[47] in I/T Delivery
3Q 1997 Delivery Report
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert V. Ferrara)
Sun Apr 27 19:20:24 1997
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 1997 19:23:53 -0400
To: Project-db-news@MIT.EDU
From: rferrara@MIT.EDU (Robert V. Ferrara)
Cc: delivery@MIT.EDU
People, attached isd the 3Q 1997 Delivery report. If you see an opportunity
you'd like to pursue, please let me know.
Thanks, Bob
IT Delivery Process
Third Quarter Report (January-March) - FY1997
HTTP://WEB.MIT.EDU/IS/DELIVERY/
I. ACCOMPLISHMENTS
A. NEW PROJECTS
Procurement Credit Card. A team has been formed to pilot and implement
procurement credit cards for the MIT community. The IS activity to date has
focused on evaluating the various software options for departmental users
as well as the central functions. A goal is to integrate with SAP as much
as possible the seven processes involved in credit card purchases.
MIT Data Warehouse Financials. A project to incorporate the SAP
transactional and master data into the MIT Data Warehouse was approved by
senior officials on January 14. The driving force - and initial pilot group
- is a coalition of six major research labs. The labs' committee, chaired
by Prof. Claude Canizares, issued a joint report and recommendations late
last year. Design work on the expanded warehouse has been underway since
January. The actual rollout will occur in sequential stages starting in the
fall.
B. CLOSED/SUSPENDED PROJECTS
Athena Backup System. This in-house "build" project has been formally
closed in favor a new "buy and integrate" option available with AFS version
3.4. Key features missing in earlier Transarc offerings are now to be
available in Transarc's version 3.4.
Management Reporting Authorization. Because of the policy decision to
continue "open" visibility of purchasing data, this project has been
suspended. Various modifications to SAP had been considered and to limit
data visibility. None were perfectly secure or inexpensive. The best
defined proposal would have cost an estimated $400K to implement.
C. ROLLOUTS
ECAT. The Electronic Catalog was formally rolled out on March 3rd for
Windows and MacOS 7.x platforms. All the previous showstopper issues were
resolved and 200 cards have been distributed as of 4/1. Web pages and
installers are available.
Project Database. This database, designed to display information on MIT's
I/S and I/T projects, is now certified and available for production use.
After installation of its new production server in W91, this marks the
first production use of an Oracle database with a Web front end secured by
MIT X509 certificates.
The Query Facility. The TQF application has a PowerBuilder 5.0 desktop
client securely accessing personnel data in the MIT Data Warehouse. After
training classes on PC and MAC platforms in February, TQF is now in limited
production. Installers have been written for all three PC platforms and the
MAC.
Athena QuickStations. This project, sponsored by Academic Computing, is now
being deployed on new Athena stations. The function to time users was
incorporated into the base Athena software.
Alumni/ae E-mail Forwarding for Life. This project was successfully
implemented and transition to the Service Process.
D. SIGNIFICANT MILESTONES
Sponsored Programs Management System. The SPMS system was upgraded to
accommodate the new (SAP) financial architecture. The SAP data feeds have
also been designed and coded.
Electronic Proposal System. The EPS project plan has been drafted and
refined. The development effort has been restarted after resources were
diverted for the required SPMS upgrade. Despite the delay, it still appears
possible to achieve two key milestones by the original target dates -
building a working prototype by 8/31/97 and rolling out to the MIT
community in 1Q98.
MR Project Team. Paul Page has been very involved in the planning and
restructuring of the MR Team to three units - the Training and
Documentation Team, Roll-Out Teams, and the Development Team (including
technical consultants) which Paul has been asked to lead.
MIT/SAP Partnership. After a series of meetings, SAP has offered to partner
with MIT in the development of a web based procurement/electronic commerce
solutions and to continue our relationship on security directions as well.
Both sides are currently trying to definitize these relationships to
present to senior MIT management.
SAP Change Request. A new formal SAP production change request process has
been designed and has now been instituted on a pilot basis.
SAP Training. A week long ABAP training course was held in January at W89
for MIT staff who are being asked to take over support of various functions
from our MIT consultants.
SAP Technical Documentation. A formal project plan for this project has
been prepared by Larry Dean, and a steering committee set up. Various
documentation templates have been produced.
