University of St Andrews
Gap Analysis Report
Requested by the SER Programme Board
Following work undertaken at St Andrews
between 2 June – 31 July 2014
Prepared by Margaret Park (Tribal)
with support from the St Andrews SER Operations Group
8 August 2014
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Introduction
Tribal has been requested to provide a gap analysis report in terms of the SER projects that were
identified and approved by the institution in 2013. The objective of this report is to look at what the
University wishes to provide through SER and whether the Tribal SITS software is capable of providing the
deliverables. The gaps that were analysed include skill sets, software functionality and existing SITS
system configuration. It was not within scope to analyse the potential gaps in local skill sets to deliver
what might be required by user interface design (ie, “look-and-feel”).
During the period 2 June – 31 July, I participated in the workshops facilitated by Steve Bott (Tribal). I
listened to and observed the groups of people in the project workshops. Together we surveyed the
business processes and information generated from previous iterations of the programme and challenged
ideas and practices in order to gain a better understanding of the various project requirements.
Project workshops were held on the following days and topics:
 Advising (4 days): 19 June, 8 and 28 - 29 July
 Changes of Circumstances (4 days): 25 June, 2, 3 - 4 July
 Collaborations & Study Abroad database (1.5 days): 27 June pm and 7 July
 Curriculum Approvals (4 days): 30 June, 1, 9 - 10 July
 Interactive Workspaces (4 days): 24 June, 17- 18 and 30 July
 Paperless Admissions (5 days): 6 June, 17 - 18, and 23 - 24 July
 Student Funding Administration (5 days): 15 pm, 17 pm, 22 pm, 25 am, 28, 30 and 31 July
I was joined during these sessions by a number of Tribal software consultants and where applicable we
have been able to demonstrate to the various audiences the relevant capabilities of the Tribal SITS
software that could be used to deliver the requirements. Specific Tribal experts came to St Andrews to
advise on the more complex projects of Advising, Curriculum Approvals and Paperless Admissions so that
the high-level requirements gathered in 2013 could be appropriately assessed.
The following outputs are my findings in terms of what St Andrews wants to deliver and what the Tribal
SITS software can deliver. The gap analysis is the result of:
 a review of the documentation prepared in 2013 by the various SER Project Boards;
 outcomes from group discussions of software demonstrations (real-time and streamed);
 a systematic comparison of workshop participants’ questions, business requirements and user
stories against known SITS functionalities;
 an overall objective to deliver through e-Vision rather than SITS client-only screens
The gap analysis report itself summarises the high-level requirements of each project and proposes the
best Tribal solution to deliver the programme objectives articulated in the SER Programme Principles. For
each project, the report uses a template to describe project requirements, what Tribal can do to deliver
these requirements, and which SITS software components and skill sets are required for delivery.
Wherever appropriate, proposed solutions build on already existing SITS software capability and
configuration at St Andrews. Members of the St Andrews SER Operations Group (Mohammad Asadullah,
Daniel Farrell, Claire Doherty and Nadège Minois) contributed to the report editing process.
The report includes the following appendices which contain further supporting detail:
 Appendix 1: Glossary of terms used
 Appendix 2: Table of SITS components required compared to those already installed
 Appendix 3: Diagrams of the high-level current system flows for each project
 Appendix 4: Enterprise Service Desk (ESD) for case and holistic student enquiry management
 Appendix 5: e-Vision Portal Management
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SER Project – Advising
Requirement
The current advising process relies entirely on Advisers of Studies being able to validate a student’s
programme and/or module choices to ensure the modules taken will lead to a potential successful
completion with the student graduating with the appropriate award and in line with University
Regulations.
For the Advising process to operate successfully the curriculum data must be up-to-date and validated;
the student must have consulted the relevant programme specifications and the Adviser must have an
adequate knowledge of those specifications.
The University requires a system which automates and validates as far as possible a student’s module
choices in advance of face-to-face advising. The system must also offer the ability for students and/or
staff to request valid course changes and explore valid module options for future academic years.
The University requires a system to be intuitive and informative when invalid programmes and/or module
choices are selected.
Other functional requirements to be addressed are the ability to allow students to rank modules (see
below); the ability to flag whether a student can meet programme requirements based on their academic
history as well as module choices; the ability to cater for local School rules; and the ability to view
personal timetable information based on module choices.
Tribal proposal
This Tribal solution would be to implement the SITS out-of-the box Module Registration programme
which will cater for most of the above requirements.
If the institution also decides to follow through on the plan to enable students and staff to view personal
timetables in module registration we may want to look into a StuTalk interface to enable data to be
sourced from Scientia’s Syllabus Plus. We would also use the Timetabling Enquiry Selection Test (TEST)
functionality to enable the viewing of “possible” timetables from module registration.
We may need to explore development of new functionality in SITS, namely a tool to allow students to
rank choices (rather than simply being placed on module waiting lists).
Deliverable SITS components (those in red are not currently installed under licence by St Andrews)
Module Registration in Programme - Assessment (CAM04)
StuTalk (MEN13 and MEN14)
Tribal skill sets required
