ASR strategic direction update: University initiatives and support

ASR’s University Initiatives and Support strategic direction supports student success throughout the University of Minnesota by assisting the initiatives of other campus units and needs of the University community. Ultimately, all of these initiatives support student success, even if some are a few steps removed.

Initiatives:

• PeopleTools 8.55 upgrade - Provides improvements to the user interface of PeopleSoft making it easier to use for students, faculty, and staff. (Goes live April 2!)
• PeopleSoft 9.2 upgrade - Provides new PeopleSoft functionality for students, faculty, and staff. (Starts in earnest on April 2 for Technical "Go-Live" on September 24)

Remember: On Saturday and Sunday, April 1-2, an upgrade to the PeopleSoft development platform, PeopleTools, will occur. While the upgrade work is underway, MyU and PeopleSoft applications will be unavailable.

For more about University initiative and support, including recently completed work, visit the ASR News & Notes blog >>

• Identity Management upgrade - Replacement for the (very) old x.500 system bringing improvements to security and access levels for systems. (Complete)
• Oracle Database upgrade - Improvement to the underlying product that maintains, secures, and manages that vast amount of data we have in PeopleSoft and other systems. (Complete)
• CRM (Salesforce) support and strategic planning - Assisting the University in determining the strategic direction of this powerful system.
• CollegiateLink data provisioning -  Assisting the Office for Student Affairs in automating the data needed to populate their new Experience Record for students.
• Destiny One non-credit system - Continuing to assist in meeting the University's need for non credit courseware management and registration.
• Assist Orientation & First Year Programs - Time share with a single OFYP technical resource to cover their critical support needs.

Not all ASR staff are aware that many of these initiatives exist, and while some of this work may only peripherally affect you, it is important to remember much of what we do is instrumental in keeping University systems running, secure, and up to date. By assisting our University colleagues, who depend on our expertise to keep their systems running, ASR is constantly and consistently contributing to the success of students, faculty, staff, and the entire University community.

New Associate Director of Compliance, Scholarships, and Athletic Aid

On Monday, April 10, Michelle Curtis will join the Office of Student Finance as the Associate Director of Compliance, Scholarships, and Athletic Aid. Michelle has served in similar roles at the University of Wisconsin - Madison for 10 years. She brings a wealth of compliance understanding and application, broad financial aid operations experience, PeopleSoft experience, and a demonstrated commitment to student success. Michelle will be located in 271 Fraser Hall. Stop by and welcome her to ASR!

Dietary requests for the ASR spring event

If you have any special dietary needs, the Development team would like to hear from you as we finalize catering for the ASR spring event. Lunch will be provided that day (May 17), and we will do our best to accommodate specific dietary needs you may have. Submit your requests to the Development Team by Friday, April 7.

ASR participation in Student Success Conference Feb. 15-17

It is just over a month and a half since the Office of First Year Program’s Student Success Conference. During the conference, many ASR employees helped highlight, discuss, and present on the work we do in Academic Support Resources and the impact it has. This year’s presentations and participants included:

• Borrowing History: Understanding Loan Debt & Choices - Marcia DeGaetano, Tina Falkner & Holly Johnson

• Strategic Scheduling - Christine Mounts

• Student Degree Progress: Giving Students Data They Can Use - Ian Whitney

For more information on the conference, as well as links to other presentations, visit OFYP’s website.

Volunteer opportunity for ASR staff

One Stop would like to invite our ASR friends to join us in volunteering Saturday, May 6, from 12:30-2:30 p.m. at the Golden Valley Second Harvest location.

You can sign-up to participate on this Google spreadsheet.

Contact Marcia DeGaetano if you have any questions at 6-2042 or degae001@umn.edu.

One Stop began volunteering at Second Harvest a few years ago and now has made it a mission to volunteer annually. Second Harvest Heartland is in the business of distributing large amounts of donated food to a variety of organizations and programs that directly serve clients. Our job will be sorting and packing food.This opportunity is educational, well organized, and fun, too!

Let's show our community spirit ASR style. Mandatory attire will be anything U of M! Hair nets will be provided. More detailed information will come later to those who volunteer.

New class search available

On Monday, March 20, a new class search feature will be available in Schedule Builder. This collaborative project between ASR and CLA-Office of Application Development offers a design improvement that focuses on better usability and an alternative to the existing functionality of PeopleSoft's delivered Class Search.

