Just Don't Call It "Banner": NMSU's

Integrated ERP Project

Michael HitesChief Information Officer

New Mexico State University

Educause 2006

The Title

• Why Banner became a dirty word at NMSU and what we did about it.

• Famous quotes:– “I can’t get anyone to be on a committee because the are all ‘busy with Banner.’”

– “It’s Banner’s fault!”– “Banner made me do it!”

• Good thing the union, spaceport, and convention center came along…

Outline

• NMSU• The UNO project• Mechanics of implementation• System changes• A few results

NMSU

NMSU Campuses

NMSU’s Presence in New Mexico

Full-Time Equivalent Enrollment DistributionNM Public 4-Year Universities Main Campuses -- Fall 2004

NMSU New Mexico State Univ.UNM University of New MexicoNMIMT N. M. Inst. Of Mining & Tech.WNMU Western New Mexico Univ.NMHU New Mexico Highlands Univ.ENMU Eastern New Mexico Univ.

Total: 42,235 Students

UNM; 20,425; 48%

NMIMT; 1,477; 3%

NMHU; 2,327; 6%

ENMU; 3,099; 7%

WNMU; 1,997; 5%

NMSU; 12,910; 31%

Agriculture and Home Economics;

1,752

Arts and Sciences; 5,485

Business Administration;

2,246

Graduate School (undeclared); 166

Branch; 726

Health and Social Services; 1,300

Engineering; 1,949

Education; 2,804

NMSU Undergraduate & Graduate Enrollment by College -- Main Campus -- Fall 2004

Total = 16,428 Students

0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

14,000

16,000

18,000

20,000

22,000

1990 2000 2010

NM High School Graduates

17,972

Actual numbers 1990-91 through 2001-02Projections 1999-00 through 2011-12Source: Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates by State, Income, and Race/Ethnicity, 1988 to 2018, December 2003

Revised 6/28/04

Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE)NM High School Graduates and Projections

The UNO Project Structure and Personnel

Evaluation of Need and Decision

• NMSU reviewed existing administrative systems in 2003

• The review included interviews with staff at NMSU and comparison of written system evaluations performed by other institutions– In September 2003 NMSU chose SunGard HE Banner– Banner aligns NMSU with existing four-year institutions in New Mexico

– SunGard HE is considered to be a “best practices” vendor of university administrative software

– Educause study of ERP systems found a common level of institutional satisfaction across all of the primary ERP systems, regardless of the vendor

– NMSU has little money

Why is “UNO” important to NMSU?

• Provides single integrated data store• Replaces NMSU’s legacy systems (5)• Integrates with other schools and software

• Establishes (less) partners for the future

• Eliminates social security ID number use• Provides web-based customer service• Improves methods of tracking recruitment and enrollments

• Becomes the cornerstone of “information culture”

What was purchased?

• Software Modules:– Advancement– Finance– Financial Aid– Human Resources– Luminis (Web Portal and CMS)– Student (Registrar, Admissions, Accounts

Receivable)– Data warehouse (ODS/EDW)– Self-service Products– Workflow– Xtender (imaging)– Matrix (Student Marketing)– Cognos ReportNet and PowerPlay

Software Replacement at NMSU

Old System New System (Banner…)

FRS Finance

HRMS and EAF Human Resources

Vistas and SAR Student

SAM Financial Aid

CMDS and AFW Advancement

Milestones

October 2003:Project Kickoff Meeting

September 2004:Admissions Phase I

January 2005: Human Resources, Luminis

Portal, e-~print, Evisions, & Workflow

February 2005: Xtender

March 2005:PSL Timeload Interface

June 2005:Finance & Appworx

July 2005: Content Management System

(pilot)

August 2005: ODS for HR

September 2005: Admissions Phase II & Student

Marketing System November 2005: Higher Markets (missed milestone)

January 2006: ODS for Finance

July 2006: Go Live for Banner Catalog and

Schedule

October 2006:DARS & Student

February 2007:EDW & Financial Aid

May 2007: Advancement

Project Management Organization

Hites – Project Director

SunGard HE Project Manager - Churchman

ERP Steering Committee

Project Coordinator - Arroyo

Contract Admin - Parra

SunGard HE Account Manager -

Davis

Functional/Technical Consultants

Advancement PM - McKinney

Matrix PM - Aranda

HR PM - Noel

Finance PM - Bamford

Technical PM - Virnave

Student PM - ArandaReporting PM - Conter

CMS, Portal, & Self service - Chavez

Project Manager - Bamford

ERP Steering Committee

• Approve or disapprove changes in policies and procedures in order to implement the Banner software

