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.
]]>The CUNYfirst Training team announced both types of General Ledger training. The first, Train the Trainer learning, will begin April 14. In those sessions, campus participants will learn how to become effective trainers of end users. Skills include: Presentation and delivery skills, classroom and group facilitation and mediation and conflict management. In the second phase participants will be provided with GL content skills - how to teach others to work with CUNYfirst applications. These sessions begins April 28 and concludes May 6.
The second end-user training for those who will directly use CUNYfirst General Ledger processes will begin May 19 with an orientation about CUNYfirst. The end user training schedule is listed below.
|
Course Title |
Start Date |
Duration |
Population |
Sessions |
|
CUNYfirst Orientation |
May 19 |
90 minutes |
All GL Users |
1 |
|
Introduction to General Ledger |
May 26 |
90 minutes |
All GL Users |
1 |
|
Chart of Account |
May 26 |
90 minutes |
All GL Users |
2 |
|
Interfaces |
May 26 |
90 minutes |
Select GL Users |
1 |
|
Reporting |
May 26 |
90 minutes |
Select GL Users |
2 |
|
Budget |
May 26 |
90 minutes |
Select GL Users |
1 |
All training will be conducted at our Borough Training Centers at Brooklyn College, City College, Hostos Community College and Queens College. Our Training Manager Adante Harvey will contact Train the Trainer candidates and end users directly about their learning activities. Trainers and end-users will be reminded to work with supervisors to plan the time end users will be at training.
Next week, our Finance Liaisons will take part in Systems Integration Testing for the General Ledger processes. This involves testing the individual applications within the General Ledger module. This testing will also see how the GL interacts with legacy systems that will need to feed information into our Chart of Account fields and provide the reports necessary for the business operations for CUNY and our campuses. Testing reduces risk and uncertainty.
Our objectives for testing are:
Those involved in this testing will try their best to challenge the applications to ensure its reliability when CUNYfirst is launched in July.
User acceptance training for our Help/Support system took place this week. We want to thank those from our campuses that tested the system for its readiness to support our General Ledger users when GL goes live this summer.
Project Management and Change Management Liaisons met Tuesday to learn the technical readiness needs for the project and who on our campuses is leading those efforts. The meeting also served as an introduction to the Organizational Readiness tasks that will serve as the key indicator of campus readiness to use GL in the areas of interfaces, shadow systems, reporting, testing, training, end-user support, communications and security. This checklist will provide direction to the campuses about how to work with the CUNYfirst Core Team to monitor activity and provide support needed as we work toward Go-Live.
Coming up this week we’ll continue our work on the student side and understanding application security. This is where we ensure that staff with specific functions can access the processes necessary to do their work, ensuring proper security protocol throughout the system. Tuesday, those involved in managing our Student Records will take part in those discussions.
Next Friday, Campus Executives will meet.
The Project Calendar is on our SharePoint site – https://firstsharepoint.cuny.edu. Access right now is limited to Campus Executives, Project and Communications Liaisons. All liaisons will have access by the end of April.
A new style guide is written to accompany the new Project Graphics package. That guide is being sent to the Communication Liaisons who can make it available to members of their team. It is also available on the SharePoint site.
]]>System Integration Testing began this week with our Finance Community to see how the General Ledger system operates in an environment that includes the various systems that feed information to it. To understand the testing that each process will face, I am attaching a CUNYfirst Focus sheet in this email to explain the testing plan for General Ledger and the Project at large. The next phase of testing the General Ledger is User Acceptance Testing where the processes are pushed to the limits to ensure it meets CUNY standards.
We will begin Training the Trainers for General Ledger next week, with a two-day course. On Monday and Tuesday, trainers identified for colleges in Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island will meet at the Brooklyn Borough Training Center for the presentation workshop. Wednesday and Thursday, trainers from Manhattan and the Bronx will participate in the same instruction at the Manhattan Borough Training Center at City College. The focus next week will be to give them skills to manage the learning environment and facilitate the training for our end users, which begins in May.
The General Ledger Organizational Readiness Checklist was developed from the project plan for campus based activities, with input from the various CUNYfirst Project Teams (Finance Pillar, Security, Technical Readiness, Data Conversion, Testing, etc.). The objective is to prepare to "Go-Live" with the General Ledger in July. These activities will be conducted by the Campus Teams with instructions being given by the Core CUNYfirst Project Team. Specific Campus Team responsibilities are:
The CUNYfirst Steering Committee will meet Wednesday here at West 57th. They receive an update on Project Status and see a demonstration of the Enterprise Learning Management (ELM) system from Training Manager Adante Harvey. ELM will manage our learning and training activities for the Project. It is important to note that our ELM system went live April 9. Thanks to everyone, especially our campus experts who tested and helped put this system into production
On April 16, the Finance Liaisons will meet at West 41st. On their agenda is working with their campus Project Liaison to understand their work for the GL Readiness Checklist, an update on Training, updates on testing (including User Acceptance Training), reporting and the current status of the Chart of Accounts.
We are working with the Baruch Survey Unit to finalize the upcoming CUNYfirst Community Survey about the Project. That survey will be sent out to about 7,000 recipients at the end of April
The Project Calendar is on our SharePoint site – https://firstsharepoint.cuny.edu. Access right now is extended to Campus Executives, Project, Change Management and Communications Liaisons. All liaisons will have access by the end of April.
The new CUNYfirst style guide is written to accompany the new Project Graphics package. That guide is available on the SharePoint site or from the Communications Team.
]]>
We want to thank our CUNYfirst Campus Teams and acknowledge the great teamwork that led to the timely delivery of our new Organizational Readiness Checklist status information by the April 15th due date. These checklists serve as a useful tool for your Campus Teams to monitor progress in terms of completing organizational readiness activities and allowing structure for reporting back issues or questions that need to be addressed to complete the activities by the due dates. What we saw in the response to this task is an increase in communications among team members across pillars that we hope will lead to greater understanding of the Project and all our roles to lead to its success. Thank you again.
Our first sessions of Training began this week as we met with 40 of our colleagues from around the university who will train users in the General Ledger processes. We opened our new Borough Training Centers at Brooklyn College (photos below) and City College as our trainers learned presentation skills, classroom management and conflict resolution. They will return on April 28th to begin learning the content of the classes they will teach for the end users of the new CUNY General Ledger. Our thanks to David Arnow at Brooklyn College and Tom Sabia at City College who oversaw the set-up and technology needs for our new learning laboratories.
