PROJECT OFFICE
CMS Steering Committee: 2006 Archive
Steering Committee Representatives
- Robert Palmer (Chair)
- Margaret Atwell
- Bill Barrett
- Dick Bednar
- Nancy Dority
- Amir Dabirian
- David Fromson
- Lea Jarnagin
- Brian Jenkins
- Susan Kachner
- Susan Lasswell
- John Lynn
- Chris Manriquez
- Harry Norman
- Daniel Ramsey
(Student Rep.) - Michelle Totten
- Karen Wall
- Cailin White
(Student Rep.)
Responsibilities
The CMS Steering Committee is composed primarily of members from each functional area providing resources to the project as well as key representation from the campus at large. Members meet regularly to discuss issues, review progress, provide resources and make key decisions.
Implementation, Upgrade & Production responsibilities include:
- Allocating staff resources
- Overall planning
- Involvements
- Resolving policy issues
- Business practice endorsement
- Changing advocates
- Managing expectations
- Communication/outreach
- Budget planning
Key Decisions and Recommendations
November 14, 2006
- Approved the recommendation of the CMS Forms Committee to utilize eForms (FileNet) as the development tool for our campus forms.
September 26, 2006
- Approved the recommendation of the CMS Finance Management Team to Create a Custom Front-End in CMS for Budget Transfers.
- Approved the recommendation of the CMS Finance Management Team to Use Custom Front-End Pre-Encumbrance Tracking and Reporting rather than Baseline Pre-Encumbrances Tracking and Reporting.
June 13, 2006
- Approved the recommendation of the CMS Reports Committee to continue using Hyperion (Brio) as CSUF’s Business Intelligence software platform (updating the software from version 6 to version 9) and to continue using FileNet to archive, access and distribute reports.
- Approved the recommendation of the CMS Finance Management Team to Create a Custom Front-End in CMS for Requisition Distribution.
Updates
December 12, 2006
Bob Palmer, chair of the CMS Steering Committee, called the meeting to order. Chris Manriquez guided the group through the CSUF CMS Project Goals Statement pointing out four goals that need to be accomplished as part of the ongoing implementation and upgrades of the PeopleSoft applications, one of which is to resolve long standing or currently identified issues with business functions through process or technical developments. Chris continued with the CMS Project Structure Roadmap – “A Roadmap to a Successful CMS Implementation” which included an overview of the Central Data Warehouse rollout phases.
The meeting continued with a discussion on HR’s Absence Management module. Chris went over the upgrade and training plan stating If a user does not attend the new training by a yet to be determined deadline their access will be removed. There was a consensus that communication to managers will be the key to getting the necessary training underway and completed in a timely manner.
Chris continued with an overview of the part-time faculty process indicating that for the time period between the months of March and July 2007, it will be a forms-based process. FAR estimates that only 40-50 requests are received during this period. He listed 3 ways this will positively impact the campus: 1) Sync the go-live of the new PT Faculty process with the Labor Cost Distribution (LCD) go-live in July. 2) Remove the need for distributed users learning two processes for hiring within the 3 month period. 3) Eliminates the development cycle for one application interfacing during the heaviest development period.
Chris concluded with an introduction to Susan Kachner, who reviewed the approach for all the self-service phases for Campus Solutions (Student Administration).
November 28, 2006
Chair Bob Palmer convened the meeting. Chris Manriquez announced that, as in previous years, a number of campus staff will attend the annual Oracle/PeopleSoft user conference, to be held next March. The Student Administration team will send six module leads who will be joined by 3 people from the project office. In his update about the CMS Reporting Committee, Chris announced that Lisa Kopecky is the new chair, allowing former chair Susan Kachner to dedicate 100% of her effort to the CMS Student system implementation. The committee will work with HR, Finance and Student sub-teams to document campus reporting needs, eliminate duplication, recommend report delivery and support methodologies to meet needs of casual, ad hoc and power users. Chris provided information on one of several third party tools to enhance the resume processing feature of the CMS recruit solutions module. By purchasing one such solution, the campus will be able to replicate certain BrassRing features currently utilized by the campus. There was discussion about what solutions other CSU campuses use for staff and faculty recruiting. There will be fit-gap sessions to determine the best solution for our campus. Brian Jenkins reported that the finance staff was actively engaged in efforts to determine guidelines for a smooth year-end close process (for 2006-07) and successful conversion from the legacy to CMS system. Susan Kachner announced that divisional coordinators soon will be identified by PAB to advise and coordinate communication for distributed elements of the Student project, including registration, self-service (faculty/staff/student), class schedule build and academic advising.
