We have changed the title of our project to Student Services Transformation to signal a new phase in this UB2020 initiative: the implementation of PeopleSoft's student information system, Campus Solutions.

The project team continues to finalize all the details pertaining to the implementation and will update the campus community in the very near future.

The Student Systems Assessment project team is currently laying the groundwork to move forward with the PeopleSoft’s student information system, Campus Solutions.

We are currently laying the groundwork to move forward with the PeopleSoft’s student information system, Campus Solutions. The project management team and the executive steering committee are working to establish resources for the project, identify a systems integration firm, and finalize contracts for software and services. We are also defining our project’s scope and desired outcomes. These activities are time consuming, and we expect that negotiations will take much of the spring semester. The project management team will be soliciting internal feedback throughout this process, and we hope to provide you with a project update later in the semester. As always, we are open to your suggestions and concerns about the project.

Reaching a major milestone of the project, Oracle PeopleSoft has officially been selected as the software vendor for the project and contract negotiations are being pursued.

Student systems software decision reached. Once again, we would like extend our thanks to all who have invested time and effort in the Student Systems Assessment project. The collaborative effort of many constituencies from across campus has been invaluable in helping us to determine the best student systems software solution for UB.

The Project Team and Executive Steering Committee reviewed the results of UB's evaluation activities and recommended that we move forward with contract negotiations with Oracle PeopleSoft. The Executive Steering Committee unanimously accepted this recommendation based on a number of factors, including the functionality within the software, the large, supportive community of peer institutions currently running PeopleSoft, and the coherence of Oracle PeopleSoft's direction and vision with our own. A transition from our current systems to Oracle PeopleSoft will allow us to integrate our many, often duplicative, systems, creating an effective infrastructure with the flexibility, efficiency and capacity that UB needs to realize our vision for the future. The Student Systems Transformation Executive Co-Sponsors, Executive Vice President James Willis and Provost Satish Tripathi, announced this decision to Vice Presidents, Vice Provosts, and Deans this week.

Potential implementation partners. Now that we have decided to move forward with PeopleSoft, the Project Team and Executive Steering Committee are evaluating the proposals that we received from two PeopleSoft systems integration firms, CedarCrestone and CIBER. The role of a systems integration firm is to partner with UB in implementing the new software, helping us to determine how we want to improve on our current policies, procedures, and services, to understand how PeopleSoft can best meet our needs, and to conduct implementation activities, such as data conversion, configuration of the system, and going live with PeopleSoft applications.

CedarCrestone and CIBER are among the top PeopleSoft integrators, so our choices for an integration firm are excellent. Both have worked at research institutions across the country on these types of projects, and their expertise will be crucial for our project's success. The Project Team is engaging in meetings with the companies, discussions with colleagues at peer institutions, and thorough reviews of the firms' proposals in order to evaluate them on several factors, including demonstrated company expertise, viability of the proposed solution, quality and adequacy of response, and cost.

Laying the groundwork. The Project Team is also putting into action much of what we've learned during our process workshops, survey of the campus, and conversations with colleagues at peer institutions. We now know what many at UB envision for the new system, and we are aware of some of the obstacles that other universities have overcome to realize their own visions for student systems solutions. We're working to ensure that UB does what we can to achieve the successes and to avoid the difficulties that others have encountered. For example, we know that a successful project needs a strong governance structure and dedicated staff, so we're exploring governance models that others have used and investigating ways of staffing this important project. We're also discussing policies and procedures which should be created or revised prior to the start of implementation so that we can have those in place and be able to focus our efforts on implementation itself.

We hope you share in our excitement about the benefits that Oracle PeopleSoft can bring to UB. We're looking forward to continued engagement with the campus as we proceed with implementation planning.

Thank you to all who participated in our student systems vendor demonstrations. The presentations were very well attended, and a great deal of feedback was received. Overall, the visits helped us to understand the functionality, technology, and navigability of our student systems software options. The comments that attendees provided on their evaluation forms have been invaluable as the Project Team wraps up its software evaluation activities, and we expect that the feedback will continue to be useful as we develop specific implementation plans.

The Project Team and Executive Steering Committee are currently finalizing our evaluation of the software vendors, and we hope to reach a decision and share it with the campus soon.

In the mean time, the Project Team is also working to lay the groundwork for a successful implementation. We are engaged in a number of activities, including: reviewing the responses that we received to our RFP for integration firms; conducting more in-depth conference calls and site visits with peer institutions; developing a governance structure for implementation; and investigating policies and procedures which must be created or revised prior to the start of implementation.

