Beginning Wednesday, the CUNYfirst Testing Team will go from 30 to 60 as we move from systems testing to Users Acceptance Testing for Campus Solutions Applications for the Wave Three Colleges (BMCC, Brooklyn College, City Tech, College of Staten Island, Hunter College and York College). From the 23rd through the end of March, we will test newly configured tools for those colleges. That means representatives from the Admissions, Bursars, Registrars, Financial Aid and supporting offices will be traveling to Manhattan for testing sessions.

Starting the next week, we begin testing Financial Aid applications for our second wave Colleges (Bronx CC, CUNY Law, Hostos CC, Lehman College and Queens College). The week of January 28 to February 1 will also begin a cycle of testing for new Work Study Payroll application at those Wave Two Colleges.

A shortwhile later, we will test a new Graduate Admissions system for our Senior College and the Graduate School - tools that we will pilot at Lehman College.

UAT is designed to test scripts that replicate college and university transactions to make sure the system meets CUNY and College requirements.

We would like to remind everyone who will be attending testing sessions that it's a good idea to claim a CUNYfirst account if they have not. Please review our training material at this website to help - CLICK HERE.

It reminds us to emphasize that the benefits of CUNYfirst:

• We will retire aging unsupportable systems that no longer serve the needs of a University (our CUPS personnel system was retired in 2009)
• We are building one common data base that houses all information for our students, our employees and our financial management. In the past we needed to rely on many systems that did not integrate or interact which led to inefficiencies and inadequate service to our students, faculty and staff
• We have modernized our recruiting and hiring process saving time, increasing the quality of our searches, and saving millions of sheets of paper as review the resumes, CV's and portfolios of our candidates
• Building a system in collaboration with hundreds of students, faculty and staff

There will be more about the benefits we will share and we'll reach out to our users to report out how CUNYfirst has impacted their work and their experiences in our University community.

Now to the news:

Campus Solutions:

• Wave 3 Academic Portfolio (BMCC, Brooklyn College, City Tech, CSI, Hunter and York Colleges)

With an impending launch planned for the end of March, early April time frame, the CUNYfirst Campus Solutions and Testing team is planning and preparing for Users Acceptance Testing, scheduled to begin January 23. UAT is our opportunity for upcoming users to "kick the tires" of the system to see how it works in real-life scenarios. It is also the beginning of the learning curve for those professionals who understand all the curveballs that come at them when servicing students, faculty and their colleagues.

In the meantime, college professionals will soon begin analyzing the third effort to "clean" student data. This activity is aimed at ensuring that the data we have at lauch is the most accurate academic and financial information to help make the transition as smooth as possible. In this time we have been analyzing tuition and aid information, student transcripts, duplicate entries and other items so we can account for everyone who will be needing to use the system for registration, getting grades and paying bills when we launch.

At the same time, folks who will train their college colleagues started hands on training this week (shout out to BMCC who are providing space for us at Fiterman Hall).These intensive sessions will cover the material and processes necessary for users to be successful to work in the new system, but also covers presentation skills to assist them as they stand up to train groups of new users.

The students who will also orient and train their classmates begin learning the new system, starting today at BMCC. We'll provide those student leaders who have been chosen and volunteered to assist their Colleges in making sure the transition is as painless as possible. These students will lead sessions at their colleges starting in February.

• Wave 2 Financial Aid (Bronx CC, CUNY Law, Hostos CC, Lehman and Queens Colleges)

Financial Aid will also be moving toward UAT for the colleges listed above.

• Graduate Admissions

Our Graduate Admission Project, which will launch this year with a pilot-test at Lehman College, will move into UAT in February. Currently our implementation partners are testing functionality.

Asset Management:

A second CRP1 (Conference Room Pilot) session was held Wednesday for groups that a responsible for the purchasing, tracking and inventory control of all CUNY and College assets. The meeting focused on the out of the box applications and transactions that users would process. There was also an emphasis on current business processes and work flow. This first session is the starting point of building the Asset Management system while additional sessions will be used to refine the build. Launch is planned for late 2013.

We also have folks working on our Procurement and Payroll processing projects. We'll report on those in the coming weeks. This report is now pretty lengthy.

Monday’s Go-Live

The CUNYfirst system was came back to life Monday morning with a number of new applications for our Human Resources professionals, our Registrars and those who build the course catalogs at our colleges, and our colleagues who calculate faculty workload.  For over four days, technicians from CUNY and Oracle worked together to add new components and test the system so it would be ready to go.  A big thanks to those who worked long hours to update our system.

With Project Leader Brian Cohen, the University Chief Information Office and Associate Vice Chancellor, Project Leader Suman Taneja, and Faculty Workload (FWL) Process Owner Dean David Crook (background in the photo below) looking on, the Faculty Workload Team at Medgar Evers College officially launched FWL Monday just after Noon.  The MEC team (with Femi Ojumu and Dr. Claudia Schrader pictured below), showed our leaders and their colleagues how the system works and what information they will need and receive to calculate teaching and non-teaching workload.

Faculty Workload & Course Catalog

Five colleges (The Graduate Center, Hostos CC, Medgar Evers and Queens Colleges and Queensborough CC) have begun working in the new FWL module.  This week, the FWL teams have been verifying data that was transferred from old systems to new (including important course catalog data) and also seeing how it looks.  They also viewed a new report to see if the data in it was correct or needed correction.  This is all part of the shakeout that will help build familiarity in the system and also the understanding of how data was converted.  There is an opportunity to review business processes and evaluate . The teams also worked together at the end of the day during a webinar to understand common issues and resolve questions.

The Change Management Liaisons held a webinar this Wednesday to review the college experiences with Key Changes workshops.  Sixteen out of 19 have conducted these workshops.  The remaining colleges will also hold sessions.