Systems Integration Testing continues on the new General Ledger, making sure it integrates with current CUNY systems. The next set of testing for the General Ledger will be User Acceptance Testing (UAT), where subject matter experts, Finance Liaisons as well as some end users will test the system with real CUNY data to test its capabilities in regular and high user load environments.
Our Finance Team has “frozen” the new CUNY Chart of Accounts for one month to allow our finance teams working on the General Ledger to do their work in an environment that is stable and allows us to test what has been built against our upcoming work. It also gives our Process Owner’s Representative, Christina Seglem, the University Assistant Controller time to examine and give her input on our currently configured Chart.
On April 23, we will kick-off the next of our CUNYfirst Finance implementations. We now are ready to embark on the design and development of the Accounts Payable (AP), Purchasing (PO) and Expense (Exp) modules of CUNYfirst. The meeting will provide a more detailed explanation of the vision, goals and objectives of the Procurement effort, as well as, discuss the participation levels required in meeting the timeline for this work.
We welcome to the CUNYfirst Core Team Nancy Cruz (nancy.cruz@mail.cuny.edu) cwho omes to us from the City of New York. Her responsibility is the Accounts Payable processes. Overseeing Purchasing is Joanne Sagherian (joanne.sagherian@mail.cuny.edu). Joanne comes to the Project from Kingsborough Community College.
We will soon begin scheduling our next round of meetings for our Human Resources and Student Administration work. In the past, our fit/gap sessions were mostly an opportunity for subject matter experts to talk about processes in a theoretical environment. When we begin our new sessions, we have new criteria that we believe will lead to a quicker understanding of our processes and meeting our challenges to create our best systems. For these sessions we will request the most appropriate subject matter experts for the specific process, give them experience in working with a PeopleSoft prototype during those meetings to allow them to have the best information to present their opinions. We believe this change will allow for decisions to be made in a more collaborative environment and will allow a connection with those whose work integrates with that particular process. We look forward to a high level of engagement from our campuses.
Approximately 6,000 people from around the university received an email from our Project Sponsor, Executive Vice President Allan Dobrin, introducing them to the 2008 CUNYfirst Community Survey. This is the second assessment that will gather ideas and opinions about CUNYfirst. The survey will be sent out from the Baruch Survey Research Unit beginning April 21 in several waves. Responses will be gathered by May 1. All individual responses will be kept confidential.
]]>This coming Wednesday, we will kick off the next round of testing of the new CUNYfirst General Ledger – Users Acceptance Testing. This is the phase where users of the General Ledger will really put it “through its paces”. We want to make sure the system meets our requirements. The Users Acceptance Testing will follow the completion of the Systems and Integration Testing where the General Ledger was tested to ensure data from the systems that feed into it can be correctly received and processed and Performance Testing where we test the that the system is able to perform under the expected load after implementation. The timeline below shows the phases of User Acceptance Testing, from construction of testing materials, confirming data, and execution and working in what is called the sandbox. A sandbox is where users are in an environment that simulates CUNYfirst processes. The screens will look exactly like what users will see when the CUNYfirst General Ledger goes live. A sandbox is also available via the Internet, so it allows us to call on many CUNY professionals who will use or are familiar with the General Ledger to join in our testing and evaluation.
The second phase of training the 36 professionals from throughout the university who will train the end users of the General Ledger began this week at the Brooklyn Borough Training Center at Brooklyn College. These trainers were given the specific course material they will be teaching to our end users. They also used this new information and presented to their classmates for role modeling, experience and critique. A review of content material continues next week with the orientation for end users scheduled for May 19.
The kickoff for our next processes for Finance under the Procurement umbrella – Accounts Payable, Purchasing and Expense Reimbursement – was held April 23. Those in attendance were briefed on the project timeline, an explanation of the Procurement processes, and the projected time needed for campus personnel involvement. The targeted Go Live date is July 2009. The Fit/Gap sessions will begin shortly with the goal of defining the CUNYfirst Procurement business processes. This will be followed this summer by sessions designed to elaborate and refine via an iterative process, the university wide needs for the Procurement modules, concluding with sessions in the Fall to test and confirm that the configured processes meet CUNY needs. The CUNYfirst team has worked closely with campus leadership to appoint Purchasing and Accounts Payable Liaisons who will take part in these sessions and act as the college’s leads for these activities.
The CUNYfirst Community Survey will conclude Monday at the end of the business day. We ask that you continue to reach out to your campus community to encourage participation. The results will aid the Core and Campus Teams in managing the Project in the areas of organizational readiness, communication and training as it goes forward.
Executive Vice Chancellor Allan Dobrin, Project Leaders Brian Cohen and Ron Spalter and the CUNYfirst Project Director Suman Taneja met this week the Executive Committee of the University Faculty Senate. During the session members were given a Project update and explained the role of the Faculty Chair Liaisons who are guiding us in creating CUNYfirst toolkits and aids for them. The Executive Committee also expressed the desire for more information about the Project, especially as it will affect university faculty.
Members of the Faculty Chair Liaison group met today (Friday) and were given a project update and receive a demonstration of the Campus Solutions prototype for students and faculty. They also were shown reports that Faculty Chairs can run in real-time that currently might take days or weeks. They were also asked to gather information from their campuses that will add to a compendium that we are collecting to guide us on assisting faculty to take full advantage of CUNYfirst processes. This group was also challenged to join the Core Team in extending their knowledge about the Project to their colleagues around CUNY.
CUNYfirst Project and Change Management liaisons will meet Tuesday online for a briefing on Help Desk for the General Ledger. There will also be an update on the Organizational Readiness Checklist and the tasks associated with it and upcoming due dates.
]]>On Monday, June 23, CUNYfirst Campus Executives and Project Liaisons met with the Core Team to confirm General Ledger Go-Live readiness. Oracle and CUNY team leaders confirmed that the following were in ready mode to go live or have plans in place to bring them to readiness by June 30: System Hosting, Performance, Configuration, Testing, Security, Data Readiness/Conversion, Training, Organizational Change Management, Post Go-Live Support and Contingency Planning. Then our Campus Executives confirmed that for the activities assigned to them were complete and they too were ready to begin. The plans are being tracked on a daily basis and if there is a change in status we will notify all parties.