SAPWeb. The SAP 3.1 Web extensions were first investigated and proven
impractical in MIT's networking environment. Consequently, a prototype
home-grown alternative was built and successfully demonstrated A
preliminary set of specifications has been developed for the web functions
to be implemented for SAP. In the process, this project has made almost
unprecedented use of the Web itself for project documentation and
information sharing. The following web pages are relevant:
http://mitvma.mit.edu/sapweb/sapweb.html Project home page
http://mitvma.mit.edu/sapweb/sapmit.html Prototype design specifications
http://mitvma.mit.edu/sapweb/detail.html Prototype function specs
The specifications are not complete, but are being reviewed by members of the
Management Reporting team.
Human Resources Practices Development. Steve Neiterman was one of the core
participants in an intense, eight week effort to develop the work plan for
the HRPD team. Steve contributed especially in the areas of I/T and project
planning issues.
HostExplorer Rollout (PC Telnet). Work on an installer for 32 bit and 16
bit versions of HostExplorer is proceeding. A team has been formed to work
on the documentation and
publicity as well as coordinate testing. They are shooting for a May rollout.
Scopus. This project is proceeding slowly. Currently, Scopus 1.0 has been
rolled out only to the UNIX/VMS help desk. Further rollout awaits
definition of Scopus 1.1 features, including a user Web input form feeding
directly into the Scopus database.
II. ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIVITIES
Delivery Team Leaders Meetings. Continued Delivery team leaders meetings
at a longer, three week interval. The goals of this forum are to shape a
common expectation of the Delivery process and to provide for information
sharing and brief status of all Delivery projects.
Project Support Improvement Team. The recommendations of this team were
largely adopted this past quarter. The delivery leaders continue to monitor
and maintain progress toward the goals outlined in the Project Support
Improvement discovery report.
Delivery Web Pages. The Web pages are continuing to grow, and now feature
an active, real time link to the Project Database.
Staffing and Recruiting. Three new MIT staff people are now working in the
Delivery area. We are happy to welcome Brenda Gillingham, Reid Pinchback,
Robert Basch, and Paul Page. Active searches fare underway for remaining
open positions.
Five Year Plan. Completed the Delivery Five Year Plan and FY98 budget.
III. PLANS FOR FOURTH QUARTER, FY97
Procurement Credit Card. Support pilot. Select production software and
specify all interfaces. develop SAP feeds from partner bank.
MIT Data Warehouse. Publish detailed rollout plans. Develop joint strategy
with MR Project team.
MR Project Team. Re-energize the Development Team to improve teamwork,
efficiency, and depth; as well as, to refocus their direction to that of
being primarily an SAP release 2 implementation support team.
SAP/MIT partnership. Bring to conclusion SAP/MIT procurement/electronic
commerce partnership offer decision.
SAP Change Request. Finish work on the SAP change request process and move
from pilot to full implementation. Begin work on moving the paper based
change request process to an electronic based process and form with full
reporting capabilities.
SAP Transport Process In conjunction with the new change request process,
begin work on a new transport process to address current transport issues
and shortcomings. The result of this effort should be a new a process that
clearly identifies roles and activities in the transport process.
Improved SAP Developer Authorizations. Document a process and identify
roles for the SAP developer authorizations.
SAP Technical Documentation. Establish all templates. Complete several
subsystems.
SAPWEB. Complete a set of "mock-up" pages matching the functions specified
in the
design and gather customer input about the design and thus complete the
discovery process. As a parallel effort, complete and gain approval for the
"fast track" design specifications (i.e. the display and lookup functions
formerly available via EREQ).
TQF. Continue rollout.
AFS 3.4. Complete project plan.
Projects Database. Populate database, ensure "cultural" connection, and
monitor quality.
Help Desk Tools. Design Scopus 1.1, begin rollout , and assess need for
release 2.0.
Windows Discuss and Windows Zephyr and Mac Moira. None of these projects
saw any progress due to lack of resources. We hope to hire summer UROPs to
work on these in the coming quarter.
Sponsored Programs Management System. Productionize data feeds to SAP.
EPS. Staff up project. Finish project plan.
ECAT. Resolve problems with Ksign on Win 95 and NT. Investigate possibility
of daily feed from Amex. Add third vendor, BOC Gases. Complete
documentation necessary for officially "productionizing" the system
Physical Plant Repair and Maintenance. Make enhancements in the E-mail ->
Maximo database software to automatically store and retry E-mail messages
that fail to processwhen the database is down for backups