HCM – Rollout 2

There are three new HCM applications that launched this week, Daily Transaction Report, Arbita Interface and Mass Salary Update.  Colleges have been successfully running the Transaction Report to gain familiarity with its contents.  On the Mass Salary Update, HR professionals at OHRM (Office of Human Resources Management) this week requested that college HR offices review the error reports for some employees whose salary records may contain incorrect or missing information.  The HR offices have been asked to return the corrections on December 1 so the first Mass Salary Update can be run.

Employee Self Service Launch @ the College of Staten Island

CSI President Dr. Tomás Morales welcomed a near capacity crowd (below) as his college’s CUNYfirst team introduced Employee Self Service (ESS) to their campus community.  Vice Chancellor Gloriana Waters came to the college to kick off ESS and congratulate them for being first.  Members of the CSI CUNYfirst team explained the Project and the timeline and how new features affect every employee.

Working with Human Resources, employees at CSI will learn how to view their personnel data and update and correct any information that needs it.  The plan at the College of Staten Island is to train staff by departments so any updates can be manageable to HR staff.  Information like phone numbers and email addresses can be changed without HR, but changes like marital status or home address must be verified, so working with HR staff is essential. 

Kudos to our Student Marketing Team @ Queensborough CC

Congratulations to our Student Marketing Team at Queensborough Community College for their contributions to scholarship at the college.  The team, led by QCC Communication Liaison (Director of Marketing) Ruth Griggs (left) and QCC Student Marketing Team Leader Mellisa Khemraj (center), collected hundreds of dollars for scholarships in the annual Walk to Aspire at the college track. 

Meetings Next Week

The following is an update of the CUNYfirst Project.  Please share with colleagues you believe will be interested in its content.

Cutover

The CUNYfirst system was taken off line Wednesday at 5pm to begin uploading new applications.  As this edition goes to press, our technical teams are adding the above processes to CUNYfirst.  There are hundreds of individual tasks needed to add new functionality to the system, including uploading the new processes, converting data, updating and applying new security functions, testing the current and new applications, and then verifying that all live systems will be working correctly when the system is returned to live status early next week.  There were a number of people who asked prior to cutover, "Why does it take so long?"  By looking at the task list, it’s clear that the number of steps and the people involved who are checking and double checking every step, that we are making sure nothing is missed.  It’s a great example of the teamwork required to creating and delivering a modern system for CUNY students, faculty and staff.

Training

Before the pause, our Training Team was focused on getting as many new users trained on the new processes that will go live next week.  There were four sessions this week on the Course Catalog at Hostos CC and City College.  Sessions on Course Catalog functions will take place this weekend in the morning and afternoon at Brooklyn College on Tuesday and Queens College on Wednesday.  Manager Self Service training will continue at local campuses, conducted by trainers in connection with the Human Resources staff.  If new users need Faculty Workload training after go-live, those who have already learned the new applications will give instruction at their colleges.

Faculty Workload

Our Organizational Readiness Team has visited several campuses conducting Key Changes workshops.  This was to prepare those who will directly work in the new application to calculate Faculty Workload.  Thanks to Hostos CC and Queens College for test driving our workshops, and for all the other 12 colleges for hosting our team and being a part of important sessions as we move from current state to the future.  This week we were hosted by John Jay, Medgar Evers and York Colleges.

Campus Solutions – Systems Integration Testing

This week saw the beginning of the second cycle of Systems Integration Testing (SIT) for our main student administration processes (Campus Solutions).  With our implementation partners from Oracle, we are testing the entire system to ensure it satisfies the functional design and that all components work together correctly.  Our student team’s leads and subject matter experts are working with their Oracle partners and our technical staff to test the configured system.  SIT is expected to be completed in early December with Users Acceptance Testing (UAT) starting shortly after.  During UAT, college professionals will test the various processes to make sure Campus Solutions meets CUNY requirements.  The CUNYfirst Core Team last week sent out a request for participants in UAT.  For the first time, we will also be recruiting students to test the systems that will allow them to register and manage their financial plans and educational careers.

 Meetings Next Week

Among the meetings next week is the kickoff of Employee Self-Service at the College of Staten Island. CSI is piloting ESS to a small audience to see the impact of Employee Self-Service at a department level to the Human Resources Department. We'll report out on the meeting next week.

CUNYfirst Project Manager Suman Taneja, HR Lead Jeanne Blazina and Training Manager Adante Harvey presented a project update on Tuesday to Vice Chancellor for Human Resources Management Gloriana Waters and her team, and the HR Directors from around the university.  The goal was to inform them about key transition steps we are taking having worked in the new CUNYfirst HCM (Human Capital Management) system since early summer.  One key aspect was the validation that individuals needing training on any HR application can receive it via a campus trainer.  The first introduction to HCM came via Borough Training Centers which still provide training on a rotating schedule, but sometimes not fitting a college’s need.  There was also a discussion of how colleges are introducing Manager Self-Service (MSS) recruiting tools in ways that are more comfortable to their business setting.  Some campuses have more centralized ways of recruiting and some manage hiring on a department level.  This was a valuable session as we learned how our colleges are taking charge of making sure their managers are ready to be part of the recruiting process, now that we have more than 100 jobs posted through the new tools on the Careers at CUNY website (http://web.cuny.edu/jobs/index.html)

Faculty Workload

This past Wednesday, Cheryl Littman, the Assistant Dean for Institutional Research hosted a webinar to provide detail about business process and the rollout plan for using the new Faculty Workload tools in CUNYfirst.  The audience was those who are the current Faculty Workload Coordinators and those who are participating in training and will provide training at their campuses to department personnel, and in the HR and Registrars offices.  During the session, she outlined the tasks needed to be completed before the projected Go-Live date and also presented the specific schedule of when colleges will make the transition from using current systems to using CUNYfirst to provide accurate information on instructor workloads, both in the classroom and out.  During the meeting, there was also an explanation of the three reports that will be generated to facilitate data entry and validating that the information is correct.

