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.