Closure Report

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Project Summary

Background

The Scientia Enterprise applications are the University's chosen application suite for providing a shared academic Timetabling service. The Scientia applications also provide an ad-hoc Room booking service for Staff and Students via Web Room Booking.

The Scientia applications work on a separate database for each academic year. Each year, there are therefore tasks to create the new database and instances of each application for the next academic year. The roll-forward tasks take place in stages at appropriate times in the calendar and the applications are then re-pointed at the switch-over. For the 2021/22 academic year, this switch-over for LIVE feeds was carried out in the 3rd week in July 2021.

The start of the new Timetabling year in 2022/23 was Mon 25-July 2022 

This is compliance work that is too large to be delivered within the current support budget and is therefore run as a project each year.

 

Scope

The scope of this project was restricted to the tasks required to roll forward the timetabling and room booking applications for use for the 2022-23 Academic Year. The roll forward tasks are as documented on the Wiki and include any decommissioning tasks.

This year, there wer additional tasks for the following

  •  a required upgrade to CalSync which was delayed from the previous roll-forward project
  • complete the same CalSync upgrade for exam scheduling
  • Moving the XML Data Feed for Bookable Rooms to remove reliance on the ColdFusion platform

The following  are not in the scope of this project:

  • Decommissioning of 20/21 database as this is required for historic reporting
  • Remedial or enhancement work to resolve existing issues unrelated to the roll-forward project
  • Investigation or resolution of existing  LIVE production infrastructure issues 

Objectives

The key objective for the project is to deliver the roll forward to allow activities (lectures, tutorials, labs, other misc classes) and rooms to be scheduled and allocation carried out for the new academic year.

Deliverables

The following deliverables have been identified for completion of the roll forward

The following deliverables have been identified for completion of the roll forward

Ref Deliverables MoSCoW  
D2

CalSync Upgrade - Class Timetabling

  • Upgrade CalSync to resolve issue with accounts getting 'stuck' in O365
Must Have Completed in June 2022
D3

CalSync Upgrade - Exam Scheduling

  • Upgrade CalSync on the Exam Timetabling side
Must Have Completed in September 2022
D4

XML Feed to Bookable Rooms

  • Move existing XML feed off of the ColdFusion Platform
Must Have Not delivered - to be carried over to next project
D5

Core timetabling applications  - Roll-forward

  • Syllabus Plus Database (SDB) including Authorisation Manager database
  • Reporting Database (RDB) connected to 22-23 SDB
  • Enterprise Portal and Applications (inc. Script for populating UTF5 and Roles enabled for 22-23)
Must Have Delivered in December 2021 & January 2022
D6

Deliver web applications  - Roll-forward

  • Staff Web Room Booking (WRB)
  • Student WRB (inc. Script for releasing the next available week for student bookings)
  • WRB Notifier
  • Web Timetables (inc. connector to RDB for reference data)
  • Onelan
  • RDB preparation for producing CTB, Bookable Rooms and Learn Feeds
  • Data Adaptor for Resource Booker ( as used by the Medical School)
Must Have Delivered in January & February 2022
D7

Decommissioning tasks - 19/20;SDB / RDB & Web apps / 20-21;RDB & Web Apps

  • Decommission 19/20 SDB, RDB and 19/20 Web Apps
  • Decommission 20/21 RDB and 20/21 Web Apps
Must Have Decommissioned in January & February 2022
D8

Deliver incoming interfaces 

  • Incoming interfaces and Syllabus Plus Data Adaptor (SPDA) (inc. Rollforward package for Academic rollover and initial loads)
  • SPDA 
Must Have Delivered in April 2022 (Phase 1) and July 2022 (Phase 2)
D9

Deliver Course Timetable Browser 

  • Course timetable browser repointed to 22-23
Must Have Delivered in July 2022
D10

Bookable Rooms Website

  • Move XML feed to Bookable Rooms Website from ColdFusion to another platform
  • Feed to the Bookable Rooms Website repointed to 22-23
Must Have Delivered in July 2022
D11

Learn Feed

  • Outgoing Learn feed re-directed to 22-23 database
Must Have Delivered in August 2022 (at request of business)
D12

Lecture Capture Feed

  • Feed to the Lecture Capture System repointed to 22-23
Must Have Delivered in August 2022 (at request of business)
D13

