ConnectCarolina: Enterprise Resource Planning

The University community has a unique opportunity to learn how the ConnectCarolina project will improve interaction with the University at a Town Hall on Monday, Nov. 9, 2-3 p.m. at Gerrard Hall. Chairs of the Stakeholder Committees will provide a project update on the student services, human resources, payroll and finance components of the fully integrated administrative system. The Executive Steering Committee members will speak to the importance of the ConnectCarolina project to their respective areas. Questions are welcome. Light refreshments will be served. For more information, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

As implementation of the student services component of ConnectCarolina continues, work has begun on the next phase of the project – the finance and human resources components. The completed ConnectCarolina project will provide the University with a fully integrated administrative system that increases the efficiency and effectiveness of business processes related to student services, human resources, payroll and finance.

Oracle’s PeopleSoft is being used for all aspects of ConnectCarolina through these components:

• Campus Solutions (student systems)
• Financial Management Solutions (finance)
• eProcurement (purchasing/commodity system)
• Human Capital Management (HR and payroll)
• Enterprise Performance Management (reporting and data warehouse)

Bain Report Drives Timeline Change

The timeline for implementing the finance and human resources components has been stepped up as a result of the Bain Report. In the original plan, the ConnectCarolina team would have completed the student systems implementation, followed by the HR and then finance implementations. Following release of the Bain Report, the team has reconfigured the timeline to conduct simultaneous implementations and moved finance ahead of HR. The goal is to more rapidly implement the new administrative system to help business offices reduce costs and increase efficiencies.

An example of a Bain Report recommendation on ConnectCarolina is in the area of purchasing. In order for the University to negotiate better prices, a commodity system is needed to provide detail on quantities and pricing. Bain’s analysis identified this as a gap and recommended that a commodity system be implemented as soon as possible. PeopleSoft does this through the eProcurement system, which the ConnectCarolina team will begin working on in December 2009. The University is also exploring a partnership with North Carolina State which already uses eProcurement. By leveraging what NC State has done and the knowledge they have, the ConnectCarolina team hopes to fast track eProcurement implementation.

Finance and HR Components

Stakeholder committees have been formed for the next phase, led by:

• HR and Payroll: Matt Brody, Associate Vice Chancellor for Human Resources
• Finance: Roger Patterson, Associate Vice Chancellor for Finance

Working groups have begun to review existing policies and business processes in the finance, payroll and HR areas. The goal of all of these groups is to identify potential policy and process improvement opportunities that have both a positive benefit to the University now as well as facilitate the implementation of the HR, payroll and financial components of the new system.

The ConnectCarolina team that will implement the finance, HR and payroll components is currently being assembled. ITS team members who support the finance and HR applications today are anticipated to be active participants in the ConnectCarolina implementation of these functions. Functional and/or technical PeopleSoft training will be provided for all the impacted teams in early 2010, and workloads will be coordinated to ensure staff availability for the training.

The implementation of Financial Management Solutions will begin in January 2010; this may include:

• General Ledger
• Payables
• Receivables
• Purchasing
• Asset Management

The implementation of Human Capital Management will begin in February 2010; this may include:

• Human Resources
• Payroll
• Base Benefits
• Learning Management
• Talent Management
• ePay
• eBenefits
• ePerformance
• Absence Management

Admissions
During the weekend of Oct. 31-Nov. 1, the Junior Transfer and Intra University Transfer application for the School of Education will be deployed. Residency conversion and interface file functionality (Medical, Dental, Law, Pharmacy and Physical Therapy) will also go live over that weekend.

The team continues to gather and review requirements for Graduate and Professional Schools Admissions Application and Application Evaluation pieces. Areas of focus are complete requirements gathering, open communications, engaging change management/training early in the process and utilizing all project resources (internal project as well as client resources).

There are continued efforts on identifying scope and tasks required to implement the Graduate Admissions project by July 2010.

Student Records
A major milestone is scheduled for the weekend of Oct. 31-Nov. 1 when the program/plan converted data go live. [NOTE: this go-live was postponed on Oct. 30 and will occur during the week of Nov. 2; the Office of the University Registrar states that there are no risks associated with this postponement.] Program/plan is PeopleSoft speak for major and minor; this converted data brings over all academic program and degree records in SIS back to 1953, including more than 1.4 million rows of data, almost 350,000 students and more than 250,000 awarded degrees.

The team is also validating Schedule of Classes and Enrollment conversion data which are scheduled for go-live later in November.

Financial Aid
The team is focusing on additional testing of configuration and modifications, and working with the Financial Aid office testing the Carolina Covenant.

Student Financials
The team continues to run and review tuition calculation and group assignments with new test data created from this month's conversions. The team is also focused on the development and testing of the modifications and interfaces. Integration of the Starlight system, which will replace the StARS system for tracking student awards, has begun and will continue for the next several weeks. Decisions are underway concerning functionality of the third party proxy capability for students to allow parents and other authorized individuals to act for a student for activities such as bill payment and review of selected information identified by the student.

Academic Advisement
Work will remain focused on completing configuring all the majors. This is a very large effort that will continue into November. Work also continues on functional specifications required interfaces and modifications. These will need to be completed by late November.

Two deployments are nearing:

• Additional Online Application functionality related to External Transfers for schools of Public Health and Education and Internal Transfers (scheduled for Oct. 24)
• Conversion of Program/Plan data and a related temporary interface (scheduled for Nov. 7); this is part of ongoing work to prepare for Fall 2010 registration in spring 2010.

Additional upcoming and ongoing project activities:

• Planning has begun for the release of the Graduate and Professional Schools Admissions (summer 2010); a diverse group of hands-on users continues to work on configuration and process evaluation
• The Financial Aid team is completing configuration work; integration testing has begun and runs through Nov. 25
• The Student Records team will be validating Schedule of Classes and Enrollment Conversion data from now thru mid-November.  An additional iteration of testing was added for these files in early November. Integration testing begins Oct. 12 and runs through Nov. 25
• In Academic Advisement, the focus continues to be on completing configuration of all the majors. Work will soon focus on developing all the functional specifications required for interfaces and modifications. These will need to be completed by late November
• The Student Financials team continues to run and review tuition calculation and tuition calculation group assignments for latest test data, review the third party proxy technical design, and walk through specs with technical and functional staff