HRMS completes design phase; development and testing underway

The HRMS work stream wrapped up Phase 2: Analyze & Design activities at the end of January with the completion of design and documentation for the HR, Payroll Accounting, and Time & Labor modules. While the design phase for these three modules took longer than expected, HRMS project director Kris Hause said that development and testing work is already underway where possible.

“Our project team, subject matter experts, and stakeholders have done amazing work over the past year to redesign and simplify our business processes and reduce system modifications,” Hause said. “We refer to this project as an upgrade, but in truth, we are re-implementing our HRMS system in most areas. The design work has been significant, but in many areas, we’ve started application development and are preparing to test our designs. It’s exciting to turn this corner and look ahead toward a successful implementation.”

With system design completed, the HRMS work stream will be putting additional emphasis on communications, training and change management activities in the coming months. Audience-specific training courses and materials are being developed this spring, with registration tentatively slated for late April for courses to be delivered this summer. System users can expect online and print materials to be available at system implementation, as well.

Vice President for the Office of Human Resources Kathy Brown and Director of HR Operations Lori Lamb expressed their appreciation for the efforts and collaboration of everyone involved in the HRMS project to date.

“So many people have worked hard to get us to this point, and they deserve our recognition and thanks,” said Brown. “We still have a lot of work to do over the next year—but we should all take a moment to celebrate this milestone. You’ve done a great job, and our HR enterprise will be stronger because of your efforts.”

“I’ve said it before: the level of collaboration—both within HRMS and between HRMS and other work streams—has been outstanding,” Lamb said. “That in itself is a big win for the University.”

Three weeks later with Dennis Wenzel

Dennis Wenzel

Tricia Conway (TC): It’s been three weeks since Dennis Wenzel joined the ESUP team as the new Program Director. If you missed our first Q&A with Dennis, you can read it here. Now that he has his bearings, we asked Dennis to give us his impressions. We asked what challenges he believes ESUP faces and what he’s looking forward to between now and October 2014. 

Dennis Wenzel (DW): This has been a whirlwind three weeks. People have been very welcoming and have done a great job training 'the new guy.' 

The Program is going strong and people are doing great work. I have been most impressed by the commitment and passion of the team; people are truly committed to making ESUP a success. I also get the sense this team wants ESUP to be different--to change the way the University communicates, collaborates, and works together. It is encouraging to see so much cooperation across the University. 

Moving forward, I would like to turn my attentions to preparing the team for implementation. The Program is at a point where we can start focusing on planning for deployment. I hope to bring my experience deploying many large systems to the team. There is a lot of work to do to prepare for a smooth go live--from testing, to infrastructure set up; partnering interfaces to old system conversions and retirement; and communications, training, and sustainability. There is a lot to do, but there is a great team to do the work!

(TC): Thanks, Dennis! If you haven’t met Dennis, please join us at the next Meet n’ Greet on Monday, Oct 7 from 10 - 11 AM in 140 Nolte. Dean Elde, chair of the Executive Oversight Committee, and Dennis will answer questions submitted via our anonymous Google form. Light refreshments will be served. Please join us! 

ESUP Update 8/12/13 - 8/26/13

Portal team holds rapid prototype usability evaluation
Last week, members of the portal team piled into the Usability Lab at Walter Library to evaluate the first paper prototype of the new U of M portal. Users explored a paper rendering of how the portal might be organized and gave feedback to help design future versions. Click here for more information.

UMContent to Drupal: What will it mean?
One of the changes coming with the new portal will be the way content providers at the University manage their web content. The initial focus of the Drupal project is to move systems off of the current UMContent system, provided by the Office of Information Technology. Click here to read more about Drupal and the new portal.

ESUP Video: Single Sign On (SSO)
Arash Forouhari, ESUP project director for Identity Management (IdM), explains the current state of single sign-on (SSO) at the University and what will change. Click on the link to watch the video!

ESUP Change Management continues outreach
The ESUP Change Management team continues working its broad engagement plan.  Each work stream is striving to expand direct contact with relevant stakeholders during Phase 2: Analyze and Design. Click here to read more.


Quick hits and reminders from across the work streams

• The Executive Oversight Committee has made a change to ESUP’s organizational structure. In a memo sent to team members on Friday, Dean Robert Elde, EOC chair, lauded the Program for its “steady and remarkable progress since its launch in October 2012”, and announced a search for a Program Director to oversee both the University’s program team and the Cedar Crestone consultants as the Program enters the next phase of testing and implementation. 
• Great news for ESUP! Identity Management’s (IdM) contract with PricewaterhouseCoopers was approved, as was Testing’s contract with HP Quality Center. Stay tuned to the blog for more information on these approvals. Congrats!
• The Integration web page has been updated to include the most current versions of the Application System Survey Contacts List, the Consolidated Application List, the Data Warehouse Mapping example, and the PeopleSoft Mapping example. These documents were shown at the July 29, IDEAA meeting.

