Minutes -
July 6, 2005
(by videoconference)
Present: John Gregory (UMaine), Dick Campbell (UMA), Sharon Nadeau and Allen Berger (UMF), Don Raymond (UMFK), Lida Pinkham and Dick Kimball (UMPI), Bill Wells and Rosa Redonnett (USM), Laurie Pruett (University College), Gerry Dube (UNET), Joanne Yestramski, Tracy Bigney, Tracy Elliott, Tom Hopkins, Jim Breece, Ralph Caruso (UMS), Cindy Mitchell and Eddie Meisner (Project Enterprise)
Joanne Yestramski welcomed participants. The agenda consists of two items: Go-live of Financial Management and Update on Student Administration.
1. Financial Management Go-Live
Cindy Mitchell reported no go-live fireworks, thankfully, with a maximum of 85-90 users of the system during the first two days. There have been some conversion issues, some interface issues, and the last of the FY05 data is still being entered. Help Desks have received few calls; most have been about security. Cindy warned that there will be many “firsts” in our future, and noted four areas that we will probably be hearing about as more end-users continue to work in the system:
- Security—a “who to call” list for security questions is now posted on the Office of Finance and Treasurer website
- Reports—they will look different than in the past, and will probably elicit questions
- Interfaces—testing will be continuing on some interfaces
- More clicks—yes, many tasks now require more mouse clicks than before.
Other Financials items of interest:
In October, SWS employees will begin using the self-service Travel and Expenses. At the moment, each campus centrally administers travel and expense requests.
Some business processes (e.g. allocations) were not needed for go-live and are now being written. Bill Gilfillan sends notification when new processes are added to the master list. Staff are also training on Discoverer to run reports that Bill is building.
Campus reps reported few problems resulting from the go-live (yet), and acknowledged that the transition seems to be progressing quite smoothly.
Tracy Elliott and Ralph Whedon met with Cindy last week, and will continue to work out the scope of the post-implementation audit.
Cindy noted that we have 18 months in which to complete our first upgrade in Financials; we’ll simultaneously be upgrading HR (and working on Student). We want to upgrade to a level that will have a clear path to future Oracle support.
Phase II of Financials (including accounts receivable, grants and contracts, projects, and third party billing) is being pushed back a bit; fit/gap will begin in fall 2006. Two new hires will provide production support for financials and HR.
2. Student Administration Update
Cindy said that the Academic Structure team will begin meeting again on July 18 to revisit their previous work and revise from a one-institution structure to a seven-institution structure. She will provide bullet points describing the reasons behind this decision.
The setup of Academic Structure may be impacted by recommendations from the THESIS Project. Joanne said that she has just sent a memo to the presidents noting that THESIS and the PeopleSoft implementation are common projects. Certainly planning for Academic Structure is dependent upon the outcome of THESIS.
We will implement PeopleSoft version 8.9, rather than 8.0, so Admissions will be “retrofitted” from 8.0. An end-of-July 2006 implementation date is planned.
Fit/gap for Student Records and Student Financials will begin in November 2005 or January 2006. Peter Reid is on board for a two-year term as the SME for student records. Negotiations are ongoing to identify the SME for student financials.
The University System has received a Davis Foundation grant to help fund “one-stop shopping” and back office centers.
Gary Lagasse is heading a group looking at electronic payment options and possible vendors.
Allen Berger and Laurie Pruett reported that all THESIS Project functional groups are meeting in the next week or so. People understand the need for an August 10 deadline. However, a challenge in the process arises because some policy and procedure decision-making groups (e.g. Chief Academic Officers) are not scheduled to meet during the remainder of this summer. There is definitely a need for dialog and consensus on a number of policy issues.
Laurie and Allen need to know the highest priority items for designing PeopleSoft’s Academic Structure. Cindy will provide.
3. Other
Gerry Dube reported that all information is in from the three vendors who presented on document management. A review of responses and reference checks will be done next week.
An updated timeline for the entire PeopleSoft implementation will be up on the website soon.
Progress on Benefactor/Safari had slowed; it’s back on track now and should move along.
Before the meeting was adjourned, the Sponsors and Steering Committee applauded Cindy for the successful go-live of Financial Management. Cindy gratefully accepted the thanks on behalf of the entire Project Enterprise team.
Respectfully submitted,
Eddie Meisner, Recorder