Harvard Student Information System Implementation Update

Harvard Student Information System
Implementation Update
Harvard IT Summit
June 5, 2014

Speaker Introduction
• Jason Shaffner | @jasonshaffner | jason_shaffner@harvard.edu
– Managing Director, Student Information System Program
– Six years at Harvard in FAD and HUIT
– Formerly led transformative information technology projects at
University of Arizona, University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins
University, and the University of Puerto Rico, among others
– Harvard College / Pforzheimer House / Social Studies Alumnus
2

Agenda
• Background
– Why?
– What?
– When?
• Implementation Fun Facts
• Key Success Factors
– Agile
– Student / Faculty Experience
– Cloud
– Business Intelligence
– Training and Change Management
• Q&A
3

Why are we implementing a Common SIS?
• Motivated by several factors:
– Technical Debt: Inflexible, aging, and deficient systems at
several schools and for University-wide services.
– Service Deficiencies: Inefficient, paper-intensive services poorly
suited for expectations of faculty, students, and departments.
– Support for “One Harvard” Vision: Make it easier for students
and faculty to engage in cross-school teaching and learning.
• Steering Committee convened in 2012:
– More than 300 participants across all schools.
– Recommended moving ahead ASAP with FAS and Student
Financial Services, with other schools to join in later years.
– No mandate for all schools to join, but common expectation to
achieve “seamless interoperation” across all by the end.
5

Why are we implementing a Common SIS?
6
Everyone
• Consistent experience across schools,
programs, disciplines
• Modern, intuitive, and consistent
look-and-feel
• Fewer logins
• Online / mobile self-service
Faculty & Advisors
• One-stop access to vital info about
courses and advisees
• Authoritative class rosters
• Simplified grade entry
• Tracking non-course milestones and
research projects
Students
• Online course enrollment and
add/drop
• Multi-year planning tools
• “What-if” scenarios and real-time
validation against degree
requirements
• Automated notification of grades,
holds, etc., via email or text
Departments
• Flexible reporting, analysis, and
communications tools
• Reduced reliance on IT or need for
“shadow” databases
• Automation of manually intensive
tasks such as concentration GPA
• New opportunities for course planning
and forecasting

New Student Information System = One Piece of the Puzzle
7
The intersection between the New SIS and the New Teaching & Learning platform is
especially relevant to faculty and students and the teams are working together to
optimize the user experience across these platforms.
School
Applications
Teaching &
Learning
Technologies
New Student
Information
System
Identity & Access
Management
Successor
to iSites
Successor to:
FAS
• HERS1 / HERS2
• Advising Portal
• Grading Portal
• Course Planner
• Study Card
• my.harvard
• …and more
HDS
• PowerCampus
Wave 2 decision
forthcoming…

What are we implementing?
8
Business Functions
• Biographic / Demographic Info
• Course Catalog and Schedule
• Student Receivables
• Academic Advising
• Student Enrollments
• Program and Course Requirements
• Grading & Evaluation (Integration with
Learning Management)
• Academic Statistics & Transcripts
• Graduation Processing
• Data Analysis & Reporting
Vision
Adopt a modern, secure, flexible, and intuitive student information technology
platform that provides an excellent user experience, supports unique requirements
of the schools, and facilitates access to integrated student and course data.
Technology
• Oracle PeopleSoft Campus Solutions
• Core Transaction Modules
• Student Administration Integration
Pack (SAIP) – LTI-compliant APIs
• PeopleTools core technology
• PeopleSoft Interaction Hub
• User interface enhancement
• Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE)
• BI Foundation Suite
• Student Information Analytics (SIA)
• Exalytics In-Memory BI Machine
• Oracle User Productivity Kit (UPK)
• Context-sensitive help
• Online simulations
• Mobile apps TBD

When do we go-live?
9
November 2014 Student Financials (All Schools)
September 2015
• Harvard College
• Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
• School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• Harvard Divinity School
Summer 2016
Wave 2 Schools
(schools to be known by June 30, 2014!)
Winter 2016 Seamless Inter-Operation for All Schools

From Summit (2013) to Summit (2014)
11
June 6, 2013 June 5, 2014 What?
1 23 Full-time
Harvard staff…
? 2 Arrow Street Our Location
1 9 Total PeopleSoft and
OBIEE Instances
0 3 Amazon Web Services
Instances
0 10 Scrum or Kanban
Teams

