Certainly, one of the most buzzed about topics at the Alliance Conference this past Spring was the CS/HRMS split that will be required when upgrading to HRMS 9.1. As the release of HCM 9.1 draws near, the Campus Community PAG has heard a lot of questions regarding how biographic and demographic data will be kept in sync across the divided instances. While we don't know much at this point, here's what we do know.
- There will be help. Campus Solutions plans to provide support for core bio-demo data integration between Campus Solutions 9.0 and HRMS 9.0 and 9.1.
- Stay tuned. Analysis is underway to identify the option or options that will provide the highest value, lowest risk solutions for institutions who decide to move to independent instances of HRMS and CS. Oracle plans to make an announcement about the direction they're taking later this Fall.
- The data hub. One of the technology solutions under consideration is the use of a data hub solution to support the bi-directional integration of core person data between CS 9.0 and HRMS 9.0, 9.1, etc. For those of you who missed it, the following presentation (especially the audio file) from the last Alliance Conference is a good introduction to Oracle's plans for their hub technology. http://www.heug.org/p/do/sd/topic=918&sid=7510
As it happens, Oracle will soon (circa 2009) be releasing their "Higher Education Constituent Hub" (HECH). This data hub solution was designed with higher ed customers in mind. It is a separate product with a separate license. However if the Campus Solutions team decides to use the HECH to support the integration between CS 9.0 and HRMS 9.0/9., they plan to make that technology available, in a Restricted Use License, to their customers at no additional license fee. The "Restricted Use License" means that customers would ONLY be able to use the HECH to connect two systems: PSFT HRMS and PSFT CS. If customers choose to connect other systems, they would need to obtain a full use license of the HECH.