The ability to use the SITS systems toolkit which includes the management of SRLs, Tasking and Vistas
would be required to design and implement the solution.
Potential development
The ability for students to rank their choice of modules does not fully exist within the SITS software so a
partnership arrangement would be required to provide this functionality.
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SER Project – Changes of Circumstance
Requirement
The key aims of this initiative are to improve the administration and processes involved in Changes of
Circumstance; this includes Leaves of Absence and Withdrawals as well as the statutory requirements for
reporting Fieldwork and Changes of Study Location.
Other areas identified include changes of mode of attendance, extension of thesis submission dates,
extension of dissertation dates, and re-registrations for Postgraduate Research and Postgraduate Taught
students.
Tribal proposal
A combination of automation routines with tasking and/or process manager could be designed/built to
create a seamless flow of data from the initial request by the student to the various points/people for
approval. At all stages of the process/data flow the SITS database could be updated without manual
interaction ensuring that data integrity/quality is maintained.
All of the above would trigger communications to the appropriate stakeholders.
Deliverable SITS components (those in red are not currently installed under licence by St Andrews)
Student Automation (SRS16)
Process Manager (SV203)
Tribal skill sets required
The ability to write SRLs, use tasking and automation routines as well as the functionality of Process
Manager would be required to build/develop the solution.
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SER Project – Collaborations & Study Abroad Database
Requirement
The University needs to be able to hold and make visible details of Academic Partnership and
Collaborative Agreements with Overseas Institutions which send and receive students for periods of
study.
The University would like to track and monitor the validity of these arrangements so that students can be
made aware of these opportunities.
These agreements would inform and contribute to the Curriculum Approval process (see page 6).
Tribal proposal
Information relating to Academic Partners and Collaborative institutions could be held against either the
Organisation or Schools table, with related documents being held against the record via Document
Manager.
Deliverable SITS components (those in red are not currently installed under licence by St Andrews)
Document Manager (MEN10 and SV204)
Tribal skill sets required
The ability to use the SITS systems toolkit which includes the management of SRLs, Tasking and Vistas
would be required to design and implement the solution.
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SER Project – Curriculum Approvals
Requirement
The University requires a system to approve new modules/programmes and make changes to existing
modules/programmes.
Currently changes to modules (and particularly their assessment pattern) are made on MMS (in-house
system) and grades and approved module results are transferred back to SITS.
The University requires an auditable workflow to allow all approvers to have sight of and/or amend data
as it moves through the system until sign off.
Another requirement is to ensure that information is collected in consumable language at source and is
reusable at the end of the sign off process.
Tribal proposal
 The Curriculum Management component would hold curriculum data during the approval processes
until sign-off.
 The Process Manager component would be used to manage the workflow between stakeholders as
well as the automations needed to keep SITS data integral.
 The Document Manager component would hold metadata as well as additional documentation that
may be required.
Deliverable SITS components (those in red are not currently installed under licence by St Andrews)
Curriculum Manager (CAM28)
Process Manager (SV203)
Document Manager (MEN10 and SV204)
Tribal skill sets required
The ability to use the SITS systems toolkit which includes the management of SRLs, Tasking and Vistas
would be required to design and implement the solution.
6
SER Project – Interactive Workspaces
Requirement
The University requires a mechanism to deliver the task outputs from the other six SER projects to
students and staff as appropriate for the particular interaction. This means that Interactive Workspaces
does not exist in isolation as it is the product of any SER project that has a task output.
In 2013, the SER Admissions Project Board approved the concept of “Andy’s workspace” which would sit
alongside / be available through interaction with the current iSaint platform that is being re-skinned in
line with corporate direction. The University does use the e-Vision portal management system for a
number of other functions. (See Appendix 5.)
Tribal proposal
The role groups within SITS would be used to set up the interactive workspace view for the required tasks
under the guidelines of the Digital Communication Group.
Deliverable SITS components (those in red are not currently installed under licence by St Andrews)
e:Vision Task Manager (SV202)
Tribal skill sets required
The ability to write SRLs, tasking, automation routines and use process manager would be required to
build/develop the solution.
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SER Project – Paperless Admissions
Requirement
The University would like potential students (ie, applicants) to carry out the minimum following tasks:
1) Search for a course
2) Apply for a course online
3) Supply requested documents such as Transcripts
4) Allow applicants to pay deposits
5) Allow applicants Referee to upload requested references
6) Allow Agents to apply online for applicants
Also, University staff would have the ability to do the following tasks
1) Request additional information from applicants
2) Make decisions/ changes to applications
3) Communicate with applicants
Tribal proposal
 Build a generic St Andrews application form that will cater for all non-UCAS applications at the
University.
 Build the assessment and decision making processes with the ability for applicants to provide
