Welcome

The Michigan State University Board of Trustees authorized the MSU Enterprise Business Systems Project on October 20, 2006. It directed the project to replace and upgrade the existing financial, research administration and human resource systems. The overall goal is to design an updated set of electronic administrative tools that can be used by faculty and staff to accomplish the business goals of Michigan State University. These tools provide an environment to support the work of an advancing university.

Project Bits - Spring 2008

ADMINISTRATION

As a result of an open bid process, we are now in negotiations with a small number of companies vying to serve as Implementation Partners for various parts of the EBSP implementation work that will take place over the next several years. We anticipate having agreements completed in mid-summer. At that time, we will begin working with our consultants to solidify plans for implementing the new software programs.

Vendor demonstrations for Business Intelligence software took place May 14-15 (Business Objects from SAP), 19-20 (SAS), and 21-22 (Cognos from IBM). Attendance was high and the active participation of many individuals from units across the campus is very much appreciated. Active participation from university units plays a key role in the process we are using to select a finalist. The Project thanks all who attended and offered their questions, comments, and feedback. We also remind you, if you have yet to turn in your feedback, please do so. The deadline for feedback is Thursday May 29.

Good business reporting and analysis software is an essential key to realizing the value in this next generation of business systems. Input and feedback from all levels of the university will help to ensure MSU selects to tools that best fit the university's needs.

A question that arose during the BI Vendor presentation had to do with the finalization of the data elements and coding values that will be used for the University's new chart of accounts. Work on this is underway within the Project's Financial Systems team. They hope to complete a draft of this in June.

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

• Responses to the Business Intelligence Request for Proposal (RFP) were received in early April, and the team spent much of last month evaluating each of the responses. We analyzed the ability of the various proposed toolsets to meet the functional requirements as identified in the RFP, as well as evaluated respondents' qualifications and technical and metadata capabilities. Extensive reference checks were conducted and outcomes evaluated for each vendor.
• The three (3) RFP finalists demonstrated their software solutions at MSU Stadium May 14-15 and 19-22. To facilitate comparable evaluation across products, bidders each demonstrated their software performing the same set of business reporting functions and processes.
• Those attending the demonstrations were asked to contribute to the evaluation process via online feedback or Scantron bubble sheets. Input from units will play a significant role in the selection of the business intelligence software product for the university's use.

• In April, we brought three new people on board: two Change Management Specialists and a Communications Manager.
• New staff participated in a series of Change Management classes, and the entire group was heavily involved in assisting with communications, arrangements, and materials for the Business Intelligence Vendor Presentations.
• We are continuing to offer Change Management sessions to employees in Human Resources, EBSP, AIS as well as Finance and Human Resource Reps. Our efforts in this area will be expanded, and new classes will be announced soon.

• The team sponsored a weeklong training session with William Smith on Conceptual Data Modeling, Conceptual Transaction Modeling, and Logical Data Modeling. Attendees represented project staff from the functional areas of Human Resources, Finance, Budget, Technical, BI, and EIS.
• Our EBSP EIS working committee meets weekly and we are in the final stage of a data matrix for project specific data and the relevant stewards of that data.
• The Conversions and Interface group completed a series of 26 interviews with central HR and Finance staff to validate systems and data stores that were documented when the Current State Analysis was done in January of 2006 . We also gathered important information about data retention needs for current and future, and discussed with home units any anticipated changes to practices that might be expected in the next few years. This information will be useful as a planning document as we go forward to help with defining scope, implementation planning and staffing needs.
• Our team has also been involved in joint meetings with Finance and HR to discuss future visions for organization structures.

• The team expanded staffing in the change management area. This group will focus effort and expertise on helping campus departments transition from current financial systems and practices to the new EBSP environment.
• MSU is completing an analysis to move forward with in a collaborative effort with the University of California at Davis (a Kuali Partner) to create a University Stores module for the Kuali Financial System. This functionality is currently not part of Kuali and is needed by MSU and others. The finished product from this collaboration will be donated to the base system going forward.
• Work continues in the MSU/KFS test environment as we prepare to document future state business processes.
• Staff met with representatives from various departments to discuss the status of modeling department activity in the KFS and how departments may prepare for this. Additionally, we did a KFS demo and orientation at the April BIAG meeting. Going forward, more of these types of workshops will be offered to broad audiences across campus.

• The HR / Payroll Team coordinated development of the Implementation Partner RFP assessment recommendation / report that was shared with the Steering Committee during April and assisted with the Business Intelligence RFP process.
• We continued to prepare for development of the SAP HCM business blueprint process that will begin later this calendar year by documenting current practices and potential policy issues that will need to be considered during that process.
• We continued working toward filling our open positions in the HR and Learning Management workgroups.

• Release 1.0 of Kuali Research Administration (KRA) is in the Quality Assurance (QA) phase. Individuals who represented MSU on the subject matter expert (SME) group that wrote the functional specifications for Release 1.0 are involved in the quality assurance testing as are several other individuals from campus.
• Design critiques of budget screens are being held involving faculty and staff from the various KRA partner schools who are not working on the project. The feedback from these sessions will be utilized for the redesign of these screens for Release 1.1.
• The writing of functional specifications for the areas involved in Release 2.0 – Awards, IRB – Human Participants, and Conflict of Interest – is underway with MSU SME groups participating.
• John LeTourneau, formerly Chief Technology Officer for the College of Business, has joined the research administration team to assist in planning and coordinating the documentation of current business processes, as well as assisting with the technical aspects of writing the functional specifications.

• Three new staff members have joined our team: two new J2EE developers and one SAP-CHM technical / functional consultant.
• SAP Sandbox setups are almost complete for various products, and configuration of SAP-HCM has been started.
• New Kuali Financial System KFS development environment setup is in progress (Release 2.2).
• We interviewed more than ten candidates to fill various empty positions on the technical team.
• Team members participated in various RFP efforts (BI, Implementation Partner).
• The HR Tech Planning workgroup started to coordinate tasks related to HR and Payroll sandbox setup and configuration.
• We continue to provide support for various tasks like security, budget system, project web site, conversions and interfaces, finance sandboxes, etc.
• We continue to participate in both KFS and KRA development for the Kuali Foundation.
• Outreach efforts included a Kuali Technical Architecture presentation at the MSU IT Conference, and EBSP Technical Architecture presentations for the AIS-HR team and the EBSP-EIS team.