets was frustrating, but after guidance from FinanceConnect and setting up defaults, my second requisition went much smoother.

What would you say to a colleague who is nervous about the switch?

Jocelyn Pollack: "I'm really invested in process improvement and change management. "I believe in the intention behind this integration to improve efficiencies across the CSU and SJSU all the way down to my department. I would emphasize the reduction in the time they will spend on ProCard reconciliations and the improvements in the approval process. CSU has put a lot of resources into supporting this project and as a result SJSU has been able to put a lot of support resources in place. Simply, I would just say 'give it a chance.'"

Rachel Jones: "I've been very grateful for the time that the procurement office has set aside to answer questions over email and to do the Zoom workshops to walk us through the process of setting up our default addresses and chartfields. It takes a lot of pressure off me to know I can always ask if I have a question."

Ricky Gong: "I would say to embrace the change. CSUBUY is consolidating multiple systems into one, and while there is a learning curve, it will be more efficient in the long run once we become comfortable with the navigation. Also, you will be able to see the statuses."

Training Continues!

Didn't make it to week one? No problem. We have a robust schedule of training sessions scheduled throughout February to ensure everyone feels confident navigating CSUBUY.

View the CSUBUY training calendar and register for a session.

Let's keep the momentum going, Spartans!

This article was written by Finance Support and Innovation, a unit of the division of Administration and Finance. San José State University Administration and Finance advances the university mission through several core operational departments ranging from business services, to facilities, to campus safety, and others. Guided by responsible stewardship principles of university resources and assets, Administration and Finance helps guide Silicon Valley's public university growth as a hub for world-changing learning, research and innovation. Visit our website.