Figure 9-4

TRAX Software Release R03.1 - July 2001
Feature Summary

1. Contact Card Data Capture
   Re-develop the web student contact card functionality and provide the ability to automatically load the information directly to the SIS system in order to eliminate the manual re-keying of the contact card data. At the completion of this project, staff would still continue to determine what materials should be sent to the student and may need to manually perform name search functions to update a record.
   
   
2. Enhancements to SSINFO Surveys - now known as E-forms
   Functionality to permit an answer to be disabled if it is not currently appropriate for viewing by the student
   
   Option to make un-included participant ineligible when loading participants by providing the ability to make additions to the participant file without changing the eligibility of the students in the originally loaded file. It is no longer necessary to re-load the entire file of original participants.
   
   Support for grouping multiple questions for display and page breaks
   
   Enhanced version control allows a version to be locked for view only
   
   Warning when attempting to activate two versions of the same definition
   
   Support for all value critics in the fill-in-blank questions: select from numeric only, alpha only, alphanumeric, a set of specific formats, or email entry
   
   Formatted values in output layouts such as e-form results output
   
   Aggregate functions in output layout to produce the number of responses for each question without needing to run a query
   
   Survey preview - Preview ability for survey on 'SIS on the web'. There will be three modes none, private and public
   
   
3. Web Staff Interface in SSINFO
   Provide authorized faculty and staff with web access to a subset of the content that students see on SSINFO
   
   
4. Pre-Select Invoice Processing
   Implement invoice processing on the mainframe to print the athletic ticket request on the student bill
   
   
5. Off Campus Housing
   Move the Dean of Students Off Campus Housing Access Database System to the SIS integrated environment as a web application
   
   
6. Persistent Object Framework Changes
   Implement modifications to the functionality used to save data to the database to improve efficiency
   
   
7. Print mechanism
   Add functionality to print content from selected views
   
   
8. Filters
   Provide filtering for reference table views and surveys
   
   Provide mutually exclusive menus: ability to create a group of menu items such that when you select a menu item in the group, the previously selected item is de-selected automatically
   
   Finish replacing 'show previous' functionality in views with functionality to use filters
   
   
9. Address functionality
   Allow deletion of address segments through the SI transaction interface. This will allow a true 2-way synchronization between SIS and SI addresses.
   
   
10. Security upgrades
    Provide view security on all tabs
    Assign management of tax year to Bursar
    
    
11. Expanded User Preferences
    Provide a means to default the address displayed at the top of the address list box according to the selection designated within user preferences
    
    Provide student folder preferences
    
    
12. SIQ Schema Changes
    Provide necessary changes to the database to support new features in this release
    
    
13. Queries to support analysis of additional information (Tentative)
    Provide new or modified queries to support new features in this release

Figure 9-5

TRAX Software Release R01.11 - November 2001
Feature Summary

1. Internal Organization Refinement
   This includes changes to support multiple roles within Internal Organizations; e.g. sororities and fraternities are both housing units and student organizations. Schools have multiple departments, each having responsibility for particular programs and courses. These changes are needed to support mapping subject areas and courses to academic departments and to support venue and event management. All organizations currently on the FMIS responsibility header file will be recorded within SIS as internal organizations with the department role. Additionally, the schools will be created as separate internal organizations and they will have the school role. Academic Departments will be tied to the appropriate school via the parent organization relationship so that the association of departments to school can be maintained and utilized for reporting. Additional department and school data items from user organizations will be added.
   
   
2. Course Management
   The Course Management System maintains official information about all courses approved for offering within the Purdue University System. These include courses from other universities, which are a part of inter-institutional programs such as Technology Statewide, National Student Exchange, and Study Abroad.
   
   These features provide for managing essential course information such as credit hours, instructional methods, titles, course descriptions, special fees, prerequisites, co-requisites, etc. SIS will become the authoritative source for course information currently maintained on the administrative computing mainframe course master file and the ECN course depository. The system supports managing equivalent course information, repeatable course information, and absentia course information. Enhanced functionality will include: 
   • Changing all courses in a subject area at one campus location to a new or different subject area.
   • Making a subject area ineffective on a campus location.
   • Providing school contacts with update capabilities to limited course data.
     

In order to support current operations on the administrative computing mainframe that rely on the course master, a series of batch interfaces will update the mainframe course master file and related files on a regular basis.

