University of Maine System

1
University of Maine System

• Shared Processing Center (SPC) Assessment

• Final Report
• December 18, 2006

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Table of Contents

• Executive Summary
• Assessment Process
• Interviews/Meetings Schedule
• Critical Observations
• Recommendations
• Appendices
• Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews
• Appendix B Excerpts from the May 31 Steering
  Committee Report related to the SPC Milestones

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Executive Summary

• Shared Processing Center (SPC) is viable needs
  a mandate to the campuses from the Chancellor to
  support the concept
• SPC needs a new reporting structure
• Need an effective communication plan between the
  SPC and Campuses Offices of Admission
• Eliminating the SPC backlog is critical and needs
  to be completed as quickly as possible
• All campuses should support the SPC and cease any
  action to undermine the concept
• Offices of Admission need to evaluate their
  processes and workflows once the SPC is
  stabilized
• Training of all campuses must be completed soon

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Assessment Process

• Objectives
• Determine the issues and viability of the Shared
  Processing Center (SPC) can it handle the
  application volume and meet the campus needs?
• If the SPC is viable, then Identify critical
  issues and corrective actions
• Methodology
• Review and analyze project documents various
  emails, admissions workflow diagram from the SPC
  Table of ImageNow Document Types and Index
  Schemes
• Conduct interviews with key project staff
• Deliverables
• Phone Briefings with the Steering Committee and
  Chancellor McTaggert
• Assessment Report
• Lead Consultant John Busby, PhD

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Interviews/Meetings Schedule

• Monday (December 11, 2006)
• Admissions Directors - UMS
• Jon Henry Janet Boucouvalas - UMS
• Tuesday (December 12, 2006)
• Visited the SPC - Orono
• Rosa Redonnett Phone
• Sheri Fraser Erin Benson Phone
• Allen Berger Phone
• Dick Campbell Phone
• Sue Hunter Sharon Oliver Phone
• John Grover Kim Yerxa UMS
• Brandon Lagana Phone
• Joanne Yestramski Ralph Caruso - UMS
• Wednesday (December 13, 2006)
• Stewart Bennett Phone
• Steering Committee Phone
• Jill Cairus Phone
• Chancellor McTaggert - Phone

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• Critical Observations

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Critical Observations

• Assessment Process identified three areas of
  focus for the recommendations
• Shared Processing Center
• Current status and operational viability
• Organization/supervision/governance
• Need for an Action Plan to get caught up
• Communication Plan(s)
• Campus offices of Admission
• Relationship with the SPC
• Adapting to the new PeopleSoft Admissions module
  and to ImageNow

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Critical Observations (continued)

• Shared Processing Center
• Implementation of the SPC missed all of the
  implementation milestones defined in May 2006
  (Appendix B) but had no contingency plan to
  recover their schedule why did the Steering
  Committee not know this?
• SPC is encountering normal and expected
  implementation issues but the application volume
  is too great for the SPC to handle the volume
  while working through their issues would not
  have been as big a challenge in September 2006
  under the original schedule
• SPC is taking directions from too many sources
  there appears to be too many bosses and no clear
  leadership structure for the SPC
• SPC spent too much time in the early stages of
  the implementation scanning documents not core to
  the admissions process (old documents and SAT
  scores) this may have contributed to the
  implementation delay

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Critical Observations (continued)

• Shared Processing Center (continued)
• SPC staff are in a reactive mode currently
  (scrambling to catch up and clear the backlog of
  applications coming in daily) cant focus on
  evaluating and refining normal operational work
  flows
• Proximity to the SPC may lead to preferential
  treatment if not addressed with appropriate
  guidelines to ensure fair treatment of all
  campuses
• SPC staff need help in defining metrics to
  measure their effectiveness and need help in
  evaluating their work flows

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Critical Observations (continued)

• Shared Processing Center (continued)
• SPC Director appears to be the right person to
  lead the center because of his knowledge of the
  past admission processes and his knowledge of the
  new processes and applications being implemented
• Work flows needed to reduce the current document
  volume backlog may differ from the work flows
  that may be used once the center is caught up
  with the work load
• Center has insufficient staff to catch up the
  existing backlog and may require a larger group
  of temporary help in the near term to do so in a
  timely manner

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Critical Observations (continued)

• Communications
• It is not apparent that a system wide
  communications plan was considered as an integral
  part of the SPC implementation
• Communication is still lacking at all levels
• SPC needs to provide full disclosure of status of
  milestones to the Steering Committee
• SPC and campus offices of Admission need
  effective means of communicating with each other
  about the daily status and what appears to
  working and not working in their respective work
  flows

