Accessing and Working with Grants Forecasting and Fiscal Panther (Tableau)

Overview

Two budgetary management tools—Fiscal Panther (Tableau) and Grants Forecasting (Oracle Planning & Budgeting Cloud Solution​ or Oracle PBCS)—are now available for grants administrators, financial approvers, department administrators, and responsibility center business managers.

Detail

Fiscal Panther gathers data from Concur, PantherExpress, PERIS, Pitt Worx, and PRISM which includes General Ledger, Purchasing, Payables, PCard, RPA, and SPAR. Fiscal Panther provides 360-degree view with a convenient dashboard that gathers detailed grant transactions, from multiple source systems in one platform. Grants Forecasting gathers data from General Ledger, PittWorx, RPA, SPAR/TEAM, and Purchasing. The tool lets you see the impact of future grant expenses, including compensation and non-compensation costs. Development is underway to incorporate Grants Forecasting projections into Fiscal Panther in the coming months.

The initiative represents a collaboration between the Budget and Financial Reporting Office and Pitt Information Technology and is based on department requests for centrally-supported grants management tools. These tools provide users with an alternative to department purchased grants management software.

These tools are the first to be made available as part of a larger plan for developing forecasting applications and financial dashboards.  The next collaborative effort will focus on developing a forecasting module and dashboard for non-grant funds. New project planning begins soon and additional communications will be distributed to gather information, collect feedback, and engage with the user community. 

Key Benefits

• Automated daily updates to data sources that collectively promote process efficiency and allow you to centrally manage both current grants-related data and projections without additional data entry
• The convenience of a 360-degree view of financials from one dashboard that gathers transaction level details from data sources
• An automated tool to assist you in viewing available balances, reconciling expenses, and analyzing encumberances in one central location

Steps to Get Started

Fiscal Panther security and access is based on the Federated Authorization financial reporting access. If you have been granted access through the Federated Authorization process and can utilize the level reports in Grant (05) accounts, then you will automatically receive access to Fiscal Panther.

To request Financial data access:

1. Log in to the Federated Authorization Community.
2. Select the GL Mart User tile:
   • Enter all required information on the form page(s), then click Submit.
   • Your access request is routed using the approval process.

     Note: You will receive an email message that indicates your request’s final status.

3. Log in to the Log in to the Grants Forecasting SharePoint site.
4. Follow the instructions in the Access section.

To use Fiscal Panther:

1. Log in to My Pitt (my.pitt.edu).
2. Search for “Tableau Data Visualizations,” then select this task from the results.

   

3. Click Start.

More Resources

• SharePoint Training Materials
• Grants Forecasting
• Federated Authorization
  FAQs

  What if there is a Fiscal Panther feature that I would like to request?

  Please contact the Technology Help Desk at 412-624-HELP (4357). You request will be reviewed and an analyst from Pitt IT will follow up with you.

  Who do I contact with questions about Fiscal Panther?

  Please contact the Technology Help Desk at 412-624-HELP (4357) if you have any questions.