This week 10 ITS employees will present at the SEARUG (Southeast Regional Higher Education Users Group) Alliance conference in Raleigh.
Of those, nine staffers are from ITS Enterprise Applications and one staff member is from ITS’ Change Management team, which previously was part of Enterprise Applications.
Demonstrating team successes
SEARUG, which is October 20-21, is the first conference since the pandemic at which Enterprise Applications staff members will attend and present. Presenting at the conference enables team members to demonstrate their group’s successes and interact with peer institutions on a specific topic, said Mechelle Clayton, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Enterprise Applications.
ITS staff members will present on a variety of topics within the conference tracks of finance, student information systems, technical and reporting issues, human capital management (management practices aimed at streamlining human resources) and project and change management.
Enterprise Applications presenters are Gina Fogelsonger, Joseph Hosterman, Roger Rice, Victor Harris, Danny Marlow, Xiaoping Wu, Alan Hwang, Nancy McKinney and Jack Walker. Jackie Treschl is the presenter from Change Management.
Helped plan conference too
Not only are many folks presenting, but they have also played a significant role in planning the conference. In addition to presenting, Fogelsonger served as chair for the project management track on the planning committee. Maribel Carrion, Executive Director of Student Administration within Enterprise Applications, served on the conference’s planning committee too. Another planning committee member was Kristine Williams, who works closely with Enterprise Applications as an employee of the University’s Human Resources Information Management group. The trio planned the conference with members from North Carolina State University and Duke University.
The conference brings together those working in institutions of higher learning with technology vendors to present ways technology is used to meet higher learning needs.
Presentation topics
Now, let’s take a look at the topics that ITS staffers will cover in their presentations. On the first day of the conference, the presenters and their topics are:
- Fogelsonger, the lesser-known project restrictions impacting project managers
- Hosterman, the student and administrative views of the life cycle of PeopleSoft (informational database application behind ConnectCarolina) and Slate (student admissions tool)
- Treschl, ways to make implementations go more smoothly on the people side
On the second day, several presenters focus on PeopleSoft use, tools and techniques. Wu will present on PeopleSoft special coding techniques while Marlow and Harris will offer information on PeopleSoft security basics.
Meanwhile, PeopleSoft financials will be Walker’s focus as he explains the use of a special tool to migrate meta data in PeopleSoft financials. Also focusing on PeopleSoft financials is Hwang. He is presenting on an organizational technique for analyzing financial data within PeopleSoft.
McKinney will discuss how The Graduate School took advantage of the resources within the Slate database. In his session, Rice will present on the provisioning and deprovisioning (steps required to manage access to data and resources) process for UNC-Chapel Hill.
Return to in-person conferences
Due to the pandemic, the last two years of SEARUG conferences were either cancelled or held virtually. This year will be a return to an in-person format for the conference at North Carolina State University’s McKimmon Center for Extensions & Continuing Education.
ITS presenters join others from Carolina, Duke University, North Carolina State University, University of Cincinnati, Florida State University and the Kentucky Community & Technical College System.