Archive for November, 2010

To request a new report, please contact your Departmental Administrator who should contact the Service Desk with the following information relating to the recipient of report:

• Name
• CID (Employee number)
• Email Address
• College login
• Report cost centre and account code or state the payroll reports for the requested departments

These are dates when ICIS will be unavailable due to ‘month end processing’ taking place.  The dates vary (though will normally be the last working day of the month). An up to date list can be found here: Month End Dates

On the month end date, you will be unable to process any general ledger journals (GLJs).

You can request a new supplier for ICIS, but before you do it is important to check that they are not already on the system and that an existing supplier is not already providing the same goods/services. (You can check via the Purchasing website)

If you do need to request a new supplier, you need to complete the New Supplier Request Form here.

What happens next?

The completed form will be reviewed by the Purchasing department and if the request is approved, Accounts Payable (AP) will carry out checks on the proposed supplier concerning legal entity, solvency, etc.

Note: the report costs the College £24.60.

Accounts Payable will also contact the Supplier to ensure they are willing to trade with the College on our Terms & Conditions, including payment terms (30 days) and to obtain bankers details so we can pay their invoices.

In turn, the Supplier will initiate a request to the College to check our credit worthiness, requesting references and bank details.

It is not possible to give a fixed time for these checks as they depend on the Suppliers providing information to the College. AP will advise you when the Supplier is available for purchase ordering.

In plain English, an IP address (Internet Protocol Address) is a set of numbers that identifies computers, printers and other devices on a network. (an example IP address could be 173.194.36.104)

You can find out your own IP address on a Imperial College computer by clicking Start and then My Info – your IP address will then be displayed.

On an Apple Mac PC you can click on the Apple Menu (top left of the screen) and go to System Preferences > Network and then ensure ‘Ethernet’ is selected and your IP address will be displayed.

If you are not on a College computer you can use this website: What is my IP? to find your IP address.

Access to ICIS enables you to access a range of services, tailored to your job title and role.

Additional access privileges can be requested by completing the first two of these 5 steps:

SPECIFY REQUEST > SUBMISSION > AUTHORISATION > SETUP > NOTIFICATION

1. Specify Request

The user, or Departmental Administrator (DA) on their behalf, can request access to update an existing ICIS account.

Please enter the IP Address of the computer to be used and select the ICIS Modules for which access is required.

Depending on your selection, the following additional information is required:

• Financials – Enter the Cost Centre(s) and Activity Code(s) to be added or removed;
• Purchasing – Enter the Cost Centre(s) and Activity Code(s) to be accessed, followed by the next Approver and Approval Limit(s);
• HR – Select the Faculty followed by the area of the College (known Organisation or sub Organisation) for which access is required;
• Payroll – Please contact one of the staff listed on the page to grant you access to the Payroll module;
• Grants – If you require access to specific codes, select ‘Yes’ from the option. Then enter the Award(s) and Project(s) for which access is to be added or removed and the Research Services Administrator responsible for it. If, you selected ‘No’ from the 1st option, select your Faculty followed by the area of the College (known Organisation or sub Organisation) for which access is required;
• Students (OSS/SAMS) – Select from the list the responsibilites to be added or removed;
• CID Generation – Select the type of access (Individual or Corporate) required;
• DA Access Contingent Worker – Select the Faculty followed by the area of the College (known Organisation or sub Organisation) for which access is required.

2. Submission

Having selected the appropriate modules and entered the required information, a summary is displayed showing the epxected timescales for the setup to take place. A confirmation email is also sent to the requestor. Please make a note of the reference number to enable ease of checking the progress of the request.

3. Authorisation

The request is then sent to the Secondary Approver(s)[pdf] for approval dependent on the selected Modules or Cost Centres. Primary Approval[pdf] is only required for access to setup Contingent Workers, i.e. contractors.

Additional information is available in the ICIS Authorisation Help document[pdf].

4. Setup

The areas which require setup by various groups for all new requested are:

• ICIS Account – Username and Password creation would have been done by ICT when the NT/College login was created (ICT Application Support);
• IP Address registration (ICT Firewall Team);
• ICIS responsibility allocation, depending on the modules requested (ICT Application Support);
• Finance Account access (Systems Accounting);
• Purchasing access (Purchasing Helpdesk);
• HR (Human Resources);
• Students (OSS/SAMS) access (Registry);
• Grants access (Research Services);
• CID Generator access (ICT Application Support).

5. Notification

Once all of the above is complete, the user or DA (if request was submitted on behalf of user) is notified by email that the changes have been made or rejected.

Note: Special Access

The following access cannot be requested via the ICIS Authorisation application:

• Online Journal and Encumbrances – access is arranged by the Training Manager after the user attends training;
• Enterprise Planning and Budgeting (EPB) – access is arranged by the Faculty EPB Authoriser;
• Fixed Assets – please contact the Service Desk attaching an authorisation from Estates and/or Finance.

What is a CID?

The College Identifier (CID) is a unique number assigned to all individuals or organisations with which the College deals with.

