PeopleSoft/Web unavailable February 17-21 during upgrade
PeopleSoft/Web systems will be unavailable from noon, Thursday, February 17, to 6 a.m., Monday, February 21. Enterprise System staff will upgrade the system to Version 7.6. The upgrade is primarily fixes to current processes, but has some new enhancements. During this time, neither the PeopleSoft system (HEPCOM) nor the Web registration system, which depends on PeopleSoft, will be available. Functions that will be available include the course function at onestop.umn.edu, although only using February 17 data; those parts of the legacy Student Data Base system that contain historical records data; any Web functions not dependent on PeopleSoft; and the data warehouse (although it will not be updated during the upgrade). Unavailable functions include all enrollment functions at onestop.umn.edu/Enrollment/index.html the ability to view grades and student accounts or to update personal information; voice response (IVR) for grades; HR appointments processing. The offices of the Registrar, Scholarships and Financial Aid, Bursar, and Admissions will not be able to perform any real-time, on-line functions. The offices will remain open and will assist students with issues and problems, though some issues may remain unresolved until the system is available February 21.
Why the Web crashed the first day of Spring Semester classes and what's being done so it won't happen again
Registrar Sue Van Voorhis empathizes with the CEO of e-Toys, who lamented that his company was prepared for a 900 percent increase in business over the holiday season, but not for the 9,000 percent increase they experienced. "We were prepared for the heavy volume of add/drops the first week of classes," Van Voorhis said, "but we weren't expecting literally thousands of students to try to access the Web for their class schedules and grades at the same time." The Performance Team had implemented a fix that "unclogged" the database, lowering response times on the registration system and allowing more students to access the system. This fix didn't mean much, however, when the entire Web crashed on the first day of spring semester classes, January 18. Frustrated students appeared in large numbers at the three student services centers, where staff entered add/drops directly into PeopleSoft. That night, OTR staff E-mailed class schedules to every Twin Cities campus student. The next day, Web access was back to normal--a much improved "normal" because of the performance fix the week before. Van Voorhis said e-mailing class schedules to students will become standard operating procedure in the semesters ahead. E-mailing grades is also under consideration.
New Uses for Data Warehouse
The class schedules mailed to students the night of the first day of classes came from the "data warehouse," an archive of all information entered into PeopleSoft, the old Student Data Base, and many other databases at the University. (Data entered into the PeopleSoft database during the day is transferred to the data warehouse at night.) In the past, the information in the data warehouse was used for planning purposes (e.g., how many students have declared a major in English over the past 10 years) or to meet federal reporting requirements or track University goals. Now the warehouse is increasingly being used as an alternative to PeopleSoft processes that simply take too long. For example, transcripts are now printed in 15 seconds rather than the 20 minutes. The data warehouse is also a more efficient way to generate deans' lists and probation reports. These "workarounds" may become the new way of doing business. "It's not a perfect solution," Van Voorhis said. "The data may be a day old when used, but it works very well for many processes." Enterprise Systems Project staff continue to address performance problems. The Performance Team is sharing information with six other Big Ten universities implementing PeopleSoft and with PeopleSoft itself to assess the capability of the current hardware to absorb the additional activity of the payroll implementation.Web Fix Yields Impressive Results
The most dramatic improvement has occurred in Web response time. In November and December, when performance was at its worst, the Performance Team suspected that the Web was generating an unusual amount of processing in the database, creating a "traffic jam" that overwhelmed servers and ground the Web to a halt. The fix brought response time for the vast majority of "add/drop" classes on the Web to four to seven seconds. The system is far more stable, and the vast majority of transactions are in the five- to nine-second range. Theoretically (and anecdotally), PeopleSoft panel users also see an improvement in response time, but the improvement can't be quantified yet. The team also fixed the slow response of the Interactive Voice Response system.
