[161] in I/T Delivery
third quarter Delivery Report
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bob Ferrara)
Sat May 2 11:24:29 1998
Date: Sat, 2 May 98 11:24:04 EDT
To: delivery@MIT.EDU
From: Bob Ferrara <rferrara@MIT.EDU>
Hello, below is the third quarter Delivery Report. If you see any omissions,
errors, or special points you want emphasized, please let me know. It will
be discussed Thursday at ITLT and then posted on our Web pages.=20
Thanks, Bob=20
IT Delivery Process
Third Quarter Report (January-March) - FY1998
HTTP://WEB.MIT.EDU/IS/DELIVERY/
I. ACCOMPLISHMENTS
MILESTONES - ROLLOUT98-RELATED PROJECTS
*SAP Phase2 Planning. Delivery personnel continued their participation on
the SAP Phase 2 implementation planning team. A plan of some 60 subprojects
was produced, endorsed by project sponsors, and distributed to scores of
project participants. The team meets 2 times per week to facilitate
resolution of rollout issues,monitor progress against (and adjust as
approved and appropriate) projectmilestones, maintain roll-out issues and
scope change request logs. Included are plans for development,
pre-implementation, implementation, post implementation support, and
associated resources.
*MR Development Team. Paul Page continued to lead of the MR development team
and developer oriented consultants. Paul also participated in the Sloan SWAT
Team. and the School Coordinators search team, which has successfully hired
3 very qualified MIT people to date.=20
*MIT Data Warehouse. The primary activities were the continuation of rollout
to the six research labs and planning for the full rollout to the community
later in calendar 1998. In the last quarter, the warehouse team also
performed maintenance programming on the conversion routines, created a
high-level design for hierarchy processing in the Data Warehouse and began
work on this implementation, primarily using C++. A new financial detail
table was analyzed & tested, as was a prototype of purchasing data.
*Electronic Catalog, next generation (ECAT2). Work continued on the SAPWeb
requisitioning front-end and related interfaces to SAP. The EDI software
products, Harbinger's Trusted Link Enterprise (TLE) and Templar, were
selected and purchased. Harbinger has been installed and training provided
on the TLE product.=20
Two sessions of "Purchasing on the Web" were presented. This Quick Start
class includes "ECAT1" and NECX electronic catalog demonstrations. Greg
Anderson and Lorraine Rappaport gave a presentation on ECAT2 at NERCOMP.
* Imaging Accounts Payable data in SAP using IXOS. The purpose of this
CAO-led project is to explore the use and value of the IXOS software, an
image and data archiving application that is designed to work with SAP. This
past quarter, IXOS went live and all non-P.O. invoices are now being scanned
and indexed in Accounts Payable. This will provide metrics and experience on
how to expand IXOS use further.=20
* SAP WEB Interface Release 2: Prototype versions of the "Create
Requisition" and "Display Requisition" transactions have been developed. The
focus is now on those subsets of the planned functionality needed to support
the ECAT2 project. Customer support has been handed over to the Help Desk.
* SAPWeb partnership with SAP. There has not been much activity. The project
web pages have been updated and noted with new SAP and IXOS personnel who
will be involved.
*Physical Plant. This project is focused on implementing the Physical Plan
functions of budgeting, cost collection, cost distribution and cost
reporting into SAP for the purposes of cost allocation and recovery.
Accomplishments for this quarter include the assembly of a core development
team and the alignment of resources to the 7 Physical Plant business units.
The SAP module, CATS, was installed into the SAP sandbox environment. CATS
will be utilized for time recording and for the entry of Physical Plant
labor costs. Disk sizing has been performed for CATS and reported to
R3-Admin team. Also a proof of concept of CATS was performed with business
users.=20
A draft of the Design and Construction (DCS) detailed project plan was
completed. It calls for a summer 1998 implementation for DCS, which is one
of the 7 business units within Physical Plant and the first area to go-live.
The last remaining step to finalizing the summer date is for business owners
to commit to implementation resources, primarily in June and July time
period. In the meantime a Requirements document for DCS functionality is
being completed.=20
=B7
An interface between the existing Maximo system and SAP is needed for Repair
and Maintenance (R&M) functionality. R&M is another business unit of Plant.
The interface specifications are complete and coding and unit testing is in
progress.=20
A key issue regarding performing retroactive adjustments within the current
fiscal year for the Utilities business unit is being worked. The issue
revolves around how to perform this adjustments if we were to roll out SAP
to Utilities at any other time than start of fiscal year. A 'problem
statement' is being drafted after which alternatives and a recommendation
will be provided.=20
MILESTONES - ALL OTHER PROJECTS
*Athena Login Library: This purpose of this project is to develop a library
implementing Athena-specific phases of the login process, and incorporate
that library into third-party and Athena-maintained programs. This project
is now completed and all modifications have been tested and incorporated
into the Athena release for routines such as telnetd, ftpd, login.krb5, and
xlogin, and sshd
*CSTR Image Delivery. The is a joint research initiative, part of the LCS
Library 2000 project, to scan, archive, process, and deliver Computer
Science Technical Reports to an MIT desktop. This quarter's goals - to
restore services on new server hardware and to get the new version image
processing into usable state - were partially met. The legacy CSTR services
of FTP, Web, and Search/Retrieve using Dienst were successfully migrated.
