ASR strategic direction: 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.

Current, in-progress initiatives include:

• PeopleTools 8.55 upgrade - Provides improvements to the user interface of PeopleSoft making it easier to use for students, faculty, and staff.
• PeopleSoft 9.2 upgrade - Provides new PeopleSoft functionality for students, faculty, and staff.
• Identity Management upgrade - Replacement for the (very) old x.500 system bringing improvements to security and access levels for systems.
• 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.
• 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 setting up 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.

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 ASR website to launch September 12

A cross-functional team has been working on redesigning the ASR website for some time; the new site will launch on September 12. One key benefit of the new site is that it will utilize the University’s new Drupal lite platform to replace the older ASR website, which will provide an updated look and feel, a mobile-friendly experience, and should require fewer resources to maintain. The new website will also be a resource for non-ASR University staff and faculty, connecting them with key resources and information. Most internal resources for ASR staff will be housed on the ASR intranet. The project team will be working with ASR colleagues to finalize the site over the next few weeks.

If you have questions about the new ASR website, please contact Matt Tveter at tvet0004@umn.edu or contact the project team member from your department:

• ASR-IT: Ryan Ceresnak - rceresna@umn.edu
• Continuity & Compliance: Renae Faunce - faunc008@umn.edu
• Office of the Registrar: Amber Cellotti - knap0071@umn.edu
• Office of Student Finance: Regina Moran - moran014@umn.edu  

One Stop website redesign update

The One Stop redesign was assessed in usability the week of August 8th; 15 students participated from three University campuses. During usability, the high-level navigation performed well and students understood the parallels with the MyU tabs for academics, finances, and personal information. The most common words used to describe the site in a word matrix of 60 choices included clean, efficient, and easy to use. Students experienced some difficulty with the functionality and look of the navigation menus. The project team is working on a new iteration for usability in September in response to that feedback. Additionally, the team is evaluating content on the home page, and developing a strategy for making dates more prominent and usable on the site.

ASR moving updates

• ASR staff completed move to Fraser: ASR’s Office of the Registrar and Office of Student Finance staff--formerly located on the St. Paul campus or in Williamson,Fraser and Bruininks Halls--are now officially in 200 Fraser Hall. The move took place earlier this week. Staff still have their same phone numbers if you need to contact them.

• One Stop’s St. Paul office move delayed: the St. Paul One Stop office move has been postponed by one week due to construction delays. The move from 101 Coffey to 130 Coffey will now take place on Friday, August 26. Staff are working on a plan to condense moving to one day rather than two days to minimize impact to students and the University community during a busy time of year.

Cross-functional team completes Time Conflict Workflow Gen project

A new online Class Time Conflict Approval form launched on August 15 for all University of Minnesota students. Completed by staff from the Office of the Registrar, One Stop, ASR’s Web team and system campus partners, the project allows students to complete a form online when requesting to enroll in classes with overlapping times. The paper form will remain available until the start of spring 2017 registration, but staff are encouraged to start using or sharing the new online form before then.

FAANs sent, undergraduates now see borrowing history before accepting loans

18,880 Financial Aid Award Notices (FAAN) have been sent to undergraduate students and 11,307 students have already responded to their award offers.

When the University's degree-seeking undergraduate students with a loan history respond to their financial aid award, they will be presented with an estimate of their total borrowing (if their financial aid package includes loans). They will be able to review the estimate of their total loans, an estimated monthly payment, and how that compares to other University of Minnesota graduates. Similar initiatives at other universities have yielded positive results.

Fleet car rental agreement updated

The University’s fleet car rental agreement has been updated. As of July 29, individuals picking up vehicles are responsible for knowing who is going to be in their party, including all passengers. Additionally, fleet car users will now sign an agreement to personally pay for their own tolls and any hitches that are not returned to Fleet Services.