Budget Systems Newsletter

September, 2017

Budget Systems Newsletter is a periodic communication sent to users of MMB's budget systems: Appropriation Maintenance Application (AMA), Budget Planning and Analysis System (BPAS), Capital Budget System (CBS), Departmental Earnings (DE), and the Fiscal Note Tracking System (FNTS). Have a question about or a suggestion for improving one of the budget systems? Email it to Budget Operations at budget.finance.mmb@state.mn.us, Subject: Budget Systems Newsletter.

Statewide Systems Portal Availability

The SWIFT Administration Portal will be unavailable on Sunday, October 8, from 7 a.m. to noon due to system maintenance. During this time, users will not be able to access the budget systems, including AMA, BPAS, CBS, DE, and FNTS. Please plan ahead.

2017 Statewide Systems Survey

Both BPAS and FNTS showed improved levels of overall user satisfaction in the latest survey of statewide systems users conducted last May. This year’s survey included the AMA and CBS budget systems for the first time. The chart below summarizes users’ mean overall level of satisfaction with each budget system, rated on a scale of one to five: one being “Very Unsatisfied” and five “Very Satisfied”:

BPAS users continue to comment on BPAS’ lack of real-time data reporting, the time it takes to run reports, and the complexity of the system’s multi-dimensional database. FNTS’ rich text editor continues to be a challenge for its users. MMB has already implemented a number of changes to FNTS suggested by survey respondents and the FNTS User Group (see below), and has begun a revision to BPAS to address that system’s challenges.

BPAS 2.0

MMB’s Enterprise Resource and Planning (ERP) Steering Committee gave the Budget Division approval on August 31 to move BPAS onto a different information systems platform, to provide real-time data and reporting for the biennial budget process. BPAS 2.0 will be a web-based relational database system, built using Microsoft .NET, the software tool used to build MMB’s other web-based statewide budget systems.

In addition to better reporting, BPAS 2.0 will be easier and less costly to operate and maintain. Agency data entry will remain at the fund, appropriation and account level, and the system’s screen designs will resemble the current system, so users should be able to easily make the transition to BPAS 2.0.

The project will be completed in phases, with components ready by August 2018 for agencies to prepare base budgets for the November 30, 2018 submission. While BPAS 2.0 is being built, MMB will continue to use and maintain the existing BPAS, a multi-dimensional database system built on Oracle’s Hyperion software. MMB will evaluate the project’s status in May 2018; if more time is required, the existing BPAS will be used for the 2020-2021 biennial budget process.

The project build (MN.IT staff and contract developers) will be funded from Statewide Budget System Interagency Telecommunications Account, which was created in 2016 with funds carried forward from the 2013 legislature’s appropriation to MMB for budget information systems development and implementation.

Look for regular updates on the BPAS 2.0 project in the Budget Systems Newsletter.

Status of BPAS Data

• FY2014 – 16 (actual) data has not changed since the 2018-19 budget was published.
• FY2017 (actual) data was loaded into BPAS as of hard close (August 11)
• FY2018 – 21 (budget) data is not the enacted budget, but is May Base (which is February forecast with minor changes)
• BBIS and Transfer forms are pointed to November Base scenario
• To run a report in BPAS you need to select the November Base scenario
• Data in BBIS November Base FY2018 – 2021 will be updated in a limited capacity to assist with the November General Fund Balance/Statement and Consolidated Fund Statement
• Governor’s Recommendation (Change), February Forecast and Governor’s Rec Revised (Change Revised) in the Working version are no longer available. If you need data from the Governor’s 2018-19 Biennial Budget, MMB Budget Planning and Operations can retrieve it for you.

Reconciling FY 2017 Appropriations in BPAS

There are appropriations that need to be reconciled for FY2017 in BPAS. The reconciliation is needed because the Available Resources do not match the Uses in the appropriation as of the FY2017 hard close. These are primarily federal and special revenue fund appropriations. These appropriations need to be reconciled so the data can be used to produce the actual FY2017 data in the November 2017 General Fund Balance/Statement and Consolidated Fund Statement. If you have any appropriations that are not reconciled for FY2017, MMB Budget Planning and Operations will contact your agency directly by email with specific instructions.

CBS

The Capital Budget System (CBS) is open to all users until October 20. At that time, state agency and local government users will no longer have write-access in CBS, but users will still be able to run reports. As of October 20, all screens must be completed and projects must be in Final Submitted status in order to be included in the publication of final requests, and for requests to be considered for inclusion in the Governor’s 2018 capital budget.

AMA User Feedback

MMB has collected a list of AMA user suggestions for additional system enhancements. Feedback on the system’s first release was collected from respondents to the 2017 Statewide Systems Survey, as well as members of the BPAS User Group. The top suggestions are allowing agencies to upload Excel spreadsheets of biennial appropriations to AMA, and to create a new Appropriation ID and submit transactions for both years of the biennium.

AMA Glossary Updated

The AMA Glossary has been updated to provide richer context and clearer descriptions for Budget Authority, Fund, Journal Class, and LLBC. A new entry has been added for Capital Fund Appropriations, which have a unique workflow in AMA. The updates also include changes to the Fund Balance Classification key: the Health Impact Fund (1150) is removed; the Environment & Natural Resource (2050) and Environmental Trust (2051) funds' classification is changed from restricted to assigned. AMA's Help Menu has a link to the Glossary, which is posted on MMB's website.

FNTS

A number of enhancements have been made to the Fiscal Note Tracking System for the 2018 legislative session. Ideas for the enhancements were suggested by members of the FNTS User Group and respondents to the 2017 Statewide Systems Survey.

Prepare Screen

• Comma-formatted numbers can now be copied and pasted into fiscal tables. FNTS will validate entries for correct comma placement.  Note: FNTS does not allow decimals, so when copying from an Excel spreadsheet, the source document must be comma-formatted without decimals.
• When a row is added to a fiscal table, its cell values default to 0 so users won't need to enter data in every cell before saving a row.
• The Narrative panel remains open after saving, so users can review their results and/or continue entering text.
• Images and charts pasted into a fiscal note narrative will automatically be deleted when narratives are saved. The fiscal note PDF can’t be generated when a narratives contains images or charts.

E-mails

• An agency’s email notification list members will now be notified whenever MMB removes an agency’s signoff on a fiscal note; previously, this email was only sent to the Agency Coordinator.
• The bill number-version is included in the subject line of all FNTS email notifications.

Other

• Search screen results now display on a single page; a scrollbar allows users to move up and down through the search results list and select records.
• File attachments open up in a separate browser session, allowing users to read a bill language attachment while continuing to work in FNTS.
• A new report, Classified Fiscal Notes by Agency, generates a list of fiscal notes classified as nonpublic data. The report only brings back data on classified notes assigned to the agency (cies) in a user’s FNTS security profile; for legislative users, the report only displays data on classified fiscal notes the user has requested.

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