Thank you again for your participation in and support of the Student Systems Transformation project.

Thank you to all who have participated in the SunGard Banner and SAP vendor demonstrations. Both visits have helped us to understand the functionality, technology, and navigability of their student systems software. Our final presentation, from Oracle PeopleSoft, will be next week.

If you attended, please provide us with your feedback . | Survey Directions  (835 KB).

Oracle PeopleSoft Demonstrations October 1-3. The schedule for the upcoming Oracle PeopleSoft demonstrations is as follows:

The scripts for the demonstrations and information about evaluating the demonstrations are available on our Web site.

We hope you'll join us to see these software systems in action!

Last week's SunGard Banner demonstrations provided us with a great deal of insight into the functionality of their student systems software. Thanks to all who attended! If you attended please provide us with your feedback . | Survey Directions  (835 KB).

SAP Demonstrations this week. The schedule for this week's SAP demonstrations is as follows:

The scripts for the demonstrations and information about evaluating the demonstrations are available on our Web site.

We hope you'll join us to see these software systems in action!

Vendor demonstration scripts posted. Oracle's PeopleSoft, SAP, and SunGard's Banner are coming to campus over the next 3 weeks to demonstrate their products in detail. Anyone from campus who is interested in attending the demonstrations is invited to attend and to provide their feedback. We’ve provided each vendor with the same demonstration scripts that they will follow. Since all of the vendors now have received the scripts, we have posted them online for your information. They're available on our Web site as “Software Vendor Demonstration Scripts.” Information about evaluating the demonstrations will also soon be posted.

SunGard Banner Demonstrations this week. The schedule for this week's SunGard Banner demonstrations is as follows:

We hope you'll join us to see these software systems in action!

Updated Vendor Demonstration Schedule. The student systems software vendors that responded to our RFI will be coming to campus to give detailed demonstrations of their software. Anyone from campus who is interested in attending the demonstrations is invited to attend and to provide their feedback. We hope you'll join us!

The schedule is as follows:

• SunGard Banner
  • September 18-20
    • 120 Clemens on 18th-19th
    • 330 Student Union on 20th
• SAP
  • September 25-27
    • 120 Clemens
• Oracle PeopleSoft
  • October 1-3
    • Location to be determined for 1st
    • 120 Clemens on 2nd-3rd

Each vendor will be asked to demonstrate the same scripted scenarios. If you would like details on these scenarios, please contact Kara Saunders. The topics to be covered are as follows:

Our RFP for student systems integration has hit the streets. When campuses implement new student systems, they can't do it all on their own, and they typically hire integration firms to help them with the complexities of implementation. The prior experience and expertise of these firms will assist us in developing and executing a timeline, an organizational structure, and a detailed project plan for implementing the software that we choose. Our Request for Proposals (RFP) asking firms for their recommended implementation plans and pricing was released last week, and we're expecting proposals to come in by the end of the month.

Software vendor responses are on their way. Today is the due date for responses to our software RFI. As soon as we open up their packages, our evaluation will begin. Project Team members and Subject Matter Experts who have been identified by the Project Team will be reviewing the vendor responses for information related to our evaluation criteria, which include the following: ability to meet user needs; ability to provide support; demonstrated expertise; economic costs & benefits; quality and adequacy of response; and technical issues.

Our evaluation activities include thorough review of the vendor written responses, evaluation of how the vendors can meet our functional and technical requirements, demonstrations (see below), oral interviews with the Project Team, and references from peer institutions.

The vendors are coming to town. SAVE THE DATES! The student systems software vendors that responded to our RFI will be coming to campus to give detailed demonstrations of their software. Anyone from campus who is interested in attending the demonstrations is invited to attend and to provide their feedback. We hope you will join us!

The current schedule is as follows:
Vendor A September 11-13 120 Clemens
Vendor B September 18-20
120 Clemens on 18th-19th; 330 Student Union on 20th
Vendor C September 25-27 120 Clemens

Each vendor will be asked to demonstrate the same scripted scenarios. The scenarios will be distributed to the campus when they are finalized next week, as will a final, detailed schedule including which vendor will be presenting on which dates. We are currently operating with the following rough, basic schedule. Please note that this schedule may change.

