Weekly Update and Key Messages for the Week of 12/10/12

Please Welcome the Tech Team! 
As of this morning, the ESUP technology teams are officially moved into 150 Williamson. Please stop by and say hello -- they will be working in Williamson until the WBOB renovation is completed. 

Momentum Growing Across All Work Streams
Plan and Discover sessions for the Student and HRMS work streams continue at a brisk pace. Student has completed its Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) and Admissions sessions last week and is beginning to plan the Analyze and Design phase, which will launch in early 2013. HRMS is resuming its Benefits sessions following the close of open enrollment and will host two days of PeopleSoft demos on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. (See the ESUP Consolidated Calendar for details.)

The Finance work stream is preparing to launch three new work groups -- Accounts Payable, Billing, and Commitment Accounting -- and our e-Procurement vendor, SciQuest, is hosting its first user focus group this Thursday. Our two cross-functional work streams, Portal and Enterprise Data Management and Reporting (EDMR), continue to assemble their project teams and strategies in preparation for sessions beginning after the first of the year.

On the technology side of the program, the Identity Management and Security (IdM) work stream met with the University of Minnesota Foundation, Office of Information Technology IdM, and the ESUP Student and HRMS teams to discuss IdM requirements and integration points. These meetings will continue next week and include the Crookston, Duluth, Morris and Rochester campuses, as well as University Libraries and Google.

Finally, the ESUP leadership team also continues to develop. Please welcome Portal project director Sherwood Daniels, who will serve as Susan Geller’s counterpart from CedarCrestone (CCI), and Jacqueline (Jac) Campbell, project manager for metrics, who will be working to develop executive, internal and external metrics for ESUP.

ESUP Quality Review Process Begins This Week
As mentioned last week, CCI will conduct our first Program Quality Review to ensure that the appropriate leadership, structures, processes and documentation are in place for quality assurance. Vickie Cleary, a quality manager in CCI’s higher education practice, will be interviewing selected team members and surveying a larger group this week. Please understand that the purpose of this review is strictly quality assurance, so your honest feedback is requested and encouraged. If you are not contacted or surveyed, do not be concerned -- not everyone will be targeted in this or future quality reviews.

REMINDER: Stakeholder Assessment Survey Closes Tuesday
If you received an email invitation to take the ESUP Stakeholder Assessment Survey, please complete the survey by tomorrow, Tuesday, Dec. 11. We have had a strong response so far, but would like to hear from everyone targeted with this assessment! If you did not receive the survey, please keep in mind that this is only the first of many opportunities for users and stakeholders to engage with ESUP and make their opinions heard. If you would like to be included in future assessments, please email esup@umn.edu.

ESUP Expanding Across the U System
Following a successful kickoff event at the University of Minnesota Duluth and conversations and visits to the other University campuses, we are strengthening connections and scheduling forums at the University of Minnesota Rochester next week, and in Crookston and Morris in early 2013.

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.