Monday, July 28, 2003

CServices Events

• Check out Oracle 9i
• Oracle 9i testing is complete, and it has been installed in the production database.
• Banner 6.x will be available in the TEST instance this week, possibly tomorrow
• PINS for testing
• All modules should plan for testing of Banner 6.x during August.  To facilitate testing of ExpressLane functions, Ron will provide PIN information for students and employees to the Student and HR teams, respectively.  These values will not be the values in the production database, but will be re-set to a known value.  The Student Team will also need to test faculty functions with a small group of faculty employees.  Dennis will communicate with Ron on the needs of HR for testing.

• Phase II Workplan
• Feedback from modules
• LIMT expressed a high level of interest in the following additional products:
• • Datamart (all modules, Office of Instruction)

• Campus Pipeline/Luminis (Office of Instruction)
• WebCT (course management software)/Connected Learning Solution (Office of Instruction)
• Workflow (HR willing to pilot)
• Extender Solutions (document management) (Financial Aid willing to pilot)

• Interfaces/Systems
• The Datamart product might support the development of unit plans by departments.
• The Office of Instruction is also interested in technology that would support student and staff portfolios.
• Pilots?
• The Project Director will contact Mark Williams about the status of the faculty review of course management software products.

Modules should e-mail the Project Director with “needed by” dates to complete the Interfaces and Systems list

• Finance continues working on year-end.  This is a four-step process, which includes the following:
• Balance sheet balances forward – has run in the production instance.
• Roll encumbrances – working on this in TEST.  This step needs to be complete by the end of July.
• Move unspent budget forward from prior year for grants.
• Close the prior year – no additional changes can be made.
• Financial Aid has over 1,000 students funded.  The office should be able to have all students who apply by August 15 ready for the first fall disbursement.
• The Student Core Team is focusing on the testing plan for Banner 6.x.  The team wants to execute end-to-end tests, especially of financial processes.  Student is also working with Finance on re-aligning the Student AR refund process with financial aid disbursements rather than the Accounts Payable process.  This approach is better supported in Banner than the college’s past practice.  The team is also working on several issues that arose in the summer registration period, including the long-standing practice of academic departments of controlling registration after the term begins by putting a department or instructor hold on the class.  This practice is not supported in Banner, and the team is working with academic departments to identify a new way to accomplish the same goal.
• HR has determined that the college must begin using the Banner functionality to track classified staff comp time.  HR expects to notify managers this week of the change, and request that departments document current balances so they can be entered into Banner.  HR is also working on getting all HR forms on the web.  Bargaining has eliminated Appendix E in the classified contract, which will change the way part time classified benefits are calculated in the areas of vacation, holidays and personal leave. This will allow Banner to calculate these benefits on a strictly FTE percentage basis.  Bargaining has also changed the “use it or lose it” date for benefits from June 30 to December 31 to better support departmental workloads in June.

• LIMT will meet with Peer to Peer on August 11 at 9:30. There is a meeting on Thursday this week to discuss the duplicate PIDM problems.  The discussion will focus on three issues:
• Dealing with duplicate records converted from the legacy system
• Reviewing processes to mitigate new duplicates
• Marking records that are known to be duplicates to prevent future use.