February 25, 2019
For users of the AMA, BPAS, CBS, and FNTS budget systems.
Introductory classroom training for the Appropriation Maintenance Application (AMA) will be offered on Thursday, April 4 and Wednesday, April 10 from 1:00pm to 4:00pm. Classes are intended for users new to the AMA system. All classes will be held in the Columbine Room, located on ground floor of the Centennial Office Building. The instructor-led session covers how to enter and monitor appropriation requests in AMA. AMA users must have the KK Agency Journal Approver and/or KK Agency Journal Entry SWIFT role and be responsible for entering or approving appropriation transactions in AMA to register for the training.
To enroll for this training, log in to the Self Service Portal https://portal.s4web.state.mn.us, open Employee Self-Service and select the Enterprise Learning Management (ELM) folder. In “Search for Learning” enter the keyword AMA and click Search. If you are an AMA user and are not able to view the AMA course in ELM, please have your agency budget coordinator email budget.finance.mmb@state.mn.us to have you added to the ELM AMA learning group.
Each session is limited to 15 participants, with a waitlist. If you cannot attend the class you’ve enrolled in, make sure to drop the class in ELM so that someone can enroll in your place. Classes are free of charge. MMB will also offer AMA workshops for more experienced AMA users; watch the newsletter for more information. If you have questions about the class or enrolling, please email budget.finance.mmb@state.mn.us.
The Capital Budget System (CBS) will open on May 1, 2019 for 2020 capital budget project submissions. MMB staff will host trainings for state agency staff who are responsible for entering capital budget requests in CBS – both new and returning users. Information about how to register will be sent to all CBS users in March. Training will be held on the following dates: April 15, April 17, April 23, April 24, and April 25. Please contact budget.finance.mmb@state.mn.us with questions.
The next release of AMA, due out in April, features a number of improvements agencies have suggested. Two changes are highlighted below.
Legal Citation Fields: Each of the three citation fields will have a pop-up with radio buttons for three options: Session Law, Capital Appropriations or Statutes. Select a radio button to display a data entry grid for that selection:
 Edit Screen More “User-Friendly”: The vertical scrollbar will always be visible in the right-hand margin when the Edit screen scrollable list feature is enabled. Also, the “skip” that can occur when a user selects a record from the middle of a list has been eliminated. The row a user is editing will be highlighted in yellow:
 After the changes are saved, the transaction row color will change to green:
Internet Explorer 11 and Google Chrome are the supported web browsers for the five statewide budget systems: Fiscal Note Tracking System (FNTS), Appropriation Maintenance Application (AMA), Budget Planning and Analysis System (BPAS), Capital Budget System (CBS) and Departmental Earnings (DE). The budget systems may not perform as expected using other browsers, including Microsoft Edge or other versions of Internet Explorer. In FNTS for example, page numbers will not appear in .pdf files in Microsoft Edge.
Please email budget.finance.mmb@state.mn.us with any system questions. System documentation, including detailed user guides, can be found here: https://mn.gov/mmb/budget/statewide-budget-systems/.
Please note that agencies are responsible for updating their agency email notification list in FNTS; MMB does not maintain the agency email notification lists for agencies. At the start of each legislative session, agency Fiscal Note Coordinators are highly encouraged to review their email notification lists and add/delete/edit fiscal note email recipients. MMB will only edit entries or remove email addresses from any agency’s email notification list when an email is returned because it can’t be delivered.
Fiscal Note email contacts can be edited by clicking the Agency Email Notification link in the Maintenance section of the FNTS menu. Step-by-step instructions with screen shots can be found on page 21 of the FNTS User Guide.
Have a question about or a suggestion for improving the budget systems? Email it to Budget Operations at budget.finance.mmb@state.mn.us, Subject: Budget Systems Newsletter.
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