Date:          August 23, 1999

TO:             All Tulane Employees

FROM:       Yvette Jones

                     Senior Vice President for Planning and Administration

RE:              TAMS Implementation

I am pleased to announce that as the University moves into the new millenium, we will be doing so with a state of the art Oracle financial system. TAMS (Tulane Accounting Management Systems) will be available for use on Tuesday, September 7, 1999.

The TAMS Project Team has worked diligently to develop a system that will meet Tulane's current and future business needs. The past several months, we have been engaged in testing the final system and in preparing the University community for the changes that will come with this transition. TAMS is now ready to be used by the Tulane community.

To ensure that we are able to provide quality support to users, the system will be implemented in three phases.

Phase 1 - September 1 - 3, 1999

· The new TAMS Chart of Accounts is used for all financial transactions.

-- A listing of the current FRS (Financial Records System) object codes and their conversion to the TAMS natural accounts is available on the TAMS web site.

· No financial transactions will be entered into either FRS or TAMS during this period.

· Only emergency purchases will be allowed, in consultation with the Offices of Materials Management.

--All approved transactions will be prepared on paper forms, which are available at   www.tulane.edu/~tams.

-- Forms may be viewed using Adobe Acrobat 4.0, which can be downloaded from this web page free of charge.

· TAMS Help Desk will be activated at 865-5001 or 862-8888.

 Phase 2 - September 7 - September 11, 1999

* Trained end users will receive on-line access to the purchase requisition functions.

-All department-authorized, trained requisitioners prepare and approve purchase requisitions on-line using TAMS.

-All other individuals prepare paper purchase requisitions using the TAMS purchase requisition form.

-Requisitions entered on paper will continue to be processed for a period of time, but the manual procedure will be slower and will delay receipt of the order.

· All financial transactions are entered into TAMS. Financial transactions conducted through August 31, 1999, will be available for viewing only in FRS.

Phase 3 - September 13, 1999

* The TAMS General Ledger and Grants Management systems are available to all authorized end-users.

Please note that during Phase 1 there will be three "quiet days" (September 1, 2 and 3) when neither financial system will be available. It will take several days to close the FRS system through August 31 and transfer all transactions and monthly summaries for July and August into TAMS. To do this we must shut down both systems to ensure that accurate financial information is transferred and available for the remainder of FY2000 in the new system.

Current FRS users will retain their present user ID, but will receive a new TAMS system password. New users who were established in TAMS will receive a user ID and a TAMS system password. This will be released by written communication from the TAMS office to each individual user. This information is secure and will only be issued in a sealed envelope - this can not be sent to you by email or fax. You will receive your system password information several days prior to your system activation date, as well as an email with instructions on downloading the TAMS executable to your desktop.

Training for TAMS applications will be continuing. In anticipation of the implementation, the next two weeks will focus on offering refresher labs designed to review and reinforce the material covered in previous training sessions. The lab dates and times are located on the TAMS web page.