Tuesday morning: Admissions and Recruitment
Tuesday afternoon: Records and Registration
Wednesday morning: Records and Registration (continued), Advising
Wednesday afternoon: Student Finances and Accounts
Thursday morning: Finances and Accounts (continued), Reporting, International, Workflow, Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Kara Saunders, project leader and Assistant Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education, along with her team, has made great strides with all aspects of the Student Systems Assessment project. The teams’ efforts and progress are obvious when you look at the website contents, particularly in the documents area. “A number of workshops have provided very useful documentation for the RFI process,” Kara stated, “and over 350 people responded to the survey.” The survey data is the basis of the evaluation model, which is currently being developed. A lot of great information has been gathered from recent visits to and interviews with peer institutions. Kara described the anticipated timeline leading up to the team’s recommendation to the Executive Steering Committee in October.

Now it's the vendors' turn. Many of us at UB have been hard at work with our workshops and Decision Director survey, and now that we've gained an understanding of our business processes and our functional requirements for the new student system, we have used that information as a basis for the Request for Information (RFI) that was released on July 30, 2007 to three major software vendors (Oracle, Sungard, and SAP). The RFI asks for information about the vendor, technical information about the software, details about how they can meet over 3,000 of UB's functional requirements, and pricing for the final solution. Vendor responses to the RFI are due to UB Procurement by Friday, August 24, 2007.

Please note: During the RFI process (until UB has chosen a software solution and systems integration firm), representatives from the vendors should NOT be speaking with UB students, faculty, and staff. If a vendor representative contacts you, please ask him or her to contact UB's Project Manager, Kara Saunders by e-mail or by phone at (716) 645-6003. This is an important aspect of New York State purchasing rules and regulations.

UB's Project Team can't just sit back and relax. Even though the vendors are now going to be busy responding to our RFI, that doesn't mean that the Student Systems Transformation Project Team can take some time off. We'll be spending the coming weeks working on the Request for Proposals (RFP) that we will send to student systems integration firms (the consultants that will help us implement the chosen software), developing evaluation models for the RFI and RFP, and finalizing plans for detailed vendor demonstrations that will be happening on campus in September.

Why go through this process? Hasn't UB already made a decision about the vendor we will use? This is one of the concerns that we've heard over the last few weeks. In actuality, Oracle's PeopleSoft, SunGard's Banner, and SAP Campus Management are all on New York State contract, so they are all options available to us, and we have yet to determine which vendor we will use. Our selection process is based on a best practice used at many higher education institutions. Our research, including discussions with colleagues at our peer institutions, has revealed that successful implementation projects are based on campus-wide collaboration with three goals:

• To gain a thorough understanding of the institution's policies, processes, and improvement opportunities;
• To develop functional requirements specific to the institution; and
• To conduct a fit/gap analysis of how each vendor meets or fails to meet each of those requirements.

This is the process that we're going through, and keeping an open mind about which vendor we will ultimately choose is crucial to ensuring that we find the student systems solution that is the best fit for UB.

Charlie Moran, Partner of Moran Technology Associates and Consultant to the SSA project,  introduced himself by saying , “We've been hired to help UB select a new student system.  We've done an IT Readiness Assessment to see where we're ready and where we need to make improvements.  In the meantime, there won't be any improvements made to existing systems.”   He proceeded to update the audience on the key issues of the IT Readiness Assessment for the SSA project, focusing on the outcomes.  He complimented the presentations of the previous teams in that UB is on the next curve “understanding the correct questions to address to move forward. Other campuses are experiencing the same issues, but don't know what to ask.”

The presentation slides offer a great deal of detail.  In brief, the presentation outlines:

• The details of the focus and the approach of the assessment which is not intended to be a comprehensive cross-university or CIT IT assessment
• Who exactly are the participating stakeholders
• High-level assessment themes and most re-occurring and pressing concerns:
  • resources (people),
  • understanding the full catalog of IT projects,
  • improvement of cross-CIT communications,
  • an imperative for project management skill development,
  • the need for a  CIT Change Management/Control Board,
  • and, similar to SITSD vision, clearly designed customer service/end-user support

Readers are encourage to review the presentation content directly.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!  We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all of you who participated in the Student Systems Assessment Decision Director survey.  We know it’s an extensive survey, and we appreciate the time you dedicated to it.  The response was truly overwhelming, with UB setting some records with the survey company! Over 350 people logged on and completed a total of approximately 90,000 individual item responses.  Your involvement shows how important this project is to UB, and ensures that the needs of the entire UB community will be considered as we move forward.

In the coming weeks, the Project Leads and Project Team will analyze the survey results and use them to prepare the Request for Information that we will distribute to student information system vendors.  We will share results of the survey with you in a future update.

