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PeopleSoft Update

By Dr. Paul Oliaro,
Vice President for Student Affairs/Dean of Students

In response to recent media coverage of audit issues and other information related to the CSU implementation of the CMS (PeopleSoft) project, I wanted to provide an update on our campus implementation. I have included highlights of the major findings of the CSU audit (which did not focus on individual campuses), along with the application of those findings to our own campus' implementation. I have also provided a progress update on our implementation since my last report in December.

It is important to note that the CSU agreed with each of the recommendations made by the Bureau of State Audits (BSA) and was in the process of implementing many of them at the time the report was issued. However, it did voice differences with several of the interpretations and findings of that agency in its review. Of special note is the difference in assessing the cost of the project. CSU reported that the project cost is not over its $445M estimate and that the $662M figure used by the BSA includes ongoing maintenance costs of the CMS and legacy systems not the one-time costs of implementing the project a difference in definition. In addition, the audit suggested that the CSU might not achieve all of the stated business objectives for the CMS project, esp. minimizing cost and time in implementing the software. CSU reviewed several approaches in implementing PeopleSoft at the 23 campuses and the current approach was the best balance of maximizing the economies of scale of central support data center and core software and meeting the needs of the diverse campuses being served. All estimates for 23 independent implementation projects had far more costs and time than the CMS coordinated approach. For additional information on the CSU response to the auditor's findings go to -http://cms.calstate.edu/

Audit Highlights:

1. The university (CSU) did not establish a business case for CMS to define its intended benefits and associated costs and ensure that the expenditure of university resources is worthwhile.

• Fresno State carefully assessed the need for improved administrative systems that led to the implementation of PeopleSoft HR and Finance Management Systems on campus prior to the CMS project beginning and provided the foundation to migrate to participate in the CMS Project:
• A 1995 consultant study of campus administrative systems identified unmet requirements for Human Resource and Financial business processes including:

- Integration between the finance and payroll budgeting and expense reporting
- Access to data needed to manage department financial activities
- Lack of human resource management information captured on campus

2. The university's (CSU) previous cost projections understated the full costs of CMS over its now nine year project period; these costs-including an estimated $269 million for maintenance and operations- are now expected to total $662 million.

• As a legacy PeopleSoft campus and pilot campus for the CMS Student Administration Project, Fresno State's CMS costs are significantly lower than comparable CSU campuses. We account for 4.2% of the $445 million estimated CMS cost; we are 5.2 % of the CSU General Fund budget.
• Fresno State has a funding plan for the projected project cost including operations and maintenance. The major funding source is diversion of funds previously spent for other IT initiatives.

3. Problems exist that cast doubt on whether CMS will achieve all the objectives intended nor of what could have been achieved from a systemwide project.

• Within the $5.4 million budget implementation budget, Fresno State has implemented PeopleSoft functionality beyond the CSU baseline and beyond any other CSU campus: web-based self service for students, faculty, and staff; integrated financial reporting; and automated feeds to system-wide systems.
• Fresno State is operational in HR, Finance, and Student Administration in FY 02-03 and will build on this base functionality for the future. Additionally, we have implemented the My Fresno State portal to facilitate access by our campus community to the CMS Systems and other campus web services. For FY 03-04, the project will be upgrading the CMS Financials System to the web-based 8.4 version.

4. Although the university (CSU) followed recommended procurement practices to acquire data center services, its procurements for software and consultants on the project raise questions about the fairness and competitiveness of the university's practices.

• Fresno State participated in the competitive review of proposals from the consulting firm bidding for the CMS Pilot Student Administration Project that resulted in the selection of Cedar (aka The Hunter Group)
• We also reviewed available consultants working at other campuses performing the work needed at Fresno State to best match skills and experience for specific consulting assignments needed.

5. The university (CSU) did not do enough to prevent or detect apparent conflicts of interest on CMS-related procurements.

• Fresno State has required Form 700 Conflict of Interest Statements from it Project Sponsor Team and all other procurement decision makers for the CMS Project. We do not have any known conflicts of interest.

6. Employees using the CMS search feature has access to confidential information, namely students' and employees' Social Security number, dates of birth, and gender.

• Fresno State has implemented a revised version of this search feature that displays only partial Social Security number and no birth date or gender.
• A full-time security analyst has been on the project team to provide constant oversight on application security and data protection.
• A comprehensive security audit is underway to reconfirm that employees have the access appropriate to their job function.
• Faculty and staff who have access to the system are receiving additional instruction about password security, privacy regulations and university policies.

Fresno State PeopleSoft Implementation Update

Student Records - Registration effectiveness has been significantly enhanced with the PeopleSoft product via the web. We still continue to offer phone registration, however, during our past registration cycle we exceeded 70% web registration and we expect an even higher number for Fall 2003 registration which begins on April 14. We plan to continue to utilize departmental labs, as well as, set up the lap tops in the Student Union with the assistance of the Registrar's Office. We also plan to continue to conduct a student satisfaction survey during the April 14-25 registration period. Finally, electronic grade submission by our faculty was a success with over 83% of grades turned in on time. We hope to improve on this percentage in May and realize that we need to continue to provide training via the Academic Innovation Center.

Admissions - Our University receives approximately 80% of our applications electronically from the CSU, Mentor site. It has taken over a year to fine tune the automated admissions process for First Time Freshmen (FTF). We are pleased to report that we are now able to process and execute the automated admissions and this has enabled us to process and admit students on a more timely basis. In fact, we are 25% ahead of last year with admissions of FTF. Just recently, the Baseline Team from the CO's Office delivered an automated process to admit lower and upper division transfer students. We were eager to receive this modification because it should speed up the process of admitting trasfer students. We are currently testing this delivered functionality and hope to deploy soon.

Financial Aid - Our Financial Aid Staff, with the capable assistance of CIS support, worked through the many challenges of the Financial Aid Module. As previously reported, countless hours were logged cleaning data. Our Spring Semester start showed dramatic improvement in our ability to disburse financial aid to students. In fact, $26.5 million dollars in financial aid was disbursed prior to the beginning of the semester and this was actually a higher amount disbursed versus the Spring, 2002 disbursement via the legacy system. We are now engaged in detailed planning for awarding financial aid for 2003-2004. We are loading financial aid records (ISIR's) into PeopleSoft, applying the new federal financial aid regulations to the system, building 2003-2004 budgets, as well as, various other critical processes. It is our plan to award current and new students as early as late April or early May which is a significant improvement from last year.

Advisement - With the assistance of the Academic Innovation Center, we provided training to many faculty and staff on how to utilize the Degree Audit Report System (DARS) within the PeopleSoft environment. Most of you are not satisfied with the length and look of this report and we are working on making this more user-friendly and cost efficient. Additionally, we are in the final stages of determining when and how we will cut over to PeopleSoft Advising.

(John Briar and Bernie Vinovrski assisted in preparing this report.)

Back to University Journal, 5/03 Issue