Implementing a new administrative and student information system is not easy. Just ask the ctcLink leadership and subject matter experts (SMEs) at the FirstLink colleges. They’ve been working with the ctcLink project team for months, all while keeping their colleges up and running on the existing system, serving thousands of students, and collectively graduating thousands of them too!

FirstLink project managers Andy Duckworth (Tacoma) and Dick Hol (Spokane) can’t be thanked enough for their strong leadership and sheer tenacity to get the job done but, true to form, they wanted to take this moment to thank their SMEs.

“Every morning when I come to work I am grateful to have such a wonderful team to work with. Everyone is extremely dedicated to serving faculty, staff and students as well as to the success of the project. It is the collected effort of each individual that makes my role, as project manager, much easier than I expected it to be. Everyone is looking forward to completing conversion/validation, user acceptance testing and training so they can start using the system they have all been working so hard on.” ~ Andy Duckworth, Tacoma Community College

“As ctcLink project manager I continue to be amazed by the knowledge, commitment and passion that our subject matter experts (SMEs) demonstrate in serving our students, faculty and staff. They are the real ‘rock stars’ along with the dedication

and commitment of the SBCTC ctcLink project team. To say this project is the most humbling, challenging and growing experience for all members of the Spokane project team is an understatement, but they continue to remain focused and anxious to implement the system to ultimately improve the student's learning experience. We are on the home stretch as our lead SMEs focus on completing data conversion/validation, participate in user acceptance testing and engage in system training.” ~ Dick Hol, Community Colleges of Spokane.

Beyond the blog… A quarterly newsletter about the ctcLink project • June 2014 

Thank you FirstLink SMEs!

Tacoma Community College SMEs So much on their plates, yet they are all still smiling! (not all TCC SMEs were available for this photo).

Spokane SMEs love ctcLink! Community Colleges of Spokane SMEs collaborate often on ctcLink implementation planning, as these SMEs were doing here during a recent work session. You can’t see the banner they are holding up in the back of the room, so we’ve included it here in the forefront.

It’s ctcLink crunch time! We are just months away from our planned Go-Live date for FirstLink colleges and everyone is working harder than ever to stay on track. As hard as everyone is working, we find ourselves behind schedule in the Testing phase.

Why is testing not on schedule? It’s mainly due to one acronym and three words: CEMLIs and the corresponding Functional/Technical Design Documents (FTDDs). These—and all the activities leading up to this phase—have taken longer than expected and, as with any project of this scope and complexity, if one thing slips, it affects everything around it.

CEMLI stands for Conversions, Extensions, Modifications, Linkages and Interfaces. For ctcLink, we have nothing in the Linkages category, but we have added a Reports category for nearly 100 reports to be designed. Basically, these CEMLIs are changes or additions to the purchased out-of-the-box software. The Design Documents are simply that—the design of how CEMLIs will be built into ctcLink. That delays Testing since we can’t test what doesn’t yet exist. As we move forward, the ctcLink, Ciber and FirstLink college teams have been in constant communication and collaboration to find ways to close the gap and get back on track. We’ll keep working toward that goal.

The project team and FirstLink colleges have also been hard at work with Data Conversion. We knew converting data from our legacy system into PeopleSoft wouldn’t be easy. We’ve heard from similar projects that conversion is usually the toughest part. Apparently, we were not to be outdone in that category. As we work through the process, we are learning some of the ways we handled data in legacy as a system—and individually by college—simply doesn’t work in PeopleSoft. As each issue reveals itself, the project team sets out to find a solution, oftentimes with the input of our system-wide college SMEs (especially FirstLink SMEs) and support from the legacy system team in Bellevue. It truly is a group effort and will remain as such all the way to FirstLink Go-Live and the subsequent wave implementations. I appreciate all of you for all you’ve done to get us to this point in the project. We will continue the hard work and we appreciate yours.

 

Update from the Project Director

A message from Mike Scroggins, SBCTC CIO

Striving for unforgettable

Project Director

In 1885, German psychologist Herman Ebbinghaus conducted a study and coined the term "forgetting curve." He found that when people are exposed to an idea one time, after 30 days they retain only about 20 percent of what they learned. This is a good reminder as we embark on training strategies and timing for ctcLink.

In much more recent findings, Gartner, Inc.(a world leader in information technology research and an IT advisory company) has research findings that show training users too

early on a new ERP system, like ctcLink, simply doesn't stick. Users attending pre-go-live training usually have little or no prior experience with the new user interfaces and processes and have little time to practice what they've learned. However, reinforcement training after “go-live” to augment the pre-go-live training greatly improves retention.

FirstLink colleges (Tacoma and Spokane) have a unique challenge because some elements of the new system will be configured and tested right up to their pre-go-live training. That can be daunting since there won’t be much of a preview prior to training. If we keep Gartner’s research in mind, FirstLink colleges can find some comfort in knowing it’s the just-in-time training that will be the most important, and will actually be remembered.