3. Venue Management
   This functionality will replace the existing space and facility management systems currently used by SMAS. Most of the effort in this project is re-implementing existing functionality in the SIS environment and synchronizing with the legacy system. Enhancements to be included in this release: the ability to record venue-related changes that will occur in the future; users may define new venue feature types and record them; support for managing information about exterior spaces and off-campus teaching locations; ability to define room and building complexes; view venue schedule in grid format; move easily between schedule grid and event folder; highlight under-utilized times; view either registration limits or actual enrollments in schedule grid; construct more complex queries to refine venue search.
   
   
4. Event Management Phase I (postponed until January 2002)
   This is the first phase in implementing full-feature event scheduling and management services within SIS. The large majority of this project involves re-implementing all the existing functionality in the current SMAS event scheduling system, as well as providing view access to the master schedule of classes and integration and synchronization with the existing exam, large lecture room, and student scheduling systems. Events include classes, evening and final exams, other course activities, such as help sessions, staff and club meetings and other special events. The system will allow users to find available venues based on time and venue feature criteria, reserve venues for and record information about events, access all information related to an event in a convenient folder view, record venue search criteria used to reserve a room with an event for future reference, track reasons for event scheduling changes and notify numerous people of these changes, enforce venue use restrictions by student organization, department and type of event, manage scheduling of scarce resources, as well as other features. The existing dynamic web sites for the schedule of classes, exams, room availability and room schedules will be modified to access the new system. The web site provides users the ability to make room reservation requests, which will be processed by SMAS staff. Supplemental event information such as material requirements (e.g. textbooks), syllabus and course URL will be recorded and publicly accessible. Users have the flexibility to define these supplemental data items. In this phase, the event scheduling features do not impact the current "student recruitment event management" features used by Admissions.
   
   
5. Student Organization Management System
   The Dean of Students office will be use these features to manage basic information about student organizations such as the name, description, officers, faculty advisors, election dates, etc. A student organization may be associated with multiple mission categories (service, religious, athletic recreation, student housing, etc.). The system also includes features for tracking sanctions and organization status. Web pages for each active student organization are dynamically generated from the student organization data managed within SIS. Access to complete and accurate student organization information is needed in order to verify that organizations are eligible to use university facilities. Events may be linked to student organizations.
   
   
6. Loading Basic Faculty/Staff Information
   Basic information about faculty and staff (name, department affiliation, position code, FTE) will be loaded into SIS. Records for these individuals will be created in the PERSON table and they will have Employee roles. This information is needed to associate individuals with various data items managed within SIS (instructors to course offerings, individuals to meeting rooms, advisors to student organizations, schedule deputies, building deputies, etc). Person Search Results view will be enhanced to include "role" information so students can be easily distinguished from faculty/staff.
   
   
7. SSINFO Electronic Payment of Tuition and Fees (ACH)
   These features permit the student to specify that fee payments be automatically withdrawn from a specified bank account. Credit card payment of fees is not included with this implementation. Students will be able to authorize up to three additional individuals to view and pay their fees via SSINFO. In the initial implementation this service is limited to West Lafayette students and is only available for paying housing bills, deferred fee bills, and tuition and fee bills. Charges billed through CARS are not included in this implementation.
   
   
8. New System Launcher
   With all of the new features that have been added to SIS since its first release in April 1998, the time has come to redesign the system launcher. The new launcher will have a tree structure similar to Windows Explorerä on the left side of the window. Users may customize the launcher so access to the applications they use most frequently is convenient. Users will be able to expand and collapse the tree to access SIS application icons. Applications can be launched by double clicking on the application icon. To the right of the tree structure will be a "desk top" windowpane. Users can drag and drop icons from the tree menu on to the "desk top" and they can arrange the icons on the desktop to suit their preferences.
   
   
9. New Person Search Mechanism
   With the addition of several new instances of person data into the SIS database (Employees, Instructors, etc) there is need for a refined mechanism to search for person records. The current search mechanism is geared toward finding prospective students. The new mechanism allows for the specification of which person "role" to search for. Based on the role, additional search parameters can be provided. For example, when searching for an employee, the department and position of the employee can be specified. This new mechanism also distinguishes between students and prospective students.
   
   
10. Technical Infrastructure Enhancements
    A number of "under the covers" infrastructure enhancements will be made to SIS to support the November release.