• Members include: Vice Presidents, Faculty Senate Representatives, Associate Provosts, Executive Vice President & Provost, ASNMSU Representative, Academic Dean, Campus Executive Officer & Chief Information Officer• As of October 1, 2006, 34 policies have been

approved by the ERP Steering Committee (3) Luminis Portal policies(3) General Person policies(3) Finance policies(23) Human Resource/Payroll Policies(2) Student/Financial Aid policies

A Few Important Policies

• L01 – Password reset every 120 days to access “myNMSU”

• L02 – Set a security password to reset your NMSU password

• G01- A 9 character ID number replaces SSN

• F01: The number of approvals required for processing a purchase requisition in both departmental and central offices will be limited to two levels

• H01 - The terms “classified” and “professional” will be eliminated and replaced by the term “staff”

• H11.1 – New full time regular faculty can choose to be paid on an annual basis (24 checks) rather than an academic year basis (18 checks)

• H15.2 - NMSU employees will enter their hours worked and hours of leave taken directly into Banner Human Resources Self-Service via the web

One Change from “Vanilla”

…but it was a big one: NMSU’s e-hire

Committees

• General Person - help with the design of the general person module implementation and the development of data entry standards

– Budget Office, Placement and Career Services, Athletics, Institutional Research, Office of Controller, Student Services, Office of Grants and Contracts, Advising Center, Housing…

• Administrative Matters - review information on administrative matters. The committee is for informational purposes

– Comprised of business managers, department heads, and directors

• Chart of Accounts - trouble-shoots, implements, and converts chart of accounts

– Comprised of Finance personnel

Committees Cont’d

• UNO Student Business Process Owners - Ensures all areas are engaged throughout the project and discusses and resolves academic and administrative issues related to UNO student projects– Comprised of all academic and administrative student-related areas throughout all five campuses

• UNO Student Business Process Workgroup - participates in Banner training and configuration and represents BPO areas– Employees with working knowledge of student records

processing and its current and future impact on their area

• Technical Reporting – evaluates and creates all reports for the UNO project– Comprised of technical staff in each departmental area

Documentation

• UNO Project Definition - scope, approach, timeline, and other deliverables

• Resource Matrix – roles and responsibilities of each team member

• Communication Plan – defines various communication needs of the stakeholders and aides in managing the relationship between parties

• Training Plan – guidelines for system testing and acceptance testing

• Quality Assurance Plan – identifies the work products that require validation and verification and identifies which processes will be tracked via the work product, in addition to the process improvements for the project

NMSU UNO Communication: Overview

• “Big” committees (monthly, weekly, daily)

• Technology Day (semester)

• Presentations to small groups (semester)

• Campus administration (ABCD) memos (weekly before go live)

• NMSU Hotline announcements (weekly, monthly)

• Campus Newspaper (semester)

• Poster sessions (semester)

• Information tables (monthly)

• System Testing - mock registration, pilot groups (semester)

• Website – http://uno-project.nmsu.edu (daily)

• Secure Website http://salsa.nmsu.edu/Banner (daily)

• Listserve: NMSU-Banner@nmsu.edu (monthly)

NMSU UNO Communication: Website

Website – http://uno-project.nmsu.edu

• UNO News (updates)• Milestones• Feedback button• Directory• Documentation and tutorials for myNMSU

Routing of Major Communication

Draft of message created by team

member

Provided to PM’s at weekly meeting for

approval

Reviewed by ICT Training Services

Routed to university campus or group via email/paper/poster sessions by creator of message or Project Coordinator/Project

Director

Given one week to review

Given two days to review

Lead time expected 5 days

Project Management “manlaws”

Open discussion once per week leads to collaborative decisions

Banner Databases - Yes They’re Shared

•Default - SBAN - Baseline Banner, used to apply new releases

Training - TBAN

Development – DBANUsed to support development and testing of NMSU code

Conversion - CBANSupports data conversion, rules development and validation

Pre-Production - UBANSupports collective shared testing and sign off

Production - PBANSupports daily business operations

Migration - MBANDatabase clone for migration only.  Does not include INB or SSB.