Training – Course Catalog

University Registrars received the training calendar for Course Catalog classes that will support the Faculty Workload calculations.  Nine classes will be held at our Borough Training Centers at City College, Hostos Community College, Brooklyn and Queens Colleges beginning November 11.  Those taking the training only need to take one half-day class to work in the new system.  A webinar is also being scheduled as a training course for November 19.  It will be recorded and stored in the Enterprise Learning Management system for future access.

Procurement

Our procurement team has just completed an intense series of sessions to move us toward building a system that manages our expense, purchasing and accounts payable activities in a unified system. The following sessions have been completed for CUNYfirst Procurement , which are key business processes related to Procurement.

*     Requisition to Receipt

*     Receiving and Inspection

*     Strategic Sourcing (Competitive Bidding)

*     Sourcing to Agreements (Contracts)

*     Procurement Card Processing

*     Administrative Tasks for Maintenance and Support

*     Year-End Processing for Procurement

*     Expenses and Travel Reimbursement

*     Voucher to Payment

*     Inquiry and Reporting

*     Student Financial Interface to AP (current configuration)

*     Bank Statement Reconciliation to AP Disbursements (excluded credits)

The next phase in the project is to document these business processes in Procurement, which once reviewed and agreed to by CUNY, will be used to create the system design.  In addition, the Security Roles and Responsibilities are being drafted for review.  These roles and responsibilities will determine who in the university will use the various processes and what level of access they will have. The current plan has the new CUNYfirst Procurement available in the summer of 2010.

Campus Solutions – Student Administration

As we went to press last week, our Campus Solutions team met with campus leaders and managers at our Vanguard Colleges, Queens and Queensborough, to discuss the key steps necessary to going live with a new student system for their campus community.  Key in the discussion were the various readiness steps both the CUNYfirst Core Team (technical and functional) and the colleges must complete before going live with this important system that will register our students for their classes and help them manage their bills and careers.  One important aspect of the meeting was to review and begin planning the Production schedule (moving into the new working environment) and making sure everyone was on the same page to ensure readiness. 

Meetings Next Week

Communication Liaisons WebEx

Wed, Nov 04    11:00 AM – 11:30 AM

Campus Solutions Vanguard PMO Meeting WebEx

Thu, Nov 05    10:00 AM – 11:00 AM

Training Liaisons Conference Call

Fri, Nov 06    1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

The first effort to introduce students to CUNYfirst took place Wednesday at Queensborough Community College and how exciting is that!  QCC students who have stepped forward to lead the effort to introduce new registration and financial processes to their classmates handed out flyers and showed the CUNYfirst Tour at “Club Day” on campus. 

These and fellow students at their Vanguard College partner, Queens College, have begun to create marketing plans and are planning different methods to get the word out to students at both colleges, showing them how to get into the system, find their classes and register, and understand their bill and charges.  The plan is for the students to begin using CUNYfirst in spring 2010 for summer and fall registration.

Human Capital Management Update

Last Thursday, September 3, our HR Teams created their first Chancellor’s University Report in CUNYfirst.  Kudos to everyone who ensured that over 2,000 employee transactions were record for the report that was delivered on time.

Four colleges, Brooklyn, Bronx CC, Hostos CC and Queens College are continuing to create new job postings in the new Talent Acquisition Management (TAM) module, with three other schools starting to use TAM next week.  All future CUNY jobs will be accessible on line and candidates will be able to apply on line as part of a system that will be completely electronic.

This week, two communications were sent out about Manager Self Service (MSS) and a new Senior Leadership Training class.  Manager Self Service Training will be conducted at all of our colleges and Central Offices for individuals who supervise and manage the careers of employees.  Managers and supervisors are an essential part of our recruiting (TAM) process and will need to learn their role in the process of hiring a new employee.  Training Liaisons will be the resource for the class schedules.

Two MSS webinars will take place next Tuesday, September 15 at 10am and Thursday September 17 at 1:30pm to instruct managers and supervisors on their CUNYfirst functionality.  The webinars will be identical. The Enterprise Learning Management (ELM) system will provide instructions on how to sign into and access these sessions.   Information about claiming a CUNYfirst account and logging into ELM can be found at the local HR office or your local CUNYfirst team.

Senior Leadership Training will instruct the most senior CUNY leaders on the functions and roles they play in CUNY Human Resources management, especially the approvals only they can give on some HR transactions.

Users Acceptance Testing (UAT) – HR Rollout 2, Faculty Workload, Course Catalog

Users Acceptance Testing (UAT) is underway at multiple locations around CUNY with college personnel who are working in the configured systems for HR Rollout 2 (Daily Transaction Report, Arbita Integration and Mass Salary Update), Faculty Workload calculation and the uploading of Course Catalog information for the entire university.  Right now only registrars at Queens College and Queensborough Community College are working in the Course Catalog.  Catalog information from all of our colleges is needed for students and for the Faculty Workload calculations.

UAT Preparation – Campus Solutions (Student Administration)

Members of our Student Teams continue to work with college Subject Matter Experts to create and review the scripts (step by step) that will test the Campus Solutions system, which is expected to go live at Queens College and Queensborough Community College next year.

Procurement

Three key Procurement sessions were held this week, focusing on the new processes from request, from Purchase Order (PO) to delivery and how inspection of delivered goods will occur using the new system.

2009 CUNY 8th Annual Financial Management Conference

Three CUNYfirst presentations will be given at the annual Financial Management Conference next Tuesday, September 15 in Tarrytown, NY.  Our Procurement team will hold a session in the morning, and there will be two sessions in the afternoon – one on Human Resources and one on Financial Aid.

Meetings Next Week

With school starting soon and staff returning for the Fall term, it’s a busy, busy time in our Human Resources offices.  In addition to continuing to adopt and use the new HR tools in CUNYfirst, our teams are working toward mastering the applications they are using to hire and administer all of our personnel records.

