UWM CIO Office Where Did These Customizations Come

UWM CIO Office Where Did These Customizations Come From? Do We Need Them? March 14, 2007 Jill Unglaub, Senior Application Analyst Information and Media Technologies University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Copyright Jill Unglaub, 2007. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

UWM CIO Office Presentation Overview • The issue and its relevancy • UWM and I&MT environments • Overview of the project • Project team structure

UWM CIO Office Presentation Overview cont. • Strategy employed • How the process worked • The results • Critical success factors

UWM CIO Office Is “customization” a bad word? It depends on your perspective.

UWM CIO Office Is “customization” a bad word? No – if you’re the recipient or the requestor Yes – if you have to maintain the system in perpetuity

UWM CIO Office Why are customizations an issue? • Patches • Future releases • Testing • Cost vs. Value

UWM CIO Office Today’s focus: How UWM handled customizations in its OASIS upgrade project

UWM CIO Office UWM at a Glance Major research university Student Population: 27, 840 Undergraduates: 23, 640 Masters: 3, 200 Doctoral: 1, 000 Milwaukee Faculty and Staff: 3, 360 Schools and Colleges: 12 Undergraduate programs: 155 Masters programs: 49 Ph. D programs: 20 UWM Campus 93 acres

UWM CIO Office Cooler near the lake MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN Cool neighborhood More Wisconsin residents attend UWM than any other university in the UW System.

UWM CIO Office UWM’s IT Environment Heterogeneous environment composed of: • Mix of Win. Tel, AIX, Linux and Solaris • Oracle database back-end • Multiple Web. Logic web servers front-ended by load balancers

UWM CIO Office UWM’s IT Environment cont. Independent environments for: • Production • Demo • Development • Test • TST 2/PREP

UWM CIO Office Key Releases • 7. 6 OASIS original implementation: Sept. 2000 -March 2002 • 8. 0 – OASIS release in July 2004 • 8. 9 – OASIS release in Nov. 2006 • Currently: 9. 2 - Oracle Release 8. 47 - People. Tools release

UWM CIO Office The OASIS/PAWS Upgrade PAWS is the entry point to online student services for students, faculty and staff to do a variety of tasks.

UWM CIO Office PAWS Applications • Student Records - online registration, grades, schedules, transcripts, change of address • Financial Aid - awards and status checking • Student Financials - Bursar account checking

UWM CIO Office Team Structure Project Sponsors Steering Committee Project Manager Core Team (Executive Group) Communications/ Training Team

UWM CIO Office Our issues with customizations • Maintenance vying for limited resources • Had not reviewed since last implementation • Some may be obsolete with delivered functionality

UWM CIO Office How did we get there? Differing wants: • Functionality same as legacy • Simplification of delivered functionality • Different “look and feel”

UWM CIO Office What impacted customizations? Changes in: • UW System requirements ►Fees ► Reporting requirements ► Data collection • UWM initiatives ►“Early warning” system

UWM CIO Office What impacted customizations? • Customizations that couldn’t be avoided: ► Branding ► Tailoring “self-service” to business processes ► Eliminating features that didn’t fit or work well

UWM CIO Office How did we proceed? Brought in “third-party” facilitator Role: To facilitate business process review and valuation of customizations

UWM CIO Office Key Success Factors of Third-Party Facilitator • Knowledge and understanding of: ►UW System ►Functionality of People. Soft student system • Neutrality • Support from project sponsors

UWM CIO Office Development of strategy • Review business processes • Reengineer business processes if needed • Compare delivered to customized functionality • Examine cost/value of customization

UWM CIO Office Results of the Process • 24% fewer customizations • All customizations considered in light of impact on maintenance and delivered objects • Business processes examined and improved

UWM CIO Office Results of the Process • Functionality geared to end-user and the business processes • Collaboration and improved relationships

UWM CIO Office Critical Success Factors • Third-party facilitator • Focus on business processes • Team structure • Project sponsor and steering committee support

UWM CIO Office How do we sustain success ? • Continue to nurture collaborative environment • Incorporate formal change management system

UWM CIO Office Where Did These Customizations Come From? Do We Need Them? Jill Unglaub junglaub@uwm. edu 414 -229 -4005 Web sites: UWM: uwm. edu I&MT: www. imt. uwm. edu