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FMS stands for Facilities Management System. It was developed and is maintained by the Information Systems and Security department at SUNY Cortland. As a hosted web solution, it is free for any Facilities department in the SUNY system to use, and each school has their own space in the system. One school can not see another schools data. FMS is used for tracking projects on campus as well as vendors associated with those projects, payments, and funding accounts. It is intended to help track the progress of a project from start to completion, including all payments, files, notes, and customer information. The system also includes reports helpful in tracking money and projects during the year and for end-of-year.
In order to connect to the FMS application, you will need to use a web browser. The following web browsers are the only ones supported and will allow FMS to work correctly:
This help document is meant to be a resource for all users of FMS. The content contained below is completely editable by the users of the system, and should be updated as necessary.
Release Notes for each version of FMS (starting with version 2.0) can be found here.
After contacting SUNY Cortland and getting set up to use FMS, a user on your campus (likely a power user in the Facilities office) will be given access to the system for your respective school. To log in, that user will open a web browser (Firefox, Chrome, or Safari are recommended. Internet Explorer is not.) and navigate to fms.cortland.edu. At this point the user will be redirected to SUNY's login page where the user will have to select their school from a drop down list, and will be redirected to log in. Upon logging in, the user will be brought to the home page in FMS. From there, there is a grey button located on the right hand side that says "System Settings". Clicking that will open up the System Settings in the pane below. If not already selected, click the Users tab. Once on the Users tab, click the Add User button located on the right and you will be brought to the Add User page. Under General Information, fill out the user's full name (first and last) as well as their username. The username is what they use to log onto a computer at your school. Under User Privileges, assign the appropriate roles for this individual (See more about Privileges below). The Activity Roles section allows for the system to notify the user of specific events, if they should be notified of such events. When finished, click the "Save User" button at the bottom. Repeat this process as necessary for the remaining users that need access to the system.
For the most part, you want to assign the privilege that corresponds with the title of the user that you are adding. This will assure that they can access the areas they should, and not be able to access the areas they shouldn't. Below is a more detailed break down of each privilege.
Secretaries, Directors, and Vice President roles can access everything in the system other than Master Accounts, and the Funding Accounts Tab, and Budget Tab of a project. The idea being that these folks have no need to access those sections of the system. For Directors and Vice Presidents, the thought was that some day there might be a dashboard type experience for those users.
Project Coordinators can access everything the above roles can access, but they also have read-only access to the Budget Tab.
Budget Coordinators can access everything the above roles can access, but they also have full access to Master Accounts, and the Funding Accounts Tab, and Budget Tab of a project.
The School Administrator role can be used in conjunction with any other role. The School Administrator role allows full access to all sections of the system, including the System Settings. This is the only role that has access to System Settings.
Master Accounts are a way for Budget Coordinators to keep track of the different funding accounts available to them. To create a new Master Account, first click on the "Master Accounts" button in the navigation bar located at the top of FMS. Note: Only School Administrators and Budget Coordinators have access to this button. Once the Master Accounts page loads, click the green "Add Master Account" button located on the top right of the page. On the Add Master Account page, Fill out all the required fields (marked with a red asterix) and add any of the additional details as desired. The "Has Sub Accounts" checkbox should be checked if this account should be sub-accounted. NOTE: When changing the default subaccount starting number, it must be a whole number. For example, if you want the first subaccount to be three, you would enter 3 not 03. There is more on subaccounting in the "Funding Accounts Tab" section below. You can create new Master Accounts at any point, but it is recommended that many of the commonly used, or currently used accounts are created prior to creating any projects in the system.
Clicking on the Vendors button in the navigation bar at the top of FMS will bring you to the Vendors screen. Vendors are any business whom your Facilities office does business with. Clicking the green "Add Vendor" button located in the upper right hand side of the Vendors screen will bring you to the Add Vendor window. Add in the appropriate information about the Vendor, including it's type. If your campus does not have Term Contractors, you can skip over the "Term Contractor" and "Next Term Contractor" check boxes. When finished, click the green "Add Vendor" button at the bottom of the window. While you can add new vendors at any point, having most of the ones you commonly use is recommended prior to creating any projects in the system.