This week, HR teams took part in a workshop focused on the Chancellor’s Report.  A check of transactions processed in CUNYfirst showed that there are continuing questions on how to define some of the HR actions for an employee’s status.  This session allowed the HR community to share their experiences and support each other to help create an accurate and complete Chancellor’s Report, which will be created for the first time in CUNYfirst in September.

The next step for using the new tools comes soon as colleges will begin working creating, posting and hiring open positions in the new recruiting tool – the Talent Acquisition Management (TAM) module.  We’ll work through that process a few campuses at a time so we can learn the issues associated with its usage.

Also ahead for HR is the Users Acceptance Testing (UAT) for the next rollout, scheduled to go live in October – Daily Transaction Report, working with Artiba, which is how we publicize position openings, and Mass Salary Update.

Faculty Workload

The CUNYfirst Core Team will host an online meeting this coming Tuesday, August 25 with the University’s Faculty Workload and Institutional Research community to discuss role definitions and upcoming training.  The goal is to explain how training will be delivered and their role in that.  The Core Team has requested of the Workload Coordinators a list of four individuals at their campus who play a key role in the calculation of faculty workload and report creation.  That will begin to help us begin the crucial task of matching individuals to the roles they will perform in the new faculty workload application.

Training

September General Ledger, HCM and Budgeting classes have been added to the Enterprise Learning Management (ELM) system and users should check in to see if classes they need or want have been added to the schedule.  Our Training team is beginning to create the classes and schedules for Manager Self Service (MSS).   Memos and reminders will be sent soon to invite managers and supervisors for their training at the Borough Training Centers.

Campus Solutions – Users Acceptance Testing (UAT)

UAT test script writing is proceeding on schedule.  We are very thankful at this time of year for  the time given by our college Subject Matter Experts who are concentrating on review of drafted scripts.  A large portion of the preparatory tasks are proceeding as well with the assistance of graduate students from Baruch’s Zicklin School of Business.  We are very appreciative of their efforts to help testing move forward at a time when our campuses are gearing up for the new school year.  Also, new testing standards were introduced to our team this week to ensure that testing new processes meet CUNY requirements.

Procurement

The CUNYfirst Procurement team this week released its schedule for Conference Room Pilot (CRP) 2 sessions by announcing 24 sessions in the next three months beginning this coming Tuesday, August 25.  CRP 2 sessions allow our Oracle partners to explain the various processes to explain how data will be populated and to begin the understanding of the workflow.  Our campus Subject Matter Experts in the various topics will receive invitations to the sessions that range in areas from Requisition and Purchase Order processing to Receiving and Inspection of delivered goods.  The calendar of these meetings can be found on the Project website http://first.cuny.edu by clicking the calendar icon on the front page.

Heartfelt Thanks

The CUNYfirst team and our college HR teams send out their appreciation for the support and knowledge that was shared with Oracle consultants that have assisted us and them just after the initial launch of the new HR processes.  All but one of them has moved on to their next assignments, but their impact is immeasurable.  Our transition has gone smoother and the transfer of knowledge has been easier, thanks to their efforts.  Thank you again and best wishes from CUNY HR and CUNYfirst.

 – Imelda Redito – HR Director – Hostos Community College

Going Live

Executive Vice-Chancellor Allan Dobrin and Vice-Chancellor Gloriana Waters joined many CUNY professionals who gained access to and begin working in the CUNYfirst system.  Applications now include new processes for Human Resources and Recruiting (HCM/TAM), Line Item Budgeting and the Course Catalog for Queens College and Queensborough Community Colleges.  

Friday – June 19th

The CUNYfirst system went live on time and the first task was to validate processes and make sure applications worked.  Our teams from Oracle and CUNY CIS and CUNYfirst spent most of Friday in a shakedown mode to ensure the system was ready for CUNY professionals.  Business offices staff who had been working in the General Ledger (GL) were given access so they could resume their work.  The GL went live about a year ago, and those working in it had to use multiple user names and passwords to access their work.  Now, they have a single sign-on through the front door to CUNYfirst – the Identity Management System (IMS).  Through IMS you claim your working account before you have access to the applications.  Access was also given to Registrars at Queens College and Queensborough CC to begin working in the Course Catalog module.  The Line Item Budget was

Friday afternoon we granted access to a number of HR professionals at our Vanguard colleges (Hostos and Queensborough CC and York and Queens Colleges) and the Central Office to validate they could log in. 

Over the weekend, our technical teams responded to issues identified on this first day.

Monday – June 22nd

Monday, access was granted to all members of the HR Vanguard community who received training.  In most cases, the HR Directors ensured their staff claimed their accounts and walked through the system to familiarize themselves with screens and processes they learned in training.  CUNYfirst Core HR and Organizational Change team members were on hand at Hostos, Queens, Queensborough and York to assist staff in making the transition from old to new.  We believe that helped alleviate some nervousness about the change.

Tuesday – Thursday – June 23rd – 25th

As time went by, HR teams began working in the new system step by step, attempting processes like creating a new hire, changing an employee’s personnel information or promoting someone.  These small steps are allowing our HR teams to understand the steps needed to do their jobs in the new system and to make the connection between what was done in the past versus how it will work in CUNYfirst.

To assist users, a daily “Office Hours” web/phone conference began Tuesday as a way for users to present issues to their peers and the Core HR team and to understand how to solve them or to gain additional knowledge from their colleagues.  These daily office hours have allowed us to deal with items quickly.  For example, a question of how employee data migrated from CUPS to CUNYfirst led to an excellent presentation by Tawana Williamson from the Office of Human Resources Management that was shared on the call.  A longer version of this information will be recorded next week and made available to the community.

The general impression from a week of work is that users are learning this new environment and are gaining confidence in their new tasks, contacting their help desks when issues arise and processing information. 

We are also receiving information from our campus first Base teams – the individuals who are providing support at our campus and University Offices locations.  Information on the teams and other information can be found under the Support tab on the Project website – http://first.cuny.edu.

