University of Wisconsin Human Resource System Project
Skip to Main Content
Navigation Links
Home
About HRS
Governance
Sponsor Blog
Project Team
Sponsor Blog
Ed Meachen, Associate Vice President of Information Technology, UWSA
October 30, 2009
Over the past few weeks I’ve worked on chartering a new Executive Committee and two new working groups which are beyond the HRS scope, but are closely aligned to the project. Each of the groups is necessary to the good operation of the new HR system.
The Data Privacy and Security Executive Committee is being formed this week and should have its first meeting by the end of the year. Though it will have a broad charter across all the existing enterprise systems, it will have an immediate positive impact on securing HR data after go live. Its focus will be to draw up policies and procedures for common systems data, including a requirement for encryption of endpoint HR data (laptops, PCs, handhelds). It will take up the recommendation of the UW System Security Strategy EndPoint Team that “campuses are expected to meet the minimum HRS security requirements for endpoints handling PII (personally identifiable information) by December 2010. These requirements include host-based encryption, multi-factor authentication and host-based intrusion detection/prevention for staff that handle others’ PII data.”
In my October 14th blog, I mentioned the working group that is beginning to develop plans for the “next generation” Service Center as we transition from the Legacy system to the PeopleSoft system over the next several years.
I have initiated a second working group to work out a process in conjunction with the campuses to retire “systems” that are replicated in HRS. We originally called this group “the Shadow Systems Working Group.” But after our first two meetings we acknowledged that the term “shadow systems” is not an accurate way to describe the various HR-related objects or systems identified by campus and Huron staff. They identified over 800 “legacy” systems on the campuses. As our group began to examine some samples of these systems, we realized that there are actually four very different types of legacy systems. There are “absorbable” systems which will be redundant with the new HR system. There are “supplemental” systems which supply unique business functionality, not all of which may be available in HRS. There are “interfaces” which feed correctly formatted data into independent information systems potentially very critical to one or more campus. And there are “reporting” data which may or may not be available in the set of reports to be delivered or developed by the HRS team.
The task of this group is to develop a clear charter, a decision-making process for categorizing systems, a “decommissioning plan,” a timeline, and a reporting structure. Luckily, we have a good starting point with the campus/Huron analysis of legacy systems.