Reporting

  • Repoint BI universe to 22-23 RDB
Must Have Delivered in August 2022 following resolution of issue preventing roll forward - see outstanding issues
D14

CalSync

  • Office 365 calendars integration to be repointed to 22-23
Must Have Delivered in July 2022
D15 

Switchover academic year in July and service wrap

  • Repointable URL changed to re-direct Web Applications to 22-23
  • 22-23 OneLan, PADS, Student WRB
Must Have Delivered in July 2022
D15

Exam Scheduler Clear Down

  • Run Clear Down script in Exam Scheduler
Must Have Delivered in October 2022

Analysis of Resource Usage:

Staff Usage Estimate: 162 days

21/22 - 127 days

22/23 - 35 days

Staff Usage Actual: 138 days

21/22 - 106.6 days

22/23 - 31.4 days

 

Explanation for Variance

  • The CalSync Upgrade had to be completed in specific business windows for the Teaching Timetable and Exam Scheduling sides
  • The BI Reports roll forward was delayed due to an issue preventing the roll forward from taking place. This required additional involvement from the project team members from Dev Tech, Tech Man and Production Management, as well as the Service Management, to resolve.
  • Completion of the XML replacement for bookable rooms was delayed due to competing priorities. The UAT will be monitored as part of the next roll forward project

Outcome

  • New UOE2122 SDB was available in January 2022
  • Web Applications for 22/23 were available in early February 2022
  • Incoming Interfaces were updated in July 2022
  • All Roll-Forward activities were completed in July and August 2022
  • CalSync upgraded in Exam Scheduling and Teaching Timetable ahead of Microsoft retiring support for Basic Authentication

Key Learning Points

Successes:

  • Clear instructions on wiki ensured each step was clear to the responsible team member to execute
  • Processes automated in previous years continue to prove a worthy investment
  • Project Team worked well together utilising hybrid team meetings
  • Key milestones delivered on schedule 

Issues / Changes during the project delivery:

  • The development work for the move of Bookable Rooms from ColdFusion to XML has completed with the final merge request to be checked by the Software Development Team Leader. UAT will need to be completed as part of the next roll forward project
  • The parent company of the main supplier went into Administration in August 2021. This had no immediate impact on the running of the UK operations, however the project team undertook a review of all services in the event of the collapse of the supplier. The parent company has been bought over and services are expected to continue.
    • Resource Booker is the only cloud hosted piece of the timetabling suite. A series of steps were identified that would allow room bookings to continue within the Web Room Bookings platform.
    • All current installation files and instructions of the other timetabling products were gathered by Development Technology and stored securely
    • All wiki pages to be reviewed to ensure they are suitable for anyone to pick up and follow steps, rather than rely on specific knowledge
  • The Procurement for the replacement timetabling system started and this required some of the project team to be involved in the procurement process. There was no impact on the delivery of TTU023 due to this.
  • Changes in other projects switched TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 off. This prevented BI Tools from being able to connect to the timetabling universes meaning the roll forward to 22/23 couldn't be carried out. The Service Owner involved in the change was on leave which meant the Project Team had to investigate and resolve
    • The Project Team worked with the Business Leads in the Timetabling team to ensure they had manual reports run whenever required ahead of the start of term
    • Service Management raised support tickets with the supplier
    • Investigations from team members in Development Technology, Technology Management and Production Management provided a fix to the issue by identifying where previous versions of TLS needed to be re-enabled to allow the roll forward task to be completed. This allow essential start of term tasks to be completed with no impact on Timetabling operations.

Outstanding Issues

  • BI Reports Rollforward TLS Issue - Older versions of TLS were enabled to allow for the roll forward tasks to be completed. A longer term resolution will need to be investigated for this to allow the older versions of TLS to be switched off
  • Bookable Rooms XML Rewrite - UAT to be completed 

Project Info

Project
Timetabling Annual Roll-forward to 2022/23
Code
TTU023
Programme
Timetabling (TTU)
Management Office
ISG PMO
Project Manager
Alan Donald
Project Sponsor
Scott Rosie
Current Stage
Close
Status
Closed
Project Classification
Run
Start Date
04-Oct-2021
Planning Date
22-Oct-2021
Delivery Date
29-Jul-2022
Close Date
08-Nov-2022
Programme Priority
1
Overall Priority
Highest
Category
Compliance

Documentation

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