Next Deployment Group Gears Up for October 11 Go-Live
The ctcLink Steering Committee met today with Deployment Group 5-A — Green River College and Skagit Valley College — project managers and college leadership to discuss readiness for an Oct. 11, 2021 ctcLink go-live.
The group reviewed key go-live readiness areas for the DG5-A colleges. Each college PM gave an overview of readiness for their college, followed by a high-level perspective from each executive sponsor/president. See DG5-A Go/No-Go Readiness Presentation for details. In addition, the committee considered the ctcLink Project team’s readiness for DG5-A conversion and the SBCTC ctcLink Customer Support organization’s readiness to support DG5-A colleges post-go-live.
After reviewing the readiness results, the ctcLink Steering Committee unanimously approved DG5-A go-live for Oct. 11, 2021.
A 2021 Challenge
Even in the best of circumstances, the weeks leading up to a go-live are historically the most stressful of any deployment group implementation. Under the current remote and hybrid operations, college and SBCTC teams have been presented a seemingly impossible task these last several months: running a go-live process in the midst of unprecedented change.
Everyone joined forces and worked collaboratively and virtually to tackle go-live preparation activities, despite the impact of an ongoing pandemic and political turbulence on our colleges. The colleges have kept focused on completing the preparation activities and post go-live planning in a constantly changing environment while conducting complex business activities and meetings with Webex and Zoom under less-than-ideal circumstances.
Kudos to Leadership and Teams
- DG5-A project managers — Dave Ortega, Green River College, and Benjamin St. Germain, Skagit Valley College, for their extraordinary leadership and extra effort to complete nearly every user acceptance test as well as incorporate organizational change management strategies into their post go-plans and college-communications. The hard work and resiliency of the colleges’ ctcLink teams are commendable.
- DG5-A executive sponsors — Camella Morgan, Green River College, and Carolyn Tucker, Skagit Valley College — for their leadership, consistent guidance, and steadfast support of their college PMs, as well as collaboration through the governance process.
- College Presidents — Dr. Suzanne Johnson, Green River president and Dr. Tom Keegan, Skagit Valley College president for their vision and understanding that an implementation of this size is a monumental systemwide undertaking.
- The ctcLink Project technical and functional implementation team, SBCTC agency teams (Customer Support, Legacy, Application Services, Data Services and Infrastructure Services) have stepped up in these very difficult times to provide stellar support and coordination and keep the project moving forward.
What’s Next?
DG5-B and DG5-C go-live and readiness review
On Oct. 5, the ctcLink Project Steering Committee will meet to review readiness for DG5-B colleges (Bellingham Technical College, Big Bend Community College, and Whatcom Community College) and DG5-C colleges (Bellevue College, Everett Community College, and Grays Harbor College). DG5-B colleges have an anticipated go-live date of Monday, Oct. 25, 2021. DG5-C colleges have an anticipated go-live date of Monday, Nov. 8, 2021.
DG5-A conversion go-live weekend
Beginning late Thursday night, Oct. 7, through Sunday, Oct. 10, the SBCTC teams will work together around-the-clock to convert DG5-A data from the current HP Legacy system to ctcLink PeopleSoft.
Barring unforeseen circumstances, Green River and Skagit Valley colleges will be live in ctcLink PeopleSoft on Monday, Oct. 11, 2021.
ctcLink offline for all during conversion weekends
ctcLink will be off-line for all colleges currently live in ctcLink during conversion weekends.
Colleges and organizations impacted as DG5-A goes live will be Cascadia College, Clark College, Centralia College, Community Colleges of Spokane District, Edmonds College, Highline College, Lower Columbia College, North Seattle College, Olympic College, Peninsula College, Pierce College Fort Steilacoom, Pierce College Puyallup, SBCTC, Seattle Central College, Seattle Colleges, South Seattle College, Spokane Community College, Spokane Falls Community College, Tacoma Community College, and Wenatchee Valley College.
ctcLink service downtime during DG5 Go-Live – Fall 2021
- Friday afternoon, Oct. 8, 2021 to Monday morning, Oct. 11, 2021 (DG5-A go-live weekend)
- Friday afternoon, Oct. 22, 2021 to Monday morning, Oct. 25, 2021 (DG5-B go-live weekend)
- Friday afternoon, Nov. 5, 2021 to Monday morning, Nov. 8, 2021 (DG5-C go-live weekend)