A final round of Users Acceptance Testing in a remote sandbox setting was completed Wednesday, June 25. The testing again confirmed what final steps are needed to move toward a live working environment. Currently, we are performing the scheduled final tests and activities that will take us into a new live General Ledger.
End users who have taken all three training courses – Introduction to CUNYfirst Financials, Chart of Account Structure and Introduction to General Ledger – will receive their new CUNYfirst User ID and Password to access the system from their campus Application Security Liaisons prior to July 1. Once it is communicated that the General Ledger is live, they will sign in. A memo explaining the steps for signing in will be issued on Monday directly to the end users.
There is one more training session before Go-Live this coming Monday, Introduction to CUNYfirst Financials. Most of the attendees will be our Help Desk analysts from around the University. General Ledger Training will resume July 8 and every Tuesday in the month. During that day, all three General Ledger courses will be offered at the four Borough Training Centers at Brooklyn College, City College (Manhattan), Hostos Community College (Bronx) and Queens College. The Introduction to CUNYfirst Financials will be held from 9:30 – 11am, Chart Field will be held from 1 – 2:30pm and Introduction to General Ledger course will be held from 3 – 4:30pm.
Once the CUNYfirst General Ledger is functioning, our local campus Help Desks will be available to provide support for end users. End users have been given that information via their campus teams. They have also received information about the current internet browsers from their Technical Readiness Liaisons to connect with CUNYfirst and the settings needed to work within the General Ledger. Any changes that need to be made will follow these standards.
All users and campus teams will be notified that the system is operational. On Monday, users will be given the URL to access the system and the specific information they need to begin working in the General Ledger.
When users sign in for the first time, they will be required to change their password as per CUNY standards. Each password must contain at least 8 characters and contain a capital letter and a number or a symbol.
Users will log into the Enterprise Learning Management (ELM) system to access templates and the General Ledger Spreadsheet uploads.
On the cusp of going live, we must thank the hundreds of professionals who have gotten us to this point. From the university and campus leadership, to our subject matter experts and finance professionals who have given dozens of hours of time and advice, to our campus teams and liaisons who have helped manage the project, and to the CUNY Core Team and our implementation partner Oracle and consultants who have worked tirelessly for the success of this project. This is the first step, and we want to make sure to recognize a truly team effort.
To paraphrase Project Director Suman Taneja, the General Ledger is like moving into a new house that has the foundation formed and the bare walls and roof in place. Now we’ll add detail work as we continue to build CUNYfirst.
In addition to the General Ledger, our Human Resources (Human Capital Management – HCM) team will hold sessions on Salary Administration and Labor Management issues – understanding how currently configured CUNYfirst Processes fit with how our HR professionals currently work.
]]>Users Acceptance Testing for the new CUNYfirst General Ledger began this week. This is where we make sure the system meets our requirements. A small group of Subject Matter Experts who have taken General Ledger training or are one of our Train the Trainers will start the process. They are developing test scripts based on their day-to-day knowledge of CUNY’s business functions or on their knowledge of the CUNYfirst General Ledger. Overall Users Acceptance Testing begins in June over a three week period with groups coming from our senior, community and specialty colleges, in that order.
Forty-five people from around the university attended our General Ledger Sandbox sessions – three one-day sessions – which allowed them to “touch” the system to work with sample journals they created so they could understand the CUNYfirst system’s functionality.
Train the Trainer workshops concluded this week after seven days of content instruction and presentations. Finance lead Bill Fox and Finance Architect Lynn Rosa were on hand Monday to answer specific questions from the 36 trainers on how to teach General Ledger processes to new learners. Training for the General Ledger begins with an orientation session for end users on May 20 at John Jay College. Details will be released next week. End user training will begin the week of June 2.
Training liaisons met Thursday, May 8, and were updated on the current status and were given a demonstration of the CUNYfirst Enterprise Learning Management (ELM) system. This tool will be used to manage training activities at their campus.
CUNYfirst Project and Change Management Liaisons held a webinar Tuesday, May 6, on Help Desk for users, including creating a support network, developing a knowledge base to respond to common questions and how we will promote self-help tools. They also heard how work within the CUNY Help Desk community is focused on staffing, training and having the proper tools for support.
Project and Change Management Liaisons were also given an update on a number of campus based tasks and how they will continue to update their checklists for General Ledger Go-Live. All campuses completed their checklist.
The 2008 CUNYfirst Community Assessment concluded Monday May 5. We thank everyone for taking time to respond to the survey. The analysis of the results, due next month, will give us insight into the CUNYfirst Project for communication training, leadership and organizational readiness. On June 19, Change Management and Communication Liaisons will meet to discuss the findings of the survey and develop a series of action plans in response.
CUNYfirst Program Manager Mara Bianco met with university Information Technology Directors at their monthly meeting. She shared with them the Campus Checklist tasks that lists what needs to be done prior to the General Ledger Go Live. She also walked them through our Technical Readiness tasks, which is where we are working with technology staff from around CUNY to make sure we are ready to meet our technical requirements from campus to campus to access CUNYfirst processes.
CUNYfirst will kick off the next round of meetings with the university’s Bursar community, focusing on processes that have been created following the first round of fit/gap meetings. This series of ten meetings on consecutive Tuesdays and Wednesdays will focus on future business processes when our professionals use CUNYfirst Student Financials. Participants will also discuss a list of queries and reports needed when our Vanguard Colleges (Queens College and Queensborough Community College) go live next year.
Procurement (purchasing and accounts payable) Liaisons will begin their work Wednesday to create a uniform procurement system for CUNY to meet our collective needs. The Liaisons will work in two groups; a Configurors group will take responsibility for creating the basic processes and a Validators group will work within the configured systems to ensure it meets CUNY requirements. CUNY purchasing and accounts payable professionals will be represented in the Configuror and Validator groups.
]]>Starting Monday, June 16, users from around the university (16 campuses and the Central Office) conducted important testing of the General Ledger in a “sandbox” setting – meaning they accessed the system on line from their offices or other remote locations (as they will when the processes are live) to see how the General Ledger performs in real work settings. Their experiences are essential to helping us evaluate the status of the system. Two sandbox sessions were completed this week with a third involving professionals from six other campuses will take place Wednesday, June 25.
