ctcLink Project Archive

Celebrating Success

As of May 9, 2022, all 34 colleges and the SBCTC agency have deployed ctcLink PeopleSoft.

On May 17, 2022, the ctcLink Project, SBCTC Support teams, ctcLink governance groups, college leaders, and others gathered in Olympia and online to mark this historic occasion.

ctcLink Celebration photo show (video has no sound)
ctcLink Celebration speakers' image and text slides

SBCTC and the colleges have now moved to the ctcLink Operational Governance, working together to optimize ctcLink in the years to come.

What is ctcLink?

ctcLink is a single, centralized system of online functions to give students, faculty and staff anytime, anywhere access to a modern, efficient way of doing their college business. The ctcLink Project was the implementation process to move colleges from the HP Legacy system to Oracle PeopleSoft products (Campus Solutions, Finance, Human Capital Management).

It's a people project

ctcLink is about much more than new software. As the current 35-plus-year-old administrative system was replaced, college staff examined core business processes and practices to align with the delivered software solution making for standardized practices across the 34-college system.

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Lessons Learned

Overall Lessons Learned

DG2 Lessons Learned

Benefits of ctcLink

ctcLink will change many of the ways we do things at Washington’s community and technical colleges. Once implemented, colleges will have a modern suite of online tools and a set of common core business processes.

Read more about Oracle's long-term commitment to PeopleSoft Long-term Support and Product Updates.

Benefits of ctcLink - download and print flyer

ctcLink benefits include:

System-Wide

Access to information from anywhere at any time
A single source of accurate, real-time data and common reporting tools
Standardization of select administrative processes to support effectiveness across the system
Ability to respond to changing business requirements
A modern, consistent way to manage student records, enrollment reports, grades, class rosters, scheduling information, tuition and financial aid processes, accounting, state/federal reports, and more

For Students

A set of common, mobile-friendly tools to handle college business online, at any time
A single ID and student record that follows students wherever they go within the Washington community and technical college system
24/7 access to an online student center where students can register for classes; handle financial aid processes; pay tuition and fees; add, drop or swap classes; contact an instructor or advisor; manage personal contact information; view grades, track academic goals and apply for graduation

For Employees

Self-service tools to manage personal information and other college business online
Consolidated payroll processing and a full suite of online HR tools and services
An online, integrated suite of financial tools and the ability to create automated approval workflow processes for purchasing, travel authorizations, expense reimbursements and more
A modern, consistent way of managing and sharing state and federal reports; payroll, purchasing and employee records; recruitment tools and benefits administration

Project Background

The Washington community and technical college system developed system-wide functional requirements for a new administrative software solution in 2011, issued an RFP in 2012, and selected PeopleSoft in 2013.

Three pilot colleges (Spokane Community College, Spokane Falls Community College and Tacoma Community College) went live with ctcLink (Oracle PeopleSoft) in August 2015. There were numerous system functionality and conversion issues following go-live. Although many of the problems were fixed as they were discovered, the pilot colleges continued to have problems with the new system.

Project Replanning

In late 2016, the ctcLink project underwent an Independent Validation and Verification (IV&V) assessment to determine the state of the technical and functional aspects of the system. As a result, implementation activities for the next group of colleges were put on hold.

In 2017, the project team focused its efforts on remediation and stabilizing the pilot colleges. All parties signed off on plans to complete any remaining remediation items and move the project forward.

The State Office of the Chief Information Officer approved a new ctcLink Investment Plan, which was required before additional colleges could implement ctcLink.

Renewed governance structure

In February 2017, the Washington Association for Community and Technical Colleges Technology Committee (WACTC-Tech) began the process of reorganizing ctcLink project governance and oversight. A new ctcLink Project Governance framework was introduced in late April 2018 as WACTC-Tech handed off its previous role to the ctcLink Executive Leadership Committee (cELC).

ctcLink Project Guiding Principles

The ctcLink Project Guiding Principles were developed and adopted in 2009 by the system-wide presidents’ group (WACTC) and re-affirmed in 2013.

Project Relaunch

With a new director and project plan in place, the ctcLink project was back on track since 2017, with final implementation complete on May 9, 2022.

In collaboration with a group of college project and organizational change managers (OCM), project leadership developed a detailed plan and timeline for implementing ctcLink to all colleges by Spring 2022.

College executive sponsors and project managers gathered during a three-day summit to set the stage to kick off the Upgrade project activities, as well as a "re-start" of the entire ctcLink project.

In March 2018, the project officially relaunched with a restructured governance model, new leadership, updated staffing plan, new project methodology, revised deployment timeline and budget.