Key improvements:

• Users can search for classes that meet multiple liberal education requirements.
• Searching for online classes is easier and more streamlined.
• Departments will be able to share links to class information.
• User-friendly search parameters and terminology (i.e., moving away from PeopleSoft language).
• Ability to view a more compact version of all class offerings and sections using the “Show All Sections” feature.

MyU and PeopleSoft outage on April 1-2

On Saturday and Sunday, April 1-2, an upgrade to the PeopleSoft development platform, PeopleTools, will occur. While the upgrade work is underway, MyU and PeopleSoft applications will be unavailable.

Specific impacts of note:

• MyU (and dependent applications)
• PeopleSoft (and dependent applications)
• ServiceNow
• APAS
• Grad Planner
• Access to online W-2 forms

Aside from downtime during the weekend, no significant impact for end users is expected. No action is required as a result of this upgrade. Access to Moodle courses and University email will not be affected.

The upgrade ensures that our PeopleSoft systems remain stable and secure, and is needed to retain vendor support. We encourage you to mark your calendars for the upgrade weekend so that you can plan around the service outage accordingly. During the weekend of April 1-2, updates will be available on the University’s Service Status page.

Upcoming Student Employee Supervisor meetings

The first Student Employee Supervisor meeting is being planned for ApriI. These meetings will explore the role of student employees in ASR as well as strategies for supervising and working with student employees. The newly-formed ASR Student Employee Supervisor steering committee will plan and lead these meetings. Members for the steering committee were chosen based on interest in serving, number of students supervised, and other factors. Steering committee membership will rotate, so if you aren't involved and would like to, you will have future opportunities to do so. Current members include:

• Philip Hunter (Lead), Office of Classroom Management
• Jessica McCarty, Office of Classroom Management
• Darcy Fastner, One Stop Student Services
• Erik Sparby, Office of the Registrar
• David Crane (ASR E2 Liaison), Office of Classroom Management

Live Like a Student receives funding for new financial wellness videos

Live Like a Student, the financial wellness campaign organized by members from One Stop Student Services, Continuity and Compliance, and the Office of Student Finance, recently applied for and was granted a $23,000 budget to create financial wellness outreach specifically for international students. Professionally created videos for the international student community will be created and distributed to help this student population understand financial wellness in the context of their University experience.

One Stop staff will present at Global Gopher Week to engage with international students face-to-face. If you have questions about the Live Like a Student campaign, financial wellness, or this announcement, please reach out to Betsy Everts at everts@umn.edu.

IRS Data Retrieval Tool is down

The IRS Data Retrieval Tool, used by many students when they complete a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), is currently unavailable and will likely remain unavailable for the next several weeks. The IRS and Department of Education have released a statement about the matter.

Students may still complete a 2017-2018 Federal Application for Financial Aid (FAFSA) by manually entering information from their 2015 tax return. If a student does not have a copy of their tax return, they may request a tax transcript on the IRS website.

ASR League March Madness

Let’s celebrate the Gophers’ NCAA Tournament appearance with a little March Madness of our own. If you’d like to participate, you can find a Gophers basketball hoop in either Williamson or Fraser and play to enter! Complete your “regular season” by March 31, and see if you earn a place in the 2017 ASR League March Madness bracket.

• Regular season (starting Monday, March 20 and must be completed by Friday, March 31): Anyone vying for a coveted tournament spot takes 20 shots that must be witnessed by an ASR employee. Enter your scores on the 2017 ASR League March Madness Google Sheet. Each player has the option to shoot from the 2-point line or 3-point line on each shot. Your 20 shots can be any combination of 2-point and/or 3-point attempts. The total points after 20 shots is the player's regular season score. All players will be ranked by score and tournament seeding will be determined based on scores and ranking. Players “on the bubble” will have a tournament-style playoff to determine whether they get in. Brackets will be determined similar to the NCAA bracket with higher seeds playing lower seeds.
• Tournament (starting April 3): Players will earn tournament seeds based their regular season score rankings. The bracket size will depend upon the number of participants. Tournament participants will be paired up and play a 10-shot head-to-head game. The winner of the game is the highest score after 10 shots. Ties result in overtime. Overtime is 5 additional shots, repeated until there is a winner. Players will be methodically and systematically eliminated until there is only 1 player left—who will be named the 2017 ASR League March Madness Champion! The Final Four will be played in a larger venue to accommodate a larger audience..

