ASR website News page

The ASR UX team recently added a News page to the ASR website. The page features content from ASR-owned newsletters as well as other stories on ASR-related work and achievements. Since the News page is in its early stages of development, we are currently publishing existing stories from our previous newsletters to build it out.

We are looking to publish stories that highlight ASR units’ accomplishments and show the value ASR brings to the University. If you would like to submit a story to publish on the News page, please email your story to asrux@umn.edu.

Orientation & Transition Experiences temporary move

The Orientation & Transition Experiences office relocated to 150 Williamson on September 10 and will remain there for about 10 weeks while construction takes place in their main offices. As always, they can be reached online via ote.umn.edu, oteinfo@umn.edu, or by phone at 612-624-1979.

One Stop contacts increase, but wait times are down

This time of year is such a busy season for the staff and units of ASR. One Stop Student Services is no exception. For two of the busiest weeks of the year (the week before classes start and the first week of classes), One Stop has seen increases in all modes of service (phone, email, and in-person), yet has seen decreases in wait times for our students, their families, and other customers. Thank you to the Office of Student Finance staff that helped out at our East Bank counter during the increased volume!

New GPAS Google site

The Graduate Planning and Audit System website has moved from old Google Sites to the new Google Sites. This change improves navigation and maintains a consistent look between ASR-owned websites, while following University Relations branding. If you have bookmarks for the old GPAS site, please update them. You can use the same Z link: z.umn.edu/gpas.

Preparing for the Campus Solutions 9.2 Technical Upgrade Go-Live

The first phase of the PeopleSoft Campus Solutions 9.2 Upgrade is the technical upgrade of Campus Solutions from version 9.0 to version 9.2. In order to complete this phase, Campus Solutions will be unavailable for approximately 30 hours over the September 23 weekend. During this time, students, faculty, and staff will not have access to functions such as registration, student account payments, and grading. Human Resources and Financials systems and Moodle will have regular availability.

While this time frame was selected to minimize impacts to the University community, we would like to hear from you if there are activities that will be negatively affected by this downtime. Please contact project manager Carrie Otto (zast0020@umn.edu) with details.

System changes as a result of this technical upgrade are minimal and restricted to look and feel. Preview these changes.

GSSP content transition to One Stop

Graduate Student Services and Progress (GSSP) content will move from the Graduate Student website to the One Stop Student Services website on August 24, 2017. Redirects will be set up, and only Twin Cities, graduate student content is affected. Faculty and staff content will remain on the Graduate School. For more information on this transition, please see the News & Notes blog. Contact Chris Abts at cjabts@umn.edu with any questions.

Earlier Summer Registration

For summer 2018, degree-seeking students will be able to register on March 1. Open registration would start on March 8. The change will allow students more time to be proactive in their planning and help to spread out advising appointment times. The change might boost summer enrollment and classroom utilization, and help students with timely degree progress by taking classes during the summer term. Read more about the change on the News & Notes blog.

ASR was asked to look at the pros and cons of moving the first date of summer term registration to an earlier date resulting in a longer registration period. ASR worked collaboratively with the colleges to get their feedback on this idea. Most colleges believed pros outweighed the cons. The collected feedback was provided to the college deans and they decided to move the date from mid-April to early March.  

Work is underway by a group of ASR staff to make the necessary changes in the various PeopleSoft tables, adjust batch jobs that need to run to set enrollment appointments and update various online publication dates and websites. A comprehensive communications plan is also being developed to share this information with all of the appropriate stakeholders, including students, advisors, and other student services staff.

Academic calendar changes

Beginning with the 2018-19 academic calendar, the spring term for Twin Cities and Rochester will change from having 74 instructional days to having 70 instructional days. This change means that fall and spring semesters will have the same length going forward, and there is room for an additional study day for students in the spring term.

Spring 2019 notes

• Spring term will continue to start on the Tuesday after the MLK holiday
• Second half of the term will still begin the Monday after spring break
• There will be no finals on the Sunday of finals week

The full calendars for 2018-22 can be viewed on the University Senate page.