Very positive news to report. From a grand total of 509 sessions completed by individuals, 187 finance professionals from around CUNY took class #1 – Introduction to CUNYfirst Financials, 167 took class #2 – Chart of Accounts Structure, and 155 completed class #3 – CUNYfirst General Ledger introduction.
The final week of General Ledger Training prior to Go-Live will take place the week of June 23 – 25. To work in the CUNYfirst General Ledger, an end user must have taken the three training classes that were offered. Classroom space is available for those who must take the three classes, or those who need to complete one or two remaining classes.
This is a reminder to our General Ledger end user community that after Go-Live, college Help Desk locations will begin their support of CUNYfirst for end users. On Thursday, June 26, University Help Desk Manager Anna Finn will discuss escalation and distribute collateral to the college Help Desk managers.
In addition, we will make available to our General Ledger end users the email address and phone number for their local help test team.
CUNYfirst Campus Executives and Key Stakeholders from around the University will meet Monday, June 23. The key focus of this meeting is to provide a go/no-go decision based upon the Cutover checklist of activities. All colleges have completed their General Ledger Readiness tasks and will be asked for their vote at this meeting.
Security Liaisons trained on PeopleSoft functionality June 17 at Oracle University. Security Lead Mark Manis will be providing security processes and procedures to the Application Security Liaisons for General Ledger Go-Live. Those liaisons will receive additional training on June 30 which will include how to add new users to the General Ledger. They will also learn about the Customer Relations Management (CRM) tool from their Help Desk Managers.
This coming week, we have another round of Student Record sessions where student administration professionals will continue to evaluate the configured systems to understand work and process flows.
The first round of meetings on Position Management and Talent Acquisition Management (Recruitment) began this week. At our sessions, key members of our HR community began evaluating configured HR processes to validate the design of the system for developing future procedures. An important item of discussion was the significance of the recruiter role within CUNYfirst TAM. Those assembled see the recruiter role as essential in helping reduce the amount of time it takes to hire a new CUNY employee.
HR sessions continue the next two week for other processes. Next week the focus for the HCM Team is Workforce Administration
On Thursday, those were invited to participate in the 2008 CUNYfirst Community Survey – over 6,000 people, received a summary of results. One of the recommendations that came from the survey was to share the findings. Campus teams were given the results for the survey as a whole and for their college. They are working to share those findings within their campus community. Those results will help shape an increase and improvement in communication and campus community involvement. That summary will be posted Monday on the CUNYfirst website – http://first.cuny.edu
The CUNYfirst Steering Committee met on June 18, and was given a status report on the Project. In addition to seeing a demonstration of the CUNYfirst General Ledger, they also continued discussion on Faculty Work Load.
]]>This week we concluded Users Acceptance Testing. We thank finance office professionals from around the university for their participation in this important activity, spending many hours making sure the General Ledger processes meet CUNY requirement. Their comments from working in a real-time environment are invaluable. Starting Monday, June 16, users from around the university will continue testing in a “sandbox” setting – that means they can go on line from their offices or other remote locations (as they will when the processes are live) to see how the General Ledger performs in real work settings
We have concluded two full weeks of training for General Ledger end users. Training continues Monday at the Borough Training Centers at Hostos CC (Bronx), Brooklyn College, Queens College and City College (Manhattan). Three classes are held – Introduction to CUNYfirst (Mondays), Chart Field Structure (Tuesdays) and Introduction to General Ledger (Wednesdays).
Training for the General Ledger continues the next two weeks and we encourage those who have not signed up to do so promptly. There is plenty of space for people to take classes. Security access to the CUNYfirst General Ledger will only be given to those who have completed training. Supervisors in our business offices should check to see who on their staff has attended training and who needs to do so.
Some statistics: As of today, 306 individual courses have been completed with 110 people taking the full suite of three General Ledger introductory courses needed for Go-Live.
The CUNYfirst Training Liaisons will meet Thursday June 19.
This is a reminder to our General Ledger end user community that support for using the Enterprise Learning Management (ELM) system comes via the Central Office Technology Support Center until General Ledger Go-Live. After that, campus Help Desk locations will begin their support of CUNYfirst for end users. Collateral will be sent to the campuses to further define the escalation process and work flows.
Security Liaisons will be trained on PeopleSoft functionality next week at Oracle University. Security Lead Mark Manis will be providing security processes and procedures for General Ledger Go-Live.
An important process for our Vanguard Colleges (Queens College and Queensborough Community College) has begun. We are starting the first data load of student information for those colleges in advance of the Campus Solutions implementation scheduled for next spring. The Vanguards will go live with the Student processes in time for class registration for Summer and Fall 2009 terms.
This coming week, we have another round of Student Record sessions where we are looking at the configured systems so we can begin to understand work and process flows.
The first round of summer sessions on Position Management and Talent Acquisition Management (Recruitment) begins this coming week. As with our other work, this round of sessions are to evaluate the configured HR processes and compare to see if they fit our current work processes or if there are gaps. There are sessions scheduled the next three week for HR processes.
This coming Thursday, June 19, Communication and Change Management Liaisons will be given the results of the 2008 CUNYfirst Community Survey. The results are focused on input areas like communications, leadership and customer orientation and outputs like personal/professional growth, training and support and the benefits of change. That information will be shared by campus leadership through the CUNYfirst campus teams.
In general, there remains a strong commitment across CUNY toward high customer service for our students and all other constituent groups. There is a desire for more information about the project, especially how it affects our work and our offices. And there is a strong belief among staff that campus leadership is supportive of the project and that managers and supervisors will be supportive to allow staff to attend training to learn new skills.
A summary of results will be available June 23rd on the CUNYfirst Project website – http://first.cuny.edu.
The CUNYfirst Steering Committee meets this coming Wednesday, June 18. On the agenda is an update on the Project’s status, a demonstration of the General Ledger and other items.
The next Campus Executive meeting is Monday June 23.
]]>CUNYfirst Training Manager Adante Harvey conducted two well attended General Ledger Training Orientation sessions on Tuesday May 20 at John Jay College. Those sessions gave an overview of training activities for General Ledger end users throughout the university. He explained that training will happen in two phases. The first, beginning June 2, will focus on the basics of the CUNYfirst General Ledger and using the new Chart of Accounts. End users will be required to attend three ninety-minute classes at our Borough Training Centers to acquire the skills needed to operate within CUNYfirst when the General Ledger becomes functional. The second phase of GL training will begin in August, where users who have specific campus or office-defined roles will receive specific training on interfaces, budget and reports, based on their current office functions.
