LASER Steering Committee Meeting

LASER Steering Committee Meeting Thursday, September 23, 2004 1:30pm Anderson 116

*DRAFT PREPARED BY: Aimee Hagedorn *REVISIONS BY: Viki Horan

Attending Diana Blake, Al Cochran, Jennifer Gehrt, Rebecca Gould, James Guikema, Dave Hillier, Jim Koelliker, Gary Leitnaker, Monty Nielsen, Bruce Shubert, Betty Stevens, John Streeter, Matt Thornton (via conference call), Harvard Townsend, Lloyd Walker, Fran Willbrant

Absent Larry Moeder, Keith Ratzloff, John Struve, Beth Unger, Wayne Usry

Approval of minutes Diane Blake submitted an additional statement to the OFA update section via email. The July minutes were approved with no additional changes.

Desktop recommendations The desktop recommendations for the Oracle student and Oracle financials applications were announced this month on the LASER website and InfoTech Tuesday. The recommendations were approved by CNS, LAN Tech, and iTAC, and are based on the guidelines for buying a computer for K-State students. The LASER desktop recommendations will be updated as needed through the course of the implementation.

OSS update The OSS team is working towards implementing the Advanced Recruitment functionality in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) product as the first Oracle application to go live with the LASER project. The team is determining how best to implement the module, as well as developing the associated project plan. It is hoped that this will be clarified by mid-October.

The Admissions team is meeting weekly via conference call with the Oracle development team in Australia to design the Qualified Admissions functionality, as well as the standard test service files import, with the ACT file being the first developed for the January 2005 release.

The Registration and Records team is making excellent progress in testing. They have completed the first semester of testing and are well through semester two. The DARS people and Oracle have proposed the creation of a 'transfer bridge' to resolve the interface problem between OSS and DARS. This proposal is in the early analysis phase, and Oracle would not be able to deliver it until IGS.M, tentatively scheduled for December 2005/January 2006 – much later than needed for testing purposes. It is a possibility that LASER members would build the bridge using XML Gateway, a tool the team has not used yet.

One member of the Student Financial Assistance team has left K-State, leaving only Robert Gamez as the full-time member for the Financial Aid module. OFA update, Fran Willbrant The Controller’s Office has dedicated three additional staff to the LASER project at full-time equivalency, with plans to put one more full-time staff on the functional side of the project. The Financials team is currently testing at the transactional level. This requires heavy use of the testing software, Mercury Interactive, which has been very helpful in loading large quantities of data into the system.

This month the decision was made to continue to use E-Forms, a peripheral system currently used to capture account information on forms. The original plan was to replace E-Forms with Oracle functionality, but in order to meet the July 1 go-live date, the team decided to stay with E- Forms for the initial roll out. The campus is grateful for the easier transition to the new system.

Ultimately the goal is to decentralize accounting and fully implement the accounts payable module.

September 30 is the deadline for the campus to give feedback on the new account structure. The current structure runs under the General Ledger (GL) concept and the new Oracle structure has no underlying GL concept.

One modification will be made to the E-Forms to eliminate social security numbers from records.

Mercury Interactive Mercury Interactive is a testing software that is currently used by OME, LASER, and ISO. There are two main components to the software: Quick Test Professional is used to capture transactions; Quality Center runs the transactions through the Oracle financial system to test the application.

Load Runner is another module that ISO would eventually like to purchase. There will be a Load Runner demonstration on October 6. John Streeter will get details on how to license the software.

OptioPrint solution OptioPrint training starts on October 11. The team will be training for one week on Design Studio which is used to design output products. Training will be followed by two weeks of consulting to set up software. The server for OptioPrint has been ordered and will be set up in a cluster environment to make it run as efficiently as possible.

OptioPrint has 4 modules: 1. E-comm Integrate – server piece 2. E-comm Presents – e-print repository 3. Design Studio – desktop module 4. Optio fax server – communicates with the telephone lines to send faxes

End-user training update Preliminary training numbers were provided for both OSS and OFA:

Financials 554 possible training base: 400 users who complete purchase orders 32 users who use interfunds 117 users who create travel vouchers 5 who create both travel vouchers and interfunds

Student (broken down by module): Registration and Records: 2052 (200-300 will be trained in spring 2005) Student Finance: 200 Budget Reporting System (BRS) users; of those 200: -78 users who input directly into the BRS system -38 department users posting charges to OSS -23 from the Controller’s staff -11 Salina staff -6 DCE staff Admissions: unknown Financial Aid: unknown

CRP room upgrades Both CRP rooms were upgraded this month with new computers and flat screen monitors. Thanks to the VPAST who made these improvements possible. It is an excellent morale boost for the LASER team to have upgraded equipment in their testing labs.

Kudos to Eric Dover and Kenny Farrington who have been exceptional help in getting the CRP rooms situated with the new computers and monitors. They have also done a great job in preparing the ISO center for Mercury Interactive training.

Discussion about work transfer from current processes to the Oracle applications As processes are defined throughout the implementation, it is important to take into consideration the work transfer that is required across the campus community. It is agreed that these discussions need to take place at an institutional level.

Feedback on LASER online newsletter Suggestions for the LASER online newsletter: -on future announcements, send an email with topic teasers similar to InfoTech Tuesday -post articles in ITT

The next Steering Committee meeting is on Thursday, October 28, 2004. Plans for the November and December meetings are to combine the two months and meet on December 2. Agenda items should be sent to [email protected].