Campus Management Status Report ~ 01-25-2002

Overview

Thurlow, Stribling and Burkhard have returned from CM 4.64 testing and are continuing their work from Oxford along with two representatives from Central Michigan University.
Data entry of 2002 courses began this week and will continue next week. Stocks lined up helpers from every school. We have received outstanding support from the academic departments and dean's offices, and administrative offices (including Publications, the Provost's Office and the Registrar's Office). Tuttle had done a great job of organizing the data entry sessions. Thanks also to the Basis team for adjusting the patch application to PRD to accommodate this work.
The scheduling focus group session went very well last week, and many good ideas were generated. These were submitted to CM development. Plumbaum responded, noting that some of the ideas are possible with event planning now, some are being discussed as part of the next phase of development and some are new and will be very helpful in future planning. He thanked the participants for their feedback in this area.
Work is proceeding nicely on the first Web-to-CM applications. One question is how to package these as a coordinated set. For example, when you visit a commercial website (Amazon, Eddie Bauer, ...) you can move easily between the catalog, your personal account, customer support, and your shopping cart. We have involved Publications in the design for these.
One of the most complex in-progress tasks is setting up the Touchnet Payment Gateway Server and configuring it to work with R/3. Hale and Ferguson are making good progress with the RFCs (several OSS notes have been submitted). Miller worked with Touchnet to establish an installation schedule. A very productive conference call took place between UM and EBPP developers earlier in the week. An action item for UM is to define its fee payment process and to provide this to EBPP developers.
A joint meeting of the Student Accounting and Financial Aid teams is scheduled for 1/29 at 3:30. This will be the start of Sparks' work toward helping these areas realize business improvements. The objective of this first meeting is to establish overall goals and strategies and to agree upon a proposal format.
An issue that must be addressed very soon is how to handle fee payment, especially in the year when Sigma has gone live but Student Accounting hasn't. Garner has developed a very promising proposal that should bring about improvements in the process. This will be submitted to the Steering Committee for discussion in their 2/7 meeting.
CM development is working with UM on finalizing its implementation plan for the upcoming phases. A video conference call took place on 1/16 in which helpful suggestions were provided. We plan to follow up with periodic reviews of the implementation plan to help ensure success.

See individual team reports (Academic Structure, Student Administration, Student Accounting, Reporting, Web / Interfaces, Organizational Readiness, Technology Infrastructure) for additional detail.

Academic Structure

Staff from academic departments, the Provost's Office and the Registrar's Office are working half-days this week and next to enter 2002 courses. See http://www.olemiss.edu/projects/first/minutes/cmteamleads/minutes.01.22.2002.txt for other news.

Student Administration

See http://www.olemiss.edu/projects/first/minutes/cmteamleads/minutes.01. 22.2002.txt.

Student Accounting

Accomplishments/Activities

There are no significant accomplishments/activities to report for this time period. Team progress was stymied because two members were in Germany for testing, and two members were involved in the aftermath of the 2002 spring semester registration.

One team member was involved in a cursory review of the fee distribution program. A revised proposal to eliminate the Turner Center registration process was developed during this time. The proposal will be presented at the Team Leads meeting on 01/22/2002.

Project Plan Status

Review of Turner Center plan 10% complete
Analysis of descriptions codes 90% complete
Review FI-CA documentation 20% complete

Tasks Behind Schedule

New Issues

Action Items

Major Activities Planned for Next Two Weeks

Obtain a better understanding of the fee calculation process.
ISR student application fee configuration
Test review

Reporting

Accomplishments/Activities

Project Plan Status

Tasks Behind Schedule

New Issues

Action Items

Major Activities Planned for Next Two Weeks

Web / Interfaces

Accomplishments/Activities

Project Plan Status

Tasks Behind Schedule

New Issues

Can we build an index that would allow us to search "Academic Programs" by discipline categories?
Can we divide the navigation of "Academic Programs" into graduate and undergraduate?

Action Items

Meet with the Admissions sub-team to review modifications of the udergraduate admissions application.
Go live with upgraded Web Focus on Jan. 25.

Major Activities Planned for Next Two Weeks

Further testing and modification(if needed) of the communication between Sigma and the mainframe.
Request graphics for undergraduate admissions application from Publications Department.
Continue testing of SAP payment card RFCs for admission application.

Organizational Readiness

Accomplishments/Activities

Project Plan Status

Tasks Behind Schedule

New Issues

Action Items

Major Activities Planned for Next Two Weeks

Technology Infrastructure

Accomplishments/Activities

The desktop replacement systems have arrived and are being configured for delivery. Over the next three to four weeks these systems will be delivered as the areas are completed.

Operating system software, JDK, and a database are being installed on the payment gateway (TouchNet) server.

CRT 8 was applied to production (UMPRD) on 01/19/02. This was originally scheduled for 02/04 but requirements related to CM data entry and end of year processing dictated a date change. CRT 9 has been applied to the CM sandbox. (UMTST)

Work continues on defining authorizations, and adjusting the environments as applicable.

Over the next two months many upgrades are planned on the SAP landscape ard there are downtimes scheduled most Fridays and Saturdays. Please check the calendar at http://ts.olemiss.edu/webcal/webcal.pl when scheduling activities to verify availability.