User Acceptance Testing Begins for ctcLink Deployment Group 4

October 21, 2020 by ctcLink Communications

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) begins for Deployment Group 4 (DG4) colleges — Centralia College, Edmonds College, Highline College, North Seattle College, Seattle Central College, South Seattle College, Seattle College District, and Wenatchee Valley College — on Monday, Oct. 26, 2020.

User Acceptance Testing is a process to confirm the system meets mutually agreed-upon requirements. A subject matter expert (SME) provides confirmation after reviewing data in ctcLink compared to the Legacy system.

Hats Off to DG4

UAT is a critical and necessary step to a successful ctcLink go-live. The SMEs will test all aspects of their college’s instance of ctcLink, allowing primary SMEs to assess and improve ctcLink functionality as it relates to their local business processes, as well as to determine the accuracy of data and users’ level-access (i.e., users’ security roles) in the system.

DG4 colleges are doing exceptional work as they complete a heavy workload to transition to ctcLink and conduct their usual college business, all while working in remote operations since March 2020; being forced to redefine “normal” in every aspect of their lives.

If you have not already done so, applaud your local ctcLink team members and ctcLink Project Managers for their Herculean efforts on behalf of employees and students to prepare for February 2021 go-live.

One Thing Leads to Another

UAT is one of the final stages of the project before Go-Live. Since DG4 officially kicked off in October 2019, college subject matter experts (SMEs) and project managers (PMs) have worked tirelessly and exhaustively through multiple packages of work.

The ctcLink implementation process is a highly iterative partnership and process with a series of “work packages” designed to get colleges ready for success. Each requires active SME engagement at every step of the way, from prep work, data cleansing and data validation to testing and training.

An "iterative process" is one in which a product or procedure is fine-tuned and improved through multiple steps, cycles or phases.

Here are just a few of the steps your college SMEs and PMs have accomplished thus far:

PeopleSoft Fundamentals

A Canvas course to introduce the foundations of PeopleSoft and the prerequisite to GDA. Course information includes an overview of ctcLink, Frequently Asked Questions, videos on how to navigating ctcLink, as well as resources such as Terms and Concepts, Quick Reference Guides (QRGs) and Navigation Guides.

Global Design Adoption (GDA)

Self-paced courses (in Canvas) to introduce PeopleSoft basics, gain a foundation of knowledge about PS and a basic understanding of global and local configuration and how this impacts local business processes.

Business Process Fit/Gap (BPFG) Sessions

Remote sessions led by project staff to demonstrate business processes in ctcLink. Configuration homework and Change Action Plans are completed as part of this process.

Configuration (aka Homework)

Determining the values for ctcLink data elements at your college, e.g. departments, plan codes, service indicators.

Data Conversion (5 cycles)

Taking data from the Legacy system, combining it with other data colleges submit, crosswalking to new values, and making data available in ctcLink. The conversion cycle process is iterative – getting closer to the desired results with each cycle – building on each prior cycle for cleaner and cleaner data by Go-Live.

Data Validation

Comparing data that has converted into ctcLink with the source data to verify that it has converted accurately and has crosswalked to the correct values.

ctcLink Security

Setting permissions and access to the modules, pages and data each ctcLink user is able to view, and which functions they can perform with the data.