In both cases, users will schedule their classes through the CUNYfirst Enterprise Learning Management System. In the next week, end users will receive their user name and password in separate emails for registration.
The Central Office Technology Support Center will begin support of CUNYfirst applications Tuesday, May 27. The Central Office Technology Support Center will support General Ledger users enrolling in courses through ELM (Enterprise Learning Management). The Central Help Desk will support all users until Go-Live July 1. On that date, individual campus Help Desks will begin supporting their campus users.
University Help Desk Manager Anna Finn and Oracle CRM Lead John Dickman conducted a training session Thursday May 22 for help desk personnel from all CUNY campuses. The training will familiarize themselves with CRM system, help-desk business operation and customer service for our General Ledger end users. Those trained will go back to their campuses to train their help desk colleagues. When our CRM system is operational and in use around the university, it will allow us to have resolution for CUNYfirst issues not available within our other systems. Training continues next week.
Our CUNYfirst Campus Solutions (Student Administration) Team has begun its latest Fit/Gap sessions work for our Student Record and Student Financials processes. As opposed to the sessions that occurred in 2007, where we were comparing CUNY to base PeopleSoft processes, these sessions will compare current CUNY business processes to how they might be different when our professionals use CUNYfirst. Those sessions resume June 3 and 4.
Members of the CUNYfirst Core Team met with the University (Central) Office Liaison team which is led by Deborah Labadie, Director of Operations at the Central Office. The University Office team is responsible for making sure the interests of all CUNY administrative personnel is represented at CUNYfirst sessions. They will work with the CUNYfirst Core Team to ensure that communication about the project is distributed to Central Office staff to keep them updated about the Project in general, and when it affects their specific area.
Our CUNYfirst Human Capital Management (Human Resources) liaisons will meet next Friday, May 30 to discuss upcoming work sessions. From June 12-July 18, 2008 our HR Subject Matter Experts from all our campuses and the University Office will test various proposed concepts using current CUNY information. During those sessions, we will also be developing the CUNY policies and procedures relating to HCM/TAM once CUNYfirst goes live. Therefore, participation from the campuses is critical. At the end of these working sessions, there will be detailed demonstration sessions for all HR personnel throughout CUNY..
CUNYfirst Campus Executives will participate in a conference call briefing on Friday May 30. On the agenda is a Project status update, upcoming Project activities and campus tasks, and to review the planning for General Ledger Go Live and post-deployment support.
The CUNYfirst Project is in the process of working with our campus teams to schedule important work sessions in our various pillars – Finance, Student and Human Resources. We will work with our campus communities to make sure we have optimum attendance from all our colleges and offices. We will also respect the periods of time our professionals need to attend to important dates in the summer schedule and as we prepare for the Fall term.
]]>Next week, a core group of Subject Matter Experts begin a two-week test of the CUNYfirst General Ledger at the University Controller’s Office. The goal is to see how it functions in a realistic setting using CUNY data. This testing with CUNY professionals will ensure that the application meets our requirements. Following this testing, users from around the university will continue testing in a “sandbox” setting – that means they can go on line (as they will when the processes are live) to see how the General Ledger performs in real work settings
An important task underway is the conversion of CUNY financial data for use within the CUNYfirst General Ledger. Staff from the Controller’s Office is working now to map data into the new CUNY Chart of Accounts for use when the General Ledger goes live. The work is continuing.
Training for General Ledger end users begins Monday June 2 at the Borough Training Centers at Hostos CC (Bronx), Brooklyn College, Queens College and City College (Manhattan). Three classes will be held – Introduction to CUNYfirst (Mondays), Chart Field Structure (Tuesdays) and Introduction to General Ledger (Wednesdays). End users were notified this week how to access the CUNYfirst Enterprise Learning Management system to sign in, change their password and register for these three classes. Training for the General Ledger will be held throughout June. A second phase of training will occur in August for staff to learn advance General Ledger skills in Interfaces, Reporting and Budgets. In tandem with ELM registration, our Customer Relations Management system was working this week helping end users who needed Help Desk assistance from the Central Office Technology Support Center.
Human Relations Managers and HR professionals from around CUNY met today, May 30, to receive an update on the CUNYfirst Human Capital Management (HR) system and to learn the next steps as it moves toward its implementation. In reviewing what CUNYfirst processes for filling positions, campus representatives were asked to begin thinking about how current HR processes will match CUNYfirst. Vice-Chancellor Ginger Waters challenged the group to think about ways to change current processes that would make real changes on their campus. One example is the time it takes to fill positions. She suggested they look at what CUNYfirst processes could do to aid their desire to fill positions and still meet the exacting standards that are set for new hires or promotions. This summer, the CUNYfirst HCM Team will hold sessions to analyze business processes with recommendations for next steps coming at the end of July.
Meetings continue next Tuesday and Wednesday, June 2 and 3, for professionals from CUNY Registrar and Bursar offices to look at current and future business processes. These sessions allow attendees to see what CUNYfirst processes can do and apply that knowledge to what people do on the job now and how they’ll do it using CUNYfirst processes.
Today, members of our Campus Solutions (Student Administration) team were featured as part of the annual CUNY Financial Aid conference. At the session, our team led a session to provide an update on the project and the implementation of applications for our Vanguard Colleges (Queens College and Queensborough CC) scheduled for early 2009.
CUNYfirst Campus Executives met via conference call on Friday May 30. The agenda included an update on the status of the project, training update, raising awareness about the need for the HR directors to connect with their Campus Executives about organizational readiness, and a preview of the results of the 2008 CUNYfirst Community Survey. There will be a meeting in mid-June to work on the General Ledger Post-Deployment Support checklist that will guide us on how to measure Go-Live success. The meeting will also serve to guide campus teams on how to fill out the forms and provide a glossary for new terms.
Next Friday, June 6, Senior Vice-Chancellor and Project Sponsor Alan Dobrin will hold a conference on Leadership at Kingsborough Community College. Among the invitees are members of the CUNYfirst Steering Committee and Campus Executives, Vice-Presidents of Administration and Finance (many of whom are Campus Executives) and other leaders from around the university. At the event, Dr. Alan Kraut of the Baruch Survey Research Unit will release results of the 2008 CUNYfirst Community Survey.
