Report to the Lane Community College Board
LASR Project
April, 2002

The project is on schedule and within budget. 

SELF-SERVICE WEB NAME
The University of Oregon uses ìDuck Webî as a name for web self-service for students and staff.  Lane web programmer, Ron Rourke, came up with ìExpress Laneî as a name for self-service here at Lane.  The LASR Implementation Management Team (LIMT) unanimously endorsed the idea, and plans to move forward with this designation as we develop Banner web services for students and staff.

FINANCE
This is a very busy time for the Finance Team, which is in the final three months of preparation before their July 1 ìgo liveî date. The team intends to implement an automated approval system for purchase orders, which will route purchasing requests appropriately for electronic signatures. Most Lane staff will use a web browser to access information in the financial system and to initiate purchase orders.  The Finance Team is planning a demonstration of this web interface for the LASR Update session on April 5.  This demo will use actual Lane data.

FINANCE USER TRAINING
Data stored in the Banner system can be easily downloaded to desktop tools (Excel, Access, Word) and these tools can also be used to link directly to ìliveî Banner data.  In preparation for the Finance ìgo liveî, the LASR Project is planning a training series for staff who access budget information and who are involved in purchasing processes.  The series will begin in April with general training in using the Excel spreadsheet tool.  In May, a series of training opportunities will instruct staff on using Excel with Banner.  The Finance Team will provide final user training on Banner in June.

HUMAN RESOURCES
The Human Resources Team completed their fifth series of three-day configuration sessions on April 4.  This training focused on payroll adjustments and other advanced payroll topics. They have begun running test payrolls on the 100 test employees they entered, and are making adjustments to the system set-up as needed. Their next training is scheduled for the week of May 6. The Banner HR System will be fully implemented and ready for use by all College employees on January 1, 2003.

STUDENT
The Student Team has completed its third week of training on March 21. Technical training for the student module was also completed this week. The Student training covered admissions and communication plans.  The team continues to work on developing Lane definitions for Banner concepts and on integrating the credit and extended learning offerings into one virtual college catalog of information.  This team will also bear the primary responsibility for implementing the Schedule/Resource 25 software (see Productivity Software, below).  The next Student training, which will cover registration and fee assessment, is scheduled for April 23, 24 and 25.

PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE
The LASR Implementation Management Team (LIMT) is moving forward with the purchase of the Schedule/Resource 25 software. This product optimizes the scheduling of facilities for both classroom use and for events and meetings.  Advantages include automation of the scheduling of classes through a batch process that runs once per term, a web interface that can be used by all members of Lane's community for requesting meeting and/or event space and equipment, and centralized management of Lane's facility resources, which will include utilization reporting.

The Evisions software, which the college will use to create official college documents, is being implemented first by the Finance Team.  The software works by merging Banner data into a pre-defined document format. The Finance Team is working on college purchase orders, invoices and checks.  Other examples of documents that will be produced using this software are transcripts, promissory notes and tax forms.  Using a standard document-generating tool that is fully integrated with the Banner administrative software will save many hours of programming time over customized programming of each individual document.
For more information about the project, contact Linda DeWitt, Ext. 3006, or visit our web site at http://2011sitearchive.lanecc.edu/lasr/.  For more information about a specific system, contact the following staff:

 Finance   Stan Barker, Ext. 5608
 Human Resources Linda Simmons, Ext. 5313
 Student   Helen Garrett, Ext. 5686