Technology@Wooster

dwaldron March 19th, 2009

The successful processing of January’s salaried payroll was the last major milestone of the OSCAR project, Wooster’s implementation of Datatel’s Colleague ERP system. The College signed a contract with Datatel in December, 2004, and the implementation was launched in January, 2005. The financial module (general ledger, purchasing and accounts payable) was implemented first and went live on July 1, 2005. This was followed by Admissions (October, 2005), Financial Aid (December, 2005), Academic Records and Registration (April, 2006), Student Housing (April, 2006), Accounts Receivable (July, 2006), Budget Management (October, 2006) and Degree Audit (October, 2006). The College upgraded from Colleague Release 17 to Release 18 in February, 2007. Wooster was among the first to go live with Colleague Advancement, Datatel’s next generation development support application. The first elements of Colleague Advancement entered production in July, 2007 and remaining elements were brought online over the ensuing year. The Human Resources and Payroll modules enter production in January of this year.

The project Implementation Oversight Committee (IOC) recently met to mark the end of its four year odyssey. Chief Information Technology Officer and IOC chair David Waldron acknowledged the very real sacrifices that had been made by members of the committee and by employees in the many offices across campus impacted by the implementation. He spoke of the project’s accomplishments and thanked committee members for their dedication and perseverance.

Director of Applications Development Tabby Conwell was honored for her extraordinary hard work and dedication to OSCAR’s success. The IOC chair spoke at some length about Tabby’s many critical contributions to the project and presented her with an inscribed statuette in appreciation of her herculean efforts.

The Office of Information Technology celebrates the successful conclusion of the long, complex and challenging OSCAR project and looks forward to serving the College and its mission in new and exciting ways.

Tabby Conwell

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dwaldron October 21st, 2008

The implementation of Datatel’s Human Resources and Payroll modules is currently underway. These modules, the last to be implemented, will go live on January 1, 2009. In order to keep the College community apprised of changes in policies and procedures, the Department of Human Resources will release a series of newsletters between now and January when the first payrolls will be conducted using Colleague. The first of these newsletters is now available on the HR website. Beginning in January, the College will no longer distribute paper pay advices. Instead, employees will access pay advices online via ScotWeb. Please consult HR’s newsletter for further information about this and other important changes.

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dwaldron March 19th, 2008

The Datatel Users Group conference (DUG) is an annual event that brings together Datatel corporate employees with representatives of the more than 700 colleges and universities that utilitze Datatel’s software products. The conference offers hundreds of sessions devoted to a wide range of topics related to Colleague software modules and associated tools. Most of these sessions are conducted by employees of Datatel clients. DUG is also an excellent opportunity to hear Datatel officials discuss the future direction of the company and its products.

DUG 2008 took place between March 9th and 12th in Washington, DC. Despite the challenges posed by the snowstorm that struck Ohio in the days prior to the conference, folks from various offices at Wooster participated in the DUG conference. In addition to the Office of Information Technology, Human Resources, Development, Alumni Affairs, the Registrar’s Office and the Business Office were represented at DUG.

Given the resources and effort that has been and continues to be devoted to the OSCAR project, it is very important that the College fully leverage its investment in administrative software. DUG participation is intended to enable IT and other campus offices to utilize our new ERP system as fully as possible. Our implementation has been aggressive in terms of its compressed timeline, but the implementation has also been aggressive in terms of its scope and the determination to maximize the utilization of the sofware system’s features.

Wooster is among the very first institutions to implement Datatel’s new product to support development operations, Colleague Advancement. Wooster is also among the very first to implement Datatel’s new reporting strategy. This strategy entails the use of data warehouse-style tools for data retrieval and organization, and a complex suite of reporting tools. Chief Information Technology Officer David Waldron, OSCAR Project Manager Monica Crawford and Director of Applications Development Tabby Conwell met at DUG with Datatel Vice President Liz Murphy to discuss our early adoption of these systems, the progress of their implementations and ways to strengthen our collaboration in these arenas. The Wooster group had subsequent conversations with Datatel product managers and developers, and made a number of suggestions for product enhancements. Also at DUG, Tabby Conwell became the newest member of the Reporting Client Advisory Team. This group is charged with identifying and prioritizing reporting-related issues, and with working with the DUG Board Client Advocacy Council to bring these matters to Datatel’s attention.

OSCAR Project Manager Monica Crawford and Director of Development Support Services Pam Stanley participated in a well-attended panel discussion entitled “Implementing Advancement—The Before and After.” As Wooster is among the earliest adopters of Colleague Advancement, the pair were well-positioned to share valuable insights into issues related to implementation. At the conference Pam became a member of the Colleague Advancement Client Advisory Team.

Director of Applications Development Tabby Conwell (left), Datatel Vice President Liz Murphy (center), and OSCAR Project Manager Monica Crawford(right) discuss the progress of Wooster’s OSCAR project.

OSCAR Project Manager Monica Crawford and Director of Development Support Services Pam Stanley serve on a panel discussing issues associated with the implementation of Colleague Advancement.

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dwaldron February 8th, 2008

A Datatel trainer was on campus this week to conduct the first training session on the Colleague Human Resources module. This training marks the beginning of the final phase of the OSCAR project. The final module is slated to go live at the beginning of January, 2009. Natalie Richardson and Kim Nadin chair the Human Resources Inmplementation Team charged with leading this phase of the implementation. Programmer/Analyst Connie McCarty will serve as technical lead.