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Critical Observations (continued)

• Communications (continued)
• Not all campuses appear to have been proactive in
  communicating pending changes in the admissions
  process to their client base - but some campuses
  have been proactive in addressing the concerns
  and anxieties by creating standard phone scripts
  to handle calls from parents and applicant calls
• There appears to be no clear message from the
  executives at the University of Maine System that
  the SPC needs to be supported by all campuses
• Some campuses have routed calls from upset
  parents to the SPC to address the questions
  this is inappropriate and takes the SPC staff
  from their tasks of processing documents

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Critical Observations (continued)

• Campus Offices of Admission
• Not all offices of Admission are staying flexible
  and learning how to adapt to the new applications
  and resulting new processes some offices,
  however, are embracing the changes and others
  have staff that are openly defiant and are trying
  to undermine the SPC
• Using the old ISIS processes with PeopleSoft and
  ImageNow may not work effectively but some
  campuses are not looking at new ways to process
  applications while other campuses see the change
  in software as an opportunity to improve their
  processes and workflow
• Campus offices of Admission are trying to define
  the processes and procedures for the SPC rather
  than allow the SPC to define their own processes
  and procedures
• Problems processing applications on campus stem
  from the backlog at the SPC but also may stem
  from the failure of some campus office of
  Admissions to adjust to the new PeopleSoft and
  ImageNow applications

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Critical Observations (continued)

• Campus Offices of Admission (continued)
• Some campuses blame the SPC for all of their
  current problems in the Admissions Offices but
  are doing little to examine and fix their own
  issues
• Campus offices of Admission need an on-going
  evaluation and refinement of their own processes
  and workflows especially once SPC is stabilized
  and current with the document processing
• Training has not been consistent across all
  campuses but those trained appear to be more
  supportive of the new systems and are trying to
  adapt to the new applications and different work
  flows

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Critical Observations (continued)

• Campus Offices of Admission (continued)
• Priorities are focused on Fall 07 admissions
  (Spring 07 admissions are being done in ISIS).
  Next year both will be done in PeopleSoft so
  priorities for the SPC will need to reviewed
  again at that time
• Some campuses have reported the high school
  counselors like this new system because it is
  easier for the applicants to submit applications
• Some campuses like the new paperless (less paper)
  processes and like PeopleSoft and ImageNow
  applications
• The December 15th is an application cutoff date
  used by UM in the past to determine eligibility
  of early applicants for additional financial aid
  application dates can still be determined under
  the new system the date is an incoming criteria
  date for determining eligibility and is not an
  outbound notification action date this
  eligibility criteria should not be affected
  because the SPC is processing the documents

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Critical Observations (continued)

• Campus Offices of Admission (continued)
• Staff desire the admission performances of the
  past but some campuses are doing very little to
  adopt and adapt new processes and improve office
  work flow to recoup their old performance
  standards some campuses, however appear to be
  very aggressive in defining new processes and
  work flow to stay current - status of checklist
  queues in ImageNow as of 12/17/06 (queue size for
  12/12/06 is shown in Appendix A on page 34)
• Augusta 57 documents (oldest 12/14)
• Farmington 100 (12/13)
• Presque Isle 0
• Fort Kent 0
• Machias 17 (12/13)
• Orono 987 (12/1 a few are dated back to
  11/27)
• USM - 0

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• Recommendations

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Primary Recommendation

• Executives should support the Shared Processing
  Center (SPC) as a viable option for processing
  applications for the University of Maine System
  for all campuses that are using the electronic
  application, PeopleSoft Admissions module and the
  ImageNow scanning process
• SPC is not broken it just not fully operational
  and all of the bugs have not been worked out to
  date
• SPC, once the center is fully operational and
  functional, should provide an operational cost
  lower than the combined cost of all of the
  campuses if they had to process their own
  applications

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Recommendations

• Shared Processing Center
• Create a new reporting structure for the Director
  of the SPC current structure is confusing as it
  appears there are numerous bosses over the SPC
• Create a viable communication structure between
  the campus offices of Admissions and the SPC
  communication must flow both ways so the campuses
  know where the SPC is with the application
  processing and the SPC knows how they are
  performing in meeting the needs of the campuses
• SPC should share their workflow diagrams again
  with the campuses as it appears some campuses are
  confused on what they do in the process flow
  versus what the SPC does

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Recommendations (continued)