Contacts & logistics: Please contact Jeff Idle (jsidle@umn.edu) with any questions. Jeff is the Williamson Hall captain and Chelsea Weber is the Fraser Hall captain. The Williamson Hall official hoop is in Williamson Hall Suite 160 in the ASR Student Data & Analytics area (go through the main doors, make a right, and go all the way to the back). The Fraser Hall official hoop is in Fraser Hall Room 200. If you’d like to play, please be sure to complete your 20 shots and log them on the tracking sheet by the end of the day on Friday, March 31. Any University of Minnesota staff or faculty member is welcome to participate.

ASR Project Management Series: new cycle and new class

A new cycle of the ASR Project Management Series starts in April and new class will be available starting this month -- Project Risk Management.

New Class: Thursday, March 30, 10:00-11:30 a.m. - PM 203: Project Risk Management (register here)

Spring Class Cycle:

PM 101: Fundamentals of Project Management - Thursday, April 13, 10:00-11:00 a.m.

PM 102: ASR Business Needs Lifecycle - Thursday, April 20, 10:00-11:00 a.m.

PM 201: Supporting an Effective Project Team - Thursday, May 4, 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

PM 202: Developing & Maintaining a Project Plan - Thursday, May 25, 10:00-11:30 a.m.

PM 203: Project Risk Management - Thursday, June 8, 10:00-11:30 a.m.

PM 301: Evidence Based Portfolio Management - Thursday, June 22, 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

Check out asrprojects.umn.edu for more information, to register for short courses, and resources. If you have already taken a PM class, but would like a refresher, you are welcome to repeat at any time. If you have suggestions for other course topics, or would like to facilitate an existing course or new course, please contact us. The Project & Work Facilitation team is also available for consultation, just email pwf-team@umn.edu.

New PS table reference guide & SQL tutorials

Cindy Salyers, ASR-IT Student Data & Analytics Team, has put together a reference guide of commonly-used PeopleSoft tables. For those who do queries, this will be a helpful tool. The guide lays out the subject area, description of data contained, and special join and querying notes for each table. This is by no means all encompassing of every table in PeopleSoft, but highlights the most commonly used tables. If there is a table missing from this list, that is frequently used, or if anything on the table is unclear, please comment on the document. Reference guide can be found at the ASR Projects Staff Resources page.

For more information on SQL query writing, sign up for the ASR SQL Tutorial with Cindy.

PCMC book club: The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp, April 19

The Project & Change Management Collaborators (PCMC) have announced their spring book club pick, The Creative Habit: Learn It & Use It For Life by Twyla Tharp. If you’re interested in joining, pick up a copy of the book and join the discussion:

Date/Time: Wednesday, April 19, 12:00-1:30 p.m.

Location: 101 Walter Library

RSVP here

More information, and purchasing suggestions, at the PCMC book club page and the book club announcement. Please email pcmc@umn.edu if you have any questions.

New Performance Appraisal form and updated timeline

A new Employee Performance and Development Annual Appraisal form has been posted to the ASR Intranet. To navigate to the form, visit the ASR Intranet (link provided in menu on asr.umn.edu), view the left sidebar and click on Human Resources, then scroll to the bottom of the page. You will see an Employee Handbook section; click on Performance Appraisals. There you will find the new form to download, annual review guidelines, and information about filling out and submitting the form.

• By April 3: Employees should have the performance appraisal form (self-assessment) completed and sent to their supervisor
• By April 17: Supervisors submit completed forms to unit director
• By April 28: Directors complete review and edits for all appraisals for their unit 
• By May 3: Directors complete review for consistency across ASR
• Between May 4- 31: Supervisors and employees meet to discuss

Analytics and Data integration strategic area update

ASR’s Analytics and Data team has begun to coordinate a campus-wide collaboration to create a roadmap for the University’s data and analytics resources. This work began after an in-depth assessment of the predictive analytics capabilities of EAB, and viewing demos of Civitas’ analytics capabilities. It was determined that the better approach for the University of Minnesota was to build in-house analytics because the University is a complex data landscape. Building our own analytics system will give the University a better understanding of our own data and larger degree of control for data modeling and reports.

A steering committee has been assembled to begin the process of building a forward-looking strategy that aligns and prioritizes the student degree progress analytics initiatives.