Weekly Update for the Week of 2/25/2013

Participate in Portal's Design Thinking Workshops
The Portal work stream has partnered with Design Thinking @ College of Design to host eight Design Thinking workshops across the University system, including Morris, Rochester, and Duluth campuses, plus a recently added Crookston event. During the 3 hour workshop, participants move through a full design cycle to create prototypes in teams--nothing fancy, but very useful and a lot of fun. Paper, markers and stickers are involved! Workshops will build on the information generated from the Portal Project Kickoff. No experience necessary, but space is limited and registration is required. More information can be found on the Portal website: z.umn.edu/portal.

Upcoming Design Thinking workshops (more workshop dates available online):
Tuesday, March 5, 2013 9 a.m. - Noon
Twin Cities, Cherrywood Room - St. Paul Student Center - 2nd Floor
Friday, March 8, 2013 9 a.m. - Noon
Twin Cities, Mississippi Room - Coffman Memorial Union - 3rd Floor (321)


HRMS Preparing to Kick Off IDP Activities
The HRMS work stream will begin their Phase 2: Analyze and Design activities in March, with IDP sessions scheduled to start the week of March 11. In order to prepare for this next phase, a number of activities are underway. The work stream is continuing to research issues and opportunities that were raised during the validation sessions and preliminary prototypes for appointment data simplification, while the CCI consultants are developing schedules and preparing a prototyping database.

In addition, an IDP Orientation meeting is planned for the Functional Steering Committee, OHR Upgrade Group, Subject Matter Experts, and team members on February 27. A more detailed training session for team members and Subject Matter Experts will be held on March 6.


Reporting and Data Management launches Business Intelligence Assessment 
The Reporting and Data Management work stream worked with EDMR to complete the first set of BI Roadmap Discovery Sessions. Participants from across the University were involved and provided a good start to gathering information. Moving forward, the team will summarize and upload themes from the sessions, along with the slide deck from the presentation, later in the week at: z.umn.edu/reporting.

The group will continue to gather information through mid-March, and will continue to solicit input to deliver a comprehensive institutional BI roadmap. This roadmap will support the University’s goals to address data management and reporting needs across all campuses, including issues of data quality and integrity.

Your continued participation is welcomed and needed. Consider being in touch with us in one of these ways:

• Say yes when we ask to talk to you! As a result of the initial Discovery Sessions, we will be reaching out to groups and individuals across the system campuses.
• Give your input! EDMR has setup an email address to collect information. Email edmr@umn.edu to give additional thoughts and comments.  

Quick Hits and Reminders From Across the Work Streams

• Planning continues for the Finance work stream. Early-start Finance work groups continue to perform cooperative analyses with teams addressing HR and Student processes that feed transactions to the financial system.
• The Change Management, Communications and Training work stream is growing! They are hiring two strategic communicators and one communications technology associate. The positions should be on the University’s employment site tomorrow. Please help spread the word to anyone you feel would be a successful team member. 
• The Student work stream held their first town hall meeting for the student records module with more than 50 people in attendance. These meetings will be held on the second and fourth Friday of each month and will be used to identify and validate stakeholder requirements, collect input on proposed solutions, and provide a forum for the team to share information on project progress. More information and the first agenda can be found here.

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As ESUP progresses, you can expect more information to be shared more frequently on the ESUP blog. Get every post delivered to your inbox by entering your email address in the Subscribe by Email window at upgrade.umn.edu and following the instructions. Once your subscription is activated, you will receive an email alerting you to new ESUP posts late in the afternoon the day they are published. If there is no post, you receive no email -- simple as that!

Weekly Update for the Week of 2/18/2013

Student IDP Sessions Illustrate Scale of Change, Flexibility of Process

The Student work stream finished its second week of Interactive Design and Prototyping (IDP) sessions, and thus far, the process has proven to be flexible enough to address significantly different business needs of the different PeopleSoft modules.

During week one of IDP sessions, for example, the Student Records group began by mapping a high-level of all the SR business processes and then dove into the Course Catalog. Moving forward, they will focus on specific business processes, keeping in mind the big picture and the impact of changes downstream.

The Student Finance group, on the other hand, kicked off their IDPs by diving directly into a specific business process: the Self-Service functionality related to billing. The IDP methodology and deliverables will be the same from both groups; the difference is the tools and techniques used.

In the case of business processes that are self-contained, well-defined, or simply required by law, it may be possible to move through IDP more quickly -- and the methodology is flexible enough to accommodate the needs and work styles of the group and business process in question.

Identity Management (IdM) Presents Implementation Plan 

Arash Forouhari (UMN), project director for Identity Management, presented his implementation plan to ESUP’s Leadership Team last week. Forouhari outlined his vision for replacing the University’s X.500 environment with Oracle Identity Manager (OIM). The work stream analyzed in depth how both PeopleSoft and non-PeopleSoft data feeds integrate with IdM to provision users to downstream systems such as Active Directory or Gmail. 

