SCT Banner YES Implementation Team

Meeting Notes

MEETING LOGISTICS

Item / Description
Date / August 6, 2007
Time / 8:30 a.m.

Location

/ MESHEL HALL – Computer Center Conference Room

ATTENDEES

Facilitator(s) / Eileen Greaf and Carol Chen
Note Taker / Cheryl Beil
Participants / Mary Lou Castner, Troy Cross, Donna Esterly, Bob DeFrances (for Beth Yeatts), Becky Geltz,
Jeanne Herman, Dona Madacsi, Rick Marsico, Cindy Miller, James Stanger, Bob Tupaj, and Donna Wainio.

Not Present

/ Catherine Cala, Betty Jo Licata, and Sue Davis

AGENDA ITEMS

CORRECTIONS / Notes
Impl Mtg – 7/09/07
/ Participants updated to reflect Donna Wainio in attendance. Also revised Student Accounts report: Change “Bob D. will check views available in ODS/WebFocus” to read “A/R will try to determine views necessary for the billing and refund process. Donna W. suggested we check ODS views for A/R before building our own pop sels.” Email other corrections to Cheryl Beil.

REVIEW PRIOR ACTION ITEMS

/ See update on items #1, 2, 6a-b, and 12.

TEAM UPDATES

1.  Student
a. Regis/Record
/ Tom M. created an audit report to pull info from Banner and M-204 to compare for discrepancies; working to refine report to reflect only true errors. Tech staff identified only 79 bad patrons; Student was able to match and find all to clean up data (some were deleted or had 2 patrons). Jeanne will forward the Advisement Screen decision document to the Impl Team for review; both the Student and faculty advisement teams support Option 2 to create a screen which would document what an advisor tells a student electronically. This would not be a modification to Banner but an enhancement. Jeanne will also ask the Student Team and Advisors/Chairs workgroup to revisit the Student Refund decision document, since faculty on the Advisory Comm expressed some concern and Cabinet altered the proposed time frame. Donna E. will attempt to obtain further info on those discussions that might clarify these concerns. Mailing address issue remains unresolved. Jeanne had asked Registration staff to make changes only in Banner, but Marayamah requested that changes be made in M-204 for the time being; Dona M. will provide clarification. CASS certification was run in M-204, but Banner may be canceling out those updates. Jeanne will verify if there is any old catalog seed data in PROD to be cleansed. Carol has not received a response from Keith Miles regarding Lee Cipolla’s availability.
b. Admissions / No report given
c. Student
Accounts
(Bob DeFrances
for B.Yeatts) / Began loading Bob Francescone’s pop sels into PROD but decided to first create them in TEST instance. Will hold a conference call on 8/9 with TouchNet to review functionality before continuing prep for Mock Registration II; TN has significantly improved their installment plan software since Banner’s upgrade. Met with Bob T. regarding how to include a website survey regarding electronic billing. Carol is still awaiting word from Beth Y. regarding what specific functionalities she would like to have Dave Swan include in his demo.
2.  Financial Aid / Continue to work on coldfusion web application for summer aid that will query banner, allowing only students who meet qualifications to request aid to be moved to summer. When students accept their fall/spring loans, system can show how much fall/spring aid they will be receiving and they can elect to move some aid to cover summer costs. Summer loan requests will be integrated into same application; should improve next summer’s loan processing. Recently set up ACG and Smart Grant testing in Banner; will be a significant improvement over current process of validating on spreadsheets for only 2 semesters. Jayne Caputo will resolve one issue by changing IPED codes in STVDEGC to match degree codes needed by FinAid; codes in crosswalk tables can also be updated for HEI reporting. Currently working on funds to test disbursements; set up another clone in TEST and loaded ISIRs so staff can continue their testing rather than use STMP. Carol has not received a response from Keith Miles yet regarding Erik Siradas; Ron Coker may be available for a conference call.
3.  General Person / GP Team needs to discuss new postal regulations concerning bulk mailing and label requests since the meeting with Ron Williams and postal rep. GP Team also needs to discuss outstanding address issues: 1) order of address lines; and 2) guidelines/software capabilities for spelling out full street names, etc. Data Standards Team originally decided that the apartment number would go on the first address line and the street address on the second line to accommodate the postal reader process from bottom up. Parking Services recently requested addresses from M-204 to send out parking materials; while the name, apartment #, and city/state/zip printed, the street address line did not, resulting in some returned mail. Jeanne stated that current address software being tested in Registration does not recognize the apartment # on the first line as a valid address and abbreviates boulevard, lane, etc.; will see if test software can accommodate our preferred standards or if data standards must be modified. General Person Team will review address standards again and make a recommendation to the Data Standards Team after discussing with Advancement and the President. Decision document would have to be revised and staff entering or correcting addresses would have to be informed. After meeting with Beth Y. and Jeanne H., the GP Team posted a statement to clarify address types referenced by Student system that indicated that mailing and permanent address types will be used, but billing address will not. Beth expressed concern since other areas also have access to update addresses and use various sources; the billing address is to be used solely by the Student Accts office on an exception-only basis. Reports search the billing address first, then mailing address, and finally permanent address, in that order. Discussion ensued regarding how to maintain multiple addresses for a person or a process to determine/deactivate obsolete addresses and verify all other address types retained in the system. Recommend using either a verbal verification or a mailed or emailed confirmation of the requested address change(s). There should not be an identical address in multiple address types. Carol will increase the priority to request that applications staff identify mailing addresses that are the same as the PR type and delete the MA. She reiterated that only the PR address is being synched between M-204 and Banner. The GP Team will also review the 14 address types currently in use. Carol reported on an issue with the STVSBGI table and will assign it a higher priority for tech staff. Advancement originally loaded FICE codes in the first column of the table upon GoLive, but other systems are now using this table; will modify to put IPED codes in the first column and move FICE codes to the FICE column to eliminate manual changes caused by inconsistent data.
