Coordinating Committee Meeting
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Meeting Notes - April 11, 2006
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The IRIS Coordinating Committee held its first meeting following the HR/Payroll, Hospital Inventory, and Financial Aid Go Lives. Before hearing reports on each of these events, Phyllis Nash asked the committee members for their thoughts on compensation for individuals assigned to the project on a part-time basis. Everyone concurred that the present practice should continue, with no additional compensation being offered.
Michelle Bliffen gave a summary of HR/Payroll Go Live and shared statistics with the group. The biweekly payroll ran successfully for 13,295 employees. An issue with flexible spending accounts (mid-year changes) surfaced, with 64 employees affected. More than 115,000 time records were loaded in a five-day window by either direct entry or time feed. Security presented some of the biggest challenges at Go Live, with more than 200 changes to user access requested on March 29. The number of users grew from 665 to 778 in a three-day period. Michelle reported that end-users vary considerably in their confidence in using the system. Some employees need additional coaching or re-training. Within the next two weeks, the HR Team plans to establish a user group for both back office staff and end-users. Michelle concluded her report with praise for her team members and their great effort on this part of the project. She also offered thanks for the help and support given by Marc Mathews. Mr. Owen echoed Michelle’s praise and acknowledged his amazement at the success of the first payroll. That the Payroll Department could leave on time last Friday is an indicator of the success.
The Coordinating Committee learned about an issue related to structural authorizations in HR. Transferring an employee from one department to another requires a multi-step process involving both sending and receiving departments, with the structural authorizations now in place. While this cumbersome process limits what records employees can view (none beyond their departments), it is causing problems and inefficiencies. The committee considered a proposed change – the removal of structural authorization from transaction PA40 – to simplify the process. Those in attendance weighed the numerous advantages offered with the approach against some of the risks, and unanimously agreed to the change. The PA40 change and resultant activity will be systematically monitored.
Kevin Stevens gave an account of Hospital Inventory Go Live. The new system came up on the evening of Saturday, April 1. The team noted problems with interfaces and particular issues with the PICIS feed, where counts of items needed for multiple procedures for a single patient were skewed. Manual processing for the Operating Room supplies is being used until this PICIS problem can be fixed. Upgrading and testing are underway now for PICIS and Kevin is hopeful that automatic processing can be reactivated soon. While some typical process issues surfaced during Hospital Inventory Go Live, PICIS was the only major implementation problem. Joe Hines was happy to report that MRP (automated re-ordering) was working quite well. The MM Team worked long hours during this implementation to deliver training and support to employees on different shifts in the UK Hospital. They received much support and assistance from the Hospital staff.
The current emphasis of the FES Project is on interim processing. Until July 1, each full-time faculty member with records in the current FES will be established in IRIS HR/Payroll so that the base salary is charged to a clearing account. In April, May, and June, a special FES reallocation process will use the current DOE information to create transactions that will charge the correct cost objects in IRIS FI (Financial Accounting). Labor distribution reporting for full-time faculty members will need to be done using HRS. This interim plan requires that full-time faculty assignment changes, additions, and terminations be maintained in HRS. This processing will be challenging for departments. Other tasks for FES include data discrepancy clean-up, continued testing, and preparation for user training in May.
Lynda George provided a detailed report/handout on the Sigma ProSAM implementation. Both Stage 1 and Stage 2 Packaging for freshman admits are now complete. Award letters for approximately 3,000 admitted freshmen are scheduled to print today and be mailed on April 12. Work on data loads and corrections will continue, as will packaging and notification to freshmen when their files become complete. The team will be finalizing ProSAM web services and working on College of Law packaging and notification (mid-May). Lynda shared sample notification of award letters (old and new) with the group and everyone noted the 2006 letter was a great improvement over the old one.
The Visitor Center Go Live will occur in May and training will be scheduled soon. Other CM efforts are centered on data conversion (more than 300,000 student records and academic history). Michelle Nordin also is meeting with various groups on enhancements, the Blackboard interface, and room scheduling.
Lee Nelson acknowledged the three Go Live successes and marked them as the smoothest ones yet for him as a project manager. He credited the HR Team with taking full advantage of the time afforded them with the date change for Go Live. He also praised the MM Team for their hard work and thanked Zed Day for his support of Hospital Inventory. Lee noted that the ProSAM implementation was easy for him, as Lynda George had done such an exceptional job. Lee cautioned everyone about the next payroll and cited retroactivity as an important issue and concern. Users can trigger inappropriate retroactive calculations by changing, rather than creating, records. He alerted everyone to the fact that retroactivity will occur. He concluded with mention of other challenges with payroll, such as accruals and statement printing. The Coordinating Committee meets next on May 9.
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