THE CAPTAIN'S CHAIR
John Hooper, Executive Director of Administrative Information Systems, CITC
I started out wanting to do an article about the improvements we have made in EIS this past year and the plans for further improvements in the coming year. As most of you know by now, in order to ensure a successful implementation, UNTS did a near “vanilla” implementation of the PeopleSoft software. For the most part, the only customizations or extensions that were made during the implementation of the software in 2003 and 2004 were to meet legal and regulatory requirements. This was a wise approach recommended to us by other institutions who preceded UNTS to prevent the “while your at its” and “just one more things” from lengthening or even derailing the implementation completely. For some time after going live, we were covered up with the types of issues that usually present themselves after going live. We also had to finish up tasks that were not mandatory at the “go live” time but were required during the first year of operation, such as reporting.
Having overcome those hurdles, we began making more extensions and customizations to the system to make it work better for our institutions including some of the things addressed in this issue and past issues of theEnterprise. In the coming calendar year, UNTS will be moving to a newer version of the PeopleSoft software, Campus Solutions 8.9, upgrading the database and operating systems to the latest versions of Oracle and Sun Solaris, implementing CRM (Constituent Relationship Management) in support of graduate student prospecting, continuing expansion of Cognos reporting capabilities, and developing a budget preparation system. All of these will be significant improvements and additions to the EIS family of applications.
There are many more things that I could mention in this article that have already been implemented or will be done in the future. But as I considered all these improvements to EIS - past, present and future - I was not so much struck by the volume and quality of improvements that have been made or will be made (as significant as they are) but rather by something else. As with our original implementation, I continue to be amazed by the UNT and UNT-HSC staffers who use, administer, support and enhance EIS. I receive calls from other institutions occasionally wanting to know the secret to our success. There are quite a few things we learned from other higher education institutions that went before us that resulted in UNTS’ implementation going well. However, invariably I tell them that the primary secret to our success at UNT are our people and the collaborative partnerships that exist here. The staff at UNT and UNT-HSC, both functional and technical, are very talented and committed to the success of their respective institutions. Almost without exception, these folks view their role at their institution as one to provide improved service to our constituents – students, faculty, staff and alumni – not just as a job. Further, we have exceptional, longstanding collaborative relationships between both information technology and functional areas as well as the functional areas between each other. Rather than existing in silos, our staff tends to have a good appreciation for and understanding of other areas. We work cooperatively to resolve issues.
So for this issue, I would like to recognize and celebrate not only our successes but also the commitment and perseverance of the staff at both UNT and UNT-HSC that have driven us to where we are today. Y’all are awesome.
Happy Holidays!
NEWS ROOM
Campus Solutions 8.9 is on its Way!
Don Butler, Application Team Manager, UNT Student Contributor Services, CITC/EIS Upgrade Project Manager
A new version of the
Oracle/PeopleSoft application on which EIS is based will be rolled
out to the UNTS community in late 2007. The Learning Solutions
portion of EIS is being renamed Campus Solutions in PeopleSoft
version 8.9. This new release provides increased functionality and
an improved user interface. A great look and feel with new icons
that are easier to use is one of the most significant changes.
Better organization of content allows students and faculty/staff to
see much more information on one page. Improved navigation means
fewer mouse clicks are needed to complete transactions. (For a more
detailed description of new aspects of version 8.9, see the EIS
Fast Facts section of this status report.)
The 8.9 version of the university's PeopleSoft Student
Administration, Human Resources, and Contributor Relations
systems is being readied to go into production on Monday,
November 26, 2007. While that is a year away, there is a
lot to accomplish to ensure that this first major upgrade
to EIS is a success. Check future EIS status reports for
updates on our progress and important announcements. We will
also soon announce the release of an EIS 8.9 upgrade site
on the Web where project status information/progress will
be posted.
EIS Welcomes Dr. Troy Johnson
Cathy Gonzalez, EIS Training, Communications, and Administration Manager, CITC
 Dr.
Troy Johnson recently joined our UNT community as Dr. Joneel
Harris' replacement. The retirement of Dr. Harris this year
signaled a significant change in leadership for EIS. While
in her position as Associate Vice President for Enrollment
Management, she served as a member of the EIS Project Management
Group and as the product family head for the EIS Student
Administration modules. Her leadership and enthusiasm for
EIS contributed greatly to making the implementation of EIS
successful.