When a user logs into FMS for the first time, their home screen is pretty empty. The first thing a user should do is click the down arrow to the right of their name and select "Settings". The User Settings screen allows the user to update their name, e-mail address, as well as personal preferences for how FMS notifies them. Users can also select different "Modules" to have on the home screen. Each Module has an explanation about what it displays. Think of Modules as a quick way to find projects that might be important to you.
Under the "Facilities Management System" banner is a button that says "Create New Request". Clicking this button brings you to the Create New Request page. Under the Project Info section, only the name and Building/Location are required, while all fields under the Customer Info section are required. If you would like to assign this project to someone in your office, select there name from the drop down in the Coordinator field.
FMS has an API that your school can use in order to make a campus facing web page for people on campus to allow campus employees to submit requests to your Facilities department. If interested in using this API, and for help setting up the necessary components on your end, please contact SUNY Cortland.
One of the drop downs in the New Request page is for a Parent Project. In the Parent Project drop down are all the other projects in the system for your school. Selecting a Parent Project makes the request, or project, that you are creating a "child" of that other project. In simpler terms, it creates a link between two projects. This can be useful when renovating a building. The parent project might be the project called something like "Building X Renovation". The child project might be the project to relocate the building's current residents, or what is sometimes referred to as a surge project. Making a project a child project can help navigate projects that should, or are, linked, as each project has a link back to the other in FMS. A project can be added as a child project to another project at any time.
When you create a new project, or open an existing project, you are brought to the Project page, which has five to six tabs on it, depending on user privileges. Only Budget Coordinators and School Administrators can see the Funding Accounts Tab.
The Project tab contains all the information about the project itself. Everything that was specified in the Create New Request page is located on this tab.
Under the Project Info section, a user can change the status of the project as it moves through the different phases. Clicking the Code or PSI Review checkboxes creates an activity in anyone that has been designated as a Code or PSI reviewer. They can click the show/add notes link to the write to add notes as necessary. When the reviewer completes his or her review, the coordinator of the project will receive a notification that it has been completed. Changing the Funding Status dropdown to "Requested" notifies the Budget Coordinator that the project is ready for funding.
By default, the Customer Info section is un-editable except for the "E-mail Status Updates" checkbox. This box is checked by default, and when it is, the customer specified will receive e-mail updates to the e-mail address specified when the project changes a status. Clicking the Edit button allows the other fields in this section to be edited.
The Construction Dates are for when construction is slated to begin/end. These dates are used mainly for reporting purposes, in the Project Log Report.
Milestones are a way for coordinators to set goals for the project. By default, the coordinator of a project will receive a reminder two days prior to the milestone completion date.
The documents tab is used for storing any documents that are associated with this project. Giving the document a description and a category helps to be able to find that document later. As documents are uploaded, they will appear in the searchable grid.
This tab is to be used for budget estimating for the project. Clicking the Add Budget Estimate button brings up a window to add a Description (required), Estimated Cost, Quoted Cost, Vendor, and notes. This is a good way to keep track of estimates and quotes that come in from vendors. Anything done in this tab is restricted to this tab only, and is meant as a way to keep this information with the project, as opposed to separately in an Excel document. Clicking the Add Change Order Estimate button brings up a window to add a Change Order. The vendor drop down list is restricted to vendors associated with the project (more about that in the Budget Tab section). Again, this tab is just a sandbox to keep track of information, and is not integrated into anything that a Budget Coordinator might be doing with actual payments or quotes to/from vendors.
This tab is only visible to Budget Coordinators and School Administrators. Funding accounts are just links to Master Accounts. The reason this link exists is two fold. First, it allows users to use the same Master Account with multiple projects and second, when a master account is to be sub-accounted, the system automatically generates the next sub-account number for this account, regardless of how many different projects this master account might be used in. The Allocated Amount section is the amount of money being allocated from the master account for this project. The system will warn you if you allocate more money than the associated Master Account has in it. After selecting the appropriate Master Account, and filling out the other fields, click the "Add Funding Account" button to create this funding account for the project.
When a project is first created, the Budget Tab is empty. To start using it, a Budget Coordinator or School Administrator needs to add vendor(s) that will be working on this project. After a vendor is added, a Budget Coordinator can go ahead and start encumbering money from the Funding Accounts associated with the project for this vendor. After money has been encumbered, payments can be made. Project Coordinators can also see this tab, but they do not have access to any of the buttons which make the encumberances or payments. They can only view what has been encumbered/paid.
