Super Focused, Moving Forward
Everyone associated with Optimize Puget Sound is super busy and super focused as we move through an intense phase of the project these days. HR and Financials participated in parallel payroll testing this week and also engaged in PeopleSoft Time and Labor meetings. The Campus Solutions team completed and signed off on the validation of external organizations, meaning the possible high schools and colleges students transfer to and from.
It’s still being developed, but we’ve opened a new SoundNet site to house Optimize training information and resources. See https://soundnet.pugetsound.edu/optimizetraining. Registration is available for training sessions on budget administration, purchasing, and payroll and timekeeping. Please send any questions related to training to optimizetraining@pugetsound.edu.
Fits, Gaps, and Conversions
The Human Resources team has been working on solutions for filling gaps and tightening fits in preparation for migrating from our current systems to PeopleSoft. They are collaborating with the Financials team on plans for parallel payroll testing.
Congratulations to Katie Holmes, who has accepted the regular staff position of Assistant Director of Financial Systems and Disbursements in Accounting & Budget Services. In this position, Katie will be responsible for processing Puget Sound’s payroll and related tax reporting. Katie also assumes the role of PeopleSoft payroll functional lead. Look for email messages from Katie in the coming weeks about the changes and training opportunities related to payroll and timekeeping.
The Campus Solutions team includes a wide range of members working on many different tracks. Some 21 people are involved in validating bio/demo data. The Registrar’s Office has been setting up external credit, test score, and advising conversion tables. Student Financial Services has been working on the setup and conversion for packaging financial aid awards. The technical team created an interface between Enrollment Manager and PeopleSoft for the Office of Admission. And Academic Recorder Leah Coakley completed the manual clean-up of the course catalog in PeopleSoft!
And The Beat Goes On!
All teams continue to work very hard in preparation for the January 1 go-live of the human resources module and the March 2013 implementation of the campus solutions module. Project Manager Travis Nation says he appreciates how everyone is pulling together and maintaining a sense of collegiality even as the work intensifies. With that in mind, he has restocked the chocolate supply in meeting rooms and has arranged for an extra hour of sleep for everyone this weekend!
For questions related to using PeopleSoft, please contact the Technology Service Desk at servicedesk@pugetsound.edu or 253.879.8585. We also welcome feedback on the project itself at optimize@pugetsound.edu.
Optimize Teams Collaborate Across the Board
With the PeopleSoft Financials module in place, the Human Resources module set to go live January 1, and implementation of the Campus Solutions module planned for next March, cross-team collaboration was happening across the board this week for Optimize Puget Sound.
On Monday, Optimize representatives participated in a panel at the President’s LEAD meeting to discuss policy and operational changes prompted by the transition to PeopleSoft. Participants included William Morse, chief technology officer and associate VP for technology services; Travis Nation, Optimize project manager; Cindy Matern, associate VP for human resources and career and employment services; Janet Hallman, associate VP for accounting and budget services; and John Hickey, associate VP for business services and community engagement. For details covered in their presentation, see the handout distributed at the meeting.
On Tuesday, Sherry Mondou, vice president for finance and administration, and Kristine Bartanen, academic vice president and dean of the university, sent an overview of project developments to faculty and staff. This was followed on Wednesday by a message from HR describing leave policy changes coming with the HR module in 2013. Members of multiple teams are engaged in the development of more communications to come related to faculty and staff ID cards, payroll, and timekeeping.
As project work continues, we are seeing growing integration between the systems supporting Financials, HR, and Campus Solutions. This week, the HR and Financials teams worked together on budgeting and payroll processes in the HR module. And both technical and functional team members have been involved in the conversion of data for Campus Solutions. As they say, it takes a village to implement an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system like PeopleSoft!
The HR Module is Coming!
Preparations are occurring on many fronts as we approach go-live of the Human Resources module on January 1, 2013. The HR team continues configuration meetings, and the Project Management Office is working with team members and the Office of Communications to plan and develop communications to campus. Informational handouts and posters for offices and break rooms will be distributed at Monday’s LEAD meeting, and a variety of email messages will be sent over the coming weeks. Also look for more information in the next issue of TechNews, scheduled for November.
Implementation of the HR module means timekeeping will move to PeopleSoft from the Kronos system currently used by staff and Student Employment Time Entry (SETE) used by work-study students and their supervisors. Training sessions on the new timekeeping system will be held from early December through the end of January. Details on dates and times will be added to the Optimize Training page as they become available.
Not to be forgotten, the Campus Solutions team carries on with their important work as they move toward go-live in March 2013. This week they signed off on course catalog information, built pre-requisites in the system, entered and mapped data, created item types, and all sorts of other fun stuff.
