Budget Data Loading Streamlined

The amount of data loaded into various budget tables is massive. New data must be entered every summer in preparation for the new fiscal year. Previously, the Payroll/HR Systems Team (PHRST) and departmental users had to work together to load thousands of budget entries. A third-party application, Mercury’s QuickTest, was used to load the data into EIS. QuickTest is a key stroke emulator designed for entering test data into an enterprise system component. Each entry can take several minutes. The amount of data required by UNT’s budget could easily take several days to load using multiple computers. It is a time consuming process requiring constant monitoring of rejected entries. To complicate matters, the loading can only be done during non-business hours to avoid data conflict with online users during normal work days.

This summer, according to Ron Wang of the PHRST, end users can be “happy campers” when it comes time for budget loading. The PHRST has developed a budget loading process using Component Interface. Component Interface is a PeopleSoft delivered utility that allows a customized Application Engine (PeopleSoft’s batch processing program) to pick up and load budget input data into various budget tables. The slow key-stroke emulator is now replaced with an efficient batch process. As a result, EIS users no longer have to be involved in the budget’s data loading. The PHRST simply runs the customized Component Interface and the budget data loads usually in just minutes. Now that’s progress!