Tips for Tailoring KFS User Guides

When your institution implements the Kuali Financial System, your users will be successful more quickly if you provide customized user guides that reflect your unique KFS configuration and financial administration processes. Such guides are not replacements for user training. They serve, instead, as day-to-day references that help users work effectively with your KFS system and the associated procedures and processes.

The Kuali Financial System project provides an extensive set of user guides that offers an excellent starting point for your customized user documentation. These generic guides--which are based on the out-of-the-box product--provide information about the layout and use of all KFS screens. For each screen, the guides include applicable field definitions, business rules, routing information, and procedures that are specific to it.

Depending on how your system has been set up, you may need to change more or less information in the generic guides. And you will certainly want to add information on your institution’s processes. To create effective guides as quickly as possible, consider applying these tips:

• Create multiple user guides and focus each one on the needs of a major group of users. Each guide should cover only the tasks performed by a particular group.
• Remember that these user guides are not training guides but are procedural and process references. Rather than including information that is available elsewhere, provide links to other documentation. Users can then drill down into additional detail as needed.
• Use meaningful examples. As much as possible, screen shots and data used as examples should reflect the users’ operational environment and simulate actual transactions that these users expect to handle.
• Give examples to improve comprehension but don’t feel that you must provide a comprehensive list of every attribute or value in the system. Don’t overwhelm people with excessive detail.

Custom user guides are worth devoting time to because they live on long after an implementation project ends. As important as they are, however, they don’t need to be perfect in order to be useful. Don't hesitate to develop them iteratively.

For more suggestions about helping users get started, feel free to reach out to me and other members of the rSmart team.

Satish Vijayan
Kuali Financial Consultant
rSmart