Enterprise Systems Committee
CMS Steering Committee (CSC)
Minutes of December 6, 1999
Present: Debbie McElroberts, John Miller, Anne Russell, Arno Rethans, Jeff Wright, Bob
Hannigan, Michael Biechler, Dennis Graham, Fred Ryan, and Susan Greco (staff).
Agenda:
1. CMS 2nd Wave+ Project Directors' Meeting Report
2. Chico CMS Project Update
3. Other
CMS 2nd Wave+ Project Directors' Meeting Report
John Miller provided an update from last Thursday's Systemwide meeting for the second
wave and beyond campuses. He provided copies of Draft 1.6 of the CSU-CMS Campus
Readiness Assessment Guidelines. This is the latest draft for both the first wave and
subsequent waves. Chico has closely addressed the same issues so we should be ready for
these when we receive the final version. Rates for Readiness consulting firms have been
established at the system level so it would be advantageous to go with a firm on the list.
Long Beach will be a pilot campus with the other first wave campuses following in the
spring. This means it will probably be about a year before the Readiness assessment
actually hits Chico. This will be an assessment for which (it is assumed) campuses will
have already prepared. Assessment cost is estimated between $30-$50,000. It is possible
that cost could be at the lower end for a campus like Chico that has done substantial
readiness analysis.
Once first wave campuses have implemented HR and Finance modules and subsequent
campuses have satisfactory completed their readiness assessment, the subsequent
campuses will then be able to start receiving the software. There is a target timeline for
first wave campuses, and it is assumed that if a first wave campus cannot meet these
timelines, then they may fall out of that standing and become a subsequent campus.
Current projections of software availability to 2nd wave are July 2001 for HR and
October 2001 for Finance, with Student still unknown.
The above dates include a Human Resources schedule slippage of one to two months and
Finance of four to six months. The student software prototype will be based on Version 8
of PeopleSoft. John pointed out three documents included in the handout that pertained to
the student module. They are Overall Student Project Plan, White Paper, and Planning
Issues on the Student Side.
The issue of campus changes to the CSU baseline package is being discussed further. It is
unknown how many changes may be made and what will be considered unchangeable.
The totally hard line on campus changes seems to be softening a little as reality begins to
set in. Code will be shared, tables that need to be common will be predefined, but many
other tables can be considered campus responsibility which in turn means that the
campuses may have to do a lot of the implementation work. This will also give greater
flexibility to "craft" the software to campus needs.
Another change is that HR is now one phase rather than two. Because they are later,
second wave campuses could be implementing with the State Controllers Office
interface. If this occurs, we could avoid one entire upgrade process which 1st wave
campuses will face.
Some of the technical architecture topics under consideration are: the shared Service
Centers and how they will communicate to campuses, how will disaster recovery work,
and how long would we be down due to outages, etc. We will need to know where data
warehousing sits in the big picture. Campuses will have ownership of the data warehouse,
and it will be up to the campuses to decide what needs to be extracted for local
requirements. We'll need to decide how it's populated and profiled. Data warehousing is a
huge project (also a campus funding responsibility), but it should fill in some gaps not
covered by PeopleSoft. It will be essential to have data warehousing for this project, and
1st wave campuses seem to have a strong willingness to share and collaborate, again
potentially saving Chico much time and money.
Another major unresolved topic is central vs. campus responsibilities for implementation.
Subsequent campuses will implement the prototypes developed by the first wave group,
although inevitably changes will have to be made to the baseline product as the later
wave implements. There will also be a process for campus-specific requests beyond the
baseline that will be ratified to decide if suggestions can be implemented and prioritized.
Cost will follow and will filter out less critical items.
A strong suggestion has been made that we send as many people as possible to the Dallas
PeopleSoft SIG meeting in March to allow staff to become more familiar with PeopleSoft
and to get them energized about implementation. Although this suggestion was viewed
positively, there is a question of funding. It was pointed out that this conference will
specifically target higher education and that people should strategize and compare which
sessions they attend. Debbie McElroberts volunteered to work with Dennis Graham and
George Wellman on how to make this most productive and practical for the University.
CMS Communications:
The new CSU web sight is on-line. For Chico, email addresses have been set up (e.g.,
cms-finance@csuchico.edu) which will be pointed to a specified Steering Committee
person for campus inquiries. This is a starting point for communication that will open an
avenue for people to get information and answers to fundamental questions. We will need
to identify people from each area to receive and answer the e-mail questions.
Fred Ryan will be speaking briefly to the Academic Senate on December 9th to discuss
CMS. Other board members also need to make similar presentations to various groups.
One or two members should work with John to develop/prepare presentations. John could
also serve as a resource person at such presentations. It was suggested that some actual
PeopleSoft screens be used in presentations. This would give a more visual explanation
and help to project the benefits of the project. Our current PowerPoint presentation is
available on the web. Contact people are John Miller for Information Resources, Nancy
Praizler for Human Resources and Bob Hannigan for Students. Bob Hannigan
volunteered to work with John on the communications/presentations format and schedule.
Even though President Esteban and others have publicly discussed CMS over the last two
years, there will still be a need for more official support and promotion of the project,
although we have to accommodate the reality that Chico will not be doing the actual
implementation process for at least another 18 months. People need to be aware that we
would have to spend funds on a new system even if CMS was not here, and current
systems do need to be replaced and updated. We will be working on a communications
strategy and timelines for what messages need to be communicated when.
~ Next meeting will be in January.