IRIS Project News Release
IRIS Project update – Campus Management Team finishes blueprint effort
This final article on the IRIS Project’s Business Blueprint phase focuses on Campus Management, the SAP software that will touch most of the university community—its students, the faculty, and many staffers who work in colleges, academic support areas, and offices that handle billing and financial aid. The Campus Management Team has finished its portion of the Business Blueprint and is awaiting its review. In this brief between-phases pause, CM Team member Loretta DeToma stopped to reflect on her team’s blueprint experiences and to answer questions about Campus Management.
Q. “Campus Management” is a new term for the UK community. What exactly is covered by this component of the SAP software?
A. Campus Management supports student recruitment and admission, academic advising, registration, grading, progression and graduation, or, in SAP language, the Student Life Cycle. The software also handles student billing and provides the means for administering financial aid with the use of software from Sigma.
Q. How would you describe your team’s blueprinting experience?
A. I can describe it in one word – intense. Our efforts included more than 40 workshops this fall, along with many hours devoted to research and information gathering. Workshops began with general information on the SAP functionality in CM and progressed to more focused learning about specific topics. The team devoted non-workshop time to gathering information on current processes in admissions, registration, student records, billings, and financial aid.
In order to complete the information gathering on schedule, team members worked outside their knowledge areas to research and document procedures and requirements. Everyone worked on the customer input (CI) templates, regardless of campus area represented. This has given us a wonderful opportunity for interaction and learning.
Q. What about campus participation?
A. Because CM touches so many units on campus, and virtually all aspects of the Student Life Cycle, the team called upon numerous campus experts to help with the blueprinting process. Participation has been both broad and varied. Campus representatives attended the early workshops to gain knowledge of the software and its functions. Later workshops focused on more specific topics and called for particular groups to attend. Consider the admissions area alone – undergraduate admission and selective colleges and programs, graduate admission, and the processes for professional colleges—and you can see how vital subject matter experts have been for this process.
Q. At this point what is most exciting for the CM Team?
A. As we’ve worked from “As Is” to “To Be”, we’ve witnessed just how much streamlining can occur with this software. UK has a real opportunity to improve business and service processes. Consider, for example, the matter of student addresses. Current system and practice calls for storing up to 12 addresses for a student. We’ve determined that that number can be reduced to four in SAP and still meet recordkeeping and reporting requirements.
The SAP system offers a new look and feel and users will have more flexibility in how they get tasks completed. Reports can be generated from the desktop and staff members will see that SAP will do lots of tasks for them that previously have always required paper processing.
Q. What challenges does CM present?
A. Accepting change and getting used to it is probably one of biggest challenges everyone will face. Everyone will have to think about the UK organization in a different way, as SAP’s organizational structure requirements are quite different from those in our present systems. Moving away from social security numbers to system-assigned numbers/identifiers presents another major change.
In terms of the implementation, data conversion from present systems like SIS to the SAP environment offers plenty of challenge. Various factors and requirements will influence the decisions on data conversion. And, of course, our biggest challenge probably comes with the integration this system features. What we do in CM can affect the FI and HR components significantly, and learning to work well in an integrated system will be a test for everyone.
Q. How do you feel about the CM blueprint? And the next phase?
A. The CM Team has put a lot of time and energy into this effort. We’ve completed about 70 CI templates to carefully document the institution’s requirements. Our hope is that we’ve done the work necessary for a solid blueprint to follow in Realization. The fact that team members are willing to be flexible and help with all assignments should prove helpful as we work to make our design a reality in the months ahead.
 |
Campus Management Team members Jonathan Garrett, Loretta DeToma, and Nimmi Wiggins discuss a process in SAP. Photo credit: Rick Willmott |
This final article on the IRIS Project’s Business Blueprint phase focuses on Campus Management, the SAP software that will touch most of the university community—its students, the faculty, and many staffers who work in colleges, academic support areas, and offices that handle billing and financial aid. The Campus Management Team has finished its portion of the Business Blueprint and is awaiting its review. In this brief between-phases pause, CM Team member Loretta DeToma stopped to reflect on her team’s blueprint experiences and to answer questions about Campus Management.
Q. “Campus Management” is a new term for the UK community. What exactly is covered by this component of the SAP software?
A. Campus Management supports student recruitment and admission, academic advising, registration, grading, progression and graduation, or, in SAP language, the Student Life Cycle. The software also handles student billing and provides the means for administering financial aid with the use of software from Sigma.
Q. How would you describe your team’s blueprinting experience?
A. I can describe it in one word – intense. Our efforts included more than 40 workshops this fall, along with many hours devoted to research and information gathering. Workshops began with general information on the SAP functionality in CM and progressed to more focused learning about specific topics. The team devoted non-workshop time to gathering information on current processes in admissions, registration, student records, billings, and financial aid.
In order to complete the information gathering on schedule, team members worked outside their knowledge areas to research and document procedures and requirements. Everyone worked on the customer input (CI) templates, regardless of campus area represented. This has given us a wonderful opportunity for interaction and learning.
Q. What about campus participation?
A. Because CM touches so many units on campus, and virtually all aspects of the Student Life Cycle, the team called upon numerous campus experts to help with the blueprinting process. Participation has been both broad and varied. Campus representatives attended the early workshops to gain knowledge of the software and its functions. Later workshops focused on more specific topics and called for particular groups to attend. Consider the admissions area alone – undergraduate admission and selective colleges and programs, graduate admission, and the processes for professional colleges—and you can see how vital subject matter experts have been for this process.
Q. At this point what is most exciting for the CM Team?
A. As we’ve worked from “As Is” to “To Be”, we’ve witnessed just how much streamlining can occur with this software. UK has a real opportunity to improve business and service processes. Consider, for example, the matter of student addresses. Current system and practice calls for storing up to 12 addresses for a student. We’ve determined that that number can be reduced to four in SAP and still meet recordkeeping and reporting requirements.
The SAP system offers a new look and feel and users will have more flexibility in how they get tasks completed. Reports can be generated from the desktop and staff members will see that SAP will do lots of tasks for them that previously have always required paper processing.
Q. What challenges does CM present?
A. Accepting change and getting used to it is probably one of biggest challenges everyone will face. Everyone will have to think about the UK organization in a different way, as SAP’s organizational structure requirements are quite different from those in our present systems. Moving away from social security numbers to system-assigned numbers/identifiers presents another major change.
In terms of the implementation, data conversion from present systems like SIS to the SAP environment offers plenty of challenge. Various factors and requirements will influence the decisions on data conversion. And, of course, our biggest challenge probably comes with the integration this system features. What we do in CM can affect the FI and HR components significantly, and learning to work well in an integrated system will be a test for everyone.
Q. How do you feel about the CM blueprint? And the next phase?
A. The CM Team has put a lot of time and energy into this effort. We’ve completed about 70 CI templates to carefully document the institution’s requirements. Our hope is that we’ve done the work necessary for a solid blueprint to follow in Realization. The fact that team members are willing to be flexible and help with all assignments should prove helpful as we work to make our design a reality in the months ahead.
| VOCABULARY TERMS Module is the SAP term for a course or class. Booking is the term for registration. Business Event is the term used for a class section (e.g., MWF 8:00-8:50am). Appraisal is synonymous with grading. |
