April 2009

Last meeting for current officers.  Thank you all for your dedicated service.

Jo Mueller’s name is spelled incorrectly.

Not a lot of activity. 

• Educational Award – (1) awarded to Peggy Harrison. The balance is $322.03.
• Support Staff Council has had breakfast expenditures leaving a balance of $1609.45
• Survival House has had some incidental expenditures and some gift revenue.  The current balance is $3338.33.

• PSC had an update on SPRC.  The President came to address the faculty proposal to reduce administration on campus.  President Podolefsky pointed out that it looks like we have more administration personnel compared to other universities because we count positions as administrative that others do not. 
• Jeff Morris has absorbed Larry Cowan’s duties into his position. 
• They had an hour breakfast on Monday and that was the main focus of their last meeting.  PSC advises that we steer clear of gambling themes for any of our future gatherings. 
• They learned that door prizes have to have monetary value of less than $25 or you have to claim on taxes and fill out a form. 
• PSC held their elections. 
• Had electronic ballot. 
• 31 people participating in nomination process
• 99 voted. 
• Holly Davenport is their new president. 
• Mike Jefferies is their new Vice President and may be our new liaison

Not available

• Demonstrated the new e-procurement software that is going online soon.
• Requested we write notes on the feedback sheet as he presented.
• Would like to know where we spend our money
• What vendors rank top 10. 
• Turn in sheets at the end so he can have real life feedback. 
• E-procurement solutions –
• not just going to Office Depot or Wal-Mart and combining their websites. 
• It’s buying things, creating contracts, requesting catering, submitting work orders. 
• In the two years since SciQuest was purchased, the system has advanced and is now more capable than we originally thought. 
• Have approached top 25-35 vendors representing some of the big dollar amounts in university spending. 
• 2007 we spent $2.3 million with Dell computers
• $27,000 Amazon.com
• Staples $22,000. 
• Some were P-card transactions, some online orders. 
• One problem he pointed out is different areas buy the same pen at 6 different locations, and we don’t know if we’re getting the best deal. 
• We’re not getting as good of a deal as we could because we’re not buying them together. 
• Will still utilize the same vendors, just grouping them together. 
• This is a third party website, where you’ll have another icon on your desktop. 
• We will have our own name and own colors. 
• The goal is to try to get everyone to go to the same place. 
• This will by-pass Banner in a way, but it interfaces directly with Banner. 
• There will be a menu on the left with different categories. 
• Very user friendly. 
• Have options where we can put UCM newsflashes or announcements. 
• If you start to fill an order, it will save it for you until you finish.  Then click your basket and click checkout (History). 
• Will have a category called “featured services”, which will include online forms for requesting business cards, catering, and work requests. 
• If someone is going to a conference and needs a $425 check, there will be a form you can fill out and it will go to Accounting. 
• If you need paper, click central stores. 
• Dell computer quote requests will now bypass Information Services as this link will take you straight to the Dell website with our prices and features already loaded.  They are pre-configured. 
• Hit check out and it will go through the approval and budget process. 
• It will send an email to GW account to the next approver. 
• You still have the ability to shop from Office Max, Office Depot, Staples, etc.
• they are featured suppliers. 
• If one place has submitted a contract for a deal on certain supplies they will be listed as a featured vendor. 
• Can set up a canned history file (your frequent purchases) and you will be able to submit a clone of the previous order and not have to fill out anything additional. 
• If you click on Central Stores, it links straight to the warehouse where it will generate a pick ticket and then they will deliver as normal. 
• The local companies have the opportunity to participate in this as well. 
• We’ll set up something manually to them and will shoot out a purchase order via fax. 
• If you want to look for something may not know where it is exactly, there is a search field. 
• Can sort by price, vendor, or other options. 
• Symbols – empty box - free shipping; number 1 – preferred supplier; even one to help make an informed choice in purchasing green products. 
• If you want more detail on a specific product, it will take you to another screen with a materials sheet, and lots of other information. 
• For forms-
• You can set up your own (unsure if he meant as a University or Individual departments).
• Also will have our finance, HR, printing, etc. forms all in one spot. 
• Business card will be able to be composed right on the screen. 
• Catering orders will be able to be placed through this system. 
• Looking at everything we do to see if we can find a better way to do it. 
• If you tell us that something is cumbersome, then we’ll know. 
• Can select supplies from different vendors and when you hit checkout at the end, it’s going to break those off and send them on. 
• Going to bring it in slowly, probably starting off with just office supplies and then build up from there.   
• Getting pilot groups together now. 
• Catering –
• the request for proposals is going to be released at the BOG meeting,
• The main question is will this system work with our guidelines. 
• With facilities coming in house everything will change dramatically there. 
• When we have a new food service contract, hopefully it will be a big change and a big improvement and this new system will work out. 