Deployment, Demonstrations, and Decisions
Hurrah! Anticipated budget updates were deployed Sunday, October 7, providing three new tools in the Puget Sound Financials menu: Operating Budget Admin, Vendor Invoice Inquiry, and Chartfield Value Lookup.
The Human Resources team continued with configuration meetings and attended demonstrations by three possible vendors for new time clocks in Dining and Conference Services to facilitate full integration with PeopleSoft.
The Campus Solutions team, working with Payroll and HR, documented many decisions on handling student work and scholarship awards as well as the student time entry process. Development Lead Carol Odland worked with the Registrar’s Office to validate course catalog information between Cascade and PeopleSoft, while Academic Recorder Leah Coakley converted all academic calendar data into PeopleSoft this week.
Scheduling Software Demo and Other Highlights
This week the meeting of the Scheduling System Advisory Group included a demonstration of 25Live, the new room and event scheduling software planned for the university. Sarah Comstock, assistant director of student activities for the Wheelock Student Center, was impressed with what she saw.
“25Live will make scheduling events so much easier for the campus community,” Sarah noted. “No more running around trying to figure out who schedules what – instead we’ll have a centralized process that works for everyone!”
The Human Resources team continued with design and configuration activities, focusing specifically on benefits, student employment, and payroll integration. The Project Management Office is collaborating with functional leads and the Office of Communications on the plan for informing campus members of the various changes we’ll see with the implementation of the HR module.
The Campus Solutions team reached an important milestone this week when Mattie Watts, student financial services systems manager, loaded the first College Scholarship Service (CSS) Profile and Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) into the test database.
The Financials team tested the integration of PeopleSoft Financials with Payment Manager, an accounts payable automation system from Wells Fargo. The switch to this new product to manage all forms of payment from the university will be made once Wells Fargo validates the test file.
There was a delay in the rollout of the new budget tools planned for October 1. That update is now expected to be available for budget managers Monday, October 8. In preparation, PeopleSoft Financials will be unavailable Saturday, October 6, from 3:00 a.m. to noon.
Special thanks to the Data Standards Committee for supporting the various Optimize teams in determining appropriate standards for conversion. Great work, everyone, and enjoy the beautiful weekend!
September Closes with Significant Progress
The way the Optimize teams are moving along, they might well be singing these lines from September Song by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson: “Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December, but the days grow short when you reach September. When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame, one hasn’t got time for the waiting game.”
The Campus Solutions folks certainly aren’t playing the waiting game as they had several major accomplishments this week. They successfully created a budget for a student and loaded Profile and Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) files in PeopleSoft. The Human Resources team completed the salary plans workbooks and are progressing at a rapid pace through other topics such as bio/demo data, student employment data, payroll design, and timekeeping.
The Financials team has been testing the new budget administration tools planned for roll out Monday, October 1. Included will be a new budget view very similar to what Cascade provided under Budget Administration.
Training sessions on budget and purchasing continue. See the full schedule at Optimize Puget Sound Training. Please send PeopleSoft questions to the Technology Service Desk at servicedesk@pugetsound.edu and any project-related questions or comments to optimize@pugetsound.edu. We welcome your feedback!
Gold Stars for the Optimize Team
Jessica Ewald, MIS consultant for the Campus Solutions module, has been handing out virtual gold stars to the Puget Sound team for their work this week. In an email on Thursday, she wrote, “I know, I know….I haven’t stopped talking about it, but it really is a big deal….the first pass of the course catalog conversion was spectacular! There were no errors between parent and child tables which isn’t very easy to do when there are many effective date rows, multiple course offerings, and multiple components. Way to Go!!!”
Also in Campus Solutions, Mattie Watts from Student Financial Services received a round of applause for writing her first PeopleSoft query. Meanwhile, a gold star goes to the Human Resources team for successfully loading the initial set of bio/demo data (e.g., name, address, residency) into PeopleSoft. HR continues to enter base information for payroll and benefits and is focusing now on building data conversion spreadsheets.
The Financials team is anticipating the roll out of new budget administration tools on October 1 that will provide better access to needed information. And discovery sessions continue for Identity Management!
A Familiar Face in a New Role
Garrett Dieckmann
Congratulations to Garrett Dieckmann ’12, who has been a positive, productive member of the Optimize team since the project launched in Fall 2011. As a Puget Sound student, Garrett spent his senior year working as a project assistant. After graduation, he became a full-time developer involved in the Financials implementation. Effective September 16, Garrett takes on an exciting new role as the university’s first PeopleSoft administrator. According to Steve Renker, director of Enterprise Information Systems, Garrett has impressed the Optimize and EIS teams with his “can-do attitude and talent for quickly picking up new technology.”
This week the Human Resources team signed off on their fit-gap documents, so let the design phase begin! The Financials team announced that Budget Administration trainings will occur the last Thursday of each month through November. To register for this or purchasing training sessions, visit the Optimize Training page.