Bursar update - 22nd August 2025
Our in-person clinics at the six buildings (Agriculture, Science, Health Sciences, Engineering Newman and Business) started on Tuesday. They have been well run by our colleague Sharon Coffey, who has brought all six individuals together daily to analyse the queries coming up, learn from each other and effectively upskill for the following day. We have seen over 300 people in the three days this week and the feedback has been very positive. I would recommend you visit your local clinic if you need a query answered quickly. We continue to improve and refine our training materials and guides following your feedback so we ask you to really take the time to review these supporting guidance documents. Please click here ((opens in a new window)https://tinyurl.com/4xk53htt) to view. Training continues to be available via Zoom and again, we recommend you attend. Helen, Sharon and I have met with many Schools/Units, as you request a visit – offer remains open! Many of the questions we are receiving relate to approval workflows. The Workday Approval Document which we distributed last week seems to have clarified many of the on-going questions around approval workflows. Please take the time to read this carefully if you hold an approval role in UCD. Please click here ((opens in a new window)https://tinyurl.com/23s8ab6y) to view. Some further information that you may find helpful on approvals is:
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It is worthwhile having requisitioners set up in every School for people who have no approval rights. This is because if the requisitioner is a Tier 1 approver, then all their requests will automatically flow to the relevant Tier 2 approver and perhaps overload that person
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You should only be receiving requests for your centres/project codes. If this is not the case, please check locally what you are set up against.
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Requisitions and expenses go to all approvers in the relevant Tier. Therefore, you may work out that you are getting some requests where someone else at the same Tier level in your unit, should be approving them. In that case, just let the request sit there because when your colleague approves it, it will disappear from your screen.
We recognise that there are still a range of technical challenges relating to our stores which we continue to work with on resolution. I am hearing that you as a community would like to receive e-mail notifications when there is a task waiting for action from you in Workday. We have kept these notifications switched off while the system beds down. We plan to turn on notifications and provide training on how you can manage notifications locally in the next week or so. We also have to roll out the Workday app for the phone – if you choose to access Workday that way. There is too much going on in bedding down the system so we will probably do that at some stage in September/October. Some of you are concerned for our External Examiners and their ability to engage with us to get paid. We have prepared a guidance document for them which is available on our website and from the Head of School. Please click here ((opens in a new window)https://tinyurl.com/3rjtttmv) to view the guide. Please click here to view further resources ((opens in a new window)https://tinyurl.com/ea4pxxuj) or you can search our Knowledgebase by typing(opens in a new window)support.ucd.ieinto your browser. If you believe any external expense payee is a one off, we recommend you simply use the external ad hoc request form which can be found on our Finance Office website here ((opens in a new window)https://tinyurl.com/v9cnujur)
For those of you who may be starting your journey in getting up to speed on Workday, I would like to remind you of the following support which you can access. Three steps to transact in Workday:
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Attend one of our many training sessions via our booking centre here ((opens in a new window)https://tinyurl.com/2r2cynb3)
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Read the relevant supporting guidance documents here ((opens in a new window)https://tinyurl.com/4xk53htt)
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Create your Workday transaction!
If you still need help you can book into one of our Zoom drop-in clinics here ((opens in a new window)https://tinyurl.com/2r2cynb3) drop into one of our six campus Workday Clinics outlined above from Tuesday to Thursday or email us immediately at(opens in a new window)finance.systems@ucd.ie.
Thanks,
David