On Thursday, the Second and Third Wave Colleges for the HCM launch were announced to the CUNYfirst Steering Committee.  The colleges self-selected their place in line.  There are plans to meet with the colleges next week and discuss lessons learned so far and also to connect with the Wave One schools to help plan successful launches.

They are:

Line Item Budgeting

The Line Item Budgeting module remains in the hands of the University Budget office as they continue to ensure the system is ready for users.  That is likely to be available to campus users early next week.

Next Week

We look forward to gathering more knowledge as the college teams to assist in their transition and to prepare other teams for July 13 and July 20.

HCM Training continues next week.  The Enterprise Learning Management (ELM) system is up and accessible through the CUNYfirst Portal.  The Application Security Liaisons (ASL) will meet Wednesday to share their experience with the launch and gain more knowledge about CUNYfirst.

We thank all our colleagues for their patience, their hard work getting us LIVE and their honesty in providing feedback and knowledge.

Following a request from our campus teams asking for more time to prepare for launch, a new phased rollout plan was presented this week.  Our new Human Resources and Recruiting applications will go live for CUNY’s Office of Human Resources Management, Hostos Community College, Queens College, Queensborough Community College and York College on June 19.  The second wave will launch on July 13 and the final wave on July 20.  A decision on which colleges will be part of wave two and three is forthcoming.

This plan will allow us to monitor the performance of the system at the Central Office and these Vanguard Colleges, plus give us additional time to get more people to training and to prepare our colleges for supporting this important transition.

Today at City College, HR professionals attended a demonstration of new CUNYfirst applications showing step by step procedures for the work they do.  A webinar replicating what was shown will be made and available for viewing next week.

CUNYfirst Cutover

The CUNYfirst system is currently unavailable while our partners from Oracle transfer the new applications and data.  The activities are going well.  The system will remain unavailable until next Thursday night, so General Ledger, ELM and CRM users will not be able to have access to their current applications.  We will announce when the system is available again.  The full announcement can be found by clicking the announcements button on the Project website – http://first.cuny.edu

Human Resources Training

Training continues for our Human Resources professionals and their colleagues on the new HR and Recruiting Applications.  As of today, we have taught over 110 separate classes to 1,200 individuals (this is the number of seats filled – many people are taking multiple courses).  For next week, we’ve had over 400 signups for the 46 classes we’ll teach.  The Enterprise Learning Management (ELM) system cannot schedule people for new classes until cutover concludes.  We have created a backup system that will allow all learners to view class offerings, User Productivity Kits (UPKs) and course material to support the training.

Student Administration – Course Catalog – Going Live June 19

The Course Catalog functions for the Registrars at Queens College and Queensborough College will go live starting June 19.  Training for this group will be this coming Tuesday June 16 and the next Tuesday June 23 all day at Queensborough Community College.

Line Item Budgeting – Going Live June 19

Two days of training concluded today with good feedback from the budget professionals.  Training resumes Monday and Friday next week and Monday the 22nd and Wednesday the 24th.

Application Security

Application Security Liaisons met this past Wednesday to receive a run thru of the new CUNYfirst system.  They also learned about changes to the current CUNYfirst systems and how it will affect the ASL job function.  Forms and procedures were also discussed.  Application Security Liaisons have the responsibility to give application access to users based on their security role after they take and pass the necessary training for the position. 

Next week’s meetings:

Human Resources Training

Borough Training Centers

Mon, Jun 15 to Thu, Jun 18

Planning and Budgeting Training

555 W. 57th - 10th Floor

Mon, Jun 15

Communication Liaisons

WebEx

All Week 11:00 AM – 11:30 AM

Finance - General Ledger Lunch and Learn Webinar

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

Commodity Code Committee Meeting

230 West 41st Street, 9th Floor

Tue, Jun 16

9:30 AM – 12:00 PM

Help Desk Managers

Via WebEx

2:00 PM – 3:30 PM

Finance Liaisons

230 W 41st Street - 10th Floor Conference Room

Wed, Jun 17

1:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Finance - General Ledger Lunch and Learn Webinar

Thu, Jun 18

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

HCM Super User Monthly Meeting

Phone/Webex

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

Planning and Budgeting Training

City College Borough Training Center

Fri, Jun 19

As the CUNYfirst core team works on critical cutover tasks in order to launch the new Human Resources, budget and course catalog functionality, system users are progressing through training. Human Resources professionals continue to receive training at the five borough centers, and training for budget and course catalog are now set, and those users will be trained over the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, here are a few common items that have come up:

Access to ELM
ELM is the learning management software employees use to access the class schedule and to register for courses, as well as where they obtain key documents associated with their training, like job aids and course guides.

If you are having trouble accessing or using ELM, please contact your campus help desk.

Should I be trained?
If you’ve not been contacted about getting trained, and you think you might or should be trained, please work with your campus Human Resources office. Your campus HR professionals have carefully mapped employees to relevant CUNYfirst roles. If changes need to be made, you should work with them to make those arrangements.

Reactions
Employees going through training continue to react positively to User Productivity Kits (UPKs) that simulate the experience of using the system in specific process areas. UPKs are based around the concept of “See it – Try it – Know it.”  One employee in a recent class completed the UPK associated with her class, achieving 100 percent on the first try. When the instructor asked her how she did that, the employee said, “I saw it, I tried it and I knew it.”

Speaking of UPKs…please note:

While passing the “Know it” mode is not required, students must complete all UPKs that are assigned by the instructor in order to pass a course.

To see the full project calendar, go to:
http://firstcalendar.cuny.edu/

The Week Ahead – June 8 - 12 

The follow meetings are scheduled:

On May 27, the CUNYfirst leadership will ask our campus teams if they are ready to Go Live with new applications for HR and Recruiting, for Line Item Budgeting and for creating new Course Catalogs. Prior to that, Dr. Linda Shatzer, the CUNYfirst Organizational Readiness Manager, will be contacting Campus Executives to assess readiness in the following categories: Data Preparation/Validation, Help Desk support, Communication, Security, Systems status after go live (which systems will no longer be needed), Reports Identified, Technical Readiness and Training. The answers given will assist the CUNYfirst Core Team in reaching out to teams that have concerns or issues and help to resolve them. While there are many tasks assigned to our Core Team that are necessary for launch, we want to make sure that our campus teams and their staff is ready to begin the transformation to the new system.