A well thought out and delivered training program will be key to the successful implementation of ctcLink at each college. For FirstLink colleges and the subsequent waves, the timing and sequencing of the training will be based on ERP best practices.

Barbara Martin

On May 9, a huge crowd of SBCTC staff gathered to recognize the team at SBCTC Bellevue that supports the legacy administrative systems, which we will continue to use until ctcLink is fully implemented across all colleges and SBCTC.

SBCTC Customer Services Director Juanita Morgan (who oversees the legacy systems support team in Bellevue) called the legacy staff simply “incredible and dedicated.” She commended them for taking on additional responsibilities after many who had been members of the team moved over to the ctcLink project.

Betsy Abts, ctcLink’s Student and Academic Lead, agreed. “Juanita and her team have been invaluable to the Campus Solutions team during data conversion,” she said. “I have recognized my CS team as ‘the biggest sucker of legacy team blood’ because we have relied on them countless times as we work through the Legacy-to-PeopleSoft conversion process.”

SBCTC Executive Director Marty Brown thanked the entire Bellevue crew and specifically called out the staff supporting the legacy administrative system. “You are keeping our current system running smoothly, while also helping out with ctcLink. That’s quite impressive. The State Board and all 34 colleges recognize and appreciate your hard work.”

SBCTC Bellevue Legacy Staff Appreciation Day

“Werecognizeandappreciateyourhardwork.Thanksforallyoudotokeepourcurrentsystemsrunning

smoothly.”

~SBCTCExecutiveDirectorMartyBrown

Front row: Pamela Hruska, Administrative Assistant; (front) Joni Reichmann, Financial Aid Functional Analyst; (behind) Debbie Towers, PPMS Support Consultant; Sarah Whetzel, Service Desk Coordinator; Jackie Thoms, FMS Support Consultant; Melinda Houghtaling, Microsoft Systems Administrator; Guy Hollingbury, Enterprise Services Director; Joyce Nakamura, Lead FMS/PPMS Support Analyst; and Tom Rocamora, Computer Operations Supervisor.

Back row: David Stark, Computer Operator Lead; Dave McKay, Support Analyst; Juanita Morgan, Customer Services Director; Paul Kreemer, Senior Application Developer; Anne Sinnes, HR Functional Analyst; Sandy Cox, Test Lead; Kelly Hewitt, Product Manager; Jay Gallagher, Senior FMS/PPMS Support Analyst; Julie Sharp, SMS Support Consultant; Wilson Wong, AMXW System Administrator; and Laura Stern, Lead Development Analyst.

State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, ctcLink Project Office 3101 Northup Way, Bellevue, WA 98004 | 425-803-5360 | Web: ctclink.sbctc.edu | Blog: ctcLink.wordpress.com

Questions about ctcLink? Ask at askctclink@sbctc.edu

Is this thing working? Let’s test it and find out. Testing is a critical piece of implementing any large project like ctcLink. It provides the opportunity to ensure all components work as needed and that all of our college system’s business and technical requirements are met. Through testing, all aspects of the system are validated, including integration between end-to-end business processes to ensure we have continuity of business during implementation. The ultimate goal is business acceptance of the functionality of the entire system, including security, usability, accessibility, and performance. Testing also gives many end-users their first opportunity to interact with the new system, although, as ctcLink Testing Lead Maureen Avery often says, “Testing is not training.” This is good to keep in mind since the testing environment does not represent the final product.

Testing consists of two phases of System Integration Testing (SIT) before reaching the final, most important testing phase: User Acceptance Testing (UAT). Through UAT, we verify that the system supports our business requirements and determine that we are ready to move the tested end-to-end business processes into our new production system. Production security controls, and single sign-on from Portal to Canvas and other third-party vendors will all be incorporated into this final stage of testing.

Example of a partial test script for “Creating a Prospect Record”

At left is an example of a test script used during testing. A defect means something went wrong while testing. In this example, the process failed at step 5, therefore a defect was logged by the tester. In troubleshooting the defect, it was discovered there were two checkboxes not checked on the web prospect setup page (see below). To fix the problem, the boxes were

checked, the script retested, and it successfully passed. To ensure the defect doesn’t appear again, a Gold Change Request (GCR) was completed to make the same change in the ctcLink ‘gold’ environment, which ensures all fixes will be captured in production (since “gold” is the final source).

SIT is underway now and UAT is currently scheduled to start in late June. UAT will involve FirstLink colleges as well as some volunteers from Wave 1 colleges. There will be about 2,500 test scripts to get through, and many iterations of each one, so be sure to thank and hug a tester today!

“Every day we test is a day closer to ‘go-live’.” ~ Maureen Avery, ctcLink Testing Lead