USM, along with the rest of the University of Maine System, is in the process of replacing its administration software, now a hodgepodge of outdated and incompatible programs, with a new system called Peoplesoft. USM’s share of the cost is an annual $294,000 fee, which will be paid as long as the system is used. Peoplesoft promises easier administration because it brings systems that are now unable to interoperate into a single, web-accessible database. The Human Resources (HR) part of the system has already been implemented and is being used by faculty and workstudy students, to mixed reactions.
The system has many advantages over the old one, according to Rosa Redonnett, Vice President of Enrollment Management, and the chief staff member in charge of transitioning to the Peoplesoft system. One of the most immediate advantages is that Peoplesoft won’t use students’ social security numbers as their student identification numbers. Student ID numbers will now be a separate, randomly generated number.
“The [social security] number will still be in the system, because it’s used for financial aid. But it won’t be used as an identification number anymore,” Redonnett said.
Some workstudy students, accustomed to the old time card system, grouse about Peoplesoft’s time card system, while others are more optimistic.
“Peoplesoft? Oh, you mean People-crap,” said one female student who did not wish to be identified. She demonstrated the new software’s time card system. Before each punch-in or punch-out can be recorded, the user must click a button to add the action. This is the most common complaint about Peoplesoft’s HR module. With the old system, the user was provided all the cells from the start, and only had to use the pull-down buttons to indicate their schedule. “It doesn’t show you how many hours you’ve worked as you go either, which the old one did,” the student said.
“You can set up a direct-deposit right online,” she admitted. The online form for a direct-deposit can be completed and verified online, eliminating the form that was necessary before Peoplesoft was implemented. It’s features like this Redonnett says that make the formidable task of overhauling the systems worthwhile.
“It [Peoplesoft’s HR module] isn’t difficult to use by any means,” said Sarah Wentworth, a senior in Media Studies. “Everyone who’s using it was given training. I think it’s pretty much self explanatory. I haven’t had any problems with it.” The biggest problem many students have with the new system is that the student must fill in their schedules every day, whereas before, a student could fill out their time card at the end of the week, or even wait several weeks before filling out their cards. Proponents of the new system point out that time cards should be filled out every day anyway, because it’s difficult to remember what hours one has worked after a week or more.
The transition is made more difficult by the fact that the school is pulling faculty from their jobs to assist with the changeover without filling in for those workers. This has caused a staffing shortage that is not permanent, but that taxes almost every department of the university. President Pattenaude asked in an email sent in October 2002 for students and faculty to be patient during this transition period.
The other compelling reason for the switch is the fact that until now, HR, finance, student administration, student advising, and other systems have been managed by separate programs, many of which use text-based interfaces with archaeic commands. For instance, FINANCIER, the financial aid management program, uses awkward four-letter codes to signify the status of the student’s awards. The user must know these codes to know what he or she is looking at, or use a program like Web DSIS that translates the codes.
In fact, programs like Web DSIS have become good at hiding the tangle of programs that lie underneath, Redonnett said. So, Peoplesoft may not seem like a great improvement right away but it replaces a system whose limitations become more vexing every day as the software ages. For instance, student advisors looking up a student’s courses have to navigate a text-based system that displays a student’s courses one semester at a time. When the advising part of Peoplesoft is implemented, it will be able to access the registration part of the software and the course catalog, and the advisor can use the system to put the student in classes that still have openings.
John Bronson can be contacted at [email protected].