The U-M Shared Services Center opened on Aug. 4, and the project is beginning a second engagement process that will involve faculty, staff and future SSC employees in planning and refining the next set of services to be offered.

About 110 SSC staff members now handle accounts payable, accounts receivable and certain human resources functions for the university. Additional finance- and HR-related services will begin during March or April 2015, and will include statement of activity, travel and expense report processing, time and leave administration, and employment processing.

Engaging faculty and staff for their advice will again be done primarily at the school, college and unit level, explained Thom Madden, who leads the implementation phase of the shared services initiative.

“The advice is important for the proper design of the next set of services, particularly travel and expense report processing,” said Madden. “The SSC plans to offer travel and expense services that will include both travel booking and expense report processing, including delegates for expense reports. That helps ensure all faculty members will have the option to use a delegate if they choose to do so.”

The feedback last winter helped the project team test the processes that went to the SSC in August, and it also surfaced other faculty concerns about productivity and administrative burden. These included the usability of the Concur interface for expense processing and the long-standing $5,000 bid threshold requiring competitive bids for purchases.

The university is planning a pilot this fall of a Concur mobile app, and if it’s successful, will make it available across campus this winter. In addition, Concur plans to release a more user-friendly Web interface during the winter. The university also is currently evaluating the bid threshold.