4.  HR/Payroll / Continue to troubleshoot problems in system – i.e., monitoring vacation accrual at 7 yrs, etc. Identified initial setups that need to be modified for year-end closing. Reviewed earn codes that were causing payroll issues; created a new pay ID (bi-weekly supplemental) for police but still need to finish connection with IntelliCheck, etc. Plan to update the bi-weekly jobs in PPRD with new pay rates effective 8/5 and then move to PROD. Processing Center update – computers and other equipment/supplies have been ordered; the search committee has forwarded candidate recommendations. HR/Payroll Team will meet again on 8/17; will discuss decision document regarding masking personal banking info and various other related comments/concerns. Cindy questioned what instance to use for WebTime Entry; the BTLT team will decide. Troy suggested that definite data and tables be created in PROD and then cloned to another instance; Carol suggested we wait for Jason’s recommendation before moving ahead. HR and Budget will meet to firm up policies concerning position control to assure consistency and good communication. Carol discussed the faculty online survey process; she has been in contact with other state universities regarding their processes and has requested their scripts. Recommended forming a work team (including Gordon Mapley and faculty group) to discuss the best approach and to draft a timeline to begin planning immediately for FY08; survey will be a part of OEA faculty negotiations. Donna W. stated that HR will no longer be monitoring the process; may be moved to Provost or Institutional Research. Troy expressed concern regarding timeliness of notifying comp operations to generate employee timesheets following the bi-weekly payroll process; Eileen will contact Payroll manager.
5.  MyYSU / Met with Career & Counseling Services and Equal Opportunity regarding how to set up a calendar in the portal and proper staff to contact to send a Targeted Announcement announcing availability of the new calendars and how to subscribe. Also instructed how to copy a link to the calendar on Diversity’s webpage. John Dalbec sent email to the Luminis list serve for feedback on Classified Channels, referencing our Use of University Computing Resources policy which states that resources should not be used for financial gain, unauthorized solicitation, or activities associated with for-profit business. Received responses from Wright State and Univ. of Saskatchewan and both shared their policies. Uof S uses a disclaimer on their channels site and removes ads posted by faculty/staff advertising a personal business; Wright St. policy reserves the right to remove any posting deemed inappropriate. Will continue discussion with website/portal advisory committee in Sept.; will be updating University policy but will also draft a decision document. The new service could be highlighted in announcement of Phase II of portal. Donna reported that John did make the change to view the Banner Y-ID when logging into the portal; she is drafting a campus announcement to faculty/staff only and requested input from Impl team members. Donna E. distributed computer calendar strips for office staff.
6.  Finance / Tested a patch to NPBBUDM in YTRN to liquidate payroll encumbrances at year end and then installed in PROD. Continue to process changes to Financial Managers for signature authority purposes. Reminder to process FM changes promptly since HR uses the Banner FM reports in WebFocus to generate labels for mailing bi-weekly or semi-monthly personnel reports to depts. Rich Delisio and Jan Loychik retired from Materials Management on 7/31; Eileen will serve as interim until the director position is filled. Donna E. reported that Esther Stamford (Computer Services) was promoted and will be moving to General Acctg to replace Pam Yurko who retired.
7.  Advancement / No report given.
8.  Communication / No report given.
9.  ODS/EDW / Doug worked with Barry (WebFocus) last week to install the upgrade but discovered a bug in the software; Barry will return when matter is resolved. Carol will discuss with BTLT regarding ODS options to meet reporting needs for Student areas. ODS is currently pointed to ODSP and PROD data is refreshed nightly. Will decide whether we also need to point it to ODST or STMP since a lot of student test data is set up there and staff may elect to pull reporting data from Admissions and Student system prior to their March 2008 GoLive. The ODS 3.1 and WebFocus upgrades are the highest priority; Troy explained that once 3.1 is installed in all instances, it may be more beneficial for Student team to refresh ODST or another currently used instance from STMP and generate reports from there since it will have the most student data following Mock II and III.
10.  Training / Sending out a new training schedule for Aug/Sept.; will include a review of info in preparation for Mock II to include other academic areas and train new users. Will need to clone YTRN in a couple weeks; staff should finish any work they are doing in that instance. Continues to work with various areas on problem resolution.
11.  Technical / Parking Services used M-204 data to print parking appl materials; missed some re-appointments, new chairs, etc. from Banner. Lisa Cutter was granted access to Payroll screens; Donna provided quick training to use those screens. Donna will send a Targeted Announcement today instructing employees to notify Parking Services if they did not receive appl materials. Doug continues work on ODS 3.1 upgrade; includes Oracle upgrade to most current database server 10G. Experience will be useful for upgrading Banner from release 9 to 10G as required for Ban 8.0. Campus Loan Manager release 2.4.1 was installed in TEST; Sue Beiling in A/R will test and decide when to upgrade PROD to 2.4.1. In preparation for Bosscars, Oracle application server was upgraded to 10G, version 2.2 from version 2.1 and special INB and SSB links were created for testing. All testing appears to have worked except for TouchNet with the Advancement donation, which failed in both 2.1 and 2.2 in TEST. Carol will check to see if a Banner or TN setup needs to be reset. SSB has been connected to the new server, but TouchNet must change to the new port addresses. Donna reported some staff using IE 6 could not connect through the new SSB link whether using a shortcut or direct link but could connect when upgraded to IE 7. Cindy experienced a lockup problem using the new INB server link but was able to complete the action using the old link; will forward her email to Troy to investigate.
NEW BUSINESS
None

ACTION ITEMS