Harvard’s Academic Structure
12
• Campus Solutions is organized around several key concepts:
– Institution: We are configured as a single institution
– Career: At Harvard, roughly equivalent to “school” (but not quite)
– Program: At Harvard, roughly equivalent to “degree”
– Plan: Roughly equivalent to “concentration” or “major”
– Sub-Plan: Roughly equivalent to “track” or “specialty”
• We started designing the HU Academic Structure one year ago and
we are finally on the edge of being done!
• School with the most “Plan” codes? Harvard College (337)
• School with the most “Sub-Plan” codes? Public Health (333)
• Unique “Plan” codes across Harvard? 1,505 (and counting…)
“Academic Structure” in Campus Solutions defines the overall structure of the
university, including degrees, programs, and concentrations… We knew that
Harvard was a complicated place, but…. Wow!

ATS and SIS Project Summary
13
• One of the key challenges for the SIS Program Team and the HUIT Administrative
Technology (ATS) team is to figure out the impact of the implementation on the
existing portfolio of FAS applications.
1. Applications: Analyzing the current portfolio, conducting high-level or in-depth fit-gap analyses,
and determining the future direction for each system in the portfolio.
2. Data Flow: Many applications in the “Do Not Retire” category rely upon data that will be stored
in the new Campus Solutions database; we are working to identify options for integration based
on requirements of data freshness, read-only vs. read-write, and other characteristics.
3. Interfaces: There are many system-to-system interfaces that have to be built and tested prior to
the go-live dates in 2015…
4. Retirement / Decommission Plan: Define user access requirements post go-live, data
archiving requirements (if applicable), timeline for decommission and removal from server(s).

Why Agile?
16
• Overcome challenges of ambiguous scope.
• Provide optimal support for the phasing plan for this program.
• Establish agile foundation for ongoing iterations beyond go-live.
• Best fit for business intelligence and user experience deliverables.
• Provide optimal support for the phased deployment.
• Consistent with emerging practices in HUIT.
• Reduce risk from the waterfall approach:
– "Big design up front" that results in bloated software
– Focus on exhaustive documentation rather than working software
– Elongated time frame to deliver new features
While this approach is unorthodox for PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, we
believe it is the right model for this project.

Agile / Scrum – Physical Manifestations
17

Agile / Scrum – Physical Manifestations
18

Agile / Scrum – Online Tracking
19

20

21

Agile Reporting – Burn Up Chart
22
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
Sprint
1
Sprint
2
Sprint
3
Sprint
4
Sprint
5
Sprint
6
Sprint
7
Sprint
8
Sprint
9
Sprint
10
Sprint
11
Sprint
12
Sprint
13
Sprint
14
Sprint
15
Story Points
Burn Up Chart – Green Team
Total
Completed
Sprints to Complete ~ 7

Agile Reporting – Epic Health
23
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Cashiering
Configuration Guide
FA Compliance processes
FA Disbursement
GL Interface
Group Post
Interfaces - Inbound to CS
Interfaces - Outbound from CS
Nelnet
Payment Plans
Refunds
Reporting
Security
Service Indicators
Stipends
Taxes
Third-Party Contracts
Tuition Calculation
Green Team Marquee Features
Closed
In Progress
Open
Reopened

HUIT Guiding Principles for User Experience
25
The HUIT Strategic Programs (SIS, TLT, IAM) are collaborating on this
strategy and we hope to export best practices for broader adoption!
• Similar tasks performed in similar ways1
• Seamless navigation across applications2
• Common branding, look and feel3
• Aspire to a common mental model4

Course Catalog @ Harvard
26
There are many ways that FAS students learn about and search for classes today;
we are eager to provide enhanced and flexible tools in the new system.

User Experience
27
We have defined “excellent user experience” as one of our key commitments;
below are some examples of user interfaces that we might use as models.