additionally requested information, make deposit payments, and provide referee details.
 Provide a facility for approved Agents to apply on behalf of the applicants.
 Build the tasks to allow University staff to request additional information and provide decisions from
all offer makers, accumulate the outcomes to provide the applicant with the University decision.
 Allow applicants to respond to offers.
 Provide new students with Matriculation information.
Deliverable SITS components (those in red are not currently installed under licence by St Andrews)
Paperless (MAS10)
StuTalk (MEN13 and MEN14)
Tribal skill sets required
The ability to use the SITS systems toolkit which includes the management of SRLs, Tasking and Vistas
would be required to design and implement the solution.
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SER Project – Student Funding Administration
Requirement
The aim of this project is to deliver a working cross-institutional system, a simple and transparent
information framework and secure necessary policies that will:
1) Allow schools, applicants, parents, students, graduates, staff and other interested parties ease of
access to the funding information that is relevant to them;
2) Offer timely information about funding that will give confidence to offer holders that will lead them
to make St Andrews their firm choice;
3) Offer fit for purpose funding information to retain and attract talented graduates who wish to pursue
postgraduate studies at St Andrews;
4) Offer funding opportunities to current students that will enhance their academic experience;
5) Offer access to welfare funding information that will allow students who are in need to continue their
studies at St Andrews;
6) Assure appropriate financial control;
7) Eradicate duplication of effort;
8) Integrate with other systems and developments such as web project and SER;
9) Secure management information required to secure decision making.
Tribal proposal
The SITS component Fund Manager would be used to hold the details of each of the University’s Funds
and /or Scholarships while the Funding application process would be built using the e:Vision tools.
Deliverable SITS components (those in red are not currently installed under licence by St Andrews)
Fund Manager (SRS17)
Tribal skill sets required
The ability to use the SITS systems toolkit which includes the management of SRLs, Tasking and Vistas
would be required to design and implement the solution.
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Conclusion
The summer workshops were supported by a range of academic and administrative staff from across the
University. On the whole, their views and the findings of the gap analysis show that SITS software is
capable of providing a workable platform to deliver the large majority of the SER requirements. Not all of
the requirements can be met by currently available functionality within the SITS software. Although the
match between requirements and functionality is high there are opportunities for developments that
would support both the local configuration needs at St Andrews and the core SITS product.
Appendix 2 lists all of the SITS components referred to in this report and identifies which are already
installed and which would need to be purchased under licence to provide the software requirements of
SER. The gap analysis highlights that of the 11 SITS components that would be needed to deliver the
Tribal proposals outlined above, eight of them are already used by the University under licence although
not all have been fully implemented. In addition, if the SER Programme Board chose to implement the
Enterprise Service Desk (ESD) software to deliver case management capability and/or the holistic record
management of student administration enquiries across Units and Schools, a minimum of another six SITS
components would be needed.
Skill sets gaps have been identified in the local ITS Development and SER Operations Teams in relation to
the level of SITS expertise that is necessary to deliver the Tribal proposals outlined above. Where gaps
exist the Tribal proposal would be to train University staff in the required areas so that there is
sustainability of project deliverables and the SER objectives overall in terms of continuous improvement.
It is expected that a period of intense retraining in the use of SRL syntax and e-Vision tasking will be
required at the start of each project so that there is shared understanding across all the members of the
ITS Development Team and SER Operations Team. If ESD is implemented then training, especially of end
users, will be required in the use of that particular software platform.
One of the SER programme level objectives specifically relating to SITS software is the need to e-enable
deliverables. This means rolling out further access to SITS client across the institution or, preferably,
increasing the ability of the institution to support e-Vision developments in order to reach a wider user
base. The gap analysis highlighted a deficit in the number of local staff able to develop in e-Vision.
No gaps have been found in the system configuration needed to support the proposed Tribal solutions.
Upgrades to the SITS software have been maintained in line with Tribal guidelines and the current version
of the SITS software (8.7.0 with scheduled plans to upgrade to 8.7.1 in November 2014) is sufficient to
deliver the requirements.
This report has not addressed the question of capacity or size of delivery in terms of implementation
phasing as critical information that can only be gained from a full scoping exercise has yet to be collated.
If the proposals recommended by Tribal are accepted as tenable then the next step should be the
commissioning of a full scoping exercise. This scoping exercise would produce a project-level picture of
the likely timescales for delivery based on the provision of a SITS requirements catalogue that will
determine accurate sizing for each development. An audit of the skill sets supporting user interface
design (ie, “look-and-feel”) should also be undertaken at an early stage to identify potential gaps that
may need bridging to deliver these projects to the standard required by the University’s Corporate
Communications unit.
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Appendix 1: Glossary of terms used in report