Dr.
Troy Johnson is the new Associate Vice President for Enrollment
Management. He earned a bachelor's degree in finance, a master's
degree in economics, and a doctorate in higher education
administration from Texas Tech University.
Johnson
joins UNT after serving six years as Dean of Enrollment Management
at West Texas A&M University. He began his career in
higher education at Texas Tech University where he served
as an admissions counselor, Associate Director of New Student
Relations, Director of Graduate School Enrollment Management,
and Assistant Academic Dean of the Graduate School. He also
served as Senior Director of Enrollment Management and Student
Academic Services at Sonoma State University prior to joining
West Texas A&M University. Johnson worked with PeopleSoft
(the base application for EIS) at Texas Tech, Sonoma State
University, and West Texas A&M University.
Johnson
believes EIS is the backbone for providing basic services
the university offers and we as a university should have
excellence each and every day. EIS greatly facilitates achieving
this goal. We welcome Dr. Johnson as he joins the EIS management
team.
New EIS Leadership for HSC's Contributor
Relations Module
Cathy Gonzalez, EIS Training, Communication, and Administration Manager, CITC
In October 2006, Tony Rousseau was promoted to Assistant
Director for Community Engagement Services at UNT's Health
Science Center in Fort Worth. In his role as Assistant Director,
Tony also became the new product family head at HSC for the
EIS Contributor Relations module. Tony transferred from the
HSC Accounting Department where he had been a senior accountant
since March 2005. During his previous employment at RadioShack
and Ernst & Young, Tony gained valuable experience working
with the PeopleSoft applications that are core to EIS.
"I look forward to the opportunity to work with people
at both the UNT campus and the Fort Worth campus in discovering
how to utilize EIS to become as efficient as we can be," says
Tony. Many of the capabilities found in the Contributor Relations
module are currently not being utilized by HSC's Community
Engagement Services and Tony is eager to implement these
capabilities in the coming months.
Progress Report for Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) Project
Dr. Troy Johnson, Associate Vice President for Enrollment
Management, UNT
I’m glad to be writing to bring you up to date regarding our much anticipated Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) software project. Many people at UNT have persisted and contributed to our execution of an implementation contract with Rapidigm (recently acquired by Fujitsu). Best of all I can now tell you we are underway.
CRM is a robust software enabling UNT to develop sophisticated, tailored, personalized, budget minded and assessable communication plans that will boost our university’s efficiency and effectiveness when dealing with constituents of all types. Over time, CRM is the kind of software that can put UNT at the forefront of constituent communications.
Over the next weeks we are conducting a fit gap study. Very quickly as we move forward we will develop a core set up design as well as specialty tools and set up for graduate student recruitment. The software is being launched with emphasis on student recruitment, particularly for use in attracting top quality graduate students as UNT focuses on developing its research enterprise. From there we look forward to implementing advanced phases for undergraduate, international and academically talented student recruitment. We hope that the software will also quickly contribute to UNT’s need to improve the success rates of our students.
It is important to note that CRM is not just a recruitment tool. Though this initial project is funded by Enrollment Management with support from the Provost’s Office, over the next few months we will involve various stakeholders from many areas such as the HSC, International Students, and Advancement as we develop the core, baseline construct of our CRM. The initial construct at this beginning phase needs broad input so that during future implementations we will have a design robust enough to help many offices with their communication efforts.
Our leads on the project, Walter Bowen and Monika Botha, are linked with Lalita Vadavalli, our very highly recommended and already impressive project consultant. Just as we see impending challenges as UNT moves toward implementation (particularly given the timing of our PeopleSoft 8.9 conversion), we also see over the next several months that we will make the progress needed to help our University move forward.
In conclusion, I must confess two things. First, like many on campus—not to mention Joneel Harris who conceived and propelled the project—I am disappointed we could not begin implementation sooner, particularly with the demands the PeopleSoft 8.9 conversion places on staff implementing both CRM and the new PeopleSoft version. Now it is time to move past that and look to the future, playing the cards we have been dealt and making them win. Second, when I joined UNT one of the single most promising and exciting activities on campus that I looked forward to was CRM. That has not changed for me one bit. CRM has tremendous if not unimaginable potential. We have now begun to scratch the surface—here we go!
