Your Ideas Matter

Improving the VA Early Release of Sponsorship Funds Workflow

This idea began when staff noticed students receiving both sponsorships and VA benefits were sometimes getting incorrect refunds. Sponsorships were added so financial aid could disburse, but because the process relied on a shared spreadsheet and manual communication, the sponsorships were not always removed before VA payments arrived. This led to refund errors, repayment arrangements, and extra administrative work for staff.

To fix the issue, Tamara, Adam, and Mandy designed a clearer workflow in Perceptive Content, replacing the old manual spreadsheet process. Through our meetings, the team refined this workflow so sponsorships now move through a structured, system-driven sequence. Adam receives the workflow, adds the sponsorship, and then releases it once Tamara confirms that financial aid has disbursed. This eliminated the timing gaps that were causing refund mistakes.

Since implementing the workflow, the original problem has been resolved. Refund errors have stopped, students are no longer put in difficult financial situations, and staff no longer have to track repayments or depend on shared spreadsheets. The result is a more accurate, efficient, and streamlined process that benefits both students and the university.

Fellow Change Agents:

• Mandy Tucker
• Adam MacGregor Phillips
• Tamara Horner

Impact of idea:

• VA students will not have inaccurate accounts and will not accidentally receive incorrect refunds.
• Staff no longer spend hours correcting accounts, fixing refund errors, or contacting students to recover overpaid funds.

Cross Campus Employee Payments

Tirzah noticed when attempting to make award payments to KUMC GRAs that these payments could take up to 6 months to get processed. When trying to find out where the payment troubles were, she couldn't identify what approvals or steps were being missed.  This was causing frustration for our GRAs and staff.  After working with both KU and KUMC payroll teams it was discovered the award payments were getting caught up in HR workflow approvals in Workday. Departments often believed payments required cost center approval even when funding was already secured, which created unnecessary denials, inconsistent visibility, and frustration for both staff and students. After reviewing the workflow and meeting with stakeholders at KUMC, Payroll, HR, and Finance, KUMC was able to approve a process change that centralizes the entry and approval workflow within Payroll.

When a KU entity is making an additional compensation payment to the KUMC employee in the future the payment will be submitted through KU payroll and once approved the KUMC Payroll team will enter and approve which will bypass the unnecessary approvals with the old process. This change reduces the number of internal touch points, eliminates the cost center bottleneck, and ensures payments hit the next available payroll cycle within a reliable process. This should resolve the visibility problems and shorten the payment timeline.

Fellow Change Agents:

• Tirzah Branwen-Williams
• Neatha Snyder
• Julia Higgerson
• Penny Kellum

Impact of idea:

The change will greatly increase the speed of additional compensation being given to cross-campus employees. These payments now will move directly from KU to KUMC and promptly be added to the next payroll cycle. Students and Staff should see less time monitoring and waiting on internal payment processes to be completed.

Automated PO Management Report

Nolan Haire and Dona Jurgensen identified an opportunity to improve efficiency by managing purchase orders (POs) proactively throughout the year rather than only at year-end. As POs increasingly support automated invoice payments, monitoring their liquidation status is essential. Invoices can be delayed when POs close unexpectedly because departments are not regularly checking them in OAC.

To address this, the team partnered with FMS to develop an automated report that flags POs nearing full expenditure. This report is distributed weekly to the AP team, enabling timely outreach to requestors for adjustments or closure decisions. By eliminating the need to manually review POs in OAC, the process ensures proactive management and reduces payment delays.

Fellow Change Agents:

• Nolan Haire
• Dona Lee Jurgensen
• Matt Lawrence

Impact of idea:

• Fewer invoices being stopped and manually researched on POs
• Proactive management of POs throughout the year rather than only at year-end

Student Sponsor Fee Automation

Every semester, International Student Services and Student Accounts worked together to identify the appropriate group of students to receive a student sponsorship fee.  The way the old process worked was multiple queries were pulled from different systems and manual comparisons were made to put together a list of students to manually add a Student Accounts group post. Mandy Tucker thought there should be a better way to identify and assess this charge each semester.  The team began building a Student Sponsor form in the Finance Service portal for both Student accounts and ISS to use when a new international sponsorship student was identified. 

Part of the process is putting these students into the appropriate student group in our Enroll & Pay system. Once in the student group, our Student Information systems team built a process to automatically assess the fee for students enrolled and in the student group.  This removes the need for pulling and reviewing multiple queries and having to create a manual group post to assess the students.  Now student accounts reflect the appropriate charges in real-time rather than depending on the manual process each semester to be completed before Third Party sponsorship billing occurs.

Fellow Change Agents:

• Mandy Tucker
• Adam Phillips
• Shawn Wettlaufer
• Lynne Vanahill
• Yuki Watanabe
• Angie Dopp
• Dee Anna Rendall
• Rachel Sherman

Impact of idea:

• Elimination of manual reviews of reporting and creating lists of students to pass between teams to post charges
• Student accounts reflect real-time balances

Hospitality Event Planning Checklist

When Johnathan Grant submitted an Elevate idea, he noted that KU staff and faculty planning events often lacked clear, centralized guidance on what was required, from booking space and arranging food to obtaining police or drink approvals. Without a single resource, it was difficult to know all the steps needed to host an event successfully.

In response, Jayhawk Hospitality created an Event Planning Checklist that outlines in one place all the steps and requirements for holding an event at KU. The checklist helps KU staff and faculty understand processes and complete event planning more efficiently.

The new resource supports transparency, reduces confusion, and helps maintain consistent event booking practices across campus.

Fellow Change Agents:

• Johnathan Grant
• Laura Hamilton
• Libby Queen

Impact of idea:

• Increased visibility of Jayhawk Hospitality information on the web
• Improved understanding of KU processes and procedures for KU staff and faculty
• Increased event bookings over time