Departmental, College and Enterprise Systems

By Dr. Michael Conlon, UF Director of Data Infrastructure and PeopleSoft Implementation Officer

Many departmental and college systems rely on enterprise systems for data. As new enterprise systems are implemented, there will be major changes in the way departmental and college systems interface with enterprise systems. Data, technology, change control and operations will all undergo substantial changes.

First, the data is different. Departmental systems that use enterprise data will find substantially different coding in the new systems. The object codes, Org/EO, auth codes, L3/L4, and most other common coding of the past will be behind us. New coding systems for accounts, departments, security, asset codes and more will be in place. Information about coding and transition is available at the UF Bridges Web site. See http://www.bridges.ufl.edu/transition. Departments that use enterprise data will need to modify their local data systems and software to use new enterprise data.

Second, the technology is different. The new systems will not support direct database connections to enterprise data. These systems are secured and reserved for transactional processes. A data warehouse has near-real-time data and an ODBC server has been created to provide access for departmental systems at the database level. PeopleSoft also supports SOAP (http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/) messaging through its component interfaces for real-time access to data.

Third, change control is different. The database schema for the PeopleSoft transactional systems and component interfaces are complex. The UF PeopleSoft implementation will have over 55,000 relational tables in its production databases for portal, warehouse, HR, Finance and Student. These table structures change as PeopleSoft is patched and upgraded. Applications which depend on knowledge of PeopleSoft table structure will break in these upgrades unless modified in coordination with the patch/fix work. Change control processes will notify data users of impending changes and dependent applications may need to be modified.

Fourth, operations are different. The UF ERP systems are operated using e-business standards. Systems have been implemented with redundancy and fail-over and tested to insure continuous operation. Unlike legacy systems with scheduled downtime, the UF ERP systems will be operated 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Downtime will occur only for certain kinds of maintenance. Dependent applications can rely on ERP systems to be available continuously.

Fifth, the necessity for local systems will change. In the past, many units implemented local systems to manage data and provide information that was not accessible from the enterprise systems. The ERP system with its new data structures and data warehouse should provide significantly more management data than earlier systems. The need for local systems should diminish.

You can track these changes through the UF Bridges Web site and the UF Bridges portal pagelet. To subscribe to the pagelet, sign on to my.ufl.edu, select Personalize Content, check UF Bridges under Special Interest and press save. UF Bridges info will then be available on your portal page.

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