NOAA NOAA MARS Management analysis and reporting system

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ARCHIVE - New Features in MARS as of Fiscal Year End 2008

New to the Reporting & Querying Module

Business Object Upgrade to SP4 - This latest Business Object upgrade to support the Reporting & Querying Module now supports JAVA's JRE version 6. Along with this comes improved security and printing capabilities for the user. To take advantage of this improvement you must have JAVA 6 loaded on your computer. Please coordinate this effort with your LO/FMC Administrator and Desktop support person.

Report Change - NOA118 (FMC-Org) YTD Report - Enhancements to the Business Objects NOA118 (FMC-Org) report. A prompt has been added to the report so users can specify which level they would like to view FMC detail.

NEW Report - NOAA Variance Reports - A new series of Business Objects reports replaced the previous spreadsheet method of gathering input to report monthly to NOAA on variances for ORF, PAC, reimbursables, and FTEs.

NEW Report - Monthly Variance Reports - Financial Statement - High Level. This new report provides a Financial status on appropriation structure by program code including current and prior year obligations.

NEW Report - Monthly Variance Reports - MARS Financial Statement - Daily Balance Graph Displays the daily variance in a graphical format.

Report Change - Transaction Reports - MARS Documents by Doc-Item Type Report - The Affected Reference Number will now repeat at the top of each page and the overlap of the title on the first page will be corrected, also added Aff Ref No, Doc-Item Types and FMCs to 'selected parameters' list in heading.

NEW Reports - Developed by OAR, the following reports were added to MARS earlier in the year and are now available to the MARS user base.

  • MARS Object Code by Project-Task and FCFY (CBS Data)
  • MARS Other Objects Detail Driller (CBS Data)
  • MARS Allot-BOP-Allowance Advice-Budget Compare
  • MARS Allowance Advice Distribution Project List
  • MARS Allowance Advice for Reimbursable
  • MARS Allowance Advice History
  • MARS Commitment v.s. AP Trans Variance

NEW Report - Fund Group Driller - As a request from the NOAA/CFO we added the following report to assist her with NOAA level reports. However, many LO and FMC users have found this report very useful and easy to use. The report can be found under the variance group.

New to the Data Entry Module

Budget Form - Several changes were made to the Budget Module this year; First, a modification was implemented to compute the 77-88 surcharges at the object class 3 level. Second, the formula to calculate overhead surcharges will now include object classes 11-1x - 11-99. Originally the surcharges were generated through 11-31. And finally, the FTE (AP_TRANS Actuals) calculation has been changed to exclude records where Unit Code is not equal 'HOURS'.

Match Process - The Auto Obligation step within the Match process will now accommodate commitment match's without a document/Item Type combination.

Org/Project/Task Admin Form - On the OPT administrative form, the Sponsor Code is now searchable by name, not just the code. In addition, a new look-up form has been added to populate new codes.

Travel Report 79D - FMC and Commitment number have been added to the Data Entry Travel Report 79D. Using this information will make it easier to identify which LO created the commitment for further research/correction of the obligation or commitment creation/edit if necessary.

Match Process - Starting the first quarter of 2009, it will no longer be necessary to create commitments for Grants as they will be loaded directly from Grants On-Line. As an obligation is processed, MARS will automatically match the commitment to the obligations.

Pipeline v.s. Remaining Commitment - Within both the Reporting & Querying module and the Data Entry module we've changed Pipeline to Remaining Commitment.

Out-Year Planning - Each year, the MARS system will generate out-year Org, Project, and Task combinations that may or may not be valid in CBS at the time of creation. These OPT combinations can be used to create future Spending Plans, Labor Projections and Commitments. Once CBS activates these codes, MARS will deactivate all codes that are not valid within CBS. This process has been implemented to ensure referential integrity within the two systems.

Changes to BOP Upload and Report 75 - MARS has implemented an option to create a partial upload based on Fund Code/Program. Records marked for BOP Upload can now be different from initial load.