Project Management “manlaws”

• Open discussion once per week leads to collaborative decisions

UBAN on Thursday

HR and Finance Tracking

• HR, Finance, and Luminis Timeline had a vertical structure

• Team was smaller compared to Student and FinAid

Student Implementation Tracking

The UNO Project Core Systems and Services

My.nmsu.edu: Luminis

Credentials Before Luminis Portal (myNMSU)

• Multiple credentials– NMSU Username– NMSU Password– NMSU Global ID– NMSU Global Password– Personal Identification Number– Social Security Number– Username for NMSU email– Password for NMSU email

After Luminis Portal (myNMSU)

Student/ Faculty etc.

Administrative User

NMSU UsernameNMSU Password

NMSU ID #NMSU PIN

Secret Q & ASecondary Credentials

NMSU UsernameNMSU Administrative Password

NMSU ID #NMSU PIN

Luminis

Banner (GOBTPAC)

ORACLE

Banner (GOBTPAC)

Web Services: Past, Present and Future

Past

Present

Future

myNMSU (Luminis portal) go live

• 1/3/05: Activated my.nmsu.edu (Luminis portal)• About 30,000 accounts converted• Successful except for a few problems with

“executives”• Benefits

– Single sign-on access to all web applications on campus

– Integrated self service for personal administrative information (pay stubs, registration etc.)

– Access all your email from the web or other client

– Announcements to targeted audiences only– Community building tools like chat and message boards

– Course tools for students and faculty– Made LDAP “the law”

Administrative systems: Banner 7

Banner INB Security Spreadsheet Example

Statistics: Banner INB (Internet Native Banner)

• Used to log into the Banner administrative system

• 12/14/04 – paper memo distributed with credentials– Memo provided users with their NMSU Username and INB password

– Wanted unique credentials, not “default”

• 1/6/05 – 1,435 total users (+ 500 time approvers)

• 1/7/05 – only 30 resets

Overall benefits

• Consolidated data source• Opportunity for better business intelligence

• More dexterity in developing and deploying enterprise level IT solutions

• Integrated identity and role management solution

• Enables standardized application and data platform for the university

• Web-ification of a growing number of e-services

• Decreased help desk support

Help Desk Statistics

Help Desk Trouble Ticket 2004 2005 2006Global ID 1794 0 0my NMSUUsername/Password 96 3007 888Total ID 1890 3007 888

Related Systems

WebCT Logon 797 52 39Email Logon 675 0 0Email receive/send 572 65 28PIN 510 143 86Email Programs 128 30 22SCS Ventana 29 2 0WebMail 16 3 0WebCT Error 49 17 22Dialup 245 18 17Total Related Systems 3021 330 214

New Sytems

my.NMSU.Edu Portal 9 44 17Work-Flow 0 10 2INB Password 0 57 51Web-Time Entry 0 76 7Total New Systems 9 187 77

Grand Total 4920 3524 1179

The UNO Project Information Services

and Development Strategies

Reporting Strategies and Tools

Responsibility for Data Integrity and Reporting is distributed throughout NMSU

• Based on ODS/EDW• Banner--> ODS --> Cognos• Focus --> Cognos• Cognos tools: ReportNet and PowerPlay• Other tools include Banner reports, Eprint, ODS/EDW and direct access (TOAD)

BANNER PROCESS + Perl Processing == EPRINT

We use e-print because the security is already there

Cognos Reports -> PDF to TEXT Eprint Report

Business intelligence using EDW/Cognos

• Centralized data allows for easier analysis and cross referencing

• Cognos allows aggregation of data into cubes

• Examples: SCH, Roll-up finance

Job Scheduling with Appworx

• Banner fundamentally changed the role of “production control”

• Ability to run Banner processes• Ability to Run Cognos Reports, convert to text and post to E-print

• In general, whatever you can write in UNIX script, you can integrate into Appworx

NMSU Month End Close

Support for distributed development

Luminis Portal Framework

LDAPAuthentication &

Authorization

LayoutPresentation &

Branding

ChannelSession

Management

Channel Development KitSample blank channels

Data AccessAccess to relevant

developer databases

Developers on Campus

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OpenStandardsXML,XSL,

RSS

The UNO Project Impact on

Enrollment Management

Enrollment Goals (3% growth)

•Increase Native American enrollment

•Increase Engineering enrollment

•Increase Student Credit Hour (SCH) production

Targeted Communications

Very custom, but needs technical staff to build Comm. groups

Example Letter

Letters are far superior to Banner, but slower to generate

Simple to format(Branding goes here)

Highly personal

Freshman Statistics

Retention (Fall semester) 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06

First-time, full-time, degree 71.7% 72.3% 71.0% 75.6% seeking freshmen Persisting to second year

HeadcountNew Students 2005 2006 Change

First time Freshmen 1954 2155 9.3%

After two years of decline, Student Credit Hours up 1.5%!

