Enterprise Systems Committee
May 7, 2001
Present: Bill Post, Brenda Aden, Phyllis Weddington guest, Leonard Fisk, Arno Rethans
George Wellman for Dennis Graham, Bruce Rowen for Bob Hannigan, Jeff Wright, Ed
Masterson, and Donald Graham
Updates:
PBX: We will be considering moving to a PBX telephone switching system in the next
few years. A Business Plan will be developed and analyzed before a decision can be
made. This will be brought to the ESC group for consideration hopefully within the next
six months. This is approximately a $3Million project so Business and Finance will be
actively consulted and financing will be required.
Voice Mail and Call Accounting Systems: Both of our current systems are rapidly
becoming outdated. We have ordered upgrades for both and installations should be
complete this summer. The cost for these items run within the realm of $70-$80,000
each and will be funded from within Information Resources.
CMS Budget:
A spreadsheet outlining the CSU, Chico’s Proposed Multi-Year CMS Budget from
1999/00 through 2005/06 was discussed along with a memorandum from Phyllis
Weddington, CMS Project Director, in which explanatory notes were provided to the
budget. It was noted that campuses across the system are not including all the same
categories so it is imperative that people take caution when comparing costs from campus
to campus. Many do not include bridge strategies. Ours is a more comprehensive
budget; we have $1.8 million in bridge strategies listed over the seven-year cycle.
Another area that is typically not included at other campuses is the on-going operational
costs. These are costs that will not go away after implementation such as Oracle
licensing. Consulting also has an inverse relationship on how you invest in backfill
positions. If you train your own people then you may be able to reduce consultants.
Additionally you will have staff who can carry the work after the implementation is over.
Another area of which we need to be aware is the potential for the cost of the HOSS
center in Utah. Although the Chancellor’s Office is covering all the cost for HOSS right
now, we do not know if that will continue. With the many demands on budgets it is
always possible that individual campuses could be assessed for their share of such
services. With all of this in mind we must continue to look for potential savings
possibilities.
Figures in our budget are real costs to the campus. However, we need to decide if this is
the best way to present the information to campus. Should we continue to include the
bridge strategies, which no other campus might include? Items may need to be
considered by asking if we would have incurred the cost if we were not doing PeopleSoft.
Bill Post is seeking advice from the ESC on the best way to relay the CMS cost to the
campus community. Phyllis Weddington will look at some options to more definitively
break down the cost in order to facilitate the communication plan to campus. Our effort
is to provide credible information to everyone. Our CMS people will work up a couple
of versions of the budget to reflect the many facets and purposes it covers
Portal Project:
We recently met with SCT and Pipeline along with WebCT on the phone to check the
realities of our portal project. Our project is on the leading edge and moving forward
rapidly. We have completed a SIS upgrade, tested, purchased hardware, and our
communications group is meeting and putting together a plan. We are working with
some issues on functionality. For example, it appears that the student web production
does not provide the complete capabilities expected in searching for courses. However,
Tennessee University has developed some of what we need and is willing to share with
us. The calendar will look different but good, as we will be using iPlanet, which is the
number one choice in the country right now for LDAP authentication directories that are
used to identify users like students. The group is still working at some problems with the
alumni module. We may be going directly with Pipeline Version 3 (iPlanet version)
since it is six weeks from delivery. Pepperdine University is the beta site and they seem
to be happy with it. The Portal Committees are doing a fantastic job lead by Debra
McElroberts.
Digital Imaging:
Some campuses are using digital imaging instead of retaining paper documents. It was
agreed that this should be an enterprise wide effort to come up with a campus solution for
Chico. Bill Post will work with Bruce Rowen and George Wellman to assess where we
stand on current efforts and how we might move to a consistent enterprise system for
digital imaging.
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