Policies and Procedures

Kelsey Emerick

Hello,

We are getting ready to go live and make our FE system our system of record but feel the need to make a policies and procedures manual for the system. Would anyone be willing to share some your policy and procedure manuals to give us an idea of what we should include?

Laura Lehnen

We are in the same position and getting ready to go live July 1, but start testing in March. I would be interested in the same information if anyone shares it.


Thanks!

Katie Turner

Kelsey,


We don't have a policies and procedures "manual" that deal exclusively with FENXT, but rather some procedures that instruct in how to do certain things in the system. I recently migrated our office from FE7 to FENXT and created a couple of "how-tos" for my staff. We have not seen a need for much as the green ? in the upper right corner of the system is incredibly useful when you are unsure how to do something. If you have anything in particular that you are looking for a policy or procedure, please let me know. Happy to help in any way that I can!


Off the cuff, if you are looking to have a fantastically clean, useful database in FENXT, concentrate on data integrity and conforming to a data standard. For instance is it Post Office, P.O., P. O., or PO? Is it Street or St? In JE descriptions (this came up in our office yesterday) that include a date or date range, is it Jan 1- Jan 7, WE Jan 7, 010121-010721, or WE 010721? As examples go, you will come across all of these. Having worked in the system for many years, conforming to a particular method of data entry makes reading those descriptions so much easier!

Kathleen Peak

Hi Kelsey

I'm not responsible for the FE database, but have built out a policies and procedures manual for our student information system. We use Google Apps, so mine is a Google shared folder with a Google Site that links to the Google Docs - the site is basically the table of contents and you click the link to get to the appropriate document. Because the documents are live, as soon as I update anything, everyone can see the changes. This folder and site is shared with everyone who needs access and the permissions are easily managed.


Mine has 2 main areas:

1. Policies & Configuration - How the system is setup and the policies surrounding those decisions

2. Procedures - This is the how to and best practices around date entry etc - this part is broken up in to the various areas of the system


I built both areas as I was building and implementing the system. It takes a long time and it's easy to just forget it, but if you can document as you go (even if it's just bare bones so you can go back and fill it out) it really pays off in the long run. I can't tell you how often I refer folks to the procedural part and how often I reference the policies and setup area.

Hope that helps.

Marie Broek

Hi Kelsey. You may have already seen these but here are a few other posts and a KB link with some more thoughts:
https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/148/40550#p154665
https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/171/16628#p53726
https://kb.blackbaud.com/knowledgebase/Article/75506

Marie Broek

Also, here's an upcoming Customer Success event that might be helpful:

Financial Edge NXT: Best Practices Throughout Your System