Human Resources – Training Orientation

This past Monday, CUNYfirst Training Manager Adante Harvey sent out an invitation to Training Orientation to more than 500 CUNY professionals who have been identified at their campuses as the first users of the new CUNYfirst Human Resources applications. These people work in our HR and Budget offices and the Affirmative Action and Compliance officers. Two orientation sessions will be held at BMCC Little Theater (Theater 2) from 10am to Noon and 1 – 3pm on Wednesday, May 20. At these sessions new users will be introduced to the concept of training for CUNYfirst and how to find and enroll in the classes they’ll need to work in the new system. No training, no access. Those attending will also receive material that will help them understand the role they have been assigned for security and the classes needed for those roles.

Human Resources – Data Validation

The final round of employee data validation is underway. Files containing the most recent information about staff is being verified by HR professionals to make sure the data is correct and that all employees are entered, errors are corrected and roles assigned. The data is due back to the university Office of Human Resource Management next Friday, May 22. After the data is received, it will be shared with our training team to include new employees or those who have been added to the first round of training. The final data files will be given to Oracle and uploaded into the CUNYfirst system which will become the system of record at launch.

Human Resources – Users Acceptance Test Update (UAT)

Users Acceptance Testing is nearing completion. Testers this week spent time closing out issues of processes that weren’t working and getting scripts. All the scripts planned for testing were executed. All that remains is fixing the known defects, 41 in all, that need to be resolved before go-live. Next week, the plan is to begin regression testing – that means testers will re-test scripts that have been fixed and also test processes that are dependent on the processes that have been fixed.

Planning and Budgeting

Users Acceptance Testing begins next week for the Line Item Budgeting application which is the first launch for the Planning and Budgeting module. The test precedes training for Budget staff which is scheduled to begin the first week of June.

The Week Ahead – May 18 - 22

The follow meetings are scheduled:

• May 12 – HR (HCM/TAM) UAT Completion
• May 13 –Employee Data send to Campuses and University Offices for Final Validation
• May 15 – HR Train the Trainer Completion – Begin Access to training material for refresher
• Week of May 18 – HR Professionals - Training Orientation
• May 20 – Employee Data Validation Due to CUNYfirst Team
• May 26 – HR User Training Begins – 5 days/3 sessions per day/6 Borough Centers (500-600 users)
• May 27 – Final Employee Data Load Cut-Off – Oracle loads into CUNYfirst
• May 27 – HR Go/No Decision
• June 1 – Line Item Budgeting & Course Catalog Training Begins (Small population of users – Budgeting 60-100, Course Catalog - 40)
• June 19 - Go-Live – HCM/TAM, Line – Item Budgeting, Course Catalog (Vanguards only)

Further explanation of these dates and activities follow. It’s an exciting time to see the light at the end of this tunnel.

Human Resources (HCM/TAM) – Data Validation

We’re getting close! Thanks to the hard work of our HR professionals from around the university, all personnel data corrections have been incorporated and what we’re calling the “dress rehearsal” (nearly cleansed and validated data) was delivered yesterday to our Oracle partners. The final step, once that data is loaded, is an evaluation and validation to the campuses (May 13) and back to the Core Team (May 20). That will lead to the final load for production and the cutoff of using CUPS (City University Personnel System) for personnel data prior to Go-Live, scheduled for June. CUPS will remain active for the Chancellor’s Report until its migration to CUNYfirst.

HR – UAT Update

Users Acceptance Testing is now in its final phase. This Thursday, our testers completed the scheduled script execution. We are close to finishing testing. What comes next is testing the fixes that were identified in testing, testing additional reports created by CUNY, and then re-testing processes that were connected to those fixes. The goal is to finish testing by May 15 so we can finalize applications and processes and procedures prior to training.

In appreciation of the time and effort given by the many testers, Vice Chancellor Gloriana Waters passes on this message:

“Thank you to everyone who participated in testing. Thank you to the campuses who provided testers for the many days needed for this. It was only through a huge effort that we were able to get it done.”

Training

HR Train the trainer sessions continue as our trainers participate in sessions that focus on end-to-end processes. This will allow trainers to be able to understand applications including the ones they aren’t assigned to teach. Training for them will end in two weeks. After that they will have access to a CUNYfirst training environment that will let them refresh their learning and practice up to the beginning of user training on May 26.

Training for Budgeting and the Registrars who will learn Course Catalog will not follow the Train the Trainer model because the size of population is smaller. It will be taught by members of the CUNYfirst Training Team.

Planning and Budgeting

From Matt Sapienza – University Budget Director:

The upcoming June rollout for CUNYfirst will include the launch of the new Planning and Budgeting module. This will be the beginning of an integrated process that will result in a more simplified and accelerated process of allocating resources to the colleges, as well as provide the campuses with comprehensive financial planning and expenditure projection tools.

Under the leadership of Associate Budget Director Josephine Vidal, the launch has been aided by a core team of college budget professionals for whose counsel we are very grateful.

Our June launch, called the Line Item Budgeting, will replicate CUNY’s Adopted Budget for the Fiscal Year 2010 (beginning July 1). Line Item Budgeting will enable users to schedule their budgets for the upcoming year by individual accounts in the CUNYfirst system. Before we go live in June, approximately 100 budget and business professionals university-wide will receive training on utilizing this new module.

There will be four types of users of Line Item Budgeting: Preparers, Reviewers, Analysts and Coordinators. Preparers will be trained to do the inputting of budget data under the leadership of the Analyst. Reviewers will have access to make sure the data is correct and meets department, college and university goals. Coordinators are University Budget Office personnel who will be responsible for managing the overall budgeting process, including the determination of parameters and guidelines and the building of planning models.

