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

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

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.

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

General Ledger – Conversion

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.

General Ledger Training Begins Monday/ELM

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 Meeting

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.

Student Administration Update

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.

Campus Executives Conference Call

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 Week – Leadership Meeting

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.

Coming Up – Change Management/Communication Meeting

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

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.

General Ledger – ELM Help Desk Support

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.

Customer Relations Management (CRM) System Training – Help Desk

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.

Student Administration – Student Records/Student Financials

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.

University Team Meeting

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.

Next Week – Human Resources

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..

Next Week – Campus Executives

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.

Summer Meetings

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.

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:

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.

General Ledger – Training

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. 

Project/Change Liaisons

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.

CUNYfirst Community Assessment

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.

IT Directors

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.

Next Week – Student Financials

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.

Next Week – Procurement

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.

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.

General Ledger – Training the Trainers Content Workshops

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.

Procurement Kickoff

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.

CUNYfirst Community Survey

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 Committee – University Faculty Senate

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.

Faculty Chair Liaison Meeting

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.

Next Week – Project/Change Liaison Online Webinar

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.

• 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.

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

Users Acceptance Testing for the Human Resources Pillar resumed with a new effort aimed at speeding up the testing process. Instead of bringing in new testers every other day or week, we are asking professionals to be more of a core group that adds continuity to testing.  While this worked well this week, efforts to spread out the work among more people is constantly under evaluation.  Our target now is to complete testing near the end of April.  The positives of testing is that we’ve been able to confirm functions in TAM (Talent Acquisition Management – Recruiting) that allow us to interview, recommend and, next week, hire job candidates. Testing continues next Tuesday as we aim to wrap up our first two and begin our third of five testing cycles.

Training – Human Resources – Human Capital Management

Train the trainer sessions continue.  At this point we are focused on working with our trainers as they present actual course material.  As we train our trainers, the material they use is based on the system that was configured prior to testing.  When testing is completed and the final configurations done, users will be shown how to do their work with the most recent processes, which may or may not change following testing.  The key is they’ll learn the system that goes into production for all CUNY.

CUNYfirst and Job Titles

At the beginning of the week, the office of Vice Chancellor Waters sent a memo to campus Human Resources Directors detailing functional job title changes for employees in the HEO (Higher Education Officer) and Full-Time Employees in the College Laboratory Technician Titles.  This was undertaken to reduce the number of functional titles and to match an employee’s title to better reflect their assignment and skills. There will be no other change in respect to pay, salary step, status, day-to-day responsibilities or other conditions of employment.

A letter to employees with these contract titles was sent this week.  This is the result of a process to standardize job titles, with the assistance of the Office of Labor Relations and the CUNYfirst Core Team.  A conference call was held Monday to further explain the letter to our HR Directors and staff and answer questions.  A spreadsheet with the full listing of the new job titles was sent after that call.
A full review of this migration will take place from now until September to ensure that all new title assignments are correct.

Help Desk

Help Desk managers and professionals from around the university met this week.  The agenda was focused on their common day to day issues.  They were also given an update on CUNYfirst, including the current target dates for the HR and other implementations, an explanation about Super Users and the Peer Network which will assist them when users need assistance, and the Identity Management System (IMS).  IMS is the entryway to CUNYfirst.  It creates a secure connection for the user to the system.  Final decisions on configuration are being made now and the Project will explain how it applies to all users during the HR launch during training and via the Project website (http://first/cuny.edu).

Student Administration (Campus Solutions)

Sessions were held this week for the following Campus Solutions (Student Administration) teams: Student Records, Financial Aid and Student Financials.  All meetings were demonstrations of the processes available when Wave Two colleges go live.

Procurement (Purchasing, Payables, Expenses)

In a meeting held Monday March 16, Procurement Liaisons learned that the go-live target date is pushed out one year to July 2010, due to many factors.   Various technical and fiscal reasons make it advantageous to launch in sync with the beginning of CUNY’s fiscal year activity.  This meeting communicated the vision of providing a high quality solution to everyone who is part of the Procurement process. The immediate challenge for this team includes how a new Procurement system will work with the new State and City of New York systems also being implemented, how these transactions will integrate with other areas of CUNYfirst, how to provide a system to include Non-Tax Entities, how to work with vendor catalogues and give potential vendors access to the system, and standardizing processes across the university. 

Reports and Reporting

Concerns have been raised about access to information and data once CUNYfirst is fully implemented.  Currently, campus and university professionals are supporting services or systems that extract data from numerous sources for the many reports needed at colleges and for the university.  When CUNYfirst is our system of record, whatever data or information is needed for reports will be available.  As part of the evolution that is taking place now, we are learning that there are campus-specific reports along with common reports needed for the future – some will be available in CUNYfirst and some will require extracts.  What we are learning from our campus teams will lead to the creation of common reports, a reporting infrastructure and a listing of how we can assure our campuses they can get the data they need in the future.

CUNYfirst Steering Committee

The Steering Committee convened Wednesday to receive a Project update from the Oracle Project Manager, an explanation of the fits and the gaps in computing Faculty Work Load under CUNYfirst, and to see a demonstration of the new Identity Management System (IMS).  The Committee will meet again next week to review and make comments about the results of the Faculty Work Load fit/gap sessions.