Every student and member of staff is issued with a CID when they join the college. Organisations with a CID include suppliers, funding bodies and public sector organisations (such as NHS Trusts and other universities)

The CID is used to identify each individual or organisation whenever they interact with any of the main College administrative systems, for example, ICIS, Registry, Security, Library and ICT.

How is it used?

As an individual, you will be asked to quote your CID on college documentation, for example on forms relating to expense claims and changes to personal details. When ordering from suppliers, or requesting payment from customers, you will need to know the CID of the organisation in question.

How to find your CID number

If you are a current member of staff, your CID is printed on the top left-hand side of your payslip.

It may also be found on the bottom left-hand corner of your security access control card.

If you have difficulty obtaining your CID, please contact your departmental or divisional administrator.

How can I find someones CID number?

Staff and student CID records are produced and held in a database known as the Individual CID Generator.

Authorised users have enquiry access to the database to obtain the CID of individual members of staff or students.

To become registered as an authorised user of the CID database, please request access via the ICIS Authorisation application.

To obtain lists of CIDs by department for your department or division, please contact the following:

• Assistant Registrar for student CIDs
• Personnel Information Officer for staff CIDs
• Receivables Manager for enquiries about Customer CIDs
• Supplier Invoice Supervisor for enquiries about Supplier CIDs

To look up Corporate CIDs you need access to the Corporate CID Generator – You can request access here: ICIS Authorisation Application

To access the CID Generator click here

ICIS is supported on Windows 7 using Internet Explorer and Firefox web browsers. Professional forms using JRE plugins require at least JRE 1.6.0_31, but will not work with JRE 1.7 yet.

The majority of College users will be using 64-bit Windows 7 (standard) at work, but for both those who have 32 bits or 64-bits Windows 7, we recommend using ICIS on 32-bit versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Please note ICIS will work on IE8 and IE9, it is more difficult to be definitive with Firefox as versions are released every 4-6 weeks, but in general, we find ICIS works on all versions from 3.x

For more information on PC specifications required and using different browsers, read Will ICIS Work on My Computer?

In short, yes, most computers are able to run ICIS, although only certain web browsers are supported:

For Windows based PCs:

Certification Matrix for Internet Explorer (32-bit) Browsers

The table below outlines the currently certified 32-bit Internet Explorer Browser, Windows Desktop Client Operating System and JRE (32-bit) streams with minimum versions, where applicable.

¹ Microsoft Office: Microsoft Office (64-bit) is NOT certified with Oracle E-Business Suite. Please continue to run the Microsoft Office (32-bit) version with the 64-bit stack.

Compatibility with Higher JRE releases

Oracle has certified the Oracle E-Business Suite with the minimum JRE releases noted above on the JRE 6 (1.6.0.x) stream

Certification Matrix for Firefox (32-bit) browsers

The table below outlines the currently certified Browser, Desktop Client Operating System and JRE streams with minimum versions, where applicable. Please also review this document for further specific certification information and requirements:

¹ Windows 7 (64-bit) desktop client operating system is currently only certified with Oracle E-Business Suite when running 32-bit products e.g. Client based products, Browsers, JRE plug-in and Microsoft Office.

² Firefox versions 3.6.x and higher only support next-generation java plug-in releases (JRE 1.6.0_10 or higher). Forms based products cannot be launched using ‘classic java’ versions (JRE 1.6.0_07 or earlier). If a ‘next generation java’ plug-in version is not available on the desktop client the browser will display the message, ‘Additional plugins are required to display all the media on this page’. If an appropriate version is available from the Oracle E-Business Suite web server it can be downloaded and installed in the usual way. Alternatively, clicking the ‘Install Missing Plugins’ button or the ‘Click here to download plugin’ box will activate the Firefox ‘Plugin Finder Service’ which will offer the latest available version of the JRE 1.6.x plug-in for download and install.

³ Firefox ESR 10.x is an Extended Support Release (ESR) which will be supported by the vendor for approximately a year. For further information on the support lines and other information please see Mozilla Firefox ESR Overview

⁴ Firefox versions 3.0.x, 3.5.x and 3.6.x are no longer supported by the vendor. It is recommended that any users running these versions upgrade to Firefox ESR 10.x.

For Apple Mac PCs:

Safari: Certification Matrix

The table below outlines the currently certified Browser, Operating System and the certified JRE versions. Please also review this document for further specific certification information and requirements:

When using Safari, it is recommended to change a couple of settings:

• On the Safari Menu, go to > Preferences > Security > Web Content
• Select ‘Enable Plugins’ ‘Enable Java’ and ‘Enable Javascript

Ensure that ‘Block Pop-Up Windows’ is not selected (Pop-up windows are used by ICIS)

• Also go to the Safari Menu > Preferences > Advanced and select ‘Press tab to highlight each item on a webpage’

ICIS also requires that software called “Java Runtime Engine” is installed on your PC and that it is at least the default version provided on College Standard Builds (currently JRE 1.6.0_31) – if you do not have the minimum required version, ICIS will try to download a current version – you will need to have administrative rights to your computer to do this, if you do not have these then you will need to contact the Service Desk and request an engineer to come and install the new Java Runtime Engine on your computer.