Cross-functionality at work in IDP sessions

With Student IDP sessions officially underway, both Portal and Reporting team members have participated in a number of sessions, including Student Finance Self-Service and Student Records. Project directors William Dana (UMN) and Walter Terrell (CCI) were eager to reflect on the successful interactions in their first week. “It has been tremendously beneficial to have Reporting, Technology, and Portal participating in the IDP sessions,” Terrell said. 

Portal to Host Design Thinking Workshops

The Portal team is inviting participation from the University community to their design thinking workshops. The workshops build on what the team learned from the kickoff (kickoff summary document: z.umn.edu/portalkickoff).  In partnership with the College of Design, participants will cycle through a process of observation, brainstorming, synthesizing, prototyping, and evaluating towards the goal of identifying and ranking possible features and design elements for the new U of M portal. No experience necessary. 

The workshops will be held throughout the University system in March and April and will build on the information generated from the Portal Project Kickoff. The first workshop is March 5. More information and sign up will be available at z.umn.edu/portal on Wednesday.  Space is limited and registration is required.

Quick Hits and Reminders From Across the Work Streams

• The Application Development work stream is welcoming two new members to the Program this week. Stop by and say hello if you’re in 150 Williamson!
• The HRMS work stream has been busy preparing for their IDP sessions, which are slated to begin in March in WBOB. As a result, the HRMS team members are coordinating efforts to move their daily operations into WBOB.
• The Reporting and Data Management work stream will start their BI Roadmap Discovery sessions this week. These sessions are open to all, but people involved in data, reporting, and analysis may find the most benefit. Check the ESUP consolidated calendar for session times and locations (http://upgrade.umn.edu/p/calendar.html). In addition, the work stream continues to coordinate efforts with the Data and Reporting fCOP, which will begin in March.
• The Integration work stream will use the Data and Reporting fCoP as the official communication conduit for collecting information on UMN impacted application systems, disseminating information concerning data structure changes and tracking readiness for integration testing.
• The Change Management, Communications and Training work stream will engage participants within each work stream to assess potential changes that might impact faculty across the University system.

Subscribe to the ESUP Blog!

As ESUP progresses, you can expect more information to be shared more frequently on the ESUP blog. Get every post delivered to your inbox by entering your email address in the Subscribe by Email window at upgrade.umn.edu and following the instructions. Once your subscription is activated, you will receive an email alerting you to new ESUP posts late in the afternoon the day they are published. If there is no post, you receive no email -- simple as that! 

Weekly Update for the Week of 02/11/13

Images from the Portal Kickoff

Portal Kickoff Generates Statewide Buzz
With the Portal Project Kickoff now complete and the project moving forward, we are proud to report that there were over 420 attendees at seven system-wide locations, with every campus represented. The purpose of the event was to begin a University community conversation that could better shape the project direction, collect rich data, and develop a direction for next steps.  Some of the conversations took place via Twitter, which you can check out at #umnportal. A full report will be released next week.

The kickoff was a collaboration with the UMN Art of Hosting Conversations That Matter Community of Practice. This is the type of community investment that will be critical to the success of the portal. Stay connected at z.umn.edu/portal.

Change in Leadership for ESUP Communications
ESUP Program Director Andy Hill announced this week that Tricia Conway will lead program-wide communications for ESUP beginning Tuesday, Feb. 19. Conway has worked at the University since 2001, as an accountant, analyst, research center administrator, and communications professional. Jim Thorp, who has served as communications director for the program since last May, has taken a different communications role in the University’s Office of Human Resources. Thorp will continue to be engaged on ESUP in his new capacity by providing communications strategy and support for the HRMS work stream. His official last day on the program is Monday, Feb. 18.

Thorp and Conway have collaborated on internal program communications since last fall and will continue to work closely together to ensure a smooth transition. In her new role, Conway will lead strategic communications for ESUP and work with the University’s News Service on all ESUP-related media requests, in addition to other duties.

Quick Hits and Reminders From Across the Work Streams

• The HRMS work stream completed their Phase 1: Plan and Discover sessions last week, including sessions on the PeopleSoft Time and Labor and Absence Management modules, which the University does not currently use.  As a result of those discussions, the HRMS team is working on a request to move the implementation of Time and Labor and Absence Management earlier in the scope and timeline of the program.
• The Finance work stream is planning the Finance project kickoff and Phase 1: Plan and Discover activities, which are slated to begin this spring. 
• The Change Management, Communications and Training work stream is working on a strategic communications analysis to identify and create more targeted messages to ESUP’s diverse audience segments.
• The Portal work stream is looking ahead to Phase 1: Plan and Discover processes including Stakeholder Engagement and Design Thinking Workshops.

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As ESUP progresses, you can expect more information to be shared more frequently on the ESUP blog. Get every post delivered to your inbox by entering your email address in the Subscribe by Email window at upgrade.umn.edu and following the instructions. Once your subscription is activated, you will receive an email alerting you to new ESUP posts late in the afternoon the day they are published. If there is no post, you receive no email -- simple as that!