The Closeout Tab serves as a handy checklist when closing out a project. A user can use the checkboxes as a reminder that they have completed the necessary tasks in each State system. Clicking the Vendor Balance Summary link will open a page that shows all the money enumbered for each vendor in the project, per funding account, and how much has been paid out per encumberance.
There are several ways to find a project after it has been created in FMS. The first way is to use the "Find a Project" search box located on the right hand side of the navigation bar (directly under your name). In this box, you can type the name of any project. For a more robust search, clicking on the Projects button will bring you to a grid of projects. At the top of this grid, there is a search box. This search box will search through all the visible fields of the grid, except for date. Scrolling to the bottom of the grid, you will find a search box under each column, which allows you to search and sort column by column. The column searches are inclusive, meaning that searching in one, and then in another without clearing out the first, will show results that match both search criteria. This same search methodology, including the ability to narrow search results down by column is also available on the Vendors and Master Accounts pages too.
On the Project page (which lists the projects in the grid) you will notice two tabs at the top. One is Active Projects and one is Inactive Projects. Inactive projects are any project listed in one of the following statuses: Complete, Cancelled, or Request-Cancelled. A project in any other status will remain in the Active Projects tab. When searching for a project, remember that the status of the project may mean that it is located in the other tab and that the search only searches through the tab that you are currently on.
Various types of reports are offered in FMS to help keep track of budgeting, projects, vendors, and fiscal year information. They can all be accessed by clicking the Reports button in the navigation bar. Each report prints with the school specific logo.
The Annual Reports group are reports designed to assist in End-Of-Fiscal-Year reporting.
The Annual L-Number Report shows projects with an initial budget of $100,000 or greater that use Funding Accounts of type DIFR, Departmental, or Departmental/VP of Finance (SUNY Cortland specific account type) where payments have been made from that account in either the fiscal year selected or previous fiscal years.
The Annual Report Rollup report shows the total number of term contracts and their dollar value at the top of the report. The bottom of the report shows a summary of projects in each status. For projects in the phases planning, funding, equipment, design, or construction, the dollar amount is taken from the Initial Budget box in the Project Info section of the Project tab. For complete projects, which includes projects in a status of closeout or complete, the dollar amount is a sum of the payments made during the fiscal year.
The Annual Report Summary report shows each project grouped by status with the total dollars spent on each project. Like the Annual Report Rollup report, the dollar amount is taken from the Initial Budget box for all projects other than those shown up in the Complete group. Again, the Complete group includes projects in status of closeout or complete, and the dollar amount is the sum of payments made during the fiscal year.
The Departmental/VP Finance Report shows all money encumbered and spent, per project, grouped by master account for the Departmental/VP Finance account type (SUNY Cortland specific).
The Budget Reports group contains reports that will assist the Budget Coordinator in tracking money on projects throughout the year.
The Daily Project Transactions Report is designed to keep track of all monetary transactions, per project, over a selected period of time. The report shows both encumberances and payments made, and to which vendor, from what funding source. The Project Budget amount shown is a sum of all the allocated money across the Funding Accounts associated with the project.
The Detailed Project Budget Report shows a breakdown per vendor, by funding account, of all encumberances and payments made for each vendor. This report is basically a print out of the budget tab in FMS.
The Funding Account Vendor Detail Report is a break down of each encumberance and payment made per vendor per project per funding account.
The Funding Account Vendor Summary Report summarizes all encumberances and payments made per vendor per project per funding account.
The Master Account Summary Report shows all the funding accounts associated with a particular master account type for a given fiscal year. The fiscal year is the fiscal year associated with the master account.
The Term Contractor Payment Report shows all encumberances and payments made to term contractors, broken out by contractor, over the selected date range. The date shown is the vendor bid date. Any encumberance that has a vendor bid date or a payment made between the dates selected will show on the report.
The Project Progress Reports group contains reports to help keep track of the progress of active projects on campus.
The Project Log Report shows the current status, or phase, of each project who has a construction end date between the selected dates for the selected status(es).