I have been asked what all of the terms mean on the Draft High Level Timeline, so here is the Draft High Level Timeline and what each item means.  Apologies, as this is a long post, but I wanted to cover everything.  I will also present this information at the February College meeting and add it to the ctcLink Resources Intranet.

Note, the timeline is a DRAFT.  The dates may change when we get the final timeline:

DG = Deployment Group:  The State Board has determined 6 groups of colleges that will be deployed together.  They are called Deployment Groups.  EvCC is part of Deployment Group 5 with seven other colleges. 

Legacy Snapshots = State Board will pull data on this date and populate the test environments.  These are called Snapshots as the data is just a picture of the current system that day.  This snapshot of data is then used to do testing in the test environments. 

GDA = Global Design Adoption Canvas Course:   During the original set up of ctcLink and over the summer of 2019 Global Design Review sessions were held to determine global configuration of ctcLink.  The Global Design Adoption (GDA) course will provide employees with:  

• Configurations, centrally maintained and controlled by SBCTC, which all colleges will use and may not change without governance approval.
• Configurations with a mix of locally- and centrally-controlled values for which a range of values are considered “system-wide” values. The global “system-wide” values are centrally maintained, but each college has access. Colleges have to agree to not change values within the “system-wide” range.

BPFG = Business Process Fit/Gap Sessions:  In order for State Board to configure ctcLink for EvCC and each college, the colleges must provide State Board with configuration information.  At these sessions EvCC SMEs and employees will receive a demonstration of the ctcLink environment and then be asked to complete homework. 

The goal of the BPFGs is to gather local ctcLink configuration information for each college/agency. To do that, college SMEs need to understand how the ctcLink PeopleSoft system supports college business processes.

The BPFG sessions will:

• Help SMEs understand local business processes and the ctcLink configurations associated with them
• Highlight differences between legacy and ctcLink
• Help define the scope of User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
• Inform the upcoming data conversion activities

Conversion Cycles:  During the implementation phase State Board Project Teams will be converting Legacy Data into ctcLink.   These specified times are identified as Conversion Cycles.  There are five conversion cycles and cycles include areas within each pillar. 

During each cycle, State Board will provide the following:

• A User Acceptance Scope Definition document will be provided for formal sign-off.
• Local configurations will be entered as a result of completed homework assignments provided by colleges/agency during BPFG.
• Refinements to the Local Configuration Guides will be made and sent through the deliverable approval process when configuration and testing is complete. 
• Refinements of Business Process Diagrams (using LucidCharts) will be made and published.
• Session recordings and related materials will be published to the Canvas site for colleges to review to aid them in their local Change Action Planning activities.
• The project team will then turn its focus to entering and testing local configurations, performing data conversions, guiding colleges in associated data validation and building upgraded Training\User Acceptance Test (UAT) materials.

During each cycle, EvCC will be asked to review data that was converted from the legacy environment to PeopleSoft.  EvCC will need to conduct:

LDC = Legacy Data Cleanup:  State Board is going to take a snapshot of our Legacy Data, so we need to make sure it is clean so that the conversion will go as planned.  Departments have already been working on data clean up but this is the time during the conversion cycle to make sure all data being converted for testing is clean.

DV = Data Validation:  State Board will use the BPFG homework and the User Acceptance Scope Definition document to convert our Legacy Data into ctcLink.  Then the appropriate SME(s) at EvCC will need to validate the data.  In order to do that State Board Project Team will provide the SME(s) with 1) a written guide 2) a training session/open session to ask questions regarding the validation/testing 3) related material including session recording and 4) necessary login information into Legacy, PeopleSoft, and Oracle Test Manager.

Functional Test:   This is conducted by State Board.  Functional testing is a software testing process used within software development in which software is tested to ensure that it conforms with all requirements. The configurations must be tested using the pages/components that leverage those configuration –this is what constitutes ‘Functional Testing’ and the scope of ‘Functional Test’ is those pages and components associated with the local configurations being input by the team.  

SIT = System Integration Testing:  State Board conducts tests to make sure the systems are integrated appropriately.

Parallel = Parallel and Dual Processing Testing:  During this phase, employees have the opportunity to test the interfaces created to continue business processes using both the Legacy and PeopleSoft systems similar to post-go-live.  The areas that currently use Dual Processes after conversion are Financial Aid, Payroll, and Student Financials. 

UAT = User Acceptance Testing:  Testers execute end-to-end business processes that span across different employee’s jobs and across departments using Quick Reference Guides instead of test scripts.  College staff will work with each other, across departments and divisions, to complete a test of a business process. Testers at the beginning of a process will create the transactional data that others will use in their step of the business process. 

A SBCTC Test Coordinator will be assigned to each pillar to support testing.  Functional Analysts will be available to troubleshoot issues and address functional questions.

The goals of UAT are:

• Verify business and technical requirements are met by the ctcLink system.
• Validate security re-design.
• Identify and resolve system issues that affect business functionality prior to go-live.
• Create user confidence in the system.
• Develop system experts and advocates.
• Colleges are expected to have a test lead to facilitate testing activities

S1, S2, S3, S4 = Sprints = There are four set times that State Board conducts UAT testing with colleges.  These set times are called “Sprints”.

End User Training:    State Board has produced Canvas training courses for employees to complete to learn ctcLink software.  This training does not cover the change in business processes, only an overview of how ctcLink works.  In order to be successful at go-live, EvCC needs to conduct change analysis and complete change plans including training of employees in both new business processes and ctcLink software functionality. 

Go/No-Go Decision:  Colleges in the DG5 group will conduct a readiness assessment that will be provided to State Board stating we are “ready” or “not ready” (go/no-go), to deploy ctcLink.  The presidents of the DG5 colleges will each sign agreeing to go or no-go.  On this date, State Board will make a final decision.

Go-Live!  This is the day EvCC will have the first official work day in ctcLink and Legacy (except dual processing), will no longer be accessible for work (view only).  Over the weekend, State Board will convert EvCC data to the ctcLink production environment and ctcLink will then become the official record of the college.