Outcome of PeopleSoft and Big Ten Schools' Meeting
The January 18 day-long meeting with PeopleSoft CEO Craig Conway, his senior managers, and representatives of the seven Big Ten schools implementing PeopleSoft led to a better understanding of each participant's problems and concerns. PeopleSoft will now: bundle patches, sending them monthly rather than daily and attaching clearer documentation; decrease the number of "reposts" (patches that didn't work); develop a performance "cookbook" outlining tuning methodologies for customers; test the PeopleSoft student system on the Oracle database at University of Wisconsin. (PeopleSoft does not build specifically to the Oracle database, but all the Big Ten schools use Oracle.) The seven schools will continue to work closely together, sharing information and solutions. A "Next Ten Steps" agenda was adopted, and PeopleSoft appointed a staff member to follow through.
Assessment of Infrastructure, Tuning Opportunities
As reported in the January issue of The Record, the University contracted with Andersen Consulting for a three-week assessment of the capacity of the infrastructure for payroll implementation, to suggest performance tuning methodologies that are used by other PeopleSoft customers, and to provide clarity to the discussion about what is PeopleSoft's responsibility and what is the University's responsibility in terms of fixes and finetuning. Andersen Consulting found that all servers examined have available capacity at almost all times. Observed situations where server utilization was excessive were traced to inefficient code. Database wait conditions were primarily associated with application code efficiencies. No messaging queues or unusual behavior were observed on the application servers. As for performance tuning, Andersen found that hands-on case studies indicate that the University is not facing a hopeless situation. Many current problems can be solved in an iterative, one-by-one fashion. One consultant from Andersen will return for a short engagement to continue to work with staff on hands-on performance methodologies. The University might invite Andersen Consulting to more fully investigate aspects of the payroll implementation, such as workload, data entry complexity, and performance methodologies. Enterprise Systems staff continues to make dozens of fixes. As the broader efforts described above take shape, project staff continue to fix bugs and broken processes; database analysts work on finetuning the database, building indexes, and partitioning panels. The results of their work ease user frustrations a bit more every day. As anticipated, progress is slow and evolutionary.
More information about these topics is available at www.umn.edu/enterprise/whatsnew.html.
For More Information:
Mark Powell, m-powe@umn.edu
Jude Poseley, jposeley@umn.edu
More details on Fall RegistrationAs reported in the December issue of The Record, total enrollment for all University campuses was 58,196.
New Freshmen and Undergraduates
System-wide, undergraduate enrollment grew from 35,937 fall quarter 1998 to 37,233 fall semester 1999, a gain of 1,296 (3.6 percent). Most of the increase is accounted for by counting nondegree University College students in the figures. Total enrollment of new freshmen system-wide rose from 7,787 to 8,015. The total number of undergraduates of color, system-wide, grew from 4,582 in 1998 to 4,632 in 1999.
Graduate and Professional Enrollment
Total graduate enrollment grew from 9,814 to 10,074, a gain of 260 (2.6 percent). Enrollments at the professional level declined by 20 (0.7 percent). The number of graduate students of color rose from 773 to 842. The number of professional students of color fell from 348 to 309.
Credit Loads
As expected with the transition to semesters, the credit loads for undergraduate and graduate students are down from 1998 levels. The undergraduate mean credit loads declined from 13.9 in 1998 to 13.2 in 1999. Graduate mean credit loads declined from 8.3 in 1998 to 7.9 in 1999. The mean credit load for professional students rose from 19.0 to 19.2.
Progress reported on financial aid, student financials, and student records PeopleSoft processesFinancial aid
Virtually all aid for spring semester has been disbursed except for late registrants, some multi- career students, and some receiving PLUS loans. Staff reports that the huge problems are solved and they are now dealing with the smaller ones. Students who have not received their spring semester aid should call Office for Scholarships and Finanical Aid, 624-1665.
Student Financials
The PeopleSoft module is still far from complete. Staff estimates that 50 percent of functionality has yet to be installed. As a result, they have had to do a lot ofr manual processing and work-arounds. Some relief will come with the upgrade to PeopleSoft Version 7.6 this month. Spring semester tuition bills were mailed February 7 and 8. Initial payments are due February 29.
