Administrative Information Systems News
By Jim Bersig
Happy New Year! As we begin the new calendar year and move into the spring semester the Administrative Information Systems (AIS) team members have been working to complete and preparing to start several enterprise projects. Do you know that several distinct applications comprise the CSUDH Oracle/PeopleSoft enterprise systems? The applications are as follows:
- My.CSUDH.edu Portal
- Finance
- Campus Solutions (Student Administration)
- Human Resources/Payroll
- Data Warehouses
The MyCSUDH portal brings many of the features of these applications together for students, faculty, and staff. Though the applications may not have high campus visibility, the applications serve as the “mission critical” CSUDH administrative technology engine. AIS team members are currently extremely busy with conversions or upgrades to the applications, driven primarily by the Chancellor’s Office (CO) timetables, which are tied either to strategies to reduce enterprise costs to the campus or to support provided by the software company. A summary of the activity follows.
- Finance: Our campus functional and technical teams are implementing a new Common Financial System (CFS) on a consolidated CSU database, which will include a new data warehouse. It is being implemented and tested in preparation for an April 2011 go-live date. Finance modules include General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Purchasing, Accounts Receivable/Billing, and Asset Management.
- Human Resources/Payroll: This application is currently an integrated system with the Campus Solutions system, as they share the same database. Human Resource/Payroll modules include Base Benefits, Benefits Administration, Position Management, Workforce Management, Absence Management, Workforce Monitoring, Labor Cost Distribution, Talent Acquisition Manager, Temporary Faculty, Time & Labor, and Payroll.
- Campus Solutions (Student Administration): Our student modules include Campus Community, Catalog, Schedule, Academic Advisement, Admissions, Financial Aid, Student Financials, and Student Records.
Because both the Human Resources/Payroll and Campus Solutions applications comprise Human Capital Management (HCM), they will be upgraded together. CSU campuses and the CO are now preparing for this major upgrade to HCM 9.0, which is scheduled to go into production in April 2012. Upgrades to the applications are mandated by the CO, where a central Information Technology unit serves all of the campuses.
As you can imagine, implementation and maintenance of these applications require attentive oversight from stakeholders all over campus. The Campus Systems Users Group (CSUG) meets monthly to discuss activities surrounding a myriad of topics, including PeopleSoft applications.
AIS team members also support, develop, and/or maintain non-PeopleSoft administrative applications. For example, Financial Aid, Admissions and Records, Human Resources Management, Procurement, and the College of Education use Hyand Software (a.k.a. Hershey Systems, Inc.) Singularity imaging systems to capture and organize documents such as transcripts, applications, and evaluations submitted by student and staff applicants.
Yuki DeSoto leads the AIS programmer/analysts over related or integrated systems, while Michael Kelley leads the AIS database, security, Web, and portal systems staff.
That’s enough work for our group of 13 people, don’t you think? Wrong. University Webmaster Tak Yee Poon and Michael Kelley are working with University Web Manager Shon Lee and Instructional Technology’s Reza Baroon in IT’s Instructional Technology Center to implement the new enterprise Web Content Management System [note: another “CMS”] called Percussion. Once implemented, Percussion will allow campus Web content providers to simply drop content into formatted templates. A primary benefit Percussion will provide the campus is Web pages that are totally compliant with established rules for accessible Web content.
Did you know that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Designated Copyright Agent is a member of the AIS staff? She is Marion Smith, and you’ve probably seen her invitations to the copyright training that she offers each semester (a DMCA requirement). If you missed the in-person training—or if you attended but want more information—take a look at the CSUDH Copyright website.
In early February, we wished Bich-Dao Huynh a happy retirement. Bich served as an operations specialist in AIS, assigning network usernames to new employees and generating test results and their accompanying analysis.
As you can see, members of the AIS staff boast a wide variety of skills and provide a variety of services to the campus community. I welcome an opportunity to meet with you. It’s easiest to catch me in person in WH 380 or via telephone at 310.243.3703. (You may also reach me at jbersig@csudh.edu.)
Jim Bersig is the Director of Administrative Information Systems.