• Shared Processing Center (continued)
• SPC is a critical mission service organization
  within the University of Maine System and they
  must develop contingency plans for processing
  applications in a timely manner in the future
  (after stabilization) regardless of the issues
  encountered
• SPC spent too much time in the early stages of
  the implementation scanning documents not core to
  the admissions process they need to stay
  focused on just the documents needed for the
  admissions process until they can define their
  on-going capacity then they can consider
  expanding services
• Eliminating the document processing backlog in
  the SPC is paramount - define a strategy to catch
  up in days (if possible) and not weeks even if it
  means adding more temporary staff neither the
  SPC nor the campus offices of Admission can
  evaluate or refine their on-going work flows
  until the SPC catches up and the document flow
  stabilizes

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Recommendations (continued)

• Shared Processing Center (continued)
• Processing documents by date for all campuses may
  be effective once the SPC is caught up with the
  document backlog but it is not an effective way
  to catch up because of the time spent looking for
  specific dated documents in each stack until
  the backlog is eliminated, process the documents
  by stack the smaller stacks of documents should
  be processed in total first so the smaller
  campuses are current, continue to process
  documents of those campuses daily to remain
  current until all document stacks are caught up
  and all campuses are current at that time the
  SPC can implement a process for handling the
  daily inflow of documents that they believe is
  effective for remaining current for all campuses

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Recommendations (continued)

• Communications
• Since the campuses of the University of Maine
  System are well into the process of receiving
  applications for Fall 07, creating a formal
  communication plan at this time is not feasible
  but there are some things the System can consider
  and implement as time and resources permit
• Consider a self service location on the Portal
  (web site) to allow applicants to view status
• For the campuses who have not done so, they
  should create standard scripts to respond to
  phone calls so the callers receive a consistent
  message
• Include items in the inquiry letters sent to
  applicants telling them about the new admissions
  system, about the potential for some glitches and
  ask for understanding and tell them about some
  future potential advantages the new system can
  offer

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Recommendations (continued)

• Communications (continued)
• SPC needs to create daily reports with detailed
  metrics and measures for the campuses so the
  campuses know where they stand
• Create a formal communication structure so SPC
  and the campuses are working as an efficient team
  - communication should be a two way street
  between the SPC and the campus offices of
  Admission
• Chancellor should issue a clear message that the
  SPC is to be a permanent fixture within the
  University of Maine System and needs to be
  supported by all campuses

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Recommendations (continued)

• Campus Office of Admissions
• Campuses need to curtail the criticism and the
  collection of data to undermine the SPC -
  collection of data in the campus offices of
  Admission should be used to improve performance
  and workflow in the respective offices of
  Admission and data should be provided to the SPC
  so they can evaluate their performance in meeting
  the needs of the campuses
• Campuses, who cannot remain current with their
  checklist queues, may need to assess their
  current office processes to determine what will
  work with PeopleSoft and ImageNow and what needs
  to be restructured UMS should be prepared to
  assist with the assessment of the Admission
  offices if it is deemed the campuses lack the
  resources to perform the assessment themselves
• Training of campus staff must be completed
  immediately UM needs to reschedule their
  training with the SPC

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Student Administration Go-Live Assessment

• Q A

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• Appendices

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• Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews

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Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews

• No issue with Shared Processing Center (SPC) but
  too much was introduced at the same time
  PeopleSoft Admissions, ImageNow and eApp
• Not enough staff at the SPC
• No studies were done to determine how long it
  would take to use ImageNow to scan applications
• Some campuses are having applications sent to
  them as well as to the SPC this may cause
  confusion later on
• Lack of communications few know how the process
  workflow is to be divided between their campus
  and the SPC
• eApp was delayed and that has hurt the processing
  of the applications

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Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews
(continued)

• Process is not the same as in the past items
  get separated to be scanned rather than keeping
  items all together applications,
  recommendations and transcripts may arrive in the
  campus queues on different days fear documents
  will be misplaced
• Time to reach the campus queue is lengthy sent
  on the 21st, date stamped on the 28th, scanned on
  the 29th and ready for the campus in early
  December
• SPC staff are working hard to resolve the various
  issues
• Campus Admission Directors fear enrollment will
  be down for next Fall

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Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews
(continued)

• Little statistics are available from the SPC
  about the status and number of applications
  received so campuses believe they are behind
• Some campuses realize they will need to redo
  their internal work flows
• SPC Staff should have been hired sooner
• Campus Admissions Directors believe the SPC needs
  to finish a day at a time (all materials) for all
  campuses before moving on to the next day so all
  campuses remain current to the same date
• Quality is improving at the SPC but numerous
  errors were made on classifications in the
  beginning
• Campuses still dont trust the quality of work
  from the SPC so they are spending time to check
  for errors made by SPC staff

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Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews
(continued)

