UF Bridges History
In 2001, the State Legislature re-wrote the State Education Code. The Education Code Rewrite abolished the Board of Regents, gave each State University their own Board of Trustees, and crowned the State Universities as Public Corporations, removing state agency status. Because of the changed status, members of the former State University System of Florida were advised that they would no longer be supported as users of the state financial systems, including state accounting and payroll systems.
As part of its devolution from the state, the University purchased Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software from PeopleSoft to replace the University's legacy systems with new web-based, integrated systems that provide real time information and improve University business processes. The UF Information Systems department was merged with the ERP implementation group to form UF Bridges to meet the challenge of implementing and supporting UF financial, payroll, human resources, and student administration functions. As a complement to PeopleSoft, the University acquired software from Cognos as a reporting tool to build a business intelligence solution for the new University data warehouse. The warehouse holds accounting, student, and employee data.
The following systems went live in July 2004: E-Recruit, General Ledger, Benefits, Purchasing, Time & Labor/Payroll, P-Card, Travel & Expense, Accounts Payable, Billing, Accounts Receivable, Project Cost, Asset Management, Sponsored Programs Pre—Award, Contracts and Post—Award. Additional systems are also in place to support these business systems. These systems went live prior to the main system go—lives: the myUFL portal, Enterprise Reporting, Enterprise Data Warehouse, and the Access Request System.
Visit the Implementation pages for archival reference.
UF Bridges Today
UF Bridges, a division of Business Affairs, has matured from an ERP implementation group to a department that supports, maintains, and enhances the University of Florida’s administrative computing systems, called myUFL.
Bridges Purpose Statement: Collaborate with the university community to support and improve UF business via integrated information services.
The management of such diverse applications requires careful planning, compliance with audit mandates, and software-development best practices. Bridges constantly receives requests to improve, enhance, and upgrade these complex systems. To manage each request, the department created the Bridges Project Management Framework (BPMF).
Bridges Project Management Framework (BPMF)
The BPMF was designed to establish and implement a common approach to project management at UF Bridges; to create a Project Office of trained, project management professionals; and to formalize the use of IT Governance to manage the workflow and ensure consistency. The BPMF was implemented in 2007.
The BPMF is divided into seven distinct phases. Download flowchart...
(1) Approval: This phase defines the "why" behind a project. In the Approval Phase, we identify/recommend a solution to a business need or deficiency. The goal of the phase is to establish organizational sponsorship and obtain approval to proceed.
(2) Plan: This phase defines the "who" and the "when" elements related to the project. In the Plan Phase, we identify and document strategy, schedule, and resource requirements. The Plan Phase is an ongoing process that spans the project lifecycle. The initial goal of the phase is to create a project management plan to communicate, guide, and monitor further project activities.
(3) Requirements Analysis: This phase defines "what" the project will accomplish. The Requirements Analysis Phase is the process of discovering, analyzing, and documenting what the proposed solution must do, including the functional/behavioral needs and capabilities, operational requirements, prototypes, and security needs. The goal of this phase is to define what will be built, from user to architect, and to obtain formal consensus.
(4) Design: This phase defines "how" the project will be accomplished. In the Design Phase, we create detailed technical “blueprints” from which any implementation team could generate consistent results.
(5) Build: In this phase, the design is translated into operational components.The goal of this phase is to build and test a quality product that satisfies the agreed upon requirements.
(6) Quality Assurance: This phase includes the testing and reviews needed to ensure a quality product. This is an iterative process of exercising the functionality of modified and related components. The goal of this phase is to obtain user acceptance of the developed solution, ensure that non-modified processes have not been negatively impacted, and that performance requirements have been met.
(7) Deploy: During this phase, we make the solution available for use by the user. The goal of this phase is to move the product into a production environment and ensure that the user is capable of utilizing the product and has a service level agreement in place to maintain the product.
Bridges Work Teams
Bridges is organized into the following organizational units:
Application Development: Responsible for maintenance and new development of the Portal, Financials, BI and Database Development, and HRMS systems.
Audit Compliance, Application Request System (ARS) & Change Control: Change Control migrates new and modified application software objects for PeopleSoft, AppWorx, Enterprise Reporting and Legacy systems. All potential “changes” must pass a review process and meet specific requirements prior to migration.
The Audit Compliance and ARS Teams provide the design support, approval and review for all security objects, operational management/administration of security requests and issues, DSA training and support and audit compliance checks and review to maintain a well secured and operational system set of application systems.
Business Intelligence (BI): Business Intelligence is responsible for the data warehouse used by the University for reporting purposes. The data warehouse contains financial, personnel, directory, student and other information. Includes; Development, Architecture, and Products & Services.
Financials: The University of Florida Bridges Financial Team provides implementation, system support, collaboration, education, training, and accrual-based accounting in ERP Technology. Includes: Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Asset Management, Billing, Contracts, General Ledger, Grants Management, PCard, Project Cost, Purchasing, Sponsored Programs, Travel & Expense.
Human Resources & Student Administration-PeopleSoft (SA-PS): Responsible for maintaining the University’s HRMS systems (Benefits, ERecruit, Payroll, Time & Labor) and implementing the PeopleSoft Student Financials module to replace the current mainframe Student Fee System.
Infrastructure: Responsible for maintaining all servers, databases, and operating systems for myUFL. Includes; Infrastructure, DBA, and Active Directory. Maintains hardware/physical security of myUFL.
Student Administration-Legacy (SA-Legacy): The SA-Legacy Team provides the resources required to support existing student financials applications.
Production Support Services (PSS): The overall purpose of the team is to provide support for all production applications and systems in both myUFL and legacy MVS (mainframe) environments. Responsible for monitoring the status and performance of production applications to ensure all myUFL systems are operational and running at optimal efficiency.
Project Office and Quality Assurance: Functions as developer and repository of the quality control standards, processes, and methodologies that improve individual project performance, facilitates the ability to manage Bridges' entire collection of projects, and serves as the single source of information on project activity.
Related Documents:
Enterprise
Integration at UF [22 Jun 2006]
Presented at Microsoft Higher Education Executive Forum, Tampa, FL.
ERP
at the University of Florida: Selection, Implementation and Implications
[06 Apr 2006]
Presented at the College of Business, Gainesville, Florida.
Getting
70,000 to Prepare, Adapt and Embrace Change – Mission Impossible?
[23 Mar 2005]
Presentation at 2005 PeopleSoft Higher Education User Group (HEUG) Conference,
Las Vegas.
