Welcome to the Financial Learning Center where you can expand your knowledge and competency in financial activities at Stanford. We offer multiple channels to access financial learning resources.
The Learning Path Generator (LPG) was designed by FMS to help solve some issues that users face with navigating Fingate, STARS, and Authority Manager to determine training requirements.
Key Features include the ability to:
- Create custom learning paths for unique job roles by selecting from a list of job-related tasks, financial systems, or a list of available courses.
- Save a custom learning path via email and you can access it at any time in the future from the email link.
The Learning Path Generator can be used by individuals, or by supervisors and managers to determine recommended learning paths for new team members.
Financial Management Services (FMS) offers a variety of self-paced eLearning and virtual instructor-led courses. Financial authority and training is required prior to gaining access to financial and reporting systems. Search for all FIN course offerings on Fingate and enroll using STARS, Stanford’s Training and Registration System.
The Learning Events Calendar includes the schedule of upcoming virtual instructor-led courses.
Please use your Stanford Google account, not your personal Google account, to access protected documents published in STARS courses or on Fingate.
Members of the university community play a critical role in safeguarding Stanford’s resources. With that in mind, FMS offers two certification programs that require ongoing recertification.
- FIN-PROG-0020: Financial Stewardship Expectations is required for all financial system users and requires annual recertification to maintain system access. This eLearning course covers the key expectations, concepts and resources that support the university’s pursuit of excellence in financial stewardship.
- FIN-PROG-0103: Approving Financial Transactions is required for all financial transaction approvers and requires recertification every two years. This eLearning course reinforces the key expectations, concepts, and resources that surround financial approval, which represents one of our key controls in ensuring that financial transactions are reasonable and necessary, consistent with established university policies and practices, and consistent with sponsor or donor requirements.
To check your recertification program status, log into STARS and select the Certification Status icon. From there, check the Expiration Date for your certification programs. STARS will send you a notification email 30 days prior to your expiration date and you will receive reminders.
Avoid letting your recertification programs expire. If you do, your privileges will be suspended (not revoked) until you complete the training. Upon completion of the training, your privileges should be enabled within 1-2 hours.
Learning Supplements
We realize that there is a lot of complexity to using Oracle Financial systems and that it can be too much to digest and retain during an onboarding course. Learning Supplements are introduced during STARS courses and are available as a package on Fingate for just-in-time support following training when users are completing their first transaction or when they need a refresher. System-based learning supplements provide detailed instructions with screen images. Currently, learning supplements are available for:
- Digital Payments
- Expense Requests
- iJournals
- Labor Distribution Adjustments
- Labor Schedules
- Purchasing Card (PCard)
- SmartMart Contracts
The above learning supplements are included in the Learning section of the related Learn About system pages.
How-To Instructions
Additionally, more than two hundred process and system-based how-to instructions are referenced across Fingate. How-to instructions do not typically include screen images. All system-based instructions are available from the Learn About financial system pages on Fingate.
The Financial Learning Solutions team has been piloting in-application support with approximately 800 pilot participants representing all business units. The in-application support leverages a digital adoption platform solution that provides training content as an overlay within Oracle Financials, while users are completing financial transactions.
In-application support improves user retention following training by providing easy access to important information so that users can complete transactions more quickly and with fewer errors. This is most helpful for new and infrequent users, which represents about 70% of transaction preparers. Power users, accessing the system frequently to prepare the highest volume of transactions, can still benefit from staying up to date with policy and procedural updates. The 18-month pilot is complete, and the team is planning to roll out in-application training to all Oracle Financials system users summer 2024.
Learn more about the WalkMe in-application training pilot.
The FinLearning video series is designed for people managing finances, like financial analysts and finance managers. While other learning offerings go into depth on financial policy, procedures and financial systems, the videos are high-level overviews of financial topics, providing the framework and context for effective financial management at Stanford.
Learn more about the new video series.
Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI) Open Lab provides individual and customized support for questions related to OBI Financial Reporting (dashboard reports and ad hoc analysis). These sessions are focused on support rather than training. Attendees should ensure they have access to OBI Financial Reporting before attending the lab.
Visit the OBI Open Lab page on Fingate to schedule a session.