SUCCESS GALLERY
Improved Version of Online Class
Rolls
Lynn McCreary, Registrar, UNT
A new version of online class rolls was released early in
the fall of 2006 in the EIS Student Administration module.
The new class rolls include additional information not found
on the class roster screen of the delivered PeopleSoft application.
Important information, such as a student's primary major,
withdrawal date, classification, and class instructor, are
now viewable on the screen.
Another benefit to the new class
roll version is that it can also serve as a grade confirmation
sheet. Staff can
now review rosters (with grades) online. The Student
Records Office in the ESSC can also print grade confirmation
sheets
for departments if needed.
For assistance with the EIS class
roster screen, please contact the Registrar's Office.
Institutional Research Reports
Available Through EIS Portal
Allen Clark, Ed.D., Director, Institutional
Research and Accreditation, UNT
Through the combined hard work of the Computing and Information
Technology Department and the Institutional Research Office,
the first UNT Enrollment Reports and Semester Credit Hour
(SCH) Data for Fall 2006 were released from the Oracle EIS
Data Warehouse. These reports have been secured to certain
UNT personnel, such as Deans, Associate Deans, Department
Chairs, and other approved department personnel.
The research
reports are generated in the portal through the use of
the Cognos Business Intelligence application.
(See the previous article titled "Cognos
8 Business Intelligence Upgrade").
Approved report viewers log into the my.unt.edu portal
and see a portal section on their main page titled 'Institutional
Research Reports'. The reports normally take 15 to 45
seconds to generate. Many of the reports can be drilled to
a lower
level by clicking on Internet links on the pages that
include College/School and Department data. Click this link for
a tutorial describing how to access the reports.
Another collaborative
project between Institutional Research and CITC using
Cognos is the UNT Fact Book which will be
available via the my.unt.edu portal also. The project
is nearing completion and an announcement will be made when
it is ready for release.
Admissions Prospects Created from
Institutional
Student Information Report
Walter Bowen, Associate Director of Admissions,
UNT; Gini Kennedy, Programmer/Analyst, Student Records Data
Systems, CITC
The Institutional Student Information Report (ISIR) contains
data that is furnished to UNT when a person completes and
submits a FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid)
available through the U.S. Department of Education. The ISIR
data is very important for admissions prospecting efforts.
By downloading the data into our prospecting system, the
Admissions Office can begin identifying individuals who are
not yet in UNT's prospect information pipeline. APPX is the
4GL (fourth generation programming language) development environment
in which the undergraduate prospective student management and tracking
system was built.
Recently, a project was completed to begin incorporating
selected ISIR data into the existing "EIS to APPX" download
interface.
Prior to this improvement, ISIR undergraduate prospect
data for individuals who have submitted FAFSA data, but
have neither applied nor enrolled at UNT, was not captured
and available to APPX for undergraduate recruitment purposes. Using the improved interface developed in cooperation
between Undergraduate Admissions, Student Financial Aid and Scholarships Office (SFAS), and CITC, the capturing
of these prospects is now in production. The first data
run using the modified interface identified 35 candidates,
15 of whom did not exist in the APPX prospect database.
Some were transfers, some were freshmen. Both groups
will now receive all appropriate recruitment follow-up communication
based on the prospect's current classification. The remainder
of the 35 were already in the prospect database but had
been tagged during import to reflect that they appeared in
the
ISIR download data. Based on pre-production testing,
it is anticipated that the data volume will vary considerably
depending on the time of year in which the download occurs.
The peak flow is expected to be between January and late
summer each year.
The capturing of ISIR data for prospect data
has been on the radar since the early 1990's for both
the Admissions
and SFAS offices. In many cases,
this is a category of prospects that have for years remained
completely undetectable for recruitment purposes. These
persons are now being entered into APPX and will receive
the full support of the recruitment communication pipeline
at UNT. Walter Bowen and Gini Kennedy, primary project
leads on this initiative, are delighted to have finally accomplished this goal. They extend sincere thanks to
everyone who assisted them during the development
and continued support of this effort.
Innovative Encumbrance Solution
Developed
Rong Wang, Programmer/Analyst, UNT/HSC Payroll/HR
Systems Application Team, CITC
The encumbrance solution in the delivered version of the
PeopleSoft application did not meet the needs required of
UNTS institutions' business practices. PeopleSoft's encumbrance
calculation is based on work days. Using this technique,
monthly salary encumbrances and disencumbrances can vary
from month to month. At UNT and HSC, our salaries are based
on monthly rather than daily rates. In addition, Peoplesoft's
delivered solution did not support benefits encumbrances
which are a significant cost.
