ASR - IT updates (May 2018)

Oracle database upgrade

The new date for the previously canceled Oracle 12.2 upgrade is Saturday, September 22. Based on input from all campuses and all business areas Sevis, Financial Aid, Admissions, Finance, Student Records, Student Finance, and Portal.

The tentative plan for that weekend:

• Begin Oracle 12.2 upgrade to PRD around 6:00 p.m. on Saturday
• Anticipated to be tested and complete by midnight Saturday
• System would be up and available from midnight to 6:00 a.m. on Sunday
• Normal outage on Sunday morning from 6:00 a.m. to noon with a PeopleSoft migration and an Image update.

Critical Patch Update (CPU)
A request has been made to University Information Security (UIS) to further delay the postponed CPU (PT8.5.23) until the next CPU (PT8.5.25) planned for production on August 12. Mitigation is in place for the identified issues with currently installed PT8.55.21.

E-forms tool replacement
In November 2017, OIT discontinued the enterprise roll out of Perceptive Transform as an E-Forms solution. The product was unable to meet accessibility standards of the University and Section 508 regulations, despite updates the vendor said should address gaps in functionality.

A group of OIT and University IT partners vetted 12 products through requirement and functionality review and vendor presentations. Three finalists were chosen to present again using a use case which encompassed system requirements and functionality needs of OIT, ASR, Admissions, the DRC, OED, and University Research. The three finalists are NextGen Dynamic Forms, Jadu/Perceptive Content Portal, and Yakidoo.

Each product will be evaluated on pricing/licensing structure, ease of use for end users (departmental form creators/business owners/form processors), complexity of functionality, integration ability, accessibility standards and compliance, and OIT developer intervention needs.

The following is an anticipated timeline for the decision making and implementation process:

• May/June 2018 - OIT Leadership reviews product recommendations and makes purchase decision. OIT works with chosen vendor on contract.
• Summer 2018 - anticipated purchase of replacement product.
• Late Summer 2018 - OIT setup/implement new product and prepare for on-boarding.
• Early Fall 2018 - End User Training begins. Units with forms currently in TransForm will be converted to new product first.
• This includes transitioning previously Twin Cities only piloted processes to system-wide processes, as prioritized by leadership.
• Roll out to larger University community will progress as business and technical processes are established.
• Fall 2019 - Target for full Enterprise/System-wide use; system available for any interested units not already implemented during roll out.

This timeline is subject to change. Any ASR process questions can be directed to pwf-team@umn.edu. Technical and system questions should be directed to OIT Document Management: it-doc-mgt@umn.edu.

Custom Solutions - App Dev and Destiny One

The Destiny One, Custom App Dev, and Salesforce teams continue to work towards integrating learner information collected through non-credit registrations between Destiny One and Salesforce. Having purchased funnel data available in Salesforce will help colleges better understand their leads and target marketing efforts. The project has brought together colleges from across the University to help in defining best practices for a shared use of Salesforce while also serving as an opportunity to expand ASR-IT’s technological capabilities through the implementation of the Apache Kafka data platform that allows for real-time transformation and communication of data between different systems.

Student Data and Analytics

Degree progress dashboard
ASR is working with a working group made up of delegates assigned by associate deans on the degree progress dashboard. They are starting to think about how new knowledge can support collegiate goals. The development team is taking their early ideas and input to see what can be included in the first launch as well as future interactions.

Degree progress self-serve reports

The first wave of data for student degree progress is in the development environment and test plans are being written. Reports and dashboards are being prototyped in UM Analytics and the team is also working on the challenges of data surrounding advisors, sex, and ethnicity.

Retention risk predictive analytics
The team has been documenting the build out and performance of baseline analytical models. The baseline is being expanded by introducing more data elements that relate to the students’ time at the University and focuses on the result of second-year retention. This introduces a new set technical challenges that the team is addressing.

Created GPAS degree progress report

This report is designed to provide a view of student degree progress within the Graduate Planning & Audit System (GPAS). The report includes information on the units required, taken, and needed, as well as details on whether a student has submitted their GPAS and if it is approved. It may be useful to graduate program staff and faculty in colleges using the GPAS system. It is available in the Reporting Center.

Student degree progress-related initiatives and enterprise reports

• Deployed enterprise enrollment reports including a dashboard that offers a visual representation of long-range trends on how student class enrollment has changed over time.
• Piloted a report with the Duluth campus that recommends by which term a student should take a course within a plan to have a greater chance of being a 4-year graduate then a 5-year graduate.
• Building undergraduate degree progress data into UM Analytics giving authors the ability to independently get answers to their questions using student degree progress data.