The Week Ahead – March 23 - 27

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

Train the Trainer - Introduction to HCM - Mon, Mar 23
Brooklyn College

_____________________________________________________________

HR Users Acceptance Testing - Tue, Mar 24 to Thu, Mar 26
Location TBA

Train the Trainer - Position Management - Tue, Mar 24
Brooklyn College

Planning and Budget Core Team
230 W. 41 - 5th Floor

Planning and Budgeting - Hands on Configuration Sessions
230 W 41st - 10th Floor Conference Room

_____________________________________________________________

Train the Trainer - TAM - Wed, Mar 25
Brooklyn College

Planning and Budgeting - Hands on Configuration Sessions
230 W 41st - 10th Floor Conference Room

_____________________________________________________________

CUNYfirst Steering - Faculty Workload Fit/Gap Session - Thu, Mar 26
School of Journalism - 230 W 41st - Room 308

Project/Change Liaison Meeting
Web/Teleconference

_____________________________________________________________

Train the Trainer - Workforce Admin - Fri, Mar 27
Brooklyn College

HCM Weekly UAT Update
Web/Teleconference

Users Acceptance Testing resumed Wednesday at Hostos Community College for two days, testing scripts for workflow and modifications of positions.  We made it through more than half of the scripts in this cycle and are finding out that the meticulous effort to test processes is progressing slower than expected.

On Monday, Ron Knight will have a conference call with the colleges and University Office HR leaders to discuss the latest effort at data validation.  Data and instructions were distributed today for making sure the most important data from CUPS (City University Personnel System) was correctly converted to CUNYfirst.  The results of this validation is due March 17.

CUNY Vice Chancellor Gloriana Waters and Assistant Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Officer Brian Cohen sent this memo to the Project and Human Resources leadership this week, explaining the current plan for implementing the new HR systems.

An excerpt:

“…we are currently targeting May 2009 (for launch).  Our decision to delay the dates is based on our continued commitment to the university community that we will rigorously test and address issues during User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and training development and continuing our efforts to resolve outstanding issues that remain in the completion of the Faculty Workload fit/gap analysis.  

“The CUNYfirst and campus teams continue to work towards building a system that is designed to meet CUNY requirements for functionality and will effectively serve our broad HR community, budget offices, and the many managers and supervisors involved in the recruitment, hiring and appointment processes.  Ultimately, the CUNYfirst system will serve the greater university community and must therefore meet a very high level of satisfaction before we go into production.

“Accordingly, this date change will also move planned Training activities scheduled to begin with Orientation sessions on March 12 forward.  We will announce a new date shortly.”

Testing the TAM/Recruiting functionality continues next week from Tuesday through Thursday at LaGuardia Community College.  Testers have already been identified for these sessions

Training – Human Resources – Human Capital Management

Train the Trainer sessions continue.  Next week the training team will spend the entire week focused on learning and then presenting to their training peers the courses they will teach to the eventual users of the new CUNYfirst HR applications.

Financial Aid  – Campus Solutions

The Financial Aid community has been advancing along through its Conference Room Pilot sessions with a good understanding of what's being taught and good insight for the features needed for CUNY FA requirements.  They’ll meet again Tuesday of next week; however Wednesday's session has been cancelled due to the workload of dealing with wave 1 and wave 2 concurrently.  In lieu of Wednesday's meeting a select group of users have been invited to participate in the FACTS (Financial Aid Eligibility & Certification Tracking System) demonstration. Again, the CUNYfirst Financial Aid solution is scheduled to launch with the Wave Two college implementation.

The Week Ahead – March 2 - 6

In addition to UAT and Train the Trainer sessions for our HR pillar, the follow meetings are scheduled:

Train the Trainer Workshops

Mon, Mar 09 to Fri, Mar 13

Planning and Budget Workshop

230 W 41st - 10th Floor Conference Room

Mon, Mar 09  9:30 AM – 4:30 PM

HCM - Data Conversion Teleconference

3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

UAT Testing - Recruiter/TAM

LaGuardia Community College

Tue, Mar 1 to Thu, Mar 12

Wave 2 Student Records - CRP Session

Joseph S. Murphy Institute/ CUNY - 25 W 43rd Street - 19th Floor

Tue, Mar 10 9:15 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

HCM - Data Conversion Teleconference

3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Wave 2 Student Records - CRP Session

Joseph S. Murphy Institute/ CUNY - 25 W 43rd Street - 19th Floor

Wed, Mar 11 9:15 AM – 4:00 PM

Financial Aid – FACTS Demonstration for Vanguard & FACTS Testing Team

 230 W. 41st - 10th Floor Conference Room

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Training Liaisons Conference Call

Fri, Mar 13 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM

Are We Ready for Launch?

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.

Next Steps

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.

 Post-Go-Live Training

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.

Post Go-Live Support

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.

When CUNYfirst General Ledger Goes Live

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.

THANK YOU

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.

Next week

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.

 – 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.