The need to encumber both salaries
and their associated benefits is particularly important
to our auxiliary enterprise
management
and our grant holders. After exploring the possibility
of modifying PeopleSoft to meet our needs, we quickly
abandoned this approach because extensive modifications to
the PeopleSoft
programming code would have been required. This led us
to our decision to develop a customized encumbrance component.
Our
customized UNT encumbrance component (referred to as
UNT Encumbrance) offers many features. Some of the most
significant features supported are:
- Salary encumbrance that can be applied to jobs of different length; such as, 4.5 months for a spring semester teaching assistant, 9 months for a regular faculty, 12 months for
a staff person.
- Encumbrance of salary spread (jobs appointed for 9 months with the pay spread over 12 months to allow even income
throughout the year).
- Tracking of salary savings from unfilled positions and reduced/docked hours.
- Tracking of over-disencumbrance to identify actual distributions that are potential candidates for funding reallocation
- Benefits encumbrance (insurance, FICA, and retirement, etc.) for all benefits eligible employees.
- A 12-month benefits encumbrance for employees who work less than 12 months.
- Benefits can be spread among jobs for employees who hold multiple jobs in the same institution.
While customizations
to EIS are kept at a minimum, there are always situations
unique to a business culture that requires
innovative solutions. The new encumbrance solution demonstrates
how we have been able to work through the differences in
a delivered application and the unique needs of our community.
TECHNICAL CAFÉ
What's Behind EIS?
Nancy Fisher, Administrative Computing Team
Manager, EIS Technical Services, CITC
EIS Technical Services supports the hardware/operating systems
foundation of the EIS platform. The platform is made up of
approximately 146 servers running Solaris on Sun MicroSystems,
Windows 2003 running on HP and Dell, and a few Linux boxes
used for utilities that support the
platform.
The EIS platform utilizes approximately 12 terabytes of
storage for all the applications/databases combined. (One
terabyte is equal to 1024 gigabytes or 1 trillion bytes.)
The storage is dispersed among the 2 Hitachi 9960 storage
units and the EMC Clariion storage unit.
While the application basis of the EIS platform are Oracle/PeopleSoft
products, there are also numerous other applications which
complement the infrastructure. Some of those applications
include Cognos, Informatica, Kronos, Cypress, and Appworx.
Infrastructure utilities include Veritas volume manager,
Altiris Windows deployment software, Monitor notification
software, and many other home-grown utilities developed to
help monitor and keep in sync the entire platform.
EIS Technical Services is part of the Administrative Information
Systems area of the Computing and Information Technology
Center. The EIS Technical Services team is comprised of 8
members whose primary duties include keeping all the hardware
and operating systems tuned and running. Many hours are spent
at night and in the early morning performing maintenance/upgrade
duties in an effort not to interfere with business being
conducted during normal working hours. During the regular
work day, team members focus on support for all application
administrators who are responsible for any of the applications
that are housed on any of the EIS units.
Maintaining Data
Integrity in EIS: Duplicate Records Management
Sarah Collins, Associate Director for Enrollment
Management, Office of Enrollment Management
The Federal Standard 1037C Glossary of Telecommunication
Terms and the Committee on National Security Systems' CNSS
Glossary, define data integrity as "the condition that
exists when data is unchanged from its source and has not
been accidentally or maliciously modified, altered, or destroyed
... the condition in which data are identically maintained
during any operation ..." and "preservation of
data for their intended use."
As part of a concerted and strategic effort to maintain
data integrity within our EIS database, a group of knowledgeable
UNT employees collaborate to identify and consolidate duplicate
records in the system. Referred to as 'First Logic Reviewers'
after the software (First Logic) that is used to consolidate
the duplicate records, these employees represent each of
the EIS modules at UNT and the Health Science Center that
maintain a vested interest in the integrity of our "people
data:" Admissions, Financial Aid, Student Financials,
Student Records, Human Resources, Payroll, Constituent Relations
(Advancement), Security and Campus Community.
The principle functions of the First Logic Reviewers are
to identify duplicate records created inadvertently by routine
business processes and then to consolidate these duplicates
into a single permanent record for the student, employee
or donor. The consolidation insures "a condition in
which data are identically maintained" and prevents
the disbursement of critical information such as registration
records, grade reports, earnings or financial donations across
duplicate records for one individual.