Printing services is currently responsible for outsourcing if they cannot meet the deadline, is that going to change?  That might be easy to fix.  If we send it to the printing shop and they can’t get to it, maybe they will put in the order just like you would but to go off-site.  We have a lot of options and a lot of tools.  We are trying to grab the university’s purchasing power and put it all in one place, increase efficiency, and a information base.  The companies that we buy from know more about our purchasing habits than we know.  They know exactly what we’re buying and exactly what we’re paying, giving them leverage.  Just being able to know exactly what you’re buying in any given year gives you an advantage.  With the new system we are suppose to be able to go back and sort through an item for the years purchases showing exactly how many and from where and what price, giving us the ability to go back and see where we could save money.   Could we use the same information to get cheaper rates through the University Store (remember they deliver)?  He will have to get with Charlie Rutt and investigate that possibility.

• Need to have Bookstore listed on the page.  The Central Stores doesn’t refer to the Bookstore and Union Station, limited to the warehouse. 
• It is our system and we can customize this however we want. 
• SciQuest is a partner firm to Banner. 
• We have a lot of possibilities of the big companies we can bring into the loop. 
• Sibert displayed a list of large schools and smaller ones that are using this system currently. 
• Can zoom in on pictures on detail pages as well as getting pricing and size information. 

Will there ever come a time where we can look and see where a majority of us bought basic office supplies for the best prices?  That is the hope, theory and goal behind this system.  Once we have the historical numbers, we can really go out and start negotiating the prices.  Right now we are off of State of Missouri contracts.  If we can specify that we are in Warrensburg, Mo and tell them precisely what we want and see which one can get us the best deal quickest.  Once you get the database of information and we know where we stand, the procurement office would go out and negotiate the best prices.  The companies love this kind of system because it is electronic and many times goes straight into their warehouse. 

If you order pens from one place, paper from another, and pencils from another, will we be charged shipping for each separate order?  There is another screen once you go to checkout that will give you the shipping charges, so you can look and see if the prices with shipping are better than somewhere that has a lower price but high shipping. 

Large quantity items we bid for prices including shipping for fair comparison.  We still need to figure out if everything will be delivered straight to central receiving or to your office.  Once the pricing is set and we negotiate a better deal, SciQuest will update the prices.  Not sure how discounts and sales pricing will be handled.  We should have a better deal regularly than those specials. 

Banner is not user friendly when trying to get reports on commodity codes. 

Will the finance request replace the payment request that we’re currently sending?  It is an option and we don’t know what we will have available when this is first implemented.  We have the ability to customize to our needs.  When you go to checkout, it gives you the accounting detail where you enter the budget information, including the ability to split between budget numbers.  Same with the check request. 

If someone places an order, but someone else needs to enter the account numbers such as faculty can send you a shopping cart then it sends to you to enter the account numbers?  Yes, faculty should be able to enter their own orders, but it hasn’t been decided yet.  

When you go to check out and put your accounts in there do you have the option to pay with either PO or Credit Card?  It is being discussed, we think yes, but you would still have to go into Banner and code your credit card transactions. 

• Floor was open –

  • President – Susan Malott nominated Peggy Harrison for President (Susan Malott, second by Cindy Merryfield)  – Peggy is elected. 
  • Vice President – Susan Malott nominated by Peggy Harrison, seconded by Kathy Maham.  Susan is VP. 
  • Secretary - Joyce Stephens nominated by Peggy Harrison, seconded by Cindy Merryfield.  Joyce is Secretary. 
  • Treasurer - Susan Malott nominated Kathy Maham, seconded by Ginny McTighe.  Kathy is Treasurer. 

• Raised $711.30 for each cause-Survival Adult Abuse Center & JP Mees award. 
• We had a lot of items on the raffle, which we found out after the event that it is illegal under state law. 
• Silent auction is allowed. 

• UCM Student Employment Task Force –
• Tasked to create a general, campus-wide student employment application. 
• Trying to figure out how to retain students and keep them involved. 
• Looking at a one-stop shop for students. 
• Want to see different applications from anyone who has one. 
• Please send yours to Teresa Alewel via email. 
• Task force includes library, human resources, and a lot of VPs. 

• Training schedule for 09-10 –
• Send ideas to Stephanie for training session ideas and she will forward to Debbie Gerhart. 

• KMOS Kids Day- Sarah Bailey. 
• Passed out information cards. 
• Saturday before Father’s Day- June 20. 
• They need volunteers so please tell your organizations, including student organizations. 
• Event is mainly for ages 0-8. 
• Three hour event. 
• In Warrensburg this year. 
• This is a good example of what we do as outreach.

Adjourned