Vice President for Information Technology Status and Activity Report for December 2024 Prepared by Timothy M. Chester, Vice President for Information Technology (VPIT) 1. Key Items for Faculty and Staff Meetings •
2024 State of Technology Highlights Progress Towards IT Strategic Goals, Continuing Improvements to Services: Ongoing progress is being made on the University of Georgia’s IT strategic goals with initiatives in place to implement improvements in next-generation teaching and learning, student digital life experiences, and research computing and data management, as well as the new unified enterprise resource planning system that will be implemented at the university system level by 2028, Dr. Timothy M. Chester said during his annual State of Technology address. Chester, Vice President for Information Technology at UGA, gave his address to approximately 400 people over Teams on November 20, speaking about progress toward the IT strategic goals, the process of moving forward with the new University System of Georgia’s unified ERP system, and the future of AI. Chester also shared results of the 2024 TechQual survey, which measures satisfaction with central IT services on campus. For more information on this year’s address, visit https://eits.uga.edu/stories/2024_stateofit_recap/.
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Request for Proposal Process Under way for Enterprise Survey Tool: A search is underway to potentially identify a new enterprise survey research tool for the University of Georgia, which could result in a decommission of Qualtrics by August 1, 2025. UGA Procurement is continuing efforts to lead the negotiation phase, which will enable final supplier selection and awarding. As part of this evaluation, all campus units that rely on Qualtrics should review their current and future Qualtrics use. Regardless of the tool chosen through the RFP process, any forms built in Qualtrics that are currently being used for purposes outside of survey research projects will need to transition to other platforms before August 1, 2025. To learn more about the enterprise survey tool project, including alternative tools, visit https://eits.uga.edu/about/initiatives/survey_tool/. For more information, contact Stacy Boyles at stacy.boyles@uga.edu.
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Update for USG Unified ERP: The Unified Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Project will replace OneSource Financials, OneUSG Connect, and eventually Athena (Banner) systems. The University System of Georgia (USG) has selected Workday, Inc. as the next Financials and Human Capital Management (HCM) system. The go-live target dates for Finance and HCM are scheduled for 2028. The next steps are to select an implementation partner, a process that will be led by USG staff. For more information about this project, visit https://www.usg.edu/unified-erp.
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Reporting Transition to Power BI: Over the next year, the Office of Institutional Research will transition to Power BI as the primary enterprise reporting tool for the university. For consumers of OIR reports, the transition will result in a refreshed look and feel to reports with familiar, consistently sourced data. The Office of Institutional Research will communicate with Tableau Server stakeholders in the coming months with information to help them plan any needed transition to Power BI. All UGA faculty and staff have free access to Power BI through their Microsoft Office 365 licenses. To learn more about Power BI and its features, visit https://uga.teamdynamix.com/TDClient/3190/eitsclientportal/KB/ArticleDet?ID=15437 4. For more information, contact Andrew Westbrook at awestbrook@uga.edu.
VPIT Status and Activity Report for December 2024
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