• Even though quality is improving, the volume is
  also increasing so anxiety levels on campus are
  still rising
• Admissions Directors lack information from the
  SPC about numbers of applications still waiting
  to be put into the system this hurts UM because
  of their December 15 cut off date for early
  applicant qualification of additional funding
• No central communication plan is in place to
  notify high schools of the changes occurring in
  the admissions process campuses have
  communicated to high schools as the opportunity
  becomes available through meetings
• No standard communication strategy is being used
  to communicate with parents and applicants about
  changes there is no web site parents and
  applicants can visit to address questions

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Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews
(continued)

• Some work is being sent back by the SPC to the
  campuses for them to process so why do we need
  the SPC?
• Changes in work flow occur between the SPC and
  the campuses but there is little communication
  from the SPC to indicate if this is a temporary
  or permanent change
• Student packets are unbundled and then processed
  separately SPC has not described their work
  flow to the campuses Admissions Directors
• Admissions Directors want to know the remaining
  issues that are still to be addressed by the SPC
• Jon Henry is the right person to direct the SPC
  but that means the campuses have lost their SME
  as a result

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Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews
(continued)

• SPC spent time scanning old documents and did not
  adequately prepare for the volume of new
  applications
• eApp auto load did not get tested early in the
  process and is just now ready for use
• Common App auto load has been working for just a
  week prior to the eApp auto load so the SPC has
  not benefited from the auto loading of electronic
  applications until just this last week
• Temporary help to support the SPC are just now
  being hired and may be able to start the week of
  December 18th.
• Opening the mail and sorting the documents takes
  approximately 4 hours each day and the temporary
  help can take over these duties
• Because the SPC makes it easier to get
  applications assigned to the various campuses,
  high school counselors are encouraging applicants
  to apply to multiple campuses
• SPC should remain invisible to the customer base
  and phone calls should not be forwarded to the SPC

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Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews
(continued)

• May take weeks after the temporary help is on
  board before the SPC can get caught up on the
  backlog
• Not all campuses are current working the
  documents in their queues (queue size on
  12/12/06)
• Augusta 92
• Farmington 36
• Fort Kent 15
• Machias 8
• Orono 1,119
• USM 19
• Presque Isle 294 (critical staff member on
  medical leave)
• Training of campus staff is in various stages of
  completion
• UMF, UMM, UMA USM trained in October
  November
• UMPI UMFK training scheduled in December
• UM (Orono) campus cancelled November 29
  training (training has not been rescheduled)

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Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews
(continued)

• Some campuses are asking the SPC for documents
  that have not been received this requires time
  for the SPC staff to search for the missing
  documents which means they cant continue doing
  their work
• Packets must be taken apart to process and use
  the current ImageNow drawer design (approved by
  the Admissions Directors)
• January applications are done in ISIS but next
  year they will be done in PeopleSoft creates
  some issues that will only exist this year but
  may create other issues for next year
• It appears at least one campus is collecting data
  to illustrate the ineffectiveness of the SPC
• SPC will be successful when it can be as
  effective and accurate as campuses were prior to
  this implementation
• Communication related to the SPC status is
  lacking at most levels

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Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews
(continued)

• At least one campus has created scripts so those
  answering calls from parents and applicants can
  give consistent responses
• SPC needs to share status and numbers with the
  campuses on a daily basis
• Should be an executive mandate to all campuses to
  support the SPC
• In the future, the system may need to consider a
  single application for all campuses to make it
  easier on applicants to apply to multiple
  campuses
• Student Loan staff were to help during the peak
  times what happened?
• Jon Henry should chair a group to solicit
  feedback and not have the Admissions Directors
  chair the group
• SPC will successful when it maintains the volume
  and quality of past years at a lower cost

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Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews
(continued)

• Some training came too early training is more
  meaningful now that both PeopleSoft and ImageNow
  are up
• UMA deals with the Fall applicants later than
  most of the other campuses so will need
  priorities of the SPC re-evaluated next year when
  Spring and Fall applicants both go into ImageNow
• Some campus staff dont know how to get reports
  out of PeopleSoft
• Monthly meetings with Admissions Directors are
  sufficient to provide feedback to the SPC
• There is a belief the System Office is pushing
  the SPC as a money and time saving unit but there
  is doubt on some campuses the SPC will save money
• Some campuses want the SPC to go away so the
  campuses can retain the control
• Some campuses have smaller applications but the
  charge back proposal uses the number of
  applications and not the volume of data to be
  entered as the charge criteria want this
  reconsidered for those using a smaller application

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Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews
(continued)