The Community Survey results will also be the topic of discussion on June 19, at a joint meeting of Change Management and Communication Liaisons. The meeting will be held at Hostos Community College. Following the session, the CUNYfirst Training Team will hold a mock “training” for attendees to aid in their knowledge and to aid in communication
]]>Over 60 CUNY finance professionals attended the Fourth Annual Tuition and Fees Training seminar conducted by the University Controllers office on Wednesday July 30. The objective was to familiarize colleges on CUNYfirst processes in this area and to make sure the reporting is accurate using the new Chart of Accounts structure. Out of the session came the need to increase training and knowledge in the areas of spreadsheet upload and reporting – two items that will be the subject of the second phase of General Ledger training beginning in mid-August.
CUNYfirst General Ledger users are reminded that they are required to contact their local help desk professionals whenever a technical issue arises – when they cannot do something within the system. This will ensure that we can troubleshoot our issues accurately and to spot trends. If a user has a question “how do I do this”, we suggest they work within their peer network, although our help desks are equipped to answer many questions. But again, please log a help desk ticket if you are having technical issues trying to do your work in the General Ledger.
CUNYfirst Student Financials and Financial Aid teams will meet Tuesday August 5 and Wednesday August 6 in a joint sessions with Financial Aid professionals and CUNY Bursars to update business process changes as both groups begin working in CUNYfirst. The morning session on Tuesday will cover all campuses with the afternoon devoted to issues directly affecting our Vanguard Colleges – Queens College and Queensborough Community College – and the issues that they will face when they go live in the Spring of 2009.
The Wednesday session will cover how Return to Title IV will be handled in the second wave of the student implementations. Financial Aid is the driver for this session but R2T4 definitely affects Bursars and R2T4 Coordinators.
The PowerPoint presentations from the July 15 – 16 “Sneak Preview” sessions have been added to the CUNYfirst Project website (http://first.cuny.edu – middle of the front page), along with an FAQ document which has 79 questions and answers to subjects ranging from recruitment, the process when a staff member changes his/her home address within CUNYfirst, adding new degrees and educational advancement to a personnel file and many more.
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This past Tuesday and Wednesday, nearly 70 people from around CUNY took part in a two-day presentation skills workshop taught at Baruch College by the CUNYfirst Training Team. These people will be the trainers for the new CUNYfirst Human Resources processes. Next month, they will learn the system so they can teach the courses necessary for their “students” to learn their new functions. Training for users will begin in February.
CUNYfirst team members met Wednesday December 18 with college faculty workload coordinators, teaching load coordinators and additional representatives from colleges and University Offices to begin the conference room pilot phase of the CUNYfirst Faculty Workload module. In addition to a basic overview of how the PeopleSoft product manages work load tracking and reporting, the college representatives elaborated on many of the needs previously determined through both the original scope of work and earlier sessions with either the human resources community or the academic. Participants were given additional assignment to provide further data to Oracle. The next round of CRP sessions will be scheduled for January.
University Controller Barry Kaufman hosted a meeting of Finance Liaisons Tuesday with the purpose of updating them on work that is currently underway to assess possible changes in the new Chart of Account structure and to talk about current General Ledger and Project issues. Liaisons stressed the need to understand integrated processes, specifically how information from other pillars populate chart fields. The Core Team took away a number of tasks on these and other issues.
Arriving just ahead of the snowfall, CUNYfirst Campus Executives met with Project leadership for a status report and an update on upcoming implementations. Also on the agenda was an update on Project communications, and a call to action by Project Direct Suman Taneja on tasks needed for the implementation of the HR module, including taking inventory of current, promised and needed reports, once CUNYfirst goes live, and an update on the Faculty Workload module.
The Graduate Center’s HR Team hosted a large town hall meeting Wednesday December 17, focusing on upcoming HR and Recruitment processes. After the presentation, many questions were asked ranging from how current processes like mass reappointment and hiring of adjuncts will be handled in the new system to how people who won’t need day-to-day access to CUNYfirst will learn how to log on and use self-service screens to see their personal information.
Many campuses have held town halls (in some cases, multiple meetings with different constituents) and some are planned for the New Year.
Communication liaisons met Wednesday to get an update on current opportunities to increase the knowledge about CUNYfirst throughout the university. Liaisons were asked to encourage their community to go to the Project website – http://first.cuny.edu – where visitors can read up on the various aspects of the Project, or watch the CUNYfirst tour. Liaisons were given marketing materials to post around their campus aimed at driving people to get information. They were also given an overview of the upcoming plans for supporting the rollout of the HR module, which will be available to everyone who works at CUNY. The goal is to introduce users to CUNYfirst, explain how to access the system when it is time, and support users with FAQ’s, web information, access to peer leaders and SuperUsers, and how to get support from their local Help Desk.
From our Leadership
As we close out 2008 and head into a busy new year, we asked our Project leaders to share some thoughts about where we’ve been and where we are going.
Brian Cohen – CUNYfirst Leader – CUNY Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Officer
In 2009, CUNYfirst will embark on several significant implementations - new University-wide processes in Human Resources and Finance and new student services at Queens College and Queensborough Community College. We have very talented people from around the university who are supportive and involved in making the key decisions to get us there.
As we move toward the full implementation of CUNYfirst, we’re going to see technology playing even greater roles in improving the CUNY experience. Technology will "support" our programs on the administrative and academic side. It will “enable” the university to become a more efficient organization. Technology will “enhance” the experiences of students in the classroom and the experiences of the faculty delivering their curriculum, and it will help us "deliver" better services. Supporting, Enabling, Enhancing, and Delivering - that's how technology is helping SEED our future.
Ron Spalter – CUNYfirst Leader – CUNY Deputy Chief Operating Officer
CUNYfirst has proven to be a remarkable opportunity for all of us at the university to validate the promise of an integrated university. Opportunities for participation and shared ownership of processes and solutions have engaged our community is ways that few of us would have imagined possible.
As we look forward to 2009, we need to focus more thought on our need to provide “post-deployment” support for our colleagues as they adjust to their new assignments and work tasks. As always, working together, this is nothing we cannot achieve for ourselves and for CUNY.
