Glitches in ISIS still causing grief
Matthew Rowe, Staff Writer
Issue date: 4/11/05 Section: News
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Glitches in the Integrated Student Information System are being worked out, and the system is constantly being updated to keep up with new software, said Randy Apon, the UA director of ISIS.
Apon said ISIS must keep up with new software updates in its underlying program Peoplesoft Enterprise Campus Solutions to work effectively.
Universities and colleges are constantly working to create a fiscal operations report, or FISAP report, Apon said.
The FISAP is an electronic form that schools must fill out each year in order to obtain federal funding for programs including scholarships. Guidelines are changed almost every legislative session, so different programming is needed to comply with current standards, Apon said.
"To produce this report every year, each university would have to either hire a group of programmers for just a few months," Apon said, "or hire them all year and have them sitting around waiting for eight months out of the year."
At the UA the task of programming falls on vendors, such as Peoplesoft, to make updates every year so the current software can produce these reports, he said.
"The main reason we switched from SAFARI was that the company who made it was going to stop supporting it and create a new system," Apon said.
SAFARI's company would continue maintenance for two more years, he said. In that time, the UA would have to start a bidding process, whittle down six bids to one, and install and implement the new system. The bidding process alone would take about eight months, he said.
"It was a crunch," Apon said. "[It is a] very expensive set of software, so costly it made the UA look very closely...fairly crunch time, much quicker than preferred, but we have to have the FISAP report."
The next major upgrade for ISIS will happen within the next two years, which will not only help the UA keep up with its FISAP reports but will also give ISIS a new look. The changes will allow students and faculty to more easily navigate the system, which has drawn criticism at the UA, Apon said.
Apon said ISIS must keep up with new software updates in its underlying program Peoplesoft Enterprise Campus Solutions to work effectively.
Universities and colleges are constantly working to create a fiscal operations report, or FISAP report, Apon said.
The FISAP is an electronic form that schools must fill out each year in order to obtain federal funding for programs including scholarships. Guidelines are changed almost every legislative session, so different programming is needed to comply with current standards, Apon said.
"To produce this report every year, each university would have to either hire a group of programmers for just a few months," Apon said, "or hire them all year and have them sitting around waiting for eight months out of the year."
At the UA the task of programming falls on vendors, such as Peoplesoft, to make updates every year so the current software can produce these reports, he said.
"The main reason we switched from SAFARI was that the company who made it was going to stop supporting it and create a new system," Apon said.
SAFARI's company would continue maintenance for two more years, he said. In that time, the UA would have to start a bidding process, whittle down six bids to one, and install and implement the new system. The bidding process alone would take about eight months, he said.
"It was a crunch," Apon said. "[It is a] very expensive set of software, so costly it made the UA look very closely...fairly crunch time, much quicker than preferred, but we have to have the FISAP report."
The next major upgrade for ISIS will happen within the next two years, which will not only help the UA keep up with its FISAP reports but will also give ISIS a new look. The changes will allow students and faculty to more easily navigate the system, which has drawn criticism at the UA, Apon said.
