After the rescheduling of New Core go live date, we’ve conducted a thorough review to understand:
- The impact on our staffing levels now New Core needs IT resource over a longer period of time
- Which projects can’t proceed according to original timescales because of their impact on other University systems with New Core integrations
- The financial impact of extended secondments and backfills
Following that review, these are the changes we’ve made to the project plans:
- The Banner 9 final forms upgrade moves from April 2019 until the final quarter of the year (Q4 - October / November / December 2019). This will not impact the overall StARS timeline but will affect the release schedule. We’ll agree exact dates with key areas affected and continue to be monitor and reassess if anything else changes.
- We’re currently considering options which extend the HESA Data Futures timelines over a longer period as this is dependent on Banner 9 forms upgrade; we’re looking at key dates for release later this year.
- Changes to the Student Digital Engagement Programme (SDE) will see the MyUoB App delivered in the autumn term as planned, but without the inclusion of an attendance monitoring and capture pilot. That part of the project is delayed until 2020.
- We’re purchasing a temporary new ServiceNow instance to allow us to fully prepare and test the next system upgrade ready for implementation at the end of August. This will also enable a project to progress which is looking at improving the end user experience of the IT Service Desk.
We are currently exploring the options around whether we can extend temporary staff resources to help improve capacity over the next few months, and on 14 March, the Business Systems Committee (BSC) meet for their next Prioritisation group session. There, they will review the resourcing options and discuss potential impacts on other projects which may not proceed to their original timeframes following the New Core change.
At the meeting, we’ll begin any reprioritisation discussions, whilst also factoring in the more immovable, business critical IT work such as the upgrade to the Active Directory, and work in progress for Dubai Phase 2.
Towards the end of April and July we’ll review what the actual ongoing commitment to New Core looks like and adjust plans again accordingly. IT staff are booked in to support NewCore testing in April and to be providing NewCore Hypercare support in July but we will need to assess if the staff time estimated is reflecting actual effort required.