Key Messages for the Week of 09/24/2012

• ESUP team members are moving to the project during the next several weeks. 
• We continue to renovate and equip the ESUP office space in Williamson and WBOB. 
• Renovations will continue through the end of the month. 
• Between now and Nov. 1, ESUP team members can work in any space reserved for project use. Your project director will help identify team work space during this period.
• ESUP team members will receive their project laptops and other necessary equipment and software delivered directly to them as close to their starting date as possible.
• We will schedule training and provide support for the use of the Google application suite and “soft phone” technology, as needed. Other training will be scheduled by your project director as these needs are identified.
• The ongoing renovation of the workspace will NOT delay the overall project timeline.
• During this initial period, our high-level project plans and schedules are developing and evolving on a daily basis.
• It isn’t practical at this point to engage all ESUP team members in all aspects of project planning, however, your areas are appropriately represented in these planning meetings.
• We are committed to sharing project plans, schedules and information as they are finalized.
• Your project director is your go-to person for questions, concerns, resources and training needs.

Save the Date: ESUP Kickoff on 10/16

Please save the date: the Enterprise System Upgrade Project (ESUP) Kickoff Event has been scheduled for the afternoon of Tuesday, Oct. 16.

• The event is slated to begin at 1 p.m. with an opening session that provides an overview of the project for ESUP team members, as well as managers, University leadership, and other key stakeholders.
• This will be followed by more detailed sessions specifically for ESUP team members, discussing methodology, roles and responsibilities, and more. 

Kickoff planning is underway, and we will share more details about the location and agenda as it is finalized. For now, ESUP team members should plan to attend from 1 to 5 p.m. University leaders and others not formally on the project team can plan to leave after the opening session or follow the discussions online via streaming video.

We hope you are as excited as we are to get this project underway, and we look forward to seeing you Oct. 16!

Andy Hill, Program Director, University of Minnesota
Rebecca Collings, Program Director, CedarCrestone

Update From the Program Directors

The following message was shared with the ESUP Integration Steering Committee on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012:


FROM: Andy Hill and Rebecca Collings, ESUP Program Directors
TO: Integration Steering Committee

Dear Colleagues,

We wanted to take a moment to recognize the important progress we’ve made on the Enterprise System Upgrade Project (ESUP) in recent weeks. As you may know, earlier this month a number of key stakeholders met to work through our options regarding the required split of the current shared database for the University’s human resources (HR) and student systems. The benefits of creating two independent databases are several, including improved functionality and the ability to maintain and upgrade the HR and student systems independently.

Separating HR and student data is no small task. We want to congratulate and thank the project team members and stakeholders who made time, on very short notice, to work through the options and recommend a workable plan that provides increased flexibility and reduced risk for the University. The plan was approved by the Integration Steering Committee at its meeting last Thursday and is a milestone: the first critical decision point for work on the project. We are officially underway!

For an overview of the database planning discussion, please see CedarCrestone’s presentation, available online. If you have questions or concerns about the split, the decision, or its impact on your work, please share them with your respective project managers, and we will do our best to answer them for you.

ESUP project leadership, change management, and communications teams are meeting regularly to plan the move to assigned project space in Williamson Hall and West Bank Office Building and an official kickoff event for the project. The targeted date for these spaces to be ready for occupancy is Monday, Oct. 1, and the project kickoff event is tentatively slated for the afternoon of Tuesday, Oct. 16. More details about space and kickoff planning will be available in next few weeks.

Thank you again for your great work!

Andy Hill, Program Director, University of Minnesota
Rebecca Collings, Program Director, CedarCrestone

Upgrade Coverage by the Minnesota Daily

Wednesday's edition of the Minnesota Daily included a front-page story on the Enterprise System Upgrade Project (ESUP), including comments from ESUP program director Andy Hill, Board of Regents chair Linda Cohen and William Dana, lead business analyst for Academic Support Resources.

The story's lead referred to the project as an upgrade of the Enterprise Financial System (EFS) software. EFS was actually upgraded four years ago and comprises a relatively small piece of the current $83.5 million project. The University's human resources and student services systems will undergo much more substantial transformations.