But WAIS and DNS were decomissioned as obsolete. Work flow for image
processing was not migrated pending development of the new version of image
processing. The incorporation of new PostScript documents and new
bibliographic records are awaiting various input from the LCS reading room
people.
For the new version of image processing, the end-user program is done, and
the back end is mostly written. A final review of a few image enhancement
phases to the process flow is in process. An unplanned accomplishment was
the creation of a prototype thesis image delivery system, brought up by
cloning the CSTR image delivery system. It is not ready to show anyone but
has helped in understanding what will be done for the next round of=
prototyping.
*Electronic Proposal/Submission System. This quarter the project team
attained a few goals and made progress on others. The existing production
application, with its primary focus on managing awards, was enhanced to
address better integration between proposals and awards. Additionally, it
now feeds critical master data to SAP R/3 daily, eliminating the dual keying
which introduced delays in data availability and risks of potential errors
and discrepancies.=20
There are a few remaining to dos. The project team began integrating the
existing production application with the Electronic Proposal Submission
prototype for an anticipated release this summer. The current EPS prototype
continues to be demonstrated while development continues. It was hoped to
have a dozen people from the community testing it for a month, but this
objective was not met, due to resource constraints, limited support for the
pilot, and no Macintosh client availability. EDI and Reporting had dedicated
resources assigned, so credible progress has been made. Plans are underway
to replace the existing OSP-Award production server.
*Help Tools. This Scopus software is now in production. Wade and the team
have worked towards creating a stable environment and responding to
issues/problems, including machine upgrades. Several demos have been
conducted with the goal of increasing the number of help sites using a
common tool. Significant improvements were made on the web interface and
five MIT custom updated versions of the desktop client software were=
released.
*Parking Office. At the request of the Campus Police, I/S has completed a
review of the system produced by a contractor, included a billing feed. A
report noting procedural and documentation problems was given to sponsor.=20
*WEB-based conferencing. The primary Q3 activity was the testing of security
features and of the user interface with selected customers.
* Network Software Services .The following are the Delivery activities of
this team.
Project Pismere. The NT Zephyr, developed by Dave Lawless and Konstantine
Berdichevsky, is now in limited testing. The User Interface will be
subsequently be redone using Microsoft Foundation Classes, which should lead
to greatly improved user interface.=20
MacDiscuss Project (Macintosh Discuss client). Alexis ported MacDiscuss to
CodeWarrior Pro 2 and put the MacDiscuss sources into CVS.
Kclient for the Macintosh. A serious bug appeared in its menu icon redrawing
code, which made all menu items in the Help menu disappear. Miro researched
this and applied a fix. MacDev has put it through its paces for testing. The
changes have been sent back to UMich and Dartmouth and incorporated their
changes for CodeWarrior Pro 2. For KClient 1.7.7b1, Scott helped Miro write
a "history of Kclient development and distribution at MIT" document.
Fetch (Macintosh FTP). Miro has developed a preliminary version of the Fetch
client (popular ftp Mac program) incorporating GSS and Kerberos 5
encryption. This is not yet ready for distribution or support.
MacZephyr. Scott made several small changes were made to the
still-unreleased MacZephyr 1.3, such a fixing bug with Daylight Savings
Time, some memory leaks, and added help balloons. The beta copy has been
forwarded beta copy to Technical Publications so they can update the
documentation.=20
MacMoira. Scott has been working with Khalid have to test MacMoira 0.8d4,
and writing up extensive list of bugs and possible solutions for problems,
such as memory management.
MacHostInfo. Tests and reports for several revisions of MacHostInfo
(versions 1.0a7-1.0a14) are being performed by UROP student George Lee.
Progress is being made, and he is learning. Investigation into the proper
user interface for window positioning and resizing for MacHostInfo turned
out to be useful about a week later when Alexis encountered the same issues
in klpr.
Mac OS CD. There has been extensive work on the CD. It is now updated to
latest stable version of Netscape (4.04.1) and includes the most recent Dr.
Solomon's. Thanks to an update from Adaptec, the makers of Toast CD burning
software, we were able to make the Mac OS CD really bootable. The target is
to get it released with Mac OS 8.1.
Eudora Installers. A revised Eudora 3.02 installer was released with a bug
fix for the bogus out-of-memory error on some systems. Work neared
completion on a Eudora 3.1.3 installer, but this project was delayed due to
issues with KClient, MacLeland, and ftp-based installers.
SIS Kerberos 5 Installer . With help from Marshall and Ted T'so, a new
Kerberos 5 installer that will install the latest versions of the software
was created and released.
