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Identity and Scheduling Kick Off
Football season is underway, and while we cheer the Loggers on, we’re happy to report not all the great plays are on the field. This week, two new and exciting Optimize initiatives also kicked off!
First, discovery sessions commenced in order to lay the groundwork for implementing Oracle Identity Management, the platform that will allow us to manage user identities, including roles and permissions, across multiple systems.
Second, the Scheduling System Advisory Group held its inaugural meeting. This committee will help guide the implementation of a new, much-needed system to manage room and event scheduling for campus classrooms and non-academic spaces.
Work continued for the Human Resources, Campus Solutions, and technical teams this week. We appreciate the great effort and dedication everyone is putting into this important project. Go, Loggers! Go, Optimize Puget Sound!
Training Opportunities Available
Many training opportunities are available for those using the new PeopleSoft Financials system. Sessions are scheduled on the following topics:
- Submitting Requisitions (also covers ordering supplies with the new Complete Office Punchout)
- Approving Requisitions
- Purchasing Help (providing advice, answers to your questions, and individual tips)
See the Optimize Puget Sound Training page for the full schedule and description of these and other classes!
Orientation Week Highlights
It’s Orientation week, and as the Class of 2016 roamed the campus learning about their new home for the next four years, they had no idea what amazing and important activities were taking place in the depths of Howarth Hall!
First, there were training sessions on budget administration 1 and 2 and on purchasing requisitions and approvals. Janet Hallman, associate vice president for accounting and budget services, had kind words for Peter Ho of MIS who led the budget training, saying, “We couldn’t have done it without him.”
The Financials team plans to offer monthly opportunities for budget administration training, and Procurement Director Ed Barber will schedule purchasing classes each week over the next few months. Contact optimizetraining@pugetsound.edu for more information on training.
The Human Resources team was also busy reviewing Fit-Gap documents, while the Campus Solutions team continued with their design work. And the Project Management Office finalized a contract with Integral Business Solutions to implement Oracle Identity Management, a platform to “effectively manage the end-to-end life cycle of user identities.”
The management of user identities, which includes roles and permissions, is key to the successful implementation of an enterprise resource planning system like PeopleSoft. Oracle Identity Management will replace similar functionality in Cascade but will also extend capabilities, allowing the audit of permissions across multiple systems to further ensure synchronization and security. It may not be glamorous, but implementing strong identity management is the kind of behind-the-scenes work needed to keep the whole system running smoothly!
A Busy Week in the Heat
As temperatures soared outside, the Optimize computer lab in Howarth 005 was literally the cool place to be this week. The technical team led by Stephen Phillips from MIS spent several days there in PeopleTools 2 training, gaining advanced knowledge on the creation of data conversions, interfaces, and add-ons. With this background, the team can now create views, write complex business logic, and add images and graphs.
The Human Resources team has been fully engaged in the Fit-Gap review process, starting with the HR section. Next they’ll cover Benefit and Payroll with a planned final review and sign-off by the end of next week. Time and Labor discovery is complete, and the review process for that will begin next week.
With the assistance of the Data Standards Committee, the Campus Solutions and HR teams have been reviewing common values and making decisions for standardization of values shared across the databases (examples include name type, address type, name prefixes, etc.). This will provide consistency for both data entry and reporting. Once these values are established, the technical team can finalize the specifications and requirements for conversion of person biographic and demographic (bio-demo) data.
Still basking in the glow of last week’s celebration, the Financials team had a four-hour internal training session on General Ledger reporting tools led remotely by Suresh Pandurangam from MIS.
Step-by-step handouts from this week’s purchasing training on submitting and approving requisitions are available on PSHelp or the Optimize Training Handouts page. Additionally, PSHelp now has purchasing videos and job aids!
A Time to Celebrate!
Jody Putman signs the Optimize wall.
Meanwhile, the Human Resources team participated in some final discovery sessions on core HR functionality, time and labor, benefits, and payroll. They are looking forward to their first Fit-Gap sessions next week.
Training on purchasing and budget administration continued this week as well. We greatly appreciate the good feedback we’ve gotten from participants in training sessions. Such comments and suggestions are very helpful as we plan and conduct future sessions.
The Financials celebration this week marked a significant milestone in this important project. We happily anticipate more celebrations as the Human Resources and Campus Solutions teams move forward with their work!
Optimize Puget Sound Focus of Oracle Press Release
A new press release from Oracle Corporation features the university’s selection of Oracle’s PeopleSoft applications and Oracle Hyperion Public Sector Budgeting and Planning as part of Optimize Puget Sound. The release details the reasons Puget Sound selected Oracle products and quotes Sherry Mondou, the university’s vice president for finance and administration, and Steve Koporec, vice president, applications, for Oracle Higher Education. Check it out!
Welcome to the Opti-Blog!
The project team is pleased to provide a blog for posting updates and announcements related to Optimize Puget Sound. We hope it will be an easy way to learn the latest details of this very exciting project for our campus.
Visit the blog directly to learn what’s new or subscribe to receive updates automatically. In some email clients such as Outlook you can elect to receive blog posts as email messages. In your Outlook account settings, you’ll find an RSS Feeds tab where you can elect to add this new feed using the address http://blogs.ups.edu/optimize/feed/.
We welcome questions, suggestions, and any other feedback you may have! Email optimize@pugetsound.edu or contact the project manager, Travis Nation, at 253.879.2710 or tnation@pugetsound.edu.