April - May 2013: News from the SIS Project

April - May 2013: News from the SIS Project

Over a three year period, from July 2011 through the summer of 2014, the SIS Project will implement the new Integrated Student Information System (iSIS) with PeopleSoft Campus Solutions as its technology core. For more information about iSIS or the SIS Project, email [email protected] or visit go.tufts.edu/sis.

MIDPOINT REPORT ON FALL 2013 REGISTRATION

On March 14, 2013, iSIS became available to students, faculty and staff on all campuses. On March 18, the Vet-erinary School was the first to use iSIS to enroll 4th year students into their required clinical rotations. This “block enroll” process added the 17-course “block of rotations” to the schedule of 99 students, for a total enrollment of 1,683 courses. On April 8, online registration opened at the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, in which students registered themselves. Finally, on April 22, registrars at the Sackler School, Friedman School, and TUSM Public Health and Professional Degree Programs opened online course registration and advising to students at their schools.

One URL for all Tufts affiliates: go.tufts.edu/isis. This page also connects the public to Tufts’ catalog and current schedule of classes.

Typical of large system rollouts, we dealt with expected and unexpected issues. In all cases, we were able to respond quickly. We also received a lot of feedback and have begun to catalog ideas that have reached us through the iSIS sup-port queue, our registrars and student services desks, and the iSIS feedback form. General iSIS statistics also provide us with a glimpse of the system. As we reconcile user feedback, we first need to understand which difficulties are part of the learning curve and which make iSIS less usable. All of this cannot be assessed in full until iSIS becomes the system of record on August 19, 2013, and perhaps even some time after that.Some Trends• The iSIS learning curve may be steeper than some

expected, particularly with regard to course search. This is due to new terminology and logic in iSIS.

• Confusion exists regarding the iSIS Course Catalog, which contains ALL Tufts courses, even those not cur-rently scheduled, and the Schedule of Classes, which only includes classes that are scheduled for the current term.

• We continue to hear questions regarding the transition from SIS to iSIS. iSIS becomes Tufts’ system of record for student information in August 2013. In the meantime, SIS Online/HSF Online will continue to be the source for spring and summer 2013 data. Students and faculty/ad-visors should continue to visit legacy SIS to see unofficial transcripts, manage advisors and majors, edit names and addresses, and so on.

• iSIS enforces some data elements, like prerequisites or department consent, which SIS Online/HSF Online did not. Faculty, advisors, and staff can reach out to their registrar, should they have any questions about how their school codes class attributes and prerequisites.


INTEGRATING DATA: SUMMARY OF CURRENT TECHNICAL INTERFACES

Although iSIS is not yet Tufts’ system of record for student information, it still needs information from legacy SIS, admissions, and other systems, to support students, faculty, and advisors as they prepare for the fall 2013 term. iSIS also needs to securely share information with systems that rely on student information to do business. To manage data flow, the SIS Project team has established numerous techni-cal interfaces designed to integrate data, some of which are temporary.

The thrice-weekly “Temp Enrollment Interface” transfers student academic data from legacy SIS to iSIS. This techni-cal data transfer updates iSIS with Program/Plan changes (including majors), grade, enrollment changes, and more to

support those who are actively engaged in fall 2013 registra-tion. When it runs in the early morning hours (typically kicking off around 4AM), iSIS becomes unavailable. After it runs, members of the SIS Project team and Tufts’ regis-trars manually reconcile any kick outs, which is a laborious process for all involved. Fortunately, when iSIS becomes the system of record in August 2013, data will no longer need to be sourced from legacy SIS.

Other interfaces function to synchronize iSIS with other Tufts systems that rely on student information. For the most part, the permanent interfaces are typically transpar-ent, automated data transfers into or out of iSIS. Establish-ing these iSIS interfaces is an ongoing and significant effort.

iSIS INTERFACES*Admissions (Complete)• TAMS, GAMS, Dental School,

AMP

Financial Aid• Interface to PowerFAIDS

(Complete) • Interface from PowerFAIDS

(June 2013), includes anticipated aid & disbursements

StarRez (Spring 2013)• Interfaces to/from StarRez

to support housing charges, dorm address data (used extensively by Dining Ser-vices and Mail Services)

Billing (June/July 2013)• eBill and eRefund, includes

student data, billing data, and refund data to Sallie Mae

• Interfaces from Sallie Mae include real-time payments

• General Ledger Interface for item-type summarization

Cashiering and Financial Transactions (June/July 2013)• CashNet interfaces include

student data and account transactions, and General Ledger reconciliations

• Process to upload charge transactions from Health Services, Library, Public Safety, etc.

• Admissions Deposits Interfaces (Complete)

Student & Enrollment Data• Advancement (July 2013)• Blackboard Transact

(June 2013)• Community Relations

(August 2013)• fsaAtlas, includes new and

existing students (Complete)

• Health Services (July 2013)• Identity Management

Systems, including Tufts Username/Password, email, WhitePages, SendWordNow (May 2013)

• Library (July 2013)• Mail Services (July 2013)• Public Safety (May 2013)

• StuART (June 2013)• Trunk (Complete)• TUSK (August 2013)• WebCenter & Portfolio

(Spring 2013)• Tufts Univ. Bookstore

(Complete)• EMS Room Scheduling

(Complete)

Human Resources• Common counter for “next”

EMPL-ID (Complete)• Faculty/Staff Bio-Demo from

HR (Complete)• Student data to HR

(May 2013)

ISIS SUPPORT AND FEEDBACK

All iSIS users are encouraged to report issues to [email protected].