Native American and Engineering Enrollment Statistics

Fall Enrollment Native American Percent2003 22,103 890 4.0%2004 22,779 878 3.9%2005 22,975 875 3.8%2006 23,945 902 3.8%

Engineering (Fall) 2005 2006 Difference ChangeFirst Time Freshman 221 300 78 35.3%Undergraduate Continuing 1,106 1,104 -2 0.2%Undergraduate Readmitted 66 78 12 18.2%Undergraduate Transfers 73 75 2 2.7%Total 1,466 1,557 91 6.2%

The UNO Project Training

Core Team Training

• Identified and delivered organizational change, navigation, module introduction and overview, and application training for end-users to: – Training Coordinators– Training Committee– Functional Teams – Functional Trainers– Functional Experts– Documentation & Training Team– Technical Coordinators– Implementation Team

Core Team Training

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

Hours

Fixed

Technical

Functional

Example: End User Training Dates

Banner Navigation – ARC 24October 19, 2004October 21, 2004October 25, 2004November 1-2, 2004November 29, 2004 – Ag Extension ONLYDecember 1-2, 2004January 24, 2005 (AM ONLY)January 26, 2005 (PM ONLY)

HR Training – Skeen W147November 9-11, 2004November 16-18, 2004January 25, 2005 (FSA Training Room)

E-Hire Training – ARC 24December 6-10, 2004December 13-17, 2004January 16 -22, 2005

Banner Finance Self Service Overview Session May 23 – 9:00-10:00am, 10:30-11:30am, 1:30

2:30pm, & 3:00-4:00pm June 2 – 9:00-10:00am, 10:30-11:30am,

1:30-2:30pm, & 3:00-4:00pm

Banner Finance – ARC 30May 17-20 – 8:30am-4:30pmMay 24-26 – 8:30am-4:30pmMay 31 – 8:30-4:30pmJune 1 – 8:30am-4:30pmJune 3 – 8:30am-4:30pmJune 6-9 – 8:30am-4:30pmJune 14-16 – 1:30-4:30pmJune 20-23 – 1:30-4:30pm

Procurement Card Update June 27 – 1:30-2:30, & 3:00-4:00pmJune 28 – 9:00-10:00am, 10:30-11:30am,

1:30-2:30pm, & 3:00-4:00pm

Example: General Navigation Training

• Designed to introduce basic navigation and query processes for Banner– Course covers different types of Banner forms, how to use Banner application menus, how to navigate through forms and perform queries, how to create personal menus, and other aspects of Banner usage

Speed up document generation

• Text and Margin format Margins – Top - 1” – Bottom - 1” – Left - 1.25” – Right - .75”

• Page Orientation Portrait Paper Size – Width - 8.5” – Height - 11”

Documentation Design Guide – guidelines for all documentation for the UNO project (training materials, announcements, etc).Training material can be found via the UNO project website at http://unodocs.nmsu.edu/ (demos, FAQ’s, and hard copies of training manuals)

Go Live Support:

• Help Desk (support centers): end user calls, trouble-shooting, reset of passwords, etc.

• Documentation: http://unodocs.nmsu.edu/• Voice mail for after hours• On-call support (on-site and off-site)• IT support at each college/department level (NMSU ACANS)

• Campus administrator updates• Daily Debriefings

Biggest Issues

• Change management - Example: time and leave entry

• Batch processing changes• Email conversion was a nice gesture, but created problems

• Groups that still did not want to conform to processes (bad career move)

• CMS isn’t the most customer friendly

• Reporting gap from Focus>>Cognos

Biggest Benefits

• Team building and huge campus collaborative effort

• One stop web services• Vendor supported solution• Faster implementation of services• Information widely available (well, almost)• More excitement about “what’s next”• Recognition that Banner, LDAP and ODS are shared, primary systems

• Statistics show that it actually did something good

• Staff may get to sleep soon

Questions?

Selected answers:

•$15M capital $1M additional operating

•None in IT, but about dozen total throughout functional areas like finance, enrollment management and reporting.

•Dead Guy Ale

Just Don't Call It "Banner": NMSU's

Integrated ERP Project

Michael HitesNew Mexico State University

Educause 2006