Weekly Update and Key Messages for the Week of 02/04/13

HRMS Work Stream Completes Phase 1: Plan & Discover Sessions
Last week’s Minnesota Daily article on ESUP made little mention of the HRMS work stream, which has completed all but one of its Phase 1: Plan & Discover sessions. During the course of Plan and Discover, HRMS conducted 67 fit-gap and fit-gap validation sessions, ranging from one to six hours each, for a total of 170 hours. In total, more than 100 people participated from across the University, delving into 55 major categories of business process, covering Human Resources, Payroll, Benefits, Time and Labor, Absence Management and Commitment Accounting.

The final HRMS fit-gap session for Time and Labor will be this held early this week. Phase 1 workbooks for all HRMS modules and business processes are at various stages of development and review in preparation for Phase 2: Analyze &  Design, which is scheduled to begin for HRMS in March.

Work Stream Renamed to Distinguish Between ESUP, EDMR
The reporting and data management aspects of ESUP will now go by the name Reporting and Data Management (often referenced as simply Reporting, although it’s more than that). The purpose of the name change is to distinguish this element of ESUP from the ongoing enterprise-wide data management and governance initiative at the University, known as EDMR (for Enterprise Data Management  and Reporting) The distinction is an important one, since the work of ESUP’s Reporting and Data Management work stream ends with the program, while EDMR will continue for the long term.  The ESUP Reporting and Data Management team will be working closely with the EDMR governance structure over the lifecycle of the program to ensure alignment with long-term University strategy.

Business Intelligence Assessment Launches This Week
Additional consultants from our implementation partner, CedarCrestone (CCI), will be on campus beginning this week through mid-March to help the University’s Analytics Collaborative and the Reporting and Data Management work stream assess current business intelligence (BI) work at the University.  “We need to do an assessment of where we are today and develop a roadmap on how we best move forward,” said Steve Gillard, Director of the University’s Analytics Collaborative. “We will be working with ESUP and the University community to review our existing business intelligence and data warehouse reporting capabilities and related needs.  We are starting this effort now in order to meet the milestones and work needed for the project, and we intend that the outcomes will also help to inform the newly forming Data and Reporting Strategies formal Community of Practice [fCoP].”

While much work has been done in the data and reporting space across the University, a number of questions remain.  Further, the University also wants to leverage and learn from the work to date by Finance, University Services, Office of Institutional Research (OIR), and Academic Support Resources (ASR) to advance the University’s enterprise data management and reporting strategy.

To help address the unmet needs in the data and reporting space a collaboration between ESUP, the fCoP on Data and Reporting and EDMR is needed.  Outstanding questions that such a collaboration can address range from identifying the technical architecture need to support the next general enterprise data warehouse to determining the needs for the next generation enterprise data warehouse.  The below list of bulleted items highlight the scope of this BI Assessment.

The outcome of this effort will be a BI Roadmap document that addresses the following:

• High-level business requirements
• Subject area identification and prioritization
• Security (authentication and authorization)
• Source system identification
• Implementation strategy, including roles and responsibilities, timelines and staffing plans
• Audience (end user profiles)
• Training needs assessment document
• Enterprise architecture document
• Technical architecture recommendations
• BI tools evaluation and recommendations

The tentative schedule for this BI assessment is as follows:

• Feb. 4  – Feb. 8:  Project planning and launch
• Feb. 11 – Feb. 15:  Discover Workshops – Current Reporting Capabilities Review
• Feb. 18 – March 1:  Current Technical Architecture Review
• Feb. 25 – March 15:  Discover Workshops – Future Reporting Requirements Capture
• March 11 – March 22:  Gap Analysis
• March 18 – March 30:  Roadmap document

The Reporting and Data Management team will continue to collaborate with the Student, HRMS, and Finance work streams, as appropriate, while the BI assessment and road map is underway. Watch for more information about specific date and locations to participate.

Quick Hits and Reminders From Across the Work Streams

• The Finance work stream launched its web site last week, with details on the upgrade strategy for Finance; management and governance, work group, and staffing information, frequently asked questions, and more. You can find it online at z.umn.edu/esupfinance. 
• The Student work stream begins Phase 2: Analyze & Design this week, with its first Interactive Design and Prototyping (IDP) session slated for Wednesday. 
• The Change Management, Communications and Training work stream will pilot a number of strategies and tools to provide support to the IDP process with the Student work stream in the coming weeks.
• The Portal work stream kickoff event is this afternoon (Monday, Feb. 4), with participants engaging in person and remotely from multiple locations on all five University of Minnesota campuses.
• The Identity Management and Security work stream has finished its Phase 1: Plan & Discover activities and is preparing to start development in mid-February.
• The remaining Technology and Testing work streams continue to meet with the business work streams to develop and refine their strategies.

Subscribe to the ESUP Blog!
As ESUP progresses, you can expect more information to be shared more frequently on the ESUP blog. Get every post delivered to your inbox by entering your email address in the Subscribe by Email window at upgrade.umn.edu and following the instructions. Once your subscription is activated, you will receive an email alerting you to new ESUP posts late in the afternoon the day they are published. If there is no post, you receive no email -- simple as that!