Suman Taneja – CUNYfirst Project Director
We are fortunate to have a very talented and dedicated team working on the CUNYfirst project. Our success in 2008 and the success we will see in the future is all due to this great team - which includes the subject matter experts from campuses and the central office, the CUNY core project team and our partners from Oracle, Exeter and Gartner. Over 2,000 subject matter experts from the colleges and the central office have been actively involved in helping us build the new processes that will last the University – its students, faculty and staff – for more than a generation. Our subject matter experts truly care about what happens on the project. You can see it in our meetings and you can feel it in the passion they have for their colleagues and constituents.
2009 will be an exciting year of change for CUNY. With the upcoming implementation of Human Resources, Procurement, Budgeting and Campus Solutions, we have a lot to look forward to. On behalf of the project team, I want to thank all our colleagues who are working tirelessly along side us to make this project successful.
Fridays @ first will resume January 2.
]]>Our Student team began the New Year focused on its work to bring the Vanguard Colleges (Queens College and Queensborough Community College) into CUNYfirst. Specifically, they are finalizing the data conversions that will ensure that SIMS (CUNY’s current Student Information Management System) data transfers correctly and becomes CUNYfirst data. Work is also in progress from creating course catalogs for all our colleges for use by the Vanguard students.
We are beginning our work with the Wave Two colleges (The City College, Hostos CC, John Jay College, Lehman College and York College) to begin data conversion for their students, the strategy and responsibilities for Admissions and Registration, and the implementation of CUNYfirst Financial Aid, which will go live during Wave Two.
The Human Resources implementation remains in high gear. Systems Integration Testing (SIT) is currently underway. When it is completed, HR professionals will test the system during Users Acceptance Testing (UAT). Next Tuesday, a selected group will take part in UAT preparation. This is where they will create the various scenarios to put the HR system through its paces to ensure that it meets CUNY’s requirements.
On the campus level, an inventory of “shadows systems” that create reports for HR professionals are being evaluated to see what will be replaced by CUNYfirst and those that will need to be maintained by the colleges. This has involved the HR Directors, IT professionals working with the CUNYfirst team. Work is also continuing as the CUNYfirst team has asked the colleges to document their Faculty Workload processes. Colleges have been invited to attend CRPII for Faculty Workload scheduled for January 21 at the Graduate Center.
Currently, the General Ledger is live and receiving tuition data. This year we will grow our Finance processes to add Procurement (Purchasing, Accounts Payable and Expenses), and Finance and Budgeting modules. Our teams configuring those modules are actively reviewing material and requirements to configure their CUNYfirst systems.
During the 2009 calendar year, the CUNYfirst Training Team will train in the following areas: Human Resources, Recruiting, Planning and Budgeting, Procurement, and Student Services. In December, Trainers for HR processes took part in a two day session to learn presentation skills. Their next step will be learning the specific processes so they can train our HR professionals and managers and supervisors.
It is important that everyone be on the same page when it comes to understanding some of the basics of CUNYfirst. The following lists a number of common questions we’ve received from college Town Hall meetings or from emails that have been sent to the Core Team (cunyfirst@mail.cuny.edu). We encourage any question, any time.
Will CUNYfirst affect me?
Yes. By the time all modules and applications are fully implemented every one of our students, faculty and staff will have access to CUNYfirst. All employees will have access via self-service when the Human Resources modules go live in a few months. They’ll be able to view their personal information (address, phone number, etc.) and current listing of benefits and report to their local HR office if their data is incorrect.
What is the biggest difference between current systems and CUNYfirst?
The answer is right there - systems vs. system. Our current systems, which are numerous, operate to conduct all our business at CUNY. Very few of them interact with each other. CUNYfirst will integrate all our financial, HR and student processes so that data can be used instantaneous across departments and across the university.
Will we have both systems (old and new) up and running at the same time?
When we retire systems like CUPS (City University Personnel System) or SIMS (Student Information Management System), we will no longer be using both processes. The systems may be up for data reasons only until CUNYfirst stabilizes. But once we launch new CUNYfirst processes for Finance, HR and Student, there will be no need to do processes twice. Some systems will remain, as they perform functions that CUNYfirst will not (example: printing theater tickets), but there will interfaces if their data is required for university or campus reporting.
Will I receive training on all CUNYfirst Processes?
No. In CUNYfirst everyone is assigned roles based on the work they do. Those are determined by managers and supervisors who are translating current work into CUNYfirst functions. When that has been determined, you will receive training to perform the exact tasks you need to do your job. No more, no less. If it is determined you need training on functions outside your role, your bosses will make sure you get it.
Can I have more than one role in CUNYfirst?
Yes. For example, let’s say you are faculty chairperson. You will have access to CUNYfirst Student processes needed to do your job in your department. You may also have access to Human Resources processes in your role as someone who manages people or can hire new employees. You may also have access to Finance processes for purchasing material for your office or getting expenses reimbursed. Access to all functions with one sign-on in one integrated system.
How will I have access to CUNYfirst?
Everyone (faculty, staff and students) will be given an ID and an initial password to sign into the system. At the first sign on, you will be required to change your password to something familiar to you. You will then be asked to give answers to three security questions of your choice so you can get help if you forget your password. You will change your password many times in a given year to ensure the security requirement needed to protect this system.
I work in a job that doesn’t require a computer. Does that mean I won’t have access to CUNYfirst?
No. CUNYfirst can be accessed from anywhere via your favorite internet browser. There are specific requirements for which browsers can be used, but if you have a computer at home, you can sign on to look at your personnel information or, in the future, fill out a time sheet. Campus IT teams are making available computers at various locations at the colleges for those who don’t use a computer in their day to day work.
I’m a student who is used to dealing with the bursar, financial aid and registrars offices. Will they all have access to my information?
Anyone who is given security access to assist students in their careers will be able to refer to a student’s record and look at the same information. They could even look at the data at the same time, but only one person can update a student’s record at a time. This will improve service as everyone will be on the same page – no more “he told me that and she told me this.”
How will I be trained to use the system?
In a number of ways. If you have a job that will require you to have everyday access to the system, you will be trained in a classroom setting by your peers. CUNYfirst Training is based on a model called “Train the Trainer”. Professionals from throughout CUNY learn how processes work, and train individuals how to do their work. Training occurs at five Borough Training Centers at The City College, Hostos CC, Queens College, Brooklyn College and the College of Staten Island. This allows training close to your campus or your home. If you don’t use CUNYfirst every day, training for processes you need will come from Web Conferences, Computer Based Training, and at the One Stop kiosks (for students).