This fall, we will implement the other modules that will complete the Planning and Budgeting suite, including position budgeting, which will allow us to develop fiscal plans based on our staff, their pay and their benefits. Because this module integrates with the upcoming Human Resources module – Human Capital Management – we still need to finalize how personnel data in HCM will be made available in order to create detailed budgets.

We believe the new Planning and Budgeting module will allow us to craft sound fiscal plans on a university-wide level, while providing the colleges with the flexibility to tailor the budgeting process to meet its local needs.

Our next set of communication will more fully describe the planned testing and training activities. We will continue to keep you posted on our progress.

General Ledger Update

As a reminder CUNYfirst General Ledger is not available to users to allow the loading of historical data (i.e. 2007 & 2008). Additionally, 2009 data is being re-run to more accurately reflect the changes in the mapping between FAS and CUNYfirst. It should be available next week.

After this effort, CUNYfirst will contain two years of historical data and will contain beginning balances for FY 2009.

And we close out this edition with congratulations to our Financial Aid lead Ali Morgan and his wife Kanika who celebrated the birth of their new daughter Ava Patricia Wednesday night. It’s the first birth for the CUNYfirst family. We send our best wishes to Ava, her big sister Kibriyaa, Kanika and Ali and wish that someday soon they may get a night’s sleep.

Members of the CUNYfirst Core Team presented an update to the Campus Executives about the Project with a focus on upcoming launches and the effort needed to get to Go-Live.

CUNYfirst is scheduled to bring up the following processes, with go-live currently scheduled for mid/late June:

• HR/Recruiting (Human Capital Management (HCM) /Talent Acquisition Management (TAM))
• Campus Solutions – Course Catalog (All Campuses)/Schedule of Classes (Queens College and Queensborough CC)
• Line Item Budgeting

The next rollout this fall will include:

• Faculty Workload
• HCM – Mass Salary Updates
• HCM – Mass Appointments/Terminations
• Other Budgeting Processes

A decision to go live will come upon completion of Users Acceptance Testing, Training, Data Validation, Conversion and Uploading, Assigning Security Profiles for all users, Post-Deployment Resources and Campus Readiness. These key tasks are the steps campuses need to complete for being ready to launch.

Human Resources (HCM/TAM) – Data Validation

Data validation continued this week as our teams worked to fill the gaps in key information that was missing or unavailable in CUPS (City University Personnel System), including email addresses, employees with multiple Social Security Numbers and budget information.  A conference call will be conducted on Monday will assess if the data has been “cleansed” enough to provide it to Oracle to begin the conversion of employee records into CUNYfirst.  At the end of May, the final updating of data will include who an employee reports to, their new functional titles and security profiles based on their roles in the HCM system.  Tasks to cutover to the new system and replace CUPS as the HR system of record will follow.

The success of getting our data cleaned and ready is an example of the leadership and commitment of our HR professionals to the success of CUNYfirst.  We have asked a lot from them and they’ve come through at they do with their commitment to excellent customer service to their college and university offices colleagues.

HR – UAT Update

Users Acceptance Testing went well this week as we move toward wrapping up this key part of our preparation.  The target date to end testing is May 8.  We are currently in the final cycle that will conclude with what is called Regression Testing.  At the end, we will retest the key critical business functions of the modules to make sure that any updates or fixes conform to CUNY requirements and work with other elements it might affect in the HCM and TAM modules. And because CUNYfirst is an integrated system, we will also regression test to see that it works in an environment that is already running the General Ledger, the Customer Relations Management (CRM) and Enterprise Learning Management (ELM) systems.

Student Administration (Campus Solutions) – Financial Aid

Earlier this week, our Financial Aid Subject Matter Experts carried out their “homework” for configuring the new CUNYfirst FA system, scheduled to go live during Wave Two (2010). Working with the Project Team, the SME’s worked to complete needed information, including scholarship awarding and checklists students need to work through to get financial aid.  There will be more information gathered and added as the work sessions continue May 5th and 6th.

General Ledger Update

As a reminder CUNYfirst General Ledger is not available to users to allow the loading of historical data (i.e. 2007 & 2008).  Additionally, 2009 data is being re-run to more accurately reflect the changes in the mapping between FAS and CUNYfirst.  We anticipate that CUNYfirst will be available to the user population on Wednesday, April 29, 2009.

After this effort, CUNYfirst will contain two years of historical data and will contain beginning balances for FY 2009.

Questions can be directed to: david.hill@mail.cuny.edu, thomas.zhou@mail.cuny.edu or
ray.tam@mail.cuny.edu

And we close out this edition to send out special thanks and our appreciation to the team at LaGuardia Community College which hosted us at their Town Hall meeting April 17.  It was very well attended and their project leads for Finance, HR, Student Services and Communication explained what CUNYfirst is and what it will mean to their colleagues.  Thanks again for a very informative time.

CUNY’s Human Resources staff, all over the university, has been engaged for a long time in making sure all personnel data is up to date and accurate.  When CUPS (City University Personnel System) data is transferred and becomes CUNYfirst data, our professionals will have completed many tasks to ensure accuracy and completeness.  Currently, staff is reviewing and validating that our current CUPS departments are correctly mapped to those found in the CUNYfirst Chart of Accounts in order to integrate properly with our Finance and Business needs.  That work is due April 17 – next Friday.  Meetings to validate that work and correct any remaining data errors will take place the following week.  Ensuring correct names, addresses, positions, email addresses and other data has been part of the ongoing data validation effort.  We are extremely grateful for HR professionals all over CUNY who have taken great care in this endeavor, and also the support of our HR community in supporting our work prior to launch. One of the remaining steps in data validation is finalizing the security roles created for our employees so they can perform CUNYfirst tasks once the new system goes live.