ASR summer picnic recap

This year’s summer picnic was an incredible opportunity for staff to gather and continue to build our ASR community. We had some terrific contributions for the ASR student scholarship fundraiser and learned that many ASR staff have been hiding secret talents. With a total of 81 items donated for auction, we raised $1,370 for student scholarships. Thank you to everyone who was able to participate!

Those scholarship funds will go toward helping students achieve success at the University of Minnesota and making a positive impact on their lives. Recently, a student contacted ASR’s Student Degree Progress team after being awarded funds to say, “I took the weekend to process everything that you all have done for me. I am extremely grateful and basically in shock (a good kind of shock!) ... I now can focus on actual classes, instead of paying for them. I feel like I can accomplish anything now.”

Thanks, again, to everyone!

Astra upgrade August 11

Astra Schedule will undergo a planned system upgrade on Friday, August 11. Access to Astra Schedule will be completely unavailable during the upgrade. This upgrade does not affect PeopleSoft or CCS. Updates on the outage will be available on the University's IT Service Status page.

Find out more on the OCM blog.

Student Success Analytics project update

To foster student success and positive academic outcomes, a new Student Success Analytics (SSA) project has begun at the University. The project is being led by a cross-organizational group including Colleges, OUE, and OIT staff. The project seeks to:

• Increase student retention and timely graduation
• Improve curricular design, delivery, and transparency
• Reduce student debt upon graduation
• Enhance the student academic experience

The SSA Steering Committee has met with student services staff and advisors and has prioritized its upcoming and short-term work. The ASR team will continue to build on the progress of existing University best practices like degree-planning resources and dashboards for students and advisors (APAS, APLUS), resulting in an At-Risk Student Dashboard, Retention-Risk Predictive Model, Graduation Proximity Reports, and Transfer Student Models. Stay tuned for future updates.

Tuition rate change

Starting fall 2017, there will be two tuition rates for Twin Cities non-resident, non-reciprocity (NRNR) students. Incoming high school and new transfer students will pay the published nonresident tuition rate, which is a 12.5% increase over last year’s tuition rate. Continuing NRNR students will pay a lower tuition rate based on a 5.5% increase to last year’s tuition rate. Last year, the University committed to a 5.5% limit on tuition increases for NRNR students who started attending the University prior to fall 2017 and have maintained their enrollment.

Changes to Non-Resident, Non-Reciprocity (NRNR) scholarship process

Also starting in fall 2017, the Twin Cities Undergraduate Admissions office changed the awarding process for incoming first-year and transfer non-resident, non-reciprocity (NRNR) students that receive scholarships meant to bring their tuition rates closer to the in-state rate. Students now receive flat-rate scholarships; the amount of the scholarship will remain consistent as long as the student continues to meet the terms and conditions of the scholarship. Previously, students were awarded full or half-waiver scholarships, whose amounts would fluctuate based on the tuition rate. Continuing NRNR students that were awarded full or half-tuition waivers will continue to receive their scholarships in that manner.

ASR TransForm pilot now live

Over the past several months, ASR has been participating in an OIT pilot program for a new tool, Perceptive TransForm, a digital form and workflow tool that allows for digital signatures and multi-step workflows. We selected the Twin Cities undergraduate Change of Expected Graduation Term (EGT) and the Cost of Attendance (COA) Appeal Requests for both undergrad and grad students on the Twin Cities and Rochester campuses. Both forms are now live.

Thank you to everyone on the pilot program team for your hard work and contributions during our development period, and for those who helped review and test these processes. For questions regarding ASR’s involvement in this pilot program or about ASR usage of this system, please contact the Project & Work Facilitation Team at pwf-team@umn.edu.

TransForm provides an easy to use form designer, multi-directional routing capabilities, PeopleSoft integration (with writeback possible in the future), SalesForce and other system integrations, and the ability to attach multiple files to a form when submitted. By converting these requests to electronic forms, we have decreased processing time, increased data validation and accuracy, and created a better and more reliable user experience for the student. Perceptive TransForm integrates easily with Perceptive Content, our document management system, creating an instant process from submission to filing.  