In an effort to ensure that faculty have an adequate amount of time to access and complete the survey, the faculty forum will remain open until summer Web Grading closes on August 17, 2007.  If you have access to the faculty forum and have not yet given us your input, please do so before August 17.  Although future faculty responses won’t be used to inform our immediate next steps, they will continue to be gathered and analyzed as they are received.

Guiding Principles and Decision Making Framework – As part of the Student Systems Assessment phase of our project, the Executive Steering Committee and Project Team have worked with the UB community to develop Guiding Principles that will serve as the foundation of our student system selection and implementation.  We have also developed a Decision Making Framework that outlines the decision making process that will be followed throughout the project.  The Guiding Principles and Decision Making Framework have been finalized and are posted on our Web site at: Overview.  Please review these important items and contact us with any questions or comments that you may have.

Over the past few weeks, the Student Systems Assessment functional groups have been working hard to explore our business processes and document the requirements that we have for the new student system. We have translated these requirements into items in a survey tool called Decision Director. We are opening this survey to the UB community so that you can tell us which functionalities you think are most important and you can share your ideas and thoughts on system requirements that we may have missed.

The survey will contain needed and desired functionalities for recruitment and admissions, course catalog and scheduling, grading, records and registration, advising, degree audit, financial aid, student accounts, student affairs (such as career services, extracurricular activities, and housing), reporting (Infosource) and self-service portal (MyUB). You will be able to look at any or all of the items, indicate how important you think that the requirement is, and tell us whether or not the current systems have that functionality. Once we receive feedback from the university community, these requirements will be circulated to student systems vendors so that they can tell us whether their systems can meet our requirements and how they can do so.

We would like to invite all UB faculty and staff to complete the portions of the survey in which they are interested. Your valuable input will help us to evaluate the systems and choose that which best meets our needs. To sign up for the survey, please complete the on-line registration form at https://www.decisiondirector.com/survey/TakeSurvey.aspx?PageNumber=1&SurveyID=88KH856  (Please note that if you have already received an email indicated that you have been registered, you do not need to complete the on-line registration form).

The Decision Director survey will be open to the UB community from Monday, June 25th until Friday, July 6th. In addition to printed materials that will be provided, we will be holding training sessions on the use of Decision Director, followed by open working sessions where you can work on completing the survey, discuss requirements with your colleagues who are present, and ask questions of the Project Managers. The sessions will be held at the following times in 201 Capen Hall:

• Monday, June 25 - Training from 1-2 pm, Open Working Session from 2-4 pm
• Tuesday, June 26 - Training from 9-10 am, Open Working Session from 10 am -12 pm

Moran Technology Consulting is wrapping up the Transformation Strategy Development and High-Level IT Assessment steps of the project, where guiding principles and a communications plan are being developed, and potential risks facing assessment and implementation have been further explored. The results of the Change Readiness Assessment were presented at an open meeting on May 11. The PowerPoint presentation, including draft Guiding Principles for the project, is available to download  (756 KB). Your thoughts and comments on the presentation are welcome and can be directed to vpue@buffalo.edu.

Much of the team's energy (and the energy of many UB staff members) has been dedicated to the business process review, with many taking part in workshops on Admissions, Financial Aid and Scholarships, Portal (MyUB), Records and Registration, Student Accounts, Student Affairs, Academic Advising, Data Warehouse, Reporting, and Professional School concerns. Participation in these workshops has been excellent, with active involvement from constituencies across the campus. These workshops assist in the understanding of current business processes, identify opportunities for improvement, and develop requirements for the new student systems.

This week will begin a series of follow-up workshops with each of the functional areas. These workshops are to review and edit the documentation that Moran Technology Consulting developed from the first series of workshops. Although it is not possible to invite the entire campus to the workshop sessions, your feedback on these documents is welcome. The drafts are available in the Project Documents Index. Please review any of the topics that are of interest to you, and provide us with your feedback by Friday, June 8. Feedback can be sent to Kara Saunders, Student Systems Assessment Project Manager, at kcs23@buffalo.edu or 645-6003.

Conversations are also taking place with peer institutions who have recently converted to using new student systems such as SunGard's Banner, Oracle's PeopleSoft, and SAP's student information system. A great deal is being learned about the vendors, as well as the complexities of software implementation through these conversations.