Subscribe to the ESUP Blog!
Get each new blog 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 April 8, 2013

First ESUP business processes approved
Last week, the Executive Oversight Committee provided final approval on team recommendations on nine business processes from the Student work stream. The first was the process that students use to view their account details online (Student Finance module). This process is changing from a home-grown application to PeopleSoft delivered functionality. The other eight processes were Student Records processes (PCAS, APLUS, APAS, Graduation Planner, Education Abroad System, Athlete Certification System, Min/Max Credit Adjustments, and the Degree clearance process). These custom processes will be brought forward with a technical upgrade based on the recommendation of Oracle, CCI, and the project team.

ESUP on campus
ESUP has been busy this spring meeting with governing groups and visiting the system campuses. Assistant program director Santiago Fernandez-Gimenez presented an ESUP overview at the Financial Systems User Network (FSUN) on Thursday, followed by Rob Super, Finance Functional Steering Committee Chair, working group representatives, and Finance project director Dan Hemauer, who provided more specifics on the Financial project goals. All presentations can be found online at the FSUN website.

Following their presentation a few weeks ago to the Faculty Consultative Committee, Program director Andy Hill and Portal’s Julie Selander took their joint presentation to the P&A Senate meeting last Friday. Portal project director Susan Geller will head to the Rochester campus on Tuesday to host a Design Thinking workshop, and ESUP members are heading west to visit the Morris and Crookston campuses in the coming weeks. If you would like ESUP to present to your campus, department, academic unit, or professional organization, please contact Tricia Conway at conwa012@umn.edu.

Technical resources for ESUP team members
Are you working on ESUP and having trouble with your internet connection? Need help troubleshooting Google apps? If you’re experiencing trouble with your computer, please open a service ticket by calling 1-HELP (1-4357; system campuses please dial 612-301-4357) or by sending an email to help@umn.edu. Reference “ESUP” in the body of your email or to the person on the phone so your request is routed to the appropriate people.

Quick hits and reminders from across the work streams

• The Integration work stream launched an applications inventory survey to IT Directors across campus. The survey will remain live until April 19, 2013. For more information or to add your application to the inventory document, please visit: http://upgrade.umn.edu/p/integration.html and follow the directions.
• The Student work stream will hold a Student Records Town Hall meeting Friday, April 12th. Topics include the registration appointment queue, including a demo of what the student will see in self-service. More information can be found on the Student Records Stakeholder Engagement webpage.
• The Portal work stream continues to push for University-wide engagement by hosting four more Design-thinking workshops, holding listening sessions, and scheduling targeted one-on-one stakeholder interviews. For more information or for a look at the updated Portal work stream timeline, visit z.umn.edu/portal. 
• The Test work stream continues to meet with project directors to discuss the testing strategy and is beginning to develop ESUP’s test communications plan.
• Both the Technology and Reporting and Data Management work streams continue to be actively involved with the IDP process and are meeting with teams as needed.
• Project director Kris Hause was pleased to report the HRMS work stream completed their first IDP sessions, covering Creating a Person/Persons of Interest.

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 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!

Key Messages for the Week of 10/29/12

• Following the ESUP Kickoff on Oct. 16, we are hearing lots of stakeholder interest in learning more about and engaging in the upgrade program.
• We definitely want broad engagement from stakeholders and users from all UMN campuses and units.
• We will provide multiple opportunities to get involved in the coming months, including Interactive Design Prototyping (IDP) sessions, focus groups, “town halls,” and more.
• We are committed to sharing plans, schedules and opportunities to engage as they are finalized.
• To help ensure that you receive information about these opportunities, please email esup@umn.edu and ask to be included on future ESUP stakeholder communications. 

• It’s important to remember that we just kicked off the Plan and Discover phase.
• This phase reaffirms and builds upon our preliminary fit-gap analyses and planning and will set the scope and schedule for ESUP going forward.
• At the end of Plan and Discover, we should be able to share a more definitive ESUP timeline. 
• The dates for important milestones and “go-live” have not been set.
• Please rest assured that we will work closely with the work streams to minimize disruption to mission-critical activities.

• Finance has made significant progress on e-Procurement.
• A contract with SciQuest has been approved.
• We are in the process of defining requirements and reviewing vendors.
• SciQuest will be coming into town for the initial eProcurement kickoff on Nov. 13

• In the Student work stream, the Campus Community Fit-Gap Verification sessions are underway, and active participation by session attendees is providing key information about current UMN business processes.

• Our ESUP leadership team continues to grow -- when you have the chance, please introduce yourselves to the two newest ESUP project directors:
• Testing Project Director: Alex Ryan (UMN)
• Enterprise Data Management and Reporting (EDMR) Project Director: Jennifer McCord (CCI’s counterpart to Amy Winkel; arriving Nov. 5)

• Finally, we are working intentionally to connect ESUP team members and stakeholders with each other and the information they need to make this project a success.
• The entire ESUP project team should have access to our online document repository, the structure of which is summarized here:
• This will be the home of all ESUP documentation, including meeting and session agendas and minutes; planning documents; and status reports.
• If you are on the project team and cannot access the repository, please let your project director know.
• The ESUP blog, online at upgrade.umn.edu, will continue to expand to include a glossary of ESUP terms and acronyms, a calendar listing upcoming sessions and forums for interested stakeholders, and more.
• We are also in the process of establishing ESUP Google Groups to help target our communications appropriately to the ESUP team, work stream teams, ESUP governance groups, and other audiences.