The OSCAR project began in January, 2005. Since that time the College has successfully implemented the finance module (general ledger, purchasing, accounts payable), the budget module, the admissions module, the financial aid module, the student records module (including online registration), the degree audit module and the housing module. Colleague Advancement, Datatel’s new product for development and alumni affairs, is currently running parallel with the legacy system and will soon be fully live as the system of record.

Participants in Datatel’s personnel training enjoy a meal together to mark the beginning of the HR implementation.

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dwaldron January 23rd, 2008

Between June and November, 2006, the Admissions Office implemented College Board’s Recruitment Plus software system. Since that time, Admissions has relied upon Recruitment Plus to support its student recruitment efforts. Prospect data is loaded into Recruitment Plus and that data is maintained there throughout the application process. As other offices on campus—notably Financial Aid, the Registrar’s Office and the Dean of Students Office—also need this information once prospective students apply for admission, the data must come to reside in Colleague. During the initial recruiting cycle on Recruitment Plus, this entailed a great deal of manual data entry and manual synchronization between the two systems. In preparation for the current cycle, IT has been working closely with Admissions, Financial Aid, the Registrar’s Office and the Dean of Students Office to develop an automated interface between the systems. The new interface was used for the first time on Saturday to copy applicant data from Recruitment Plus to Colleague. On Tuesday, the interface was used to perform the first of what will be daily updates between the systems. Interfacing the data between these two systems is a complex undertaking and all the participants have worked hard to make it successful. The group will continue to work to enhance the interface and to better align data structures and procedures within the two systems, as well as relevant procedures within the varous offices that rely most heavily upon this data.

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dwaldron January 15th, 2008

Faculty members can now access all class rosters via Scotweb. They had been limited to the rosters of those courses that they were teaching. The new menu option “Class Lists for Chairs” allows the user to specify a department. Scotweb then displays all the courses offered by that department for the specified term. The user selects the course of interest and may chose to view the course roster in the standard format or in comma delimited format. (The information in comma delimited format may be copied and pasted into Excel.) IT created this new functionality at the request of department chairs.

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dwaldron December 6th, 2007

On the afternoon of Monday, November 3, the College hosted a group of administrators from Kalamazoo College. Kalamazoo is a fellow member of the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges (CLAC). They contemplate a project very similar to our OSCAR initiative, became aware of OSCAR through conversations at CLAC events, and paid their visit hoping to gain insights from Wooster’s experiences.

The nine member Kalamazoo team was led by Greg Diment, Associate Provost for Information Services, and Marian Stowers, Director of Financial Aid. Greg and Marian co-chair the Kalamazoo team charged with evaluating administrative software solutions. Wooster participants included Tabby Conwell, Monica Crawford, Vince Di Scipio, Mary Schantz and David Waldron from IT, as well as Suzanne Bates, Todd Burson, Cathy Finks, David Miller, Natalie Richardson and Pam Stanley.

Prior to the launch of OSCAR’s implementation phase, a group from Wooster paid a similar visit to Washington & Jefferson College. W & J was an excellent host and we at Wooster were delighted to have the opportunity to pay their good turn forward. Best of luck to Kalamazoo.

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dwaldron October 25th, 2007

During the early evening hours of Friday, October 19, College Controller Todd Burson and Analyst/Programmer Connie McCarty worked together to close the books for fiscal year 2006-07. The College began the use of the Colleague financial system on July 1, 2005, so 2006-07 was the second year that College accounting records were maintained in Colleague and the second year to be closed within Colleague. The procedure ran smoothly.

In conjunction with Colleague, the Finance Office and IT worked together to implement a new financial reporting tool known as FRx. Fiscal 2006-07 marked the second time that FRx was used to produce the College’s financial statements. Todd indicates that FRx has been helpful to the Business Office in many ways, but was extraordinarily helpful in the production of this year’s financial statements. The financial statements of a given year are required to display information on the prior year as well. Because we now have two years of financial data in Colleague, we are, in Todd’s words, “now able to push a button and get our financial statements from the Colleague software.” This had made life in the Business Office quite a bit easier. As Todd puts it, “This has brought great joy to me.”

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dwaldron October 25th, 2007

During the early evening hours of Friday, October 19, College Controller Todd Burson and Analyst/Programmer Connie McCarty worked together to close the books for fiscal year 2006-07. The College began the use of the Colleague financial system on July 1, 2005, so 2006-07 was the second year that College accounting records were maintained in Colleague and the second year to be closed within Colleague. The procedure ran smoothly.

In conjunction with Colleague, the Finance Office and IT worked together to implement a new financial reporting tool known as FRx. Fiscal 2006-07 marked the second time that FRx was used to produce the College’s financial statements. Todd indicates that FRx has been helpful to the Business Office in many ways, but was extraordinarily helpful in the production of this year’s financial statements. The financial statements of a given year are required to display information on the prior year as well. Because we now have two years of financial data in Colleague, we are, in Todd’s words, “now able to push a button and get our financial statements from the Colleague software.” This had made life in the Business Office quite a bit easier. As Todd puts it, “This has brought great joy to me.”

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dwaldron August 19th, 2007

Training on the use of the College’s administrative software system’s requisitioning, requisition approval and budget functions is being organized upon demand. Those requiring training or having questions about these functions should contact Programmer/Analyst Connie McCarty via email at cmccarty@wooster.edu or via phone at x2199.

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