Moran Technology Consulting is wrapping up the Transformation Strategy Development and High-Level IT Assessment steps of the project, where guiding principles and a communications plan are being developed, and potential risks facing assessment and implementation have been further explored. The results of the Change Readiness Assessment were presented at an open meeting on May 11. Download the PowerPoint presentation  (756 KB) including draft Guiding Principles for the project. Your thoughts and comments on the presentation are welcome, and can be directed to vpue@buffalo.edu.

Much of the team's energy (and the energy of many UB staff members) has been dedicated to the business process review, with many individuals taking part in workshops on Admissions, Financial Aid and Scholarships, Portal (MyUB), Records and Registration, Student Accounts, Student Affairs, and Academic Advising. Participation in these workshops has been excellent, with active involvement from constituencies across the campus. These workshops help in the understanding of current business processes, identification of opportunities for improvement, and development of requirements for the new student system. Once the documentation from these workshops has been finalized, it will be posted to the Student Systems Assessment Web site.

Conversations have taken place with peer institutions who have recently converted to using new student systems such as SunGard's Banner, Oracle's PeopleSoft, and SAP's student information system. A great deal is being learned about the vendors, as well as the complexities of software implementation through these conversations.

This week will wrap up the first round of workshops with discussions on Data Warehouse, Professional School concerns, and Reporting and Compliance. Next week will begin a series of follow-up workshops in each of the functional areas.

The Executive Steering Committee and Project Team had successful kick-off meetings where they finalized the project plan, discussed critical success factors, and identified risks to the project.

Vendor Preview demonstrations were successful, with good attendance at the North and South Campuses. These demonstrations helped clarify what today's student systems have to offer and generated a great deal of excitement and conversation. If you missed the preview demonstrations, stay tuned for more detailed demonstrations in August/September.

Last week, Moran Technology Consulting began the Transformation Strategy Development and High-Level IT Assessment steps of the process, where guiding principles and a communications plan will be developed, and potential risks facing assessment and implementation will be further explored. The results of the Change Readiness Assessment will be held at an open meeting on Friday, May 11 from 9:00-10:00 in 330 Student Union. If you would like to join us for this presentation, please RSVP to vpue@buffalo.edu.

This week, the business process review began, with workshops on Admissions, Financial Aid and Scholarships, Portal (MyUB), Records and Registration, and Student Accounts. These workshops facilitate better understanding of current business processes, identify opportunities for improvement, and develop requirements for the new student system.

Approximately 100 campus information technologists turned out for the UB2020 IT Strategic Transformation Town Hall on May 4, 2007.

Kara Saunders, phase 1 project manager of the Student Systems Assessment, provided an update and summary of the project scope by explaining that this project encompasses all of the IT systems that support the academic activities and service needs of UB students. Saunders provided a background to the project including the rationale. For detailed information, read more about the System Systems Assessment project.

Moran, the consulting firm that has been hired to assist in selecting a vendor and laying the groundwork for a successful implementation, is helping to figure out what the problems and obstacles are and how they can be addressed.

The processes of understanding our culture and readiness for change will be done by conducting focus groups and interviews with individuals in IT and functional areas. The processes will then streamline with a series of ongoing workshops, and the development of system requirements from these workshops.

Once the workshops reveal the requirements, they will be entered into a product called Decision Director, which has survey functionality. This will give the entire campus the opportunity to comment and provide feedback. The requirements will be further refined from there. Once finalized, student systems vendors will have the opportunity to tell us how their systems meet, fail to meet, or can be modified to meet our requirements. This information will be crucial in the decision making process.

Active engagement of the UB community is critical to the success of the Student Systems Assessment Project. Your first opportunity to participate and provide feedback will be to attend one or all of our Vendor Preview Demonstrations will take place on Wednesday, May 2nd.

Oracle in 225 Natural Sciences Complex (North Campus)
Sunguard in 147 Diefendorf Hall (South Campus)

Sunguard in 225 Natural Sciences Complex (North Campus)
SAP in 147 Diefendorf Hall (South Campus)

SAP in 225 Natural Sciences Complex (North Campus)
Oracle in 147 Diefendorf Hall (South Campus)

We will be providing the UB community with reports and updates for this project on this Web site. In addition, more information will be provided at a later date regarding two additional opportunities to provide feedback:

• Student Systems Requirement Survey – end of June/beginning of July
• Detailed Vendor Demonstrations – September

Take the opportunity to provide your input for the development of a new student system! Stay abreast of opportunities for engagement by registering for our listserv. Also, feel free to send your questions, comments, and concerns to Kara Saunders, Assistant Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education and UB’s Project Manager, at kcs23@buffalo.edu or 645-6003.