Frequently Asked Questions: Impacts of the Upgrade for Student systems

The Student workstream is maintaining an FAQ on the impacts of the Upgrade on Student systems. It covers questions related to registration, student account billing, financial aid, admissions, and more.

Some examples:

• When will the registration web application be turned off? 
• Will students be able to get copies of their transcripts? 
• When is the last time students can pay tuition and fees online? 
• Can students get/print copies of their 1098-T form during the cutover period? 
• When is the last disbursement date [for financial aid]? 
• How will the orientation sign-up process be affected by the cutover? 
• Will students still be admitted during the cutover? 
• When is the last time that staff can add or remove service indicators?

Read the entire FAQ.

Information is being updated with more details as they are known. Questions and answers will be added as needed. If you have a question not answered by the FAQ, send an email to upgrade@umn.edu. 

Changes to class registration dates

To accommodate the planned Upgrade cutover and Go Live periods in April, class registration timing is changing. Most registration periods will be held earlier than previously published (as noted below) to ensure students can successfully register for May, summer, and fall terms.

May/Summer	Fall
Crookston 3/23-4/2 queued registration 4/24 open enrollment Duluth 3/2 Morris 3/18 Rochester 3/9 Twin Cities 3/9 for degree-seeking students 5/1 open enrollment	Crookston 3/23-4/2 queued registration 4/24 open enrollment Duluth 3/16 Medicine & Pharmacy students 3/23-4/3 queued registration 4/23 open enrollment Morris 3/30-4/2 queued registration 4/23 open enrollment Rochester 3/23-4/4 queued registration (including evenings & weekends) 5/1 open enrollment Twin Cities 3/23-4/4 queued registration (including evenings & weekends) 5/1 open enrollment

There will also be a change to how the registration queue will be created:

• Stages will be defined based only on cumulative credit total (completed and in-progress credits) only. 
• Stage definition will differ by campus. Details will be published on respective campus websites soon. 
• Students will then be randomized within those stages.

This is how the queue will be created once the Upgrade is complete, but due to the positive feedback received regarding this change, we were able to implement it now. For Twin Cities and Rochester students only, registration appointment times will extend into the evenings and weekends to accommodate a shortened timeframe.

Due to the random assignment of registration appointments to students within each defined stage, previously available tables of appointment times by student name will not be published. Students will be able to look up their registration appointment time using the “Your registration time” application for their campus.

Undergraduate students should expect an email with their registration appointment time approximately two weeks prior to the start of queued registration on their campus. There will also be additional communications to students alerting them to these changes starting as early as February 9.

Save the date: Student Systems Preview Sessions

The Student work stream has announced the dates for its preview sessions--the first step for learning about training and maintaining access for the upgraded system. Save the date:

Crookston
Thursday, October 30, 2-3:30, Kiehle Auditorium
Friday, October 31, 8:30-10, Sargeant Student Center (formerly known as Bede)

Duluth

Thursday, October 23, 10-11:30, Kirby Student Center, Griggs Room
Thursday, October 23, 1-2:30, Kirby Student Center, Griggs Room

Morris

Monday, October 27, 11-noon, HFA, Studio A

Rochester

Tuesday, October 21, 9:30-10:30, University Square Bldg, Room 419

Tuesday, October 21, 1-2, University Square Bldg, Room 419

Twin Cities

Wednesday, October 1, 10:30-11:30, Peik Gym G55

Friday, October 3, 9-10, Rapson 54

Wednesday, October 8, 9-10, Nolte 140

Thursday, October 9, 2-3, CSOM 2-213

Wednesday, October 22, 2-3, McNeal 33

These sessions will paint the training picture for those needing to maintain access to the “campus solutions” area of PeopleSoft. Attendees will learn about required training and how to access other training resources. There will also be demonstrations of the new MyU, the new Faculty Center, the new Advisor Center, and key processes (e.g., permission numbers, service indicators, related content).

All those with current access to the student services system received an invitation on September 19 with more details.

While not required, the Student Records Training & Support Team highly recommends attendance for those with student systems access. The sessions will be highly informative and set the stage for the required training that will follow.

Q & A What is "Academic Advisement"?

Since ESUP announced the new Academic Advisement module in June 2013, that team has been hard at work reviewing and developing processes to support this new-to-the-University functionality for graduate programs. We asked them a few questions to learn what it’s all about and what it means for students, staff, and faculty. 

The Academic Advisement (AA) module in PeopleSoft is completely new to the University and the name seems a little confusing because it's not about advising students...can you explain a bit about what AA is?
 
Academic Advisement is just the name Oracle gave a set of functionality in PeopleSoft. It can do a lot of things, but right now the University is focused on using it to track the progress of graduate students completing their degree requirements.

Right now, that work is done mostly on paper, so this will be a big and positive change for graduate programs and students in them.

How will things change for students? Staff? Faculty?
 
As we mentioned, the current process for tracking degree requirements for graduate students is mostly paper-based. Until now, that’s actually been the most efficient way to track the complicated set of requirements for each student (e.g., majors, minors, tracks, policies, exceptions). There is already a system that handles this for undergraduate students (APAS), but it isn’t flexible enough to handle the sometimes very individual requirements graduate students have.

Moving to a more digital (and more automated) process will be a big change from the way students, staff, and faculty have done this in the past. The data will be more transparent to everyone involved, so students will have a better understanding of where they are in terms of their degree progress and what requirements they still need to fulfill. This should lead to better degree progress and more meaningful conversations between advisers and students seeking graduate degrees.

What have been the challenges up to this point?
 
Because graduate degree requirements are more varied than undergraduate degree requirements, the challenge has been in making sure we maximize the efficiencies technology can bring us while still being flexible enough to accommodate the wide variety of programs the University offers.

What has been a big win?
 
This has been a great opportunity to work really closely with representatives from colleges. The College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) has been a terrific partner in this process and has even agreed to be the pilot college for the Academic Advisement implementation. This is a big win because CEHD is one of the larger colleges with a wide variety of curriculum requirements across their graduate programs. The Academic Advisement team is therefore able to test many different student scenarios to ensure it works as planned.

What’s next for Academic Advisement?
 
We’re working on configuring the system to handle curriculum requirements and getting ready for the testing phase of ESUP. We’re also developing a post go-live schedule for bringing in the remaining colleges with graduate programs.

Sneak Peek: New Self-Service Centers in PeopleSoft 9.0

The ESUP Student work stream will be releasing several new self-service centers in PeopleSoft 9.0. The following short videos provide an overview on how these centers will benefit users. The ESUP Student Training Team will be developing more in-depth tutorials and documentation of this new functionality before ESUP goes live.

Advisor Center  

The Advisor Center will provide advisers access to real-time data on their advisees, including biographical and demographic data, academic information and more.

Faculty Center

The new Faculty Center will provide faculty (and their proxies) one centralized location for completing tasks associated with teaching classes.