API – (Application Programming Interface) – a tool that permits third party softwares to interface with
each other

Automation – a series of tasks (qv) which are executed as a result of data changes within the SITS
software

Client – [SITS Client] is the local configuration of the SITS software under licence to Tribal (qv)

Component – a group of SITS programmes in a similar functional area of the SITS system (eg, Marketing
and Admissions System (MAS), Student Record System (SRS), etc.)

e-Vision – the web-front end of the SITS software under licence to Tribal (qv)

Portal – in SITS software terms, a portal is a means of allowing a user to access and manage data held by
the institution, taking into account the user’s role within the institution. The e-Vision (qv) portal
component is configurable so that, for example, academics in different Faculties and/or Schools can see
content appropriate to them, students on different courses can see content appropriate to their
respective studies, applicants can see different content compared to enrolled students, etc.

Scientia – providers of the timetabling and exam scheduling software used at St Andrews

SITS – student record system software used by St Andrews to manage student administration and hold
golden data on students from first application to completion of award and/or graduation

SRL – standard letter and report processing (similar to, but far more complex than, mail merging)

StuTalk – a SITS component that enables interfacing between SITS software and third-party systems such
as Scientia, Common Application, MMS, etc.

Tasks/tasking – a way of executing a sequential list of actions within the SITS software

