ISP News
January 9, 2001

The Rubber Hits the Road
Instructors are ready. Many units have already enrolled their students. January 8 marks the first Integrated System Overview and Navigation class, which everyone who will use the Oracle system will take before the end of March. This class offers the exposure to and familiarity with moving around in the new system that will enhance responsibility-based training in the specific applications. If you think you should be scheduled for this training and have not yet been notified, check with the ISP advisor for your area (see http://www.virginia.EDU/isp/1whatisisp/commnetwork.html). This is required training for those who will use any of the Oracle applications.

Curriculum Under Development
The ISP teams are close to finalizing the curriculum for responsibility-based training in the Oracle applications. This has been an enormous effort, coordinated by the ISP instructional designers, to translate our new procedures into teaching materials. Fortunately, the software program Oracle Tutor provides a strong leg up, helping design support materials as the procedures are developed and making them available on-line as well.
     "We remain on schedule for responsibility-based training to begin for our central office users and subject matter experts in early April, and for other end users a couple weeks later," reports James Potter, ISP training manager.

Changing Faces of the ISP Team
The Integrated Systems Project welcomes four new members to the U.Va. component of the ISP team, and announces the promotion of a fifth.
Teresa Wimmer now leads the technical team of the ISP, replacing Virginia Evans, who joined the Darden School. Teresa comes from GE Fanuc, where she was responsible for implementation of the Supply Chain modules of the SAP ERP system and, post-go-live, was appointed the leader of the ERP SAP competency team, which consisted of both technical and functional members. Teresa has six years experience working with client-server applications and over 20 years experience working in various information technology roles, including management for programming and systems teams.
Rose Arnaud comes to lead the Reports team just in time, as the other teams now know what reports they will require, and the reports team will have to design and test those reports. Prior to joining the University, Rose worked 10 years for Comdial Corporation, where she held a number of positions (manager, business systems, systems analyst, and senior programmer/analyst). She brings with her over 20 years of experience providing computing, programming, and management reporting support for business systems (Finance, Distribution, Manufacturing, and Payroll).
Callen Molenda, formerly Funds Management team member, is the new team lead, replacing Kelly Huntley, who left the University in December. Before joining the ISP, Callen worked in U.Va.'s Cancer Center, where she was responsible for pre- and post-award administration, budget preparation, purchasing, human resources and gift accounting. Additionally, she took a brief leave of absence to work in the private sector helping Whole Foods Market set up its own ERP system.
Tracy Sanford recently joined the General Ledger team to fill a vacancy left when Brenda Boyd returned to the Curry School. Tracy worked at Arthur Andersen, where she gained experience in assembling and analyzing financial statements for both public and private companies. She also performed outsourced internal audit work with a variety of clients in the service industry. Upon her move to Virginia over a year ago, she worked at Value America in their marketing department where she was responsible for managing and analyzing their budget.
Garrett Miller has just joined the ISP Development Group after spending 2 1/2 years with WLR Foods, Inc. in Harrisonburg, Virginia, as a software engineer. At WLR, she worked on a variety of teams that supported the Oracle GEMMS application, the in-house warehousing system, and Oracle AP/GL/AR applications, along with several custom modules.
     We are very pleased to welcome these new team members, whose experience and contributions will enhance both the project and the product.

Take a Breather? Not a Chance!
Conference Room Pilot 1 had no sooner ended than teams began prepping for CRP 2, which begins in mid-February - just around the corner. Teams are now following the progress of transactions between applications, e.g. from the entry of a purchase order through payment of a vendor's invoice, until the information rolls up into the General Ledger, thus cascading from Purchasing through Accounts Payable and Funds Management, before settling in the General Ledger application.
     Teams have passed along their reporting requirements to the Reports team so reports and reporting tools can be designed and tested. The technical team is working with internal service providers to be certain their processes will accept PTAEOs. They are also continuing their work on modifications to the applications.     "All application integration and many of the reports and modifications will be tested in CRP 2," reports Joe Iannacone, KPMG project director for the ISP. "That will leave the primary focus of CRP 3, in mid-April, to be testing data conversions and interfaces with the University's legacy systems."
     That means that, as with CRP 1, the end of CRP 2 will segue, without respite, into the preparation of CRP 3.

Getting Ready for Roll-Out
July 2 may be just under six months away, but to those involved in the project, it feels like just under six weeks.  As a result, a deployment plan is being developed so nothing is left to chance. A work plan will guide us on when data is converted, when interfaces are activated, when to set up the production version of the Oracle applications, when will be the last day to perform certain functions in the legacy systems, and when to notify people that that is the last day, so they can plan their work accordingly.
     "This is when we rely very heavily on our KPMG partners," notes Bill Randolph, ISP project director. "They have done this before and know how much time things take. It's always easier when there is a work plan to follow, and the timing is now such that we need to factor in those dates."
     Onward!

…And Beyond
The Integrated Systems Project will shift gears from the finance phase to the human resources/payroll phase after the finance phase implementation. Granted, we'll downshift slowly, taking about three months to reach neutral. But during that time, management of the finance applications, including help desk and training, must be handed over to others within the University. In anticipation, a working group has been exploring who should own what in the post-implementation environment. The group includes representatives from the ISP, ITC, business units, and schools. They hope to complete a conceptual design by the end of January so that detailed planning for resources and staffing can commence.

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