Enterprise Systems Committee
CMS Steering Committee (CSC)
Minutes of October 30, 2000
Present: Fred Ryan, Debbie McElroberts, Don Graham, Bill Post, Dennis Graham, Miles
Allen (for Wellman), Nancy Praizler, Brenda Aden, Beverly Taylor, Heikki Rinni, Bob
Hannigan, Cindy Cleland (for Wellman), Arno Rethans, Susan Greco (staff).
A draft version of a Business Case Analysis regarding Direct Implementation of
PeopleSoft Version 8.x at CSU, Chico was distributed.
1. Fast Track
Function teams Status Reports:
Human Resources reported that they have a student intern working on finding HR
documents on the web and putting them together as a model manual. The intern is also
reviewing the single version PeopleSoft product and will help organize training for HR
people to help them become familiar with the product. HR has been setting up sub-teams
to look at what they should do and are including people outside of HR who have
related/interactive functions.
The Technical Team has been looking into reporting strategies currently in use such as
Microsoft tools in the Academic Affairs area and Brio in the Business area. Having
separate reporting methods could cause problems in the future. The sub group is working
on a prototype web page to serve as a report center then branch off to where they need to
go for each group. They are also working on an Oracle training program. We need to
have more technical expertise on campus for Oracle. PeopleSoft has now come out with
an operations datastore for higher education (a report was distributed), which the
Technical Team will be investigating.
Business — Cindy Cleland reported that she has invited people from SLO’s first wave
team to visit our campus and present how they rolled out data marts on their campus
including staffing needs and what it takes to maintain the data marts on their campus.
There are no dates specific yet. It was felt that the ESC/CSC members and Technical
Team members should all attend these sessions. Chico would pay for SLO’s visit. She
noted that users at SLO were comfortable with using Brio and, therefore, had little
objections to the PeopleSoft product as long as they were assured that they could
continue using Brio.
Discussed datastore functions and possibilities. PeopleSoft has partnered with
Northwestern University to provide a web-based datastore/warehouse. How or if Chico
would use this would have to be determined after a lot of work investigating its features
and functionality. We will watch what SOSS comes up with as well. This will be a future
agenda item for discussion.
Student Team — Bob Hannigan mentioned the two pilot campuses, Sonoma and Fresno,
which have volunteered to bring up the "vanilla" PeopleSoft product. Although it is
hoped the system can learn from these two campuses going live, it is also felt that it will
be difficult to apply what is learned to all campuses since each one is in a different
position, and the "vanilla" is a very limited product. This will be very expensive, and it is
anticipated that the system may have to help with the cost.
Update on Web Portals for the Campus
Bill Post reported that the campus-wide Portal Committee would have a tentative
recommendation out very soon for a portal solution with Campus Pipeline as the likely
target. Cost estimates are still being determined. Amortization schedules are available.
Although hardware cost is not expected to be significant, impacts to staff may be. Heavy
pushes for portal solutions are coming from student groups/clubs who want the
community features and want to personalize interfaces and control their environments;
from Alumni who want access to connect with their members and for donor
development; from the campus community in general who would benefit from features
such as a single sign-on site for all campus applications like WebCT, e-mail, SCT, the
Library, and the issue overall is related to core campus functions like registration, grades,
scheduling, etc. It is important that we come up with a campus solution rather than
having campus groups signing up independently for services from a variety of vendors.
With PeopleSoft coming in the next four to five years we need to decide how much we
should invest in a solution such as this which may be turned off when PeopleSoft is
implemented. Part of the equation is whether we can, in say 2003, be competitive when
every other university has this kind of service offering to students. It is anticipated that
we could have something in place by next fall if we begin soon. It was noted that this is
an immature market and some products and vendors may not survive the next couple of
years. There is a need to be cautious about necessity versus "neat-to-have" products and
their overall cost to the campus.
A business case must be developed which is part of the charge to the Portal Committee.
There is no question whether we, and every other university, will develop portals (portals
are a part of the Beyond 2000 strategy), but when and how. It is possible that final
decisions on this will need to come from the Cabinet level.
2. Student Administration Bridge Systems
As part of the general CMS bridge strategy, we are looking into further developing web
functions for the Students area. These functions are related to the portal discussion, but
the products could be, if desired, implemented without a portal solution. This would
allow for such things as students registering for classes and faculty doing grading via the
web. Refer to handouts Plus 2000TM Web for Students and Plus 2000TM Web for Faculty
& Advisors for more details. SCT is putting together a proposal for this that we expect to
receive by tomorrow. On November 14th SCT will be on campus to demonstrate and
show the tie-in with Campus Pipeline. Members are encouraged to attend. We would
hope to finalize a decision by mid November if we are to implement anything by next
fall. This is another type of core bridge strategy until PeopleSoft is fully implemented and
running several years from now.
3. CMS 2nd Wave Campus Workshop Attendance
We have been invited to send up to eight people to a workshop for 2nd Wave campuses to
be held on Friday, November 17th at LAX Airport Hotel. After discussion, it was decided
that McElroberts will represent the technical team, Student will send 1, Project Director
1, Human Resources 2, and Business 3. McElroberts will check on the agenda to see if
any adjustment in the above representation is needed.
4. Version 7.x versus 8.x discussion
Refer to the Draft document, Business Cases Analysis: Direct Implementation of
PeopleSoft Version 8.x at CSU, Chico. This topic is on the statewide agenda and is not
just a Chico issue. It will probably be December before any decisions would be made
because there are still a number of unknowns and a number of assumptions that need to
be tested. There are no political issues concerning which version of PeopleSoft a campus
might select because it’s very likely, according to Systemwide CMS folks, that some
campuses will begin with Version 8.x. The current Version 8 is a commercial version, not
higher education which won’t be available until about the 3rd quarter of next year. The
draft analysis distributed indicates that considerable effort and money could be saved by
going to Version 8.x, but there is not enough information available yet on version 8.x
itself and on the path from Version 7.x to 8.x to make a final decision now. Discussed
centralized versus decentralized support — training core people versus a wide variety of
users. Consensus has been that the default Chico position has been a decentralized
(campus-wide) implementation because that’s where the greatest effectiveness and
economies should be realized. Version 8 will be a continuing discussion.