Volume 3. No 2 Information Technology News of the University of California, Davis Winter 1995

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Partnering with Others

When Environmental Health and Safety asked Information Technology for guidance on the reengineering process, they were part of a trend, said I.T. Program Analyst Supervisor Debbie Lauriano. "We find ourselves being asked to participate in projects like this more and more, offering high-level planning for other departments." (See EH&S Puts Network to Work.)

"Environmental Health and Safety wanted to make sure they weren't developing their plan in a vacuum so they asked if I.T. would offer consulting on the resources and staffing they would need," said Lauriano. "They contacted Joan Gargano at DCAS (Distributed Computing Analysis and Support), because they anticipated needing a client-server distributed system. They also identified a need for a toxic chemical tracking program.

"I put together a very high level project plan and a time line for implementing a tracking system. Joan and I also volunteered to come in periodically as overseers after the project was initiated and after staffing was in place."

Lauriano has had a crucial role in several other partnership projects that are revolutionizing the way the campus processes information and conducts business.

She was the project manager for the just-completed Banner Student Information System (SIS) project, which was carried out over a three-year period by I.T. and Student Affairs. That project brought in touch-tone student registration, replaced the old batch system for handling financial aid, admissions, and registration, and put a new accounts receivable system in place. Under the batch system, student information was updated nightly. Now, with the new system, information is updated immediately by the user, who is able to see the results at once.

Lauriano is also the technical project manager for a project that will revamp the financial information systems used by all the departments on campus. For that project, I.T. has teamed up with Accounting Financial Services under Assistant Vice Chancellor Anthony Flores. The new system will enable departments to query account balances daily in real time. The target date for implementation of that project is July 1, 1997.