No Summer Slowdown for ctcLink

With Common Process Workshops and Business Process Fit/Gap sessions under way, it’s promising to be a busy summer. SBCTC and ctcLink colleges took part in a professional conference, sharing  ideas and bringing back new ones.

They had Little in Common, then this Process Happened

Whether you’re already using PeopleSoft — or are scheduled for the very last deployment — all colleges are invited to participate in Common Process Workshops (CPW) best-practice development workshops.

Your designated project manager has received registration information to invite subject-matter experts to participate in the next two sessions. Due to space limitations, attendance is limited to two subject-matter experts (SMEs) per campus. Anyone on a waiting list will be contacted after workshop registration closes.

Faculty Workload Management

• July 17-19, all day, Highline College
• Cross-pillar — Campus Solutions and Human Capital Management — session for human resources, payroll and instruction SMEs.

Human Capital Management (HCM) Self-Service

• August 15-16, all day, SBCTC Olympia
• Human Capital Management session for human resources and payroll SMEs.

HCM Workshop Readiness & Kickoff Conference Call

• July 12, 2 p.m., online and phone
• Plan to join the HCM Self-Service workshop facilitators to review workshop preparation assignments, discuss workshop logistics and get your questions answered. Session will be recorded and distributed.

About Common Process Development

Common processes are developed in systemwide two- to three-day workshops. The goal of developing common processes is to reach agreement on best-practice PeopleSoft processes and configurations.

CPW sessions are designed to create a better business process and reduce variability. This, in turn, will improve troubleshooting, training, testing and data quality, resulting in improved conversion and sustained success.

After each workshop, the common process is subjected to statewide testing and, if applicable, governance review and approval. Testing feedback is reviewed and/or resolved by SBCTC. After the testing period has ended, colleges may still conduct testing as a training opportunity.

Wrapped up in a Northwest Hug

Washington’s community and technical college system and SBCTC sent a strong contingent to the Northwest Regional User Group (NWHEUG) — also known as “Northwest Hug” — conference, June 18-19 at the Hotel Murano in Tacoma.

HEUG is an international organization comprising all levels of higher education that use Oracle applications and technology, including PeopleSoft. The Northwest region includes Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.

A few of our own made the conference a success

• Irena Marinova, SBCTC functional analyst for Human Capital Management, presented "Payroll Processing Checklist," describing the checklist used by HCM administrators semi-monthly to ensure successful payroll processing and to perform system testing. Irena has been invited to present the same session at the Southwest Regional User Group conference in July in San Diego.
• Paula McDaniel, SBCTC functional analyst for reporting/business intelligence, served as Reporting and Business Intelligence (RBI) Track Chair for the conference planning committee. In addition, she presented a session, “Data, Data Everywhere!,” an overview of SBCTC's in-house, wiki-style data dictionary which provides users with vital information regarding PeopleSoft data structure, PeopleSoft records and fields, queries, reports and SQL scripts used to create views.
• Ivy Brent, Tacoma Community College IT business systems analyst for ctcLink Human Capital Management and Finance, chaired the HR/HCM conference track. She also presented -- “Budget Overview: Bypass the Drilldown with a Query,” describing the tables used in the Budget Overview page and data elements, including SQL scripts used to build queries and how to display reports.
• Sanjiv Bhagat, SBCTC PeopleSoft HCM consultant, presented a well-received session, “Elucidate PeopleSoft Absence Management Framework for Higher Education,” to showcase features and functionalities of the PeopleSoft Absence Management product, which can be used to configure and implement complex higher education business processes.

Photo: Sanjiv Bhagat presents at the Northwest Regional User Group conference.

 

Fits and Gaps, Configurations and Conversions

The Business Process Fit/Gap Sessions are well underway for Deployment Group 2 (DG2).

This summer, as part of the implementation, the DG2 cohort is participating in one of the most important phases of the deployment. The Business Process Fit/Gap sessions will help DG2 (Tacoma Community College, Community Colleges of Spokane, Clark, and SBCTC) understand local business processes and the ctcLink configurations associated with them. 

Sessions run from June 20 to August 29 at various locations around the state (SBCTC in Olympia, Clark College in Vancouver, Tacoma CC and CCs of Spokane). Registration is currently underway and is being managed by DG2 project managers. To find out more and access the session list on Canvas, contact your college or SBCTC project manager.

Without SMEs, there would be no SMILES

Finance and accounting subject matter experts (SMEs) gathered for the Asset Management configurations and conversion session at Clark College on Thursday, June 21. Tacoma Community College participated by conference call.

Left to right:  Sabra Sand, Clark College director of business services; Emmett Folk, SBCTC Finance/HCM project manager; Andy Palm, SBCTC Finance functional analyst; Christyanna Dawson, SBCTC Finance project lead; Melinda Tuve, Clark College fiscal analyst; Audra Wrisley, Clark College fiscal analyst.