Tribal – the company that owns the SITS software

Vistas – a way of representing SITS data through e-Vision
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Appendix 2: Table of SITS components required compared to those installed
SITS software components are installed under licence to Tribal and maintained locally on a bi-annual
programme of upgrades and hotfixes.
Currently, component installation and system maintenance are performed by ITS whereas business rules,
parameters and automation processes are written and managed by the Units using SITS (namely,
Admissions, Careers, Finance, Registry and Student Services) with support from ITS developers.
Only these Units have access to SITS client. All other users (eg, Schools, students and other Units) access
SITS functionality through e-Vision tasks written by ITS.
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Appendix 3: Diagrams of the high-level current system flows for each project
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Appendix 4: Enterprise Service Desk for case and holistic enquiry management
Student Services is currently investigating possibilities for implementing a Customer Relations
Management or Case Management system.
Much discussion over the SER lifespan (2011-to date) and across all projects has touched on the need to
have a holistic view of individual students’ lifecycles and a means to manage enquiries relating to student
administration. Such a system should be capable of tracking Service Level Agreements at both team and
unit level so that quality control is maintained and expectations managed.
Tribal proposal
Various SITS components of the Enterprise Service Desk would satisfy the requirements to provide a
holistic view of the student record from application to graduation and a means to manage enquiries from
any user – students, staff in Schools and Units, enquirers. Email harvesting permits student record
enquiry management to be used in lieu of or in tandem with existing generic email accounts or enquiry
channels.
The ESD Case Management software manages cases from a “support-worker” perspective. The ESD
software encrypts all of its internal tables and is designed to integrate with components across the SITS
software platform. Since ESD software overarches all of the SITS components and has APIs that allow
interaction with already existing SITS functionality it can be as bespoke or not as required by institutional
need. (Marketing material from Tribal relating to ESD can be found in the pdf below.)
Deliverable SITS components (those in red are not currently installed under licence by St Andrews)
ESD Case Management (ESD06 and ESD07)
ESD Core Administration and Help Desk (ESD00 and ESD01)
ESD Email Harvesting (ESD09)
ESD Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) (ESD02)
StuTalk (MEN13 and MEN14)
Tribal skill sets required
ESD has its own business user software-specific skills which would be new to St Andrews if implemented
so training would be required.
ESD marketing brochure
PO - Enterprise
Service Desk (ESD) Solution International SH.pdf
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Appendix 5: e-Vision Portal Management
The web portal provision of the Tribal solution is provided through the e-Vision Portal Management component.
The majority of users will access the system via the web front end using the e-Vision portal, providing an intuitive
system that displays content and processes based on the role of the user. Through the management of role
groups, access to content is controlled by user role(s) at the institution, for example student, administrator,
academic or agent. Through e-Vision real time access to data is provided through a web based environment,
allowing data to be accessed from any computer with access to the internet. Using the tools provided, views of
the data can be designed and used to access the data and perform a number of functions depending upon a
user’s access privileges.
All transactions may be undertaken by stakeholders via the web. This is achieved either via programmed
solutions or via user-defined web forms and workflows to meet the specific business process requirements of the
institution. The essence of our approach is to provide programmed solutions where appropriate, allowing rapid
implementation and deployment and a tool set so the institution is able to configure additional self-service
processes through the task manager, process manager, reporting and web vista tools. Messages and
notifications can be used to deliver workflow to individuals or specified groups (or all users), whilst data views and
reports can be used as a means of initiating workflows, for example an admissions tutor can view their
departmental application statistics through their portal.
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Key Features:
Provides secure and robust online access to a wide range of functionality including SITS:Vision
programs, reports, surveys, generated correspondence, workflows and web forms
Ensures that users are able to access content remotely and as appropriate to their role e.g.
enquirers, applicants, students, alumni, parents, external examiners, personnel
Provides responsive design in order to enable content to be accessed via multiple devices
Ability to configure the interface according to institution preferences and branding
Self-service functionality can be configured towards the needs of any stakeholder and lifecycle
stage
Students are able to perform many functions e.g. updating personal details, completing
registration, viewing their timetable, requesting course transfers, submitting assignments,
monitoring performance, viewing placement details, viewing and generating correspondence etc.
Staff are able to generate reports, record student absences, perform data updates, approve
module selections, view their timetable, enter assessment results, propose curriculum items for
approval, score applicants and view and generate correspondence and workflows etc.
Key Benefits:
Ability to provide self-service provisions, reducing staff workloads
Reduces the need for paper-based processing through automated provisions
Improved student and user experience through the provision of targeted content
Can be fully configured by the institution, enabling appropriate content, formatting and branding to be
applied
Ensures that users are only able to access content appropriate to their role, optimising data security
through the use of comprehensive role group provisions
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