Message from Chris

It has been quite an active first month and a half in the role as interim project director. Amir, who continues as project executive sponsor, and I are working closely with project leadership to continue to ensure that campus needs are met with the CMS people soft application.

Last month the campus launched a nation-wide search for a permanent CMS Project Director. Dick Bednar is chairing the search committee that includes campus representative from the divisions and academic senate.

Since the last edition of ProjectWatch, we have made progress on several fronts. Please read the rest of this edition for reports of the most significant activities. I want to highlight just a few, starting with the Human Resources system.

Highlights from the Human Resources project include four campus-wide releases of functionality. These are:

• Leave Accounting, to be released 12/1/05, allowing campus employees to view their leave balance data through their CMS HR Self Service site.
• Part Time Faculty Hire, to be released 12/19/05, providing departments and colleges the capability to hire part time faculty into CMS.
• Student Hire, to be released 1/16/06, providing departments and colleges the capability to hire and enter student time into CMS.
• Department Roster, CWID Search, and Query tools to be released 1/16/06.
  
  Training for each of these applications will be made available to identified campus users by role. Training for each of these applications will be made available to identified campus users by role. An email will be sent to each user so they may register for their classes online*.
  In the Finance project, the training, process map and fit/gap sessions originally scheduled for September and October will be rescheduled. The new schedule will minimize impact on the division of Administration and Finance organization by allowing sufficient time to recruit and hire key team members (Business Analysts and operational staff backfill).
  
  Even with this rescheduling, the finance project is continuing to move forward. New hires Allyson Bates (Lead business and analyst) and Shelley Montoya (Payables business analyst) are working to identify integration points of the new financial system with other feeder systems including telephone services.
  
  The Student Administration project has also begun to become increasingly active. The Student Administration management team has been formed and is working to identify user teams to be involved during fit gaps. Two initial project management team decisions have been approved by the campus: first, a Summer 2008 implementation timeline and second, to use CMS Academic Advising over the current DARS system.
  
  A videoconference with CSU-San Jose was held on November 11th. CMS Steering Committee, SA Management team and other key individuals were invited. Videotapes of the conference are available for borrowing by request to the Project Office at cmsproject@fullerton.edu. Space for the Student project has also been identified in the University Plaza building (look for the Penny Saver sign).

*To access the CMS training classes, logon to your portal and click the Training tab. Under CMS, click Register for Training to access the Employee Training Center web site. Please read the detailed instructions and FAQ's. If you experience technical difficulties, please contact aolsson@fullerton.edu.