Windows Installers. Paul performed some initial testing on new version of
MINK after reviewing requirements document with people from UMich. The
requirements document was also provided to various people in Support. Work
was done on some supplemental programs needed to meet the requirements and
based on some feedback after the initial testing. This work should be
delivered in Q4 and then used as the basis for the subsequent Eudora and
HostExplorer installers.
II. PLANS FOR FOURTH QUARTER, FY1998
ROLLOUT98-RELATED PROJECTS
*MR Development Team. Focus and sustain team efforts towards meeting
milestone deliverables during quarters 4 and 1 while maintaining progress on
lower priority projects. Deliverables include on-going support of Release 1,
Rollout 98 Phase 1, Sloan & ASO, as well as, delivery of milestone 2
functionality which commences mid May. Continue to facilitate the transition
of development team and consultant developed SAP related functionality and
programs to MIT process owner personnel as appropriate.
*Client Consolidation. Working with appropriate representatives from IS,
process owners, and MR, finalize and implement consolidation of our two
development environments (SF1 & SF2).=20
*Technical Documentation. Distribute MIT development guidelines and fully
establish transport procedures to enforce completion of technical=
documentation.
*Physical Plant. Finish DCS project plan and expect by quarter end to be
either entering final stages of testing or completing this stage with a
go-live to follow immediately. Set and approve target dates for go-live of
all Physical Plant business units. This will entail completing another set
of detail project plans, determining resource requirements of both technical
and business groups, and presenting plans to Rollout 98 planners for review.=
=20
*Electronic Catalog, next generation (ECAT2). Deploy NECX and EDI back end.
Continue community electronic commerce training and demos.
*MIT Data Warehouse. Besides full rollout planning, other 4Q activities will=
be:
- Re-design and implement changes to wrapper function metadata in the Data
Warehouse.
- Finish implementation of hierarchy processing, primarily using PL/SQL.
- Implement new Financial schema
- Load production purchasing data to warehouse
- Work with Purchasing & Labs on warehouse purchasing schemas
- Complete design/prototype of Balance and Budget schemas
- Automate SAP Master & Detail feeds
- Set-up & test warehouse system on new machine (ORCA)
- Finish DB roles work for warehouse end users.
- Continue enhancing the end user metadata.
- Present to SAP planning team and the Re-engineeringSteering Committee.
- Automate feeds from the Data Warehouse to LDS and OSP
- Continue working one-on-one with end users to create BrioQuery reports
*SAP WEB Interface Release 2. Complete the NECX - SAPWeb interface and begin
testing web based requisitioning of NECX items.
*SAPWeb partnership with SAP. Prepare to install and configure the latest
Internet Transaction Server (ITS) software in Q1FY1999. Test the WGATE
server running under Solaris, and the WGATE - AGATE SNC communication path.
=20
ALL OTHER PROJECTS
*Addstrat. Set up database replication. Complete report performance testing.
Complete initial acceptance testing. Resolve printing issues. Specify
Journal Voucher interface. Develop first draft of policies and procedures
manual. Complete report conversion. Make decision on third server.
*CTSR. Bring up the CSTR image processing workflow. Work with Discovery on
Electronic Thesis Submission project and continue to evolve the prototypes
for Desktop Delivery of Electronic Theses.
*Electronic Proposal/Submission System: Complete the PowerBuilder
integration effort of the existing production application and EPS; the
release will be called COEUS 3.0. Encourage members of the community to test
the EPS prototype. Complete the Forms' Reporting requirements, testing the
application including postscript printing. Continue exploring EDI. Begin
settling on the development approach for PGP signature / email requirements.
Add additional focus on documentation: system, operational and end user.
=20
*Help Tools - Deploy. The end state of this quarter is both tactical and
strategic (see Help Tools II). Tactical items include creating a stable
operational environment by enhancing the three tools currently released,
upgrading the server (memory, database version). Continue supporting the
rollout and resolving issues in a timely manner. Continue with increased
Web functionality, increase the customer interaction and change management
to use Web based help tools and increase the number of help desk sites using
a common tool
*Help Tools - II. Complete functional specification on Help Tools II and
solicit a bid for a fixed price contract for a PowerBuilder development
team. Begin development on Help Tools II with target of completion in FY
Q2.99 and deactivation of the Scopus software.
*MIT Blue Pages on Line. Put Blue Pages into full production.
*WEB-based conferencing In Q4, the project should become production ready
and move into Service.
*The following are the Q4 Delivery Goals of the Network Software Services=
team:
NT Zephyr. Beta release with the User Interface redone using Microsoft
Foundation Classes.
For Mac-related network software, the following are planned:
-MacDiscuss - Release MacDiscuss 1.2.
-Fetch - Provide copy back to Jim Matthews at Dartmouth and work out release
strategy for the MIT community and/or world.
-Macdev source - Move the Macdev source tree to CW Pro 3
-Mac OS CD release - Release it. .
-Mac installers - SAP, Eudora 3.1.3, Kerberos (including KClient 1.7.7 and
new GSS/K5), MacZephyr 1.3, KLPR, tn3270, BetterTelnet, MacMoira beta,
MacHostinfo
