Business Intelligence and Financial Reporting
- About Us
- Initiatives
- Meet The Team
- Services & Contacts
About Us
Business Intelligence and Financial Reporting is dedicated to providing a window into financial data by providing curated reports that help fiscal staff understand the financial information they are responsible for. We are a group of developers, analysts, and subject matter experts who combine our business intelligence skills and subject matter expertise to generate reporting and business intelligence solutions that provide maximum insight into your business operations.
Mission Statement
Provide insight into financial data in support of world-class education and research.
Strategic Objectives
- Produce financial reports that are intuitive and help campus departments make sound financial decisions in support of their business.
- Support the various divisions within Business and Financial Services with data analytics to ensure financial and regulatory compliance.
- Support role-based financial systems training initiatives with excellent instruction on how to use reports to answer business questions.
- Maintain the integrity of the Oracle Analytics platform and BI catalog in support of Campus, Foundation, and UCSD Health reporting.
How to engage with us
- Access our reports from the Budget & Finance section on the Business Analytics Hub.
- Submit an enhancement request to inform future report development.
- Attend Fund Manager Office Hours to see demos of new and existing reports and ask questions about how to use or interpret reports in a collegial community environment.
- Attend a 1:1 zoom session for more focused help with a report or business question.
- Visit the BI & Financial Reporting site on Blink to view upcoming report development efforts and detailed information about how to use the reports on BAH.
Initiatives
Job-focused Financial Reporting
We meet with groups of campus stakeholders in financial roles across campus to understand their business processes and the questions they ask that financial reports can answer. In partnership with those groups, we design new reports or discuss the reorganization of existing reports to better meet business needs. Roles that we have engaged or will engage include fund managers, fiscal managers, fiscal leaders, and recharge facility managers.
Training and Communications
Reports are a primary way that our clients view financial system data. As such, it is critical that report users understand how the financial system works and how reports are organized to display that data in a meaningful way. In addition, it is important for fiscal staff to understand which reports are best suited to answer any given question. To that end, we will provide multiple learning modalities for report users to learn about reports and the financial data they expose:
- Live, instructor-led workshops on specific commonly-used reports
- Group report demos and trainings in an office hours context
- Written content on Blink that clearly demonstrates the purpose of a report and how to use it
- Integration with formalized role-based training such as Fund Manager Bootcamp
- Email communication about important new developments in financial reporting
- Clear communication about the report development roadmap, elucidating the timeline for report development and when submitted requests will be completed
Meet The Team
Heather SearsDirector Heather's career has had as many lives as a cat, being serially resurrected as a biology researcher, a certified public accountant, a research administrator, and a report developer and finance trainer. Heather loves figuring out solutions to hard problems and teaching people better and easier ways to do their jobs. She couldn't imagine anything more fun that getting to lead the financial reporting team. She also loves gardening and going for hikes with her family. Heather is responsible for the creation of the GL-PPM Reconciliation report, the UCPath-PPM-GL Reconciliation Report, and the Default Project Payroll report. |
Rehan AhmedPrincipal Business Intelligence Specialist Rehan has been at UC San Diego since 2019 and holds a B.A in Accounting and Financial Management from University of Gloucestershire, UK and a MBA from UMass Dartmouth, MA. He is yellow belt lean six sigma certified. In his free time he loves playing and watching soccer. Rehan is responsible for development of the Expanded Project Summary, Project Management Dashboard, and Faculty and Researcher Dashboard. |
Maruthi AlamuriBusiness Data & Intelligence Analyst
|
Katrina DoUX Designer Hi! I’m a rising 4th year at UCSD double majoring in Business Economics and Cognitive Science: Design an Interaction. I’m currently interning as a UX Designer this summer working on enhancing your user experience when using dashboards and reports. Outside of work, I enjoy baking and cooking, crocheting, and attending concerts! |
Gayathri NarayananBusiness Data & Intelligence Analyst Gayathri came to UCSD in February 2023 from RSI Solutions, where she was a Senior Consultant. She enjoys learning new tools related to report development and data modelling. Outside of work, she loves cooking and spending time with her kids. Gayathri is responsible for development of the Fixed Assets Dashboard, and also works on other reports related to gift funds and Procure to Pay. |
Eva ThiveosSenior Data and Business Officer, Dean of Arts and Humanities Eva began her career at UC San Diego as an events assistant and later embarked on a decade-long journey traveling the world and furthering her education. After enough time away from home, she returned to San Diego to lead the School of Arts and Humanities through the great systems change of 2020 where she learned how to develop Oracle reports. Eva enjoys her dual role as both a reports developer and user of our reports. On the weekends, she loves taking her dogs to Fiesta Island and spending time with family. Eva is responsible for the creation of the Transaction Details report, GL Project Balances report, Graduate Student Funding report, and the enduring PBED. |
Services & Contacts
Our team answers questions about and solves problems with financial reports. For problems related to the data exposed in a report or to request changes to data in the source system, contact the relevant BFS team responsible for the data. Questions and problems we can address include:
- Which report should I use to answer this business question?
- Can you help me interpret the data I see on this report?
- The data presented on this report doesn’t match what I see in the source application.
Contact us through UC San Diego Services & Support and select the corresponding service in the About and Related to fields listed below:
Team | Members | We Manage Services About: |
Related |
BI Support |
|
BI & Financial Reporting |
Other General Financial Report Inquiries Financial Report Enhancement Request |
Authors |
|
BI & Financial Reporting | Report an Issue or Error with Existing Financial Reports |
Oracle BI Migration |
|
BI & Financial Reporting | Oracle BI Catalog Migration Request |