How SIS Does User Experience
28
User Research
• Pilot program (facilitated by Oracle) with faculty in December 2013
• Undergraduate focus groups started in April
• Engaged Undergraduate Council Education Committee in April
• Many more outreach efforts to come with faculty, graduate students, etc.
Prototyping
• Built prototypes of Advising Network Portal, Student Progress, Campus Mobile, etc.
• “Paper prototyping” exercise planned for late summer
• “Ghost Protocol” in Undergraduate Houses to gather broad input
Branding
• Applying HPAC standards to development instances
• Collaborating with TLT and IAM on style guide
We have initiated several efforts to support our UX mission.

Cloud Vision
30
We are aggressively pursuing a strategy of
migrating to Amazon Web Services (AWS) for our
production infrastructure to support “Wave 1”

Quick Summary
31
Instances currently at Amazon
• PeopleSoft “Sandbox”
– Testing grounds for SIS business analysts, consultants, and developers
– Accessible only via Harvard VPN (and tunnel to Amazon Private Cloud)
• Oracle Business Intelligence “Proof-of-Concept”
– OBIEE instance with sample “Class Enrollment” data model
– Access granted to primary technical contacts
• User Productivity Kit (UPK)
– Library of purchased help for PeopleSoft
– Repository of custom-developed help content
Instances previously at Amazon
• PeopleSoft Production Feasibility Study
– Built complete “production-like” stack
– Completed fail-over testing and performance scenarios

Next Steps
32
On Premises Production for Wave 0
• We are building out our PROD and P-1 instances at 60 Ox
• Topology designed to “stretch” in case we need to retain this model
Migration to Amazon Web Services
• Working assumption is migration to AWS PROD for Wave 1 go-live
• Issues to resolve:
– Monitoring and Job Scheduling
– Maintenance and Operations
– Detailed migration strategy
• Primary drivers for this migration are high availability, dynamic scalability,
and disaster recovery – cost is not the primary motivation
Carolyn Brzezinski (SIS Technical Lead) is talking about our Cloud
initiatives right now at the Summit!

Reporting and Analytics
34
Reporting and Analysis are among the most powerful features of the new platform;
these tools enable trend analysis and academic planning activities.

DEMO: Ad Hoc Report in 3 Minutes
35
LAUNCH DEMO
Watch this (and a few other videos) on your own…
http://upktraining.cadm.harvard.edu/ITSummit2014

Create Once Publish Everywhere – Enabled by Oracle UPK
36
• In addition to our future Business Intelligence platform, you also just experienced
Oracle’s User Productivity Kit (UPK), a tool for authoring modules that can be
published in various output formats to address different learning styles.
PowerPoint Slides Process Docs / Job Aids
Online Simulation
(See / Try / Do)
User Acceptance
Test Scripts

Training Mechanisms
37
Population Primary Training Mechanism Secondary Training
Mechanism
Staff • Classroom training
• User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
• Role-based learning paths via online
training tool(s)
• Integrated context-sensitive help
• Quick reference
guides
• Train-the-trainer
• Printable user
guides
Faculty • Quick reference guides
• Train-the-Trainer
(Dept. Admin / Faculty Asst.)
• In-person training (at faculty request)
• Video / simulations
• Integrated context-
sensitive help
• Printable user
guides
Students • Video / simulations
• Quick reference guides
• Required training during registration
process
• Integrated context-
sensitive help
• Drop-in hours /
"genius bar"

Change Management – Upcoming Actions
38
Job Shadowing Other “Intelligence Gathering”
The Daily Life of an End User
 Job Shadowing with offices due to
go live with Wave 0 and Wave 0.5
 Refine notes and record CM
issues into JIRA
 Identify the impacted roles and
processes
 Vet with all to be sure everything
is captured
Stakeholder Analysis
 Role-based analysis.
 Develop CM strategies for both
communication and training.
 Work with Communications &
Marketing Specialist, User
Experience Lead on
Communication Mechanisms.
Project Team Coordination
 Regular meetings with Product
Owners.
 Work with team members to develop
strategies around CM and training.
Documentation
 When available, research information
on current processes and any training
materials.
 Review websites, iSites, Confluence
and policy documentation
LIMS and other Meetings
 Listening for the fears, concerns, and
positive reactions to demonstrations of
CS functionality.
 Establish relationships with LIMs to
facilitate job shadowing activities.

Q&A
Contact me with questions or feedback:
jason_shaffner@harvard.edu
For more information on the project, visit our web page:
http://sis.huit.harvard.edu

Harvard Student Information System Implementation Update

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