Student Records
Many fixes were made to both the Web registration system and PeopleSoft panels. The Web registration fix works well. Response time for drop/adds is in the four to seven second range for transaction volumes between 2,000 and 14,000. IVR is up and running for grade access. The conversion of historic student records continues. On February 2, 2,000 Crookston, Duluth, and Morris non-continuing education coursework students from 1984 through 1995 were converted. Records conversion of students with continuing education coursework is now estimated to begin the end of March or mid-April. A temporary work-around has eased the problem of printing transcripts. A permanent solution from PeopleSoft is targeted for April 1. Student Records and Data Warehouse staff are working together to make several reports available via the Web. This is a fast, efficient, and simple way for staff to do reports if they are able to use day-old data.
Refund percentage will be the same for Fall Semester 2000The refund percentage schedule for fall semester 2000 will be the same as that for spring semester 2000. The dates for the fall semester 2000 refund schedule will be different, but the percentages will be the same. To view the New and Continuing Student Refund Schedule, go to onestop.umn.edu/Finances/refunds/ refunds_schedules99.html.
Spring Semester 2000 DatebookFebruary
4 Deadline for undergraduates and students in professional degree programs to apply for spring semester graduationMarch
1 Deadline for graduate students to apply for spring commencement ceremony
7 Minnesota precinct caucus night; no classes meet after 6 p.m.
15 Graduate school application deadline for summer session 2000
24 Last day for undergraduates and students in professional degree programs to apply for intersession graduation
27-31 Spring break; classes not in session
31 Floating holiday; University offices closedApril
11 Enrollment begins for summer 2000 for admitted students
13 Enrollment begins for intersession and fall 2000May
5 Last day of instruction
6-7 Study days
8-13 Final examinations
13 Spring semester endsIntersession 2000
May
22 Intersession begins
29 Memorial Day holiday. Classes excused and University offices closedJune
9 Last day of instruction
Lan OrientationLAN orientation sessions for new users are available upon request. Contact your cluster representative or Office Automation at 625-1010. The Enterprise Systems Project training home page can be found at www.umn.edu/esptrain.
Campus Connector adds new stop at Oak and BeaconParking and Transportation Services has added a new stop to the Campus Connector at Oak and Beacon Streets. The success of a month-long trial prompted the decision to make the bus stop permanent. As part of the route change, the Campus Connector will no longer stop on Oak Street and Fourth Street. The East Bank Circulator will also no longer stop at Oak and Fourth, but will instead stop in front of Mariucci Arena on Fourth Street at Oak. Campus Express stops remain the same. The Campus Connector travels between the University's Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses every five minutes during the day and every thirty minutes in the evening when classes are in session. East Bank Circulators serve the stop every 10 minutes during the day when classes are in session. Circulators travel from the Academic Health Center on the south end of the route to Dinkytown on the north end.
Tenth Avenue bridge bus service available through March 24After a successful trial of the Tenth Avenue Bridge Circulator, sponsored by the Minnesota Student Association, Parking and Transportation Services will continue to operate the route through March 24. The Circulator travels between Eleventh and University Avenues S.E. in Dinkytown to Rarig Center on the West Bank. The service operates at 15 minute intervals every weekday, from 7:30 a.m. to 10:15 a.m., and from 3:30 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. Maps that detail the route and its stops are available from Parking and Transportation Services.
For More Information on Both Items:
Parking and Transportation Services
626-7275
The Record is published monthly for colleges and departments at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, by the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost.
Laura Weber, senior editor
Communications & Publications
110 Williamson Hall
231 Pillsbury Drive S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455-0213
Phone: (612) 625-0552
Fax: (612) 626-1754
E-mail: l-webe@tc.umn.edu
© 2000 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer. Student 2000 Project Home Page URL: http://www.umn.edu/s2000/ Send questions or comments to: Student 2000 Project Webmaster, s2000@maroon.tc.umn.edu