• Some staff consider PeopleSoft to be complex
• There are those who worry the SPC will not be a
  labor savings and will cause the quality of the
  admissions process to deteriorate
• There was no need to raise an alarm about the SPC
  the Steering Committee should have been
  notified before any President raised the alarm
• Jon Henry is very supportive of the campus needs
  and issues
• Staff on some campuses are becoming less
  uncomfortable with the new processes
• SPC will be successful when it has realistic
  timeliness of processing the documents and has
  the ability to contain costs
• There appear to be two campus Presidents who do
  not support the SPC
• SPC will be successful when a majority of the
  info is accurate and there is a known time to
  complete the processing of a complete set of
  documents

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Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews
(continued)

• One campus wanted SAT scores scanned so review of
  documents could be done in ImageNow and not in
  both PeopleSoft and ImageNow this scanning is
  not consistent with the current workflow of the
  SPC (auto loading SAT scores into PeopleSoft is a
  delivered functionality)
• There is a concern on some campuses there will be
  a potential decline in admissions next fall
  resulting from the backlog at the SPC
• Some campuses are being very proactive and are
  re-evaluating their current processes to make
  them more efficient some staff and Directors
  love ImageNow and have learned how to query for
  missing documents not yet linked to their campus
• At least one campus has commented that they are
  ahead of last year because they no longer have to
  deal with the large volume of paper see the
  real potential of the SPC and consider them part
  of the Admissions Team
• At least one campus proactively briefed the high
  school counselors about what to expect
  counselors were pleased with the new concepts

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Appendix A Comments/Notes from the Interviews
(continued)

• ImageNow is great beats what we were doing
  last year
• The campuses need to calm down and start working
  with the SPC rather than trying to undermine the
  SPC
• SPC has some start-up errors but those are
  expected the SPC just started too late to get
  the errors out of the way before the volume of
  applications increased
• Too much too fast eApp, PeopleSoft ImageNow
• PeopleSoft and ImageNow are great but the SPC
  does not benefit my campus as much because of
  the small size of the campus
• We are used to handling documents in the same
  day as they arrive

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• Appendix B Excerpts from the May 31 report

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Appendix B Excerpts from the May 31 report
Assessment

• Processing Center
• Need a realistic plan and timeline to document
  functionality and capacity growth over time
  (illustrate how the Processing Center will ramp
  up over time)
• The plan to provide hardware (for center and
  campus), center staffing and training (for center
  and campus staff) is in place but the schedule is
  tight
• Center currently has sufficient hardware and
  staff in place to handle the low volume of work
  expected on July 31, 2006
• Center should be able to ramp up capacity to
  handle the increased volume of applications this
  fall

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Appendix B Excerpts from the May 31 report
Recommendations

• Processing Center
• Create a realistic plan showing functionality and
  capacity versus a timeline, risks and risk
  mitigation strategies work with the Directors
  of Admission to finalize the plan and clear up
  misconceptions show how the Processing Center
  will ramp up functionality and capacity over time
  and will be able to match the demand as it grows
  this fall
• The projected application volume (based on
  historical data) for August and September is
  within the anticipated capacity of the Center for
  those two months. The recommendation is to
  proceed with the Processing Center go live for
  July 31, 2006

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Appendix B Excerpts from the May 31 report
Critical Milestones

• Shared Processing Center
• 6/16/06 ImageNow drawers document definitions
  completed
• 6/28/06 Security groups privileges completed
• 7/5/06 Staff hiring completed
• 7/10/06 Initial workflow queues completed
  staff move into SPC
• 7/14/06 Center hardware setup completed staff
  trained on PeopleSoft processes
• 7/21/06 Staff and campus reps trained on
  ImageNow
• 7/31/06 go live Processing Center in
  operation begins to scan summer fall 07
  applications and documents
• 9/1/06 Workflow queues fully developed center
  begins ramp-up for fall 07 application cycle

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Appendix B Excerpts from the May 31 report
Critical Milestone Timeline

• Shared Processing Center

7/21/06 Trained on ImageNow
7/10/06 Workflow queues completed
6/28/06 Security groups privileges completed
9/1/06 Workflow queues fully developed
6/16/06 ImageNow drawers document definitions
completed
7/5/06 Staff hiring completed
7/14/06 Center hardware setup completed
7/31/06 SPC go live
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Appendix B Excerpts from the May 31 report
Shared Processing Center Ramp-Up
By 12/1, over 1,500 apps will require processing.
By 11/1, about 500 apps will require processing.
By 10/1, about 200 apps will require processing.
Last date for all staff to be hired and trained.
By 9/1, only 100 apps will require processing.
Anticipated Center will be ready for full
production.