This Week's Stories: Safeguarding Space Satellites and Prehistoric Pelts 1998 Charitable Campaign Kickoff faculty profile : The Corn Lady It’s Open Enrollment Time Again It’s a Hit or Miss Holiday at My House Talking Bear Spreads Promise of Berkeley What Do Children Think They Need? The New Yorker’s New Editor Comes to Zellerbach Hall Trying to Make Sense of Suicide Distinguished Service Award Info Meeting Session Pilot Departments Prepare for Online Purchasing Using New BAI System Using Native Traditions to Enhance Wellness Flextime Guide A Big Hit at Conference UC Ranks High in Scholarly Publications Prop 1A’s Passage Brings New Hope for Old Buildings Regular Features News Briefs Staff Enrichment		Pilot Departments Prepare for Online Purchasing Using New BAI System by Kathleen Phillips Satz, Berkeley Administrative Iniatives posted November 11, 1998 When staff in 15 campus departments return to work Jan.4, they'll be using a new process to buy pencils, lab supplies, and services from outside vendors. On that day the new Purchasing and Accounts Payable systems -- the first phase of the Berkeley Administrative Initiatives -- will become reality for the first batch of pilot departments as well as the campus Disbursements and Purchasing offices. Staff in the pilot units will be trained in December, beginning with an overview session and moving on to two days of hands-on classroom training. Staff in Disbursements and Purchasing will receive training to handle central campus tasks and to answer questions from campus users. The training will be held in three classrooms, two equipped with PCs and one with Macintosh machines. Trainees will leave with reference materials and instructions on how to practice transactions while they wait for the January rollout, and they'll be enrolled in an email service so they can receive updates and announcements. Special departmental "coaches" will get intensive training to serve as first-line help for new users, and a help desk will be staffed to answer questions. Departmental computer support staff will be briefed on downloading the needed software and the technical aspects of the project. The list of January pilot units, as well as 15 more units that will go "live" in February, is posted on the BAI web site at www.bai.berkeley.edu/bai/. Once the first two pilot groups are using the system, the remaining campus departments will be added at two-week intervals through the spring. During this period, when some departments are using the systems and others are not, staff members will use the current purchasing procedures until they are trained and their departments begin using the systems. This first phase will be followed in the year 2000 by other components of the BAI project: a new general ledger and chart of accounts, plus the Human Resources Management System. For information about the Berkeley Administrative Initiatives and their impact on campus business processes, see the web site.

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