Behind the scenes, issues are logged and tracked through TechConnect, a web-based ticketing system used by Tufts Technology Services’ (TTS) Service Desk. Once an issue has been logged, the individual who opens the ticket receives an auto-response. A member of the Service Desk responds directly to the inquiry or routes it to a member of the SIS Project team.

Support for iSIS is a cross-university endeavor. The support team is led by Linda Snell, the SIS Project’s Integra-tion Manager, and includes Tufts’ reg-istrars, representatives from the TTS Service Desk, and other personnel from the SIS Project. All check-in daily to keep abreast of iSIS news from around the university.

Between March 14 and April 22, ap-proximately 289 TechConnect tickets were logged. Additional inquiries

went directly to the Student Services Desk at Dowling Hall, and to the reg-istrars at ASE, Sackler, TUSM Public Health Programs, and Friedman. In addition, the SIS Project has received feedback through iSIS from approxi-mately 190 individuals.

H a v i n g t r o u b l e w i t h i S I S ?

[email protected]

*As of April 2013


Number of Successful Enrollments at ASE between April 8 and April 19

UPDATES

ID CardsAs a result of the iSIS implementa-tion, all Tufts students will receive new ID cards before the start of the fall 2013 semester. Because the ID numbers are changing, the cards have to change as well.

iSIS identifies students using the Tufts ID number, a 7 digit number that synchronizes iSIS with the PeopleSoft systems that support Human Resources and Finance. Having a single numerical identi-fier helps clarify a person’s record and eliminates redundancies. This is especially useful when an indi-vidual holds multiple Tufts roles or affiliations (e.g. students who become employees or staff who take courses).

For more information about ID cards, visit the Public Safety Web-site: go.tufts.edu/6things.

Grading, Graduation, and Tran-scriptsNow that course registration has gone live at six Tufts schools, our registrars have begun to work on transcripts, grades and graduation

procedures. To begin, each topic will be thoroughly examined. We will identify required outcomes, for example all variations of tran-scripts, as well as business process flows. More to come.

Scheduled iSIS DowntimeTo keep SIS and iSIS in synch, the SIS Project will run a temporary, technical interface three times a week until August 19, 2013. The “Temp Enrollment Interface” will transfer updates from the current system of record, to the future system of record. The process will occur in the early morning hours on most Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, typically kicking off at 4AM. During this time, iSIS will be unavailable to all users. The schedule may shift from time to time, due to holidays or periods of intense activity (e.g., graduation).

New TimelineA new timeline with minor up-dates is included in this issue of the SIS Project Update. You may also download a PDF at go.tufts.edu/sis.

ISIS STUDENT FINANCIALS PART ONE: FINANCIAL AID

Later this spring, students at all Tufts schools will begin to use iSIS to manage their student financial accounts and view their financial aid. Functionality will roll out in stages; financial aid will be the first component to go live in early May.

iSIS will display a student’s unique financial aid profile in a secure, seamless presentation. iSIS simplifies what was a functional, but multi-step process that required students to first log in to SIS Online or HSF Online, then link to a sepa-rate website with a different look and feel, and log in a second time.

In iSIS, students will be able to see:

AWARDS: Year-to-year summary of all awards, including summer FA.BUDGET: The numbers used to calculate financial aid eligibility; students can see budgets from previous years, for as long as they have been at Tufts.DOCUMENTS: Required documents and their status. We expect this will be what students use the most in the Financial Aid section. It will be updated nightly.FAMILY CONTRIBUTION: Available only to undergraduates, this tab summarizes the parent contribution and need (Budget – Total Resources). MESSAGES: Official messages to students that can be attached to any award.TITLE IV: Students will have the ability to complete Title IV authorization online, in which a student gives permission to use Title IV money to pay their bill. Data will feed automatically to the billing system, and carry on year-to-year.

Gateway to Student FinancialsRemaining student financial components will roll out over the next few months. By July, students will use iSIS to see their bills, balances, and loan information, link to eBill and eRefund, select a meal plan, link to Jumbo Cash, and complete their health insurance waivers.

4/8/20134/9/2013

4/10/20134/11/20134/12/20134/13/20134/14/20134/15/20134/16/20134/17/20134/18/20134/19/2013

20991511684117336140379791309394180

Classes scheduled for Fall 2013

ASE UNDERGRAD: 1,752ASE GRAD: 1,391

DENTAL POST-GRAD: 14 NUTRITION: 38

TUSM PHPD: 91 SACKLER: 75

VETERINARY: 56

TOTAL: 3,417

(Count excludes labs, recitations, and thesis components; DMD, Fletcher & PHPD Physician Assistant classes not

yet scheduled as of 4/22)

SIS BY THE NUMBERS: FALL 2013 REGISTRATION

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and

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ase

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ms

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ata

conv

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no

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ollm

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aw

ards

, and

fall

2013

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ding

will

occ

ur

late

r at s

ome

scho

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ger (

GL)

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Fin

anci

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as o

f Dec

embe

r 201

2;

othe

r dat

a w

ill fl

ow a

s iS

IS m

akes

them

ava

ilabl

e.

Documents

April - May 2013: News from the SIS Project