Academic Advising

Advisory Group Newsletter

June 2017

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

HEUG Board seeking input:

HEUG Board is actively seeking your input around Oracle’s announcement about an accelerated development for the Student Cloud, options for migrating directly from Campus Solutions 9.0 into the Student Cloud, and the continued development of Campus Solutions 9.2. Please read HEUG President Jane Broad’s blog here, and consider adding your comments to the new Student Applications Development Strategy Feedback  forum.

WHAT’S NEW from the AA Community

Advising Group membership update

Kelly Wilker-Draves, AA Advising Group Vice-Chair, has been appointed to the HEUG Board and will serve as Chair of the new Canadian Alliance Conference. John Campbell, former Secretary, will be stepping in as Vice-Chair, and alternate member David Donnelly from University of Newcastle, Australia will now join us as a full member in the role of Secretary. We now have Advisory Group members from five states of the USA, Europe, Canada and Australia.

Advising Issues Survey

In an effort to jump-start what has felt like a lack of action on issues languishing in the Product Enhancement Tracker, the AA Advisory Group is developing a survey to gather fresh input on where you see the need for product development, whether for the current product or a future (cloud) product. By grouping development needs by themes of Accuracy, Ease of Use, Consistency, Transparency, and Flexibility, we hope to encourage Oracle to target resources to issues meeting multiple strategic needs for the broadest set of users.

Stay tuned for the release of the survey.

WHAT’S NEW from Oracle

Campus Solutions 9.2 page alignment issues

Changes made in CS9.2 have resulted in issues with page alignment in the online display within several components. Oracle encourages users to continue to file Service Requests (SRs) regarding these issues so that comprehensive fixes can be applied.

Advising Notes bug fixes

David Larsen, Oracle Principal Product Manager, has been working hard on fixes and development for Advising Notes functionality. Stay tuned to the AA Forum (aka AA listserv) for a comprehensive list of fixes, and coming soon, new improvements in access control for CS 9.2.

LEARN MORE

Check out what’s on offer from the HEUG Education Series regular offerings

Don’t forget that HEUG Institutional and System members can access the Education Series Archive and download files for free, for viewing at a time convenient for you.

JARGON DECODER – What is an ‘SR’?

What is an SR?

“Hmm,” you may have said to yourself, “What is this ‘SR’ thing they speak of? Where or with whom and how exactly do they file them? Come to that, what is filing?” Today, the mystery will be revealed.

‘SR’ is short for ‘Service Request’, and it is a notification you, or some designated person at your institution, sends to Oracle to report either strange behavior in your software or your desire for a new feature.

Access My Oracle Support (MOS)

Before you can ‘file an SR’, which simply means ‘tell Oracle something is not working the way I want’, you need to get a few things in order. First, you need to make sure you have access to the My Oracle Support website. You begin the process by visiting support.oracle.com and creating a user profile using your employee email address.

Your institution will have a designated Oracle Customer User Administrator who is responsible for approving access and setting your level of access. Find that person and discuss whether you will have Create and Update permissions for Service Requests. Even if you do not, you may be able to view current SRs for your institution. In any case, My Oracle Support is a great place to search to find any existing information on the issue you are dealing with.

Organize your supporting information

Whether you file the SR, or someone else at your institution does, you will want to prepare the information needed to file.

·         A 100 character summary of the issue (example: “Advising Report turns purple when student exception is entered”)

·         A longer description of the problem describing the loss of function, the events that preceded the problem, and what the desired/expected outcome is. You’ll also want to include information about any workaround you have, and what the impact of the problem is on your institution. Oracle wants to know which users, and how many, are affected, and how significant the impact is.

·         Backup documentation. If possible, provide documentation of how to recreate the problem, with relevant navigation and screenshots included. A word processed document is fine. You’ll be able to attach your documentation to the SR.

·         Information about your server, PeopleTools version, and such things. If you’re really lucky, your institution has set up an ‘SR Profile’ that already has all that information, and you can simply click the link to autofill this section based on the SR Profile. If you are only somewhat lucky, you can click the link to autofill this section based on an existing SR, but only if there is a fairly recent one which is likely to have up-to-date information. Otherwise, you will need to find the necessary information to complete this section.

·         ‘Problem Type.’ This section indicates the product and module (such as PeopleSoft Enterprise CS Academic Advisement), which then enables the related sub-components. This is where, for example, you would identify that the problem lies in the AA Report Self Service component.

·         Oracle will display some potential solutions to your issue. If they do not apply, continue the process on the next page where you can attach your supporting documentation and add additional details. If it appears that the problem has already been documented, but there is no relevant solution, please do continue to submit your SR, even though it is a known issue. This helps Oracle understand that it is an issue that impacts multiple users and is not peculiar to one institution.

What happens after I file the SR?

Oracle will investigate the problem and attempt to recreate it. They may contact you for details if needed, or suggest solutions. Ultimately, they will determine the significance and priority of the work to be done.

What else?

Once you’ve filed your SR, you already have all the information you need to add your issue to the AA Product Enhancement Tracker (PET). Select the ‘+’ sign on the left to add your issue. This provides a place to share the details of your issue with other users. It will be reviewed by the PET Coordinator, who may also contact you for clarification. Once the issue is approved and added to the Tracker, you can post an informational item to the AA Forum to let others know of its existence, and invite them to add their vote. Votes on the PET indicate to Oracle that the SR is relevant to more than just one institution. (For detailed information about the PET, please read the January 2017 AA Newsletter.)