Human Resources – Users Acceptance Testing Update

Users Acceptance Testing (UAT) continued this week, mostly on Workforce Administration and Labor Administration, which testers were able to get through nearly 50% of the Cycle 4 scripts.  Testers also retested processes that failed earlier tests and were re-engineered to meet CUNY requirements.

Testing continues from Tuesday through Friday next week with Wednesday’s session focusing on the retesting process.

Human Resources – Train the Trainer

Train the Trainer sessions resume April 20.  An updated scheduled was distributed today by Training Manager Adante Harvey.

Super Users – HR and Campus Solutions (Student Administration)

As the project moves closer to implementing the HR functionality and the first phase of Campus Solutions, an effort is underway to build a community of super users who will play a key role in helping the university learn and use the new systems.

For the Human Capital Management (HCM) module, there are now a group of 58 super users from all 23 campuses who have been formally designated as super users. These are individuals who are already known as “go to” staff on their campuses, who know the legacy processes well and are on the forefront of learning CUNYfirst. Many are either train the trainer candidates or testers in User Acceptance Testing.
 
The HCM Super Users group has had a couple of orientation sessions, launched a discussion listserv, and in the past week, held their first meeting via conference call and webex. Some of the topics covered included a project update, status of the group, special access and training, as well as some of the resources available on the CUNYfirst (first.cuny.edu) web site. The group will continue to meet on a regular basis.
 
For CS, super users from the two vanguard colleges held a first orientation session this past Wednesday to go over why they were chosen for the group, how they will benefit from being tied together in a network and future steps.

Campus Town Halls and The Week Ahead – April 13-17  

Members of the CUNYfirst Core Team attended a Town Hall meeting hosted by the team at CUNY School of Law.  Attendees were given an update on the Project and information of the effect on them in the new Human Resources Module.  They also were shown part of the CUNYfirst Tour that can be found on the Project website – http://first.cuny.edu. The team at LaGuardia Community College will host a Town Hall meeting this coming Friday.

Users Acceptance Testing for the Human Resources Pillar continued this week with testers performing the following processes:  Job Opening Approvals, Prepare for Hire, Transfer Roster, Quick Hire and Reinstatement.  By the end of next week we should finish testing all applications that apply to job and position management, recruiting, hiring, re-hiring and re-instatement.  Items that did not pass testing are immediately analyzed and submitted to Oracle technical staff.  In a conference call Friday, some testers gave their impression of the new CUNYfirst processes.  They said the system appears to be user friendly, that there is more useful data and is more powerful than what is currently available in CUPS (City University Personnel System). 

Another round of data validation is currently underway with campuses looking over converted employee data.

HCM - Question

A question came up during a campus visit about non-CUNY employees in the new CUNYfirst data base and will they have access to the new processes.  The answer is:  For Phase One in HCM, individuals such as Research Foundation employees who are not CUNY tax-levy payroll staff will be known as “persons of interest” in CUNYfirst.  These are folks who are not in CUNY’s HR data bases and get paid with other resources. If an RF employee supervises a CUNY staffer, they will be in the new system.  If a tax-levy employee needs access to do their job they'll get it. For example:  If they do General Ledger work then they will be in the system as a person of interest and be given access to only those processes they need to do their job.  In Phase 3, non-tax levy employees will be in CUNYfirst.

CUNYfirst Steering Committee – Faculty Workload

A demonstration of the proposed processes for managing Faculty Workload functions, including populating class schedules, maintaining instructor details and reporting was given to the CUNYfirst Steering Committee Thursday by members of the Oracle team.  In addition to an explanation of the current work on Faculty Workload and how it will be processed in a PeopleSoft environment versus how we currently calculate and consider Faculty Work Load, the committee was given the next steps in the process.  Those include making business decisions on identified process gaps and building an optimal system to meet CUNY requirements, testing it and then training those professionals who will use the new Faculty Workload applications.

Security Access

Following a round of nVision training, those trained wanted and needed access to their new tool which allows them to create financial reports.  In CUNYfirst, once a person receives training they get access – the rule is you have to be trained on your new tools for security and accuracy issues.  In this case, learning nVision required a change in their user profile.  The next step would be to fill in the form under the CUNYfirst Application security tab at http://security.cuny.edu.  Download the GL access form and fill in the data and get the change approved.  Then the user must file a ticket with their local help desk, and the help desk would inform the Application Security Liaison to administer the new rights, in this case access to nVision.  Security is very important in CUNYfirst and we believe this procedure will ensure proper access through our many modules and applications.

Maintenance Announcement

The CUNYfirst system will be unavailable Saturday March 28 from 6am to 1pm due to scheduled maintenance.

The Week Ahead – March 30 – April 3

Here is a listing of meetings and sessions involving the Core Team and our campus professionals.

Users Acceptance Testing

TBA

Tue, Mar 31 to Thu, Apr 02

Student Records - Wave Two Colleges CRP

Joseph Murphy Institute - 25 W 43rd - 18th Floor Conference Room

Tue, Mar 31  9:15 AM – 4:00 PM

Student Financials - Wave Two Colleges CRP 2

555 W 57 - John Jay College Offices - Room 616

9:30 AM – 4:00 PM

Financial Aid CRP - Vanguards and Wave Two Colleges Only

230 W. 41st - 10th Floor Conference Room

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Wave Two Colleges Admissions CRP2

York College - 94 - 20 Guy R. Brewer Blvd - Jamaica, Queens

Wed, Apr 01    9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Transcript Configuration CRP - All Colleges

Joseph Murphy Institute - 25 W 43rd - 18th Floor Conference Room

9:15 AM – 4:00 PM

Financial Aid CRP - Vanguards and Wave Two Colleges Only

OSFA - 15th Floor Large Conference Room

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Communication Liaison Web/Teleconference

Thu, Apr 02       11:00 AM – 11:30 AM

Training Liaisons Conference Call

Fri, Apr 03    10:00 AM – 11:00 AM

HCM Weekly UAT Update

Web/Teleconference

11:30 AM – 12:15 PM