Collaboration and communication among the First Logic Reviewers
is critical to the strategic success of the consolidation
process since multiple modules may have important data on
the duplicate records identified. A hierarchy of ownership
among the modules governs which record becomes the permanent
data source and which record is consolidated, i.e. merged
into a permanent source. For example, records containing
payroll tax information may not be merged into another data
source.
Twice each week, the First Logic Reviewers perform the consolidation
of duplicate records to insure that the integrity of student,
employee and donor data is consistently maintained.
EIS FAST FACTS
What's New and Cool in PeopleSoft 8.9
The following highlights are some improvements in the new version of PeopleSoft going into production in November 2007:
Navigation
- Users navigate using menus; you can save mouse clicks by using the Functional Area Navigation page (collection of folders and content references) that appears to the right
of the Menu.
- The navigation and menus work similar to version 8.4 which is currently used by UNTS Financials.
- The menus expand and collapse up and down on the left side of the page, instead of expanding across the page.
Favorites
- Menu Favorites can be saved with your EIS User ID so your Favorites are available from any computer that you use to access EIS.
- You can name and arrange your Favorites in any order or way that works best for you.
Search/Match
- Search fields and criteria are enhanced on the Search Pages.
- Users are able to conduct searches on a number of different key fields, which allow searches to be narrowed considerably. The
results appear on the page in a grid layout which can be sorted on by any of the fields.
- Grid columns can be sorted by clicking on their titles and the entire grid can be downloaded to Excel.
Queries/Reports
- Queries can be scheduled to run through the Process Scheduler.
- You can create 'My Favorite Queries' for the queries you run regularly.
- Folders can be used to organize queries.
- Crystal Reports can be invoked from inside PeopleSoft on the Query Manager pages.
TRAINING LAB
Learning PeopleSoft 8.9 Campus Solutions
Training for the PeopleSoft 8.9 upgrade is being managed
by the EISTAG (Training Advisory Group). The EISTAG is comprised
of trainers from administrative areas at UNT and HSC and
is chaired by the EIS Training, Communications, and Administration
Manager. The official EIS training calendar and EISTAG web
site can
be found here.
EISTAG members are currently working on the development
of a training strategy for the upgrade. Training is being
developed that will bridge the differences between PeopleSoft
8.0 and 8.9. This will include a review of existing documentation
and training materials to determine the appropriate updates.
Due to the large volume of EIS users, along with instructor-led
events, alternative training methods are also being pursued,
such as courses delivered via WebCT and electronic job aides/tutorials.
Announcements of training opportunities will be made in this
status report and GroupWise emails when the training solutions
become available.
Securing your Administrative User
Workstation
All persons at our institutions should be proactive in following guidelines mandated for ensuring internet security in the work place. As users of the internet for performing administrative
functions using a Web browser, EIS users have a vital responsibility to take every measure to protect administrative data.
The following suggestions are simple but effective steps to take in protecting the data we are custodians of:
- Protect your computer with a screen saver that requires you to enter a password after a period of inactivity (generally 10-20 minutes). This is particularly important
for computers that are located outside offices with doors that can be closed and locked. This is important because anyone could step up
and view your monitor. For example, if you inadvertently left a student record up on the screen, the student's information could then be compromised.
- Your computer has an added layer of physical security if it is located in an office with a closeable/lockable door. When you leave your office, lock your door. Depending
on someone sitting outside your office is not nearly as secure as using your door's lock.
- If you transfer sensitive information to a USB (flash) drive or a CD-ROM, be extra careful about exposing the device to
theft or loss.
- Do not store administrative data, such as reports or query exports, on your computer's local drives. Move those files to better-protected network drives. The added advantage
is the majority of network drives are backed up nightly at a minimum and your data is recoverable should your computer or laptop's hardware fail.
- Clear out your browser's cache on a regular basis. For assistance, see Clearing
Your Browser's Cache in the EIS Online Help.
- Many security tips and information about information security can be found on UNT's Information Security web site at http://www.unt.edu/security.
Your network manager can also help you secure your computer if you have any questions.
Training Calendar
WebCT Training
EIS WebCT training is available for faculty or staff new to EIS. Courses available are:
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