Upgrading to PeopleSoft 9.2

Project Executive Summary

Project Title: Upgrading to PeopleSoft 9.2

Project Sponsor: James Cooper, Associate Professor and Dean, Continuing and International Education

Steering Committee: James Cooper, AP&D, CIE

Daniel Peters, President, IT Department

Maurice, Jamy, Director, Administration

Peter, Mamn, Director, Finance and Administration

John Cook, Executive Director, KEYCOMP

To the Senate Committee of Development

State University of California has been offering college education for over 50 years. During this time, the university has continued to experience a rapid growth of the student population by an average of about 6.7% annually. However, because of advancements in technology and the need to provide quality and effective services to the university students, both within the US and the global student population, it is necessary for the university to upgrade its database application system (Kelkar, 2012). In most cases, it has been determined that it takes about 10 to 15 minutes to offer any services to our students. The system that the university currently uses is old, slow and inefficient. This has necessitated the search for a new program, which will reduce service time to less than 4 minutes per student. In essence, the new software will enhance service delivery and minimize discontent among students. The steering committee anticipates that the new software will be able to achieve this objective.

As noted above, the department of Continuing and International Education at the moment uses two out-dated databases for keeping records as well as processing student enrolments. Because of the nature of these ineffective and out-dated databases, coupled with the duplication of work experienced across the departments, the department is requesting an upgrade to be undertaken in the next 1 year. The migration will see the doing away with the two out-dated databases; namely C2K and ALP to a more advanced version offered by Oracle, namely; PeopleSoft (Kelkar, 2012). The steering committee proposes that the transition should include but not limited to the following key aspects (Kelkar, 2012);

Import legacy Department of Continuing and International Education and ALP data as required
Review all student data and upgrade their records as necessary

The steering committee notes that integrating the department’s out-dated databases into the new database program, the department will be in a position to coordinate and manage all the activities that relate to student welfare, including registration (Kelkar, 2012). In addition, the new system will help secure the payments of fees by the students and regulation of all the activities of students in and outside the university campuses (Kelkar, 2012). Further, the new database is expected to correct all the anomalies associated with the old software, besides synchronizing between databases and the new software (Kelkar, 2012).

There are numerous benefits associated with the new database (Kelkar, 2012). First, the new policy adopted by all departments requires department heads to seek ways of minimizing waste and enhance service delivery to enhance overall outcomes (Kelkar, 2012). The department has done a credible job on many aspects, although some areas require gradual transformation. In order to meet the new policy requirements, the steering committee for DCIE notes that the new program will meet the complex business requirements for the university (Kelkar, 2012). The nature of their new applications and their capabilities will enable the university to increase its deficiencies and effectiveness if providing services to the students (Kelkar, 2012). Apart for the enhanced service delivery capabilities, the new application will enhance our output besides providing lower cost of doing business at the university.

The project team will comprise of people from key departments including the human resources department, IT department, finance and administration as well as KEYCOMP that will act as a consulting company. This is a costly venture. However, the returns will far outweigh the initial costs of upgrading the University’s systems (Kelkar, 2012). It is estimated that the project will cost an estimated $15,000 from its inception up to the full migration. This is an enormous investment for the university. Duration fro the implementation of the new project is critical for the departments and the university as a whole (Kelkar, 2012). The steering committee estimates that the project could take between 10 to 14 months. The project is expects to start by August 1^st 2014.

The success of nay project is critical, and therefore, effective measures will be put in place to measure whether the new database has achieved the stated objective (Kelkar, 2012). The steering committee will develop a checklist of nine parameters relating to measurement and analysis (Kelkar, 2012). The nine-point scale will indicate how easy it is for students and staff to get information using the database. Quarterly improvement tools and methods of will be developed to solve any problems with the new database (Kelkar, 2012). The steering committee will be conducting surveys to see how the database meets the set objectives and note areas of future improvements. Overall, this project is of paramount importance for the university because it reflects the changing trends across the world. Your assistance to this end will help the university advance service delivery to all stakeholders.

Reference

Kelkar, S.A. (2012). Software Project Management: A Concise Study, New Delhi: PHI Learning.