If I am a student at the Graduate Center, but teach as an adjunct at Queens College, does that mean I will have two ID’s and have to remember two passwords?
Every person in the CUNYfirst system has one record. That means you will be identified in the system for all that you are to CUNY. This allows for your information to follow you wherever you go and should speed up new employee procedures if you move to a new job at another campus.
Submit your questions to cunyfirst@mail.cuny.edu
Next week – The Procurement team meets Monday and Wednesday to review fit/gap material captured at configuration sessions. Project and Change Management Liaisons meet Wednesday to update tasks for the HR implementation. The Planning and Budgeting Subject Matter Experts have a session on Thursday. The Queensborough CC CUNYfirst Team will hold a Town Hall meeting about the project on Wednesday.
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Every day is one day closer to the spring launch of the new CUNYfirst Human Resources and recruiting processes. Today, HR Liaisons met to get an update on testing, training, reports needed after go-live, shadow system identification, the conversion of current employee data to be usable in CUNYfirst and the validation process, how HR information works with the new Chart of Accounts, and the next steps to take place on our campuses.
The CUNYfirst Testing Team will begin work next with Core HR Team members to begin the Users Acceptance Testing (UAT) phase of the Core HR and Talent Acquisition Management (TAM) implementation. They will be validating the testing environment and setting up the parameters for the process of conducting UAT when actual users are on the configured system a few weeks later.
Campus teams were also reviewing and resubmitting lists of staff based on the roles they will have in CUNYfirst. Those lists will determine who will receive training and what courses they will be assigned to take.
They were also given a list of standard reports that will come when CUNYfirst goes live – either reports required by CUNY or needed by college staff. The listing of those reports will assist in the identification of shadow or supplementary systems and the determination if they will be needed, especially if they duplicate CUNYfirst processes.
Training the Trainers resumes next week. CUNYfirst Training Manager Adante Harvey released an updated training calendar for the Human Resources launch and shared it with the Training and Communication Liaisons. Beginning Wednesday February 4, Trainers will be placed into four groups focused on the following areas of the HR Module – Position Management, Talent Acquisition Management (TAM), Workforce Administration, Labor Administration and Manager and Employee Self-Service. The TAM Trainers team will kick things off on Wednesday the 4th. The updated calendar is on the CUNYfirst Project site – http://first.cuny.edu
As a result of feedback from the campuses, the new Chart of Account’s Department ChartField was analyzed to determine if those Departments are not used or if there were duplications. After review, approximately Department codes were inactivated, renumbered (i.e. given a more appropriate value), or renamed to provide greater clarity in their meaning. These changes will be apparent in CUNYfirst in the near future.
Colleges should take some time to review the Department to ensure that any mapping uses a valid code and that they update their trees to reflect the new values (if applicable). It should be noted that this sort of maintenance will occur somewhat regularly but not of the magnitude of this change, so colleges should identify staff to perform these tasks when ChartField changes are communicated and make it part of their job functions.
The CUNYfirst Procurement Team and Liaisons have been working very hard over the past two months to clarify and define the CUNY business processes that we need the new system to address. This involves accommodating policies of the City, the State, and all the CUNY related entities which have been operating independently. University Office Process Owners Barry Kaufman, and Sharon Russell, along with Sarah Wilkins, Lynne Hung, and members of the OUC Tech team under Ray Tam have been faced with decisions on everything from 1099 filings to complex interface mapping to the possibilities for internal CUNY Procurement catalogs and Vendor File Clean-Up.
There have been some snags as well. For instance--we discovered that while the City has been using one standard for commodity codes, the State will soon be using an entirely different system; and while CUNY has its own coding system to determine the general category of offerings of each of our vendors, PeopleSoft uses its system. Our leadership wants to be sure to capture all the functionality that is required to meet our myriad of policies procedures, and legal requirements. We also want to quickly move into new, more efficient processes being developed in private, government, and academic procurement nationwide.
As we did in last week’s edition, we’re listing a number of common questions we’ve received from college Town Hall meetings or from emails that have been sent to the Core Team (cunyfirst@mail.cuny.edu). We encourage any question, any time.
The current hiring process is time consuming. Will CUNYfirst help?
Yes. With the new Talent Acquisition Management (TAM) tools, the entire process will occur on-line. Managers and supervisors will work with HR to create the opening and post it electronically. Applicants will apply via email and their information will be routed to the search committee. No more large paper files and multiple copies of packets. Once a hire is made, the new employee’s information is loaded into their personnel data file, speeding up that process as well. Currently it takes, on average, about 100 days to hire a new employee. We hope TAM will cut that in half.
There’s been much talk about shadow systems. How do I know if I need to shut a system down?
Throughout the project, we’ve been focusing on systems that will not be needed once CUNYfirst is fully functional. The concern on campuses is these systems were designed not only for their functions, but also their reports. The goal in sunsetting shadow systems is to eliminate systems that perform the same functions available in CUNYfirst in our Finance, HR and Student Service areas. Part of the configuration process is to help identify the reports needed in our offices and create a process for getting them in CUNYfirst.
The I in first stands for Integration. Explain how.
There are hundreds of administrative systems that drive the business of the City University of New York. Most of them don’t interact with each other and that does not promote good service. With CUNYfirst, our systems will be integrated so, for example, there are finance functions needed when a student pays tuition, and HR functions when he/she is working in a college office. All of the data about that person is in one record, in one system. There will be no need to have several systems operating to track that individual as we have now.
Coming up next week, Vanguard College admissions professionals will meet Wednesday to review admissions configuration. Wave Two schools have also been invited to begin participating. CUNYfirst Admissions module is scheduled to be implemented alongside the Wave Three launch.
On Thursday, February 5, Campus Executives will attend a meeting focused on the upcoming Human Resource module launch. The tasks that are required by the Core Team and Campus Teams are many, so it’ll be a session focused on turning things up a notch. I’ll report on that next Friday.
Tomorrow, Marketing and Advertising students from Baruch and York Colleges will present plans that will lead to the creation of marketing materials and strategies for reaching our student population, first at the Vanguard Colleges (Queens College and Queensborough Community College), then the rest of our campuses. They will present to a group of judges consisting of students from those two schools and myself. The teams will compete with one another, but also see the event as a great networking opportunity. In essence, these students will rightly tell us how to connect with fellow students. We’ll share some of their work next week.
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