Monday, September 16, 2002

October Finance staff training
The Finance staff training group met last week to schedule additional staff training in October.  Two Banner Finance Overview classes will be offered October 25, Purchasing 1 and Purchasing 2 will be offered October 30 and 31, and one or two more Finance Overview classes may be scheduled the week of October 7.  An estimated 35 staff who appear to have budget responsibilities based on their job descriptions have not received any Banner Finance training.   The training group is focusing on what classes to offer on an on-going basis.

Technical trainer
A request for a technical trainer is moving through the recruitment process.  Previously, Sue Woods has provided staff training for Groupwise and Excel.  Sue has moved on to another area and Linda Osak was hired as the interim trainer.

SCT account manager visit
Stephen Pruch and Linda DeWitt met with SCT Account Manager, Larry Criddle last week to provide a project update to Larry.  The discussion focused on the timing of adding additional servers to allow separation of Express Lane and Native Banner functions.  Lane requested information from SCT about SCT assistance in configuring any new servers.  This work needs to be done  prior to Human Resources going “live.”

Desktop currency
Many employee workstations are running Windows 95 and old versions of browsers that do not support Banner.  LIMT discussed the need for a plan to keep workstations in all areas of the college up-to-date.  Computer Services will develop a list of browser upgrade instructions for the Web page.  Stephen Pruch will contact other institutions to see what they are doing about maintaining current desktops.  The issue will be a topic for discussion at the October LASR Update.  LIMT will work with Computer Services to develop a simple system to provide information to users.  An objective of the college is that workstations should not be older than 3 years.  Equipment replacement is on the agenda of the Executive Team.  LASR project funds are available to upgrade workstations, but are not sufficient to upgrade the entire college.

Naming of Banner Access
Computer Services has worked on re-naming Express Lane and Banner access without referencing port numbers.  LIMT approved the proposed new names, which are: 
  
· ExpressLane:  expresslane.lanecc.edu; 
· Banner for PCs:  bannerpc.lanecc.edu; and 
· Banner for Macs: bannermac.lanecc.edu.  

Computer Services will convert the URLs when splitting to two servers.

Series 25 Update
The instructional department chairs discussed the Series 25 implementation  at their last meeting.  Chairs asked how Schedule 25 would work to schedule tuition-based classes.  An advisory group (SAG) was formed to gather concerns and questions about the Schedule 25 implementation.  Based on the input received, the group will prepare questions for trainees to ask at the Series 25 training in November.  The group will develop a set of principles and guidelines for LIMT’s approval.  Matt Schubert and Ross Jackson were added to the Schedule 25 group.  A similar group will be formed to work with Resource 25 issues.

Extended Learning Update
Helen Garrett, and Jane Scheidecker will meet to discuss accreditation and catalog building issues and will report back to Craig Taylor.

Finance Update
Finance is running well.  Approval queues have been fined tuned and are working properly; work continues to prepare the budget for loading; and transfers are operating correctly.  An issue arose at the FIT meeting about whether financial history for FY02 and 01 should be crossed over to Banner to provide fiscal year comparisons.

The Bond project has asked about storing the detailed financial history  of the project in Banner.  LIMT will address the request with the Bond project.

HR Update
The Human Resources team worked with their SCT consultant  last week and will be in training this week.  The team had no update on the lag pay issue with faculty as the meeting with faculty was canceled.  Human Resources will coordinate the training and teach the classes for departmental staff on how to do HR work in Banner.  The Express Lane training for all employees can be done by a non-HR trainer.

Student Update
The team is in training this week, focusing on academic history.   Academic history includes grades, transcripts, and credit conversion from other schools.  There are huge issues around academic history conversion, and the team is concerned about Alen Bahret’s workload.  In January, Enrollment Services will begin communications, education and training about the new system to students in preparation for students using the system in March, 2003.  The team is working to prepare for the Wednesday clone of PPRD to TEST.

Financial Aid Update
Several requests to use the LASR training labs for non-LASR Project training have been received.  Labs will be unavailable for non-LASR Project use from now until the Human Resources “go live” date as the labs will be scheduled for Groupwise and functional training classes.