The final agenda item was the CMS budget. Amir indicated that the five-year costs (2004-2009) currently are projected to be $46.5 million, down from the former $49 million projection. Savings have been realized by CSUF’s model of knowledge transfer from consultants to staff. If funding falls short, he noted, fewer modifications will be made to the baseline CMS system, resulting in a loss of functionalities required by our campus. The CSU has provided a loan of $20 million at an interest rate of 4.4% over 7 years, with annual loan payments of around $3.4 million. At the January meeting, Amir will provide details of expenditures for modifications to meet campus requirements.
November 14, 2006
Bob Palmer, chair of the CMS Steering Committee, called the meeting to order. Chris Manriquez, CMS Project Director, introduced Welson Badal, chair of CMS Forms Committee, who conducted the CMS Forms presentation. The presentation included the objectives of the CMS Forms Committee, a review of the forms software requirements list and the evaluation process, demonstrations on both software under evaluation (FileNet eForms and Adobe LiveCycle). The CMS Steering Committee obtained unanimous consensus to accept the Forms Committee recommendation to utilize eForms as the development tool for our campus forms.
Chris concluded the meeting by highlighting key upcoming events for each application. Refer to the CMS Calendar, Calendar & Timeline for Human Resources , Calendar & Timeline for Finance , Campus Solutions Calendar and the Training Schedule .
October 24, 2006
Chairman Bob Palmer convened the committee meeting. Chris Manriquez guided the group through the schedule of system-wide CMS Campus Upgrade Timelines for 2006-2015. He pointed out that the HR system has 21 separate modules, some of which are included in baseline software; others will be modifications created by the campus CMS team. March 10, 2007 remains the date for our campus upgrade to version 8.9. Several of the HR modules are tightly integrated with the Finance system, so these modules must be in place before the Finance goes live in July, 2007. The State Controller’s Office 21st Century Project, to which the CSU will convert all at once, is likely to impact the project. The Campus Solutions (Student Administration) system includes 13 modules plus added distributed functionality modifications. The Finance system, version 8.4, also includes multiple modules, with six baseline modules and to date, six CSUF modifications.
Chris continued with an overview of the PeopleSoft support systems timeline. The list of projects includes the CSU data warehouse and data center and CSUF projects of FileNet, local data warehouse, forms deployment, reports rollout and the PeopleSoft portal. Most of these have 2007 delivery dates. Amir Dabirian commented that our campus must be prepared to change directions and timeline to reflect changes made centrally at CSU. Bob Palmer concurred, stating that “flexibility is the key.”
Chris introduced Burt Casey, lead business analyst with the HR project. She described the Absence Management module that will replace our current leave accounting system, effective March, 2007. The committee endorsed her recommendation to develop modifications that will replicate existing practices and processes for minimal impact to the campus. Burt also presented key features of the Recruiting Solutions module, noting that it provides all the features of BrassRing with the exception of resume processing. The committee urged the HR project team to obtain pricing on the third party tool that would provide this missing feature.
Chris concluded the meeting with updates about fit gap sessions and a summary of scheduled presentations and demonstrations to the campus community. Refer to the CMS Calendar, the Calendar & Timeline for HR , Finance Calendar, Campus Solutions Calendar and the Training Schedule (http://www.fullerton.edu/cms/Training/Schedule/trainingschedule-nov.htm).
October 10, 2006
Bob Palmer, chair of the CMS Steering Committee, called the meeting to order and introduced representatives from Hyperion Brio who conducted a demo of the new version of Brio software which will serve as the reporting tool for the CMS project.
Chris Manriquez, CMS Project Director, then asked for comments about a new modification control document, which is a template to be used in evaluating modifications for the baseline products delivered by the CSU. Proposed changes will be incorporated into the next version of the document.
The last item of business was a review of the revised CMS website. The site has undergone major redesign and reorganization during recent weeks in order to reflect the operational status of the project and in response to suggestions made by members of the campus community. The new architecture allows easy access to and more specific information about the three core applications: HR, Finance and Campus Solutions (Student Administration). New features include Calendars of Events and News and Updates by application. Readers will find “Meet the Team” pages and FAQs specific to each application.
There are two ways to stay informed: subscribe to CMS Web Updates to receive email notifications whenever new information appears on the CMS web site, and send any questions to cmsinfo@fullerton.edu