Transform will be a valuable tool, along with WorkflowGen and PeopleSoft Tools, for units looking to streamline the intake and processing of student requests.  OIT will be making an official announcement in the coming weeks about enterprise-wide adoption. In the meantime, we are working on identifying and prioritizing additional student requests that are good candidates for TransForm.

ASR staff picnic reminder

Date: Thursday, July 27, 2017

Time: 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Where: Bruininks Hall Plaza (food), 512B Bruininks (silent auction) 

This year's event will again be catered by Deli Double. Food includes: 

• BBQ beef sandwiches
• Chicken breast sandwiches
• Veggie black bean & corn burgers 
• Italian pasta salad
• Fresh fruit medley
• Vegetarian baked beans
• Assorted cookies 

Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite & bottled water will be provided. Outdoor seating is available behind Bruininks and indoor seating will be available in 303 Appleby. Silent auction located in 512B Bruininks. In the event of rain, all components move to 101 & 102 Fraser.

Silent auction items

Please consider bringing an item (or items) for ASR’s scholarship fundraiser. As of right now, we are pretty thin on fund-raising items, so please donate if you are able. These items can be purchased or homemade and can range from artwork to cookie gift certificates. If you would like to win it, likely someone else will too! The funds we raise go directly into a scholarship fund to support our students. Silent auction items may be delivered to Mara S. (Fraser) or Eleanor P. (Williamson).

PeopleSoft 9.2 upgrade

The Technical Upgrade (phase one) is moving along as planned. We are making plans to move to the last testing environment at the end of this month as we are just two months away from go live for this phase.

Communications and change management plans are in progress. The Functional Upgrade (phase two) has been scoped to these initiatives. Close to half of these groups have kicked-off and are actively chartering and gathering requirements. The other half will be kicking off in the coming 1-2 weeks. You can now get weekly, high-level updates regarding each initiative in the project status dashboard. Contact Carrie Otto to be added to the distribution list.

Destiny One Registration System (DORS) updates

DORS, the University's system for non-credit registration activity, has generated over $20,000,000 in revenue with 110,000+ registrations since launching in July 2015. The latest version of the software -- with new core functionality, bug fixes, and change requests -- was delivered to the Test environment on July 5 for validation and testing with CCE and individual business units. Deployment to Production is expected the first week of August. Other updates:

• The DORS team is working with OIT to deliver an integration with Canvas. 
• The DORS Reporting Center went live on June 23rd for staff users of Destiny One.

Hogan assessments piloted

As part of ASR’s staff development efforts, a group of 21 staff, including ASR directors and supervisors, piloted two complementary inventories: the Hogan Personality Inventory and the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory. The inventories are designed to help individuals understand and reflect on how others perceive them in their workplace role.

After receiving their results, the group learned through interactive activities how their personality, motivations, and values positively impact their leadership style in the workplace. Participants in the OHR course, “Leading on All Levels” also complete the inventories.

Given the positive response to the pilot, ASR directors will be setting up another group to take the two inventories. Please contact John Vollum if you have questions.

UMN's new budget website

The University has learned, from the Public Perceptions study and working at the Legislature, that Minnesotans find it difficult to understand the University of Minnesota’s budget -- how we get our money and in turn, how we spend it.

In an effort to respond, the University has launched a new budget website. This site will be regularly updated with new information. Check out the new budget website.

ASR Picnic and Fundraiser

When: Thursday, July 27, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Where: Bruininks Plaza (outside), or inside Bruininks Hall if it rains

The silent auction fundraiser will be held for the same time and duration as the picnic (exact room in Bruininks Hall to be determined).

This year's event will again be catered by Deli Double.

As noted in an earlier News & Notes, please consider bringing an item (or items) for the scholarship fundraiser. These items can be purchased or homemade and can range from artwork to cookie gift certificates. If you would like to win it, likely someone else will too! The funds we raise go directly into a scholarship fund to support our students. It would be wonderful if we could beat last year's $900 total.

Items can be dropped off at Mara Schnieder's office in 253 Fraser Hall, or Eleanor Pijut's office in 160 Williamson Hall.