We're thrilled to share highlights from our recent Coffee Hour with UMPO, which provides a fantastic platform for our campus community to gather critical information about procurement, travel, business expenses, treasury, and other A&F-related activities.
Growth of Coffee Hour
Since its launch in February, this initiative has grown significantly, with five successful events in FY25 that attracted 795 unique participants. Feedback has been invaluable, confirming that the Coffee Hour serves as an effective resource for informing users and providing essential system support. Based on this, we are excited to continue these sessions into FY2026!
Our latest Coffee Hour on September 18th welcomed 304 unique participants from across all six campuses, including 11% from the UMass President’s Office! It was a lively session featuring Amanda Onwuka, who discussed organizational changes within the Administrative and Finance department, along with Mike Durkin from UPST, who raised an important topic: managing AI-related risks in the procurement process. Attendees engaged in thoughtful questions, with an impressive 81% staying for the full hour-long presentation! Positive feedback highlighted the energy from our hosts and speakers, as an appreciation for the detailed updates that attendees found beneficial for their daily work.
Looking Ahead for Coffee Hour
In response to the insights shared, our Access Team is following up with participants on specific needs, having opened over a dozen support cases to provide additional assistance based on questions submitted before, during and after the session.
We invite all UMass colleagues to join us for the upcoming monthly Coffee Hours throughout the academic year! Our next session on October 16th will feature Caitrin Merrill from the Travel and Expense team, who will introduce exciting enhancements to Concur. We encourage you to register for one or all upcoming sessions in the series.
Upcoming Dates:
- October 16, 2025
- November 20, 2025
- December 18, 2025
Did you miss the previous Coffee Hours sessions? No problem, we record and share presentations with everyone on the Coffee Hour with UMPO Administration & Finance (A&F) webpage (Please note: You will have to login). If you have any questions or would like to suggest a topic for future discussions, please don’t hesitate to reach out at A&FSupport@umassp.edu. Your input helps us make these sessions even more valuable for everyone! Let's keep the momentum going and support each other in our campus journeys.
We’re looking forward to seeing you there!