• A basic system calendar is being developed to record key processing dates and points in time. This is intended to be the internal, information system calendar for SIS.
• A pessimistic locking scheme will be implemented that will enable us to prevent users from applying updates to "stale" records. This will be used in situations where it is believed that optimistic locking is not sufficient.
• To support general public access to course and course offering information, a new type of Web responder is needed which supports "session-less" connections. This Web responder will process well-defined URL's and will collaborate with other objects to dynamically generate web pages that are completely stateless.
• Application configurations will be expanded to support the SIS client. This will enable us to block client access to the database without shutting down the database instance, present messages to users as they log in, and dynamically control the new menu structure of the SIS launcher.

11. SIQ Upgrades
    Changes will be made to the SIQ data model, data transforms and existing queries to deal with changes to the internal organization structure. Also changes will be made to support straightforward  replication of new tables introduced to support course management, student organization management, system calendar, event scheduling and venue management and scheduling.
    
    
12. SIQ Refinement
    Extraction, Transformation and Loading tool implementation
    Developer and End User training in SQL and Data Modeling
    Quality assure new data model

Summary
This information is provided to SIS users in understanding the features planned for the next release of SIS. This is the largest and most complex release since the initial implementation of SIS in April 1998. The development team is making a concerted effort to complete all these features time for November 12, 2001 implementation. However, depending upon progress, management may at their discretion chose delay implementation or some portion features. Any changes release schedule scope will be communicated user community as soon such decisions are made.

Figure 9-6

1. Course Catalog on the Web - Part of Course Management (Candidate Feature list - priority #1). Provides for the public display of course catalog information. While implemented, this feature won't be turned on until March or May to give Registrar time to review and approve the data.
   
2. Calendar Entry refinements - Supports Course Management as well as event and recruitment management. (Candidate Feature list - priority #1).
3. Calendar Entry roll forward - Supports Course Management as well as event and recruitment management. (Candidate Feature list - priority #1).
4. Department abbreviations - Supports Event Management. (Candidate Feature list - priority #1).
   
5. Folder tab descriptions - Complete implementation of existing feature (Tab Preferences). Utilizes the descriptions provided by the business analysts.
   
6. Rename the SIS menu item "Event Management" to "Recruitment Events" in preparation for May Event Management release - Supports Event Management implementation. (Candidate Feature list - priority #1).
   
7. Create administrative interfaces for student assignee requests and grants - Complete implementation of e-Payment.
   
8. Somehow indicate contacts with multiple details in the contact table view. Candidate Feature list - priority #20.
   
9. Security enhancements - Lock account for 15 minutes after 3 failed login attempts.
10. Campus address support - Supports Event Management (Candidate Feature list - priority #1).
11. Long name added to instructional type - Supports Event Management (Candidate Feature list - priority #1).
    
12. Add a link within SSINFO. Candidate Feature list - priority #17.
    Link for the "Additional Financial Aid Information" document will be handled. It is not necessary to wait for a release to be issued.
13. Wheel mouse support - Infrastructure feature (developers use it).
14. Cascading window support - Infrastructure feature (developers use it).
    
15. Add standard reporting and progress reporting to the File Converter framework. - infrastructure requirement. Will allow conversion team to better gauge conversion progress.
16. Fix description of the "once" occurrence in job start criteria - bug fix
17. Add code to monitor time-out problems. Currently a session times-out after 10 minutes of no activity. If the server traffic is heavy, that time-out is reduced. We need statistics of problems before we can recommend changes.

Figure 9-7

TRAX Software Release R02.03 - March 2002
Feature Summary

1. Provide students via SSINFO the ability to submit their missing Financial Aid information.
   
2. Provide students via SSINFO the ability to indicate, "I am canceling my West Lafayette course registration."
3. Standardize naming/numbering convention for academic year/term in the Student Information System (includes SSINFO).
4. Tighten the edits on the transcript request address in SSINFO to reduce the number of invalid postal addresses.
5. Security enhancement - users cannot reuse the last 8 passwords.
6. Provide a mechanism to load course information from Purdue Marketing and Communication.
7. Provide the ability to store course credit information per instructional type instead of percent and convert the data.
8. Implement initial ability to support auditing. Specifically this release tracks the last modified by, last modified time, and last action.

Figure 9-8

TRAX Software Release R02.05 - May 2002
Feature Summary

1. Transform objects for SIQ
   
2. Event Management.
   
3. University Schedule of Classes on the Web.
   Part of Event Management. Supports the public display of the University's course schedule. The mainframe will still be the authoritative source.
4. Add to SSINFO, via the password maintenance screen, the ability to display the career account ID for those who have career accounts. In addition, enhance the SSINFO interface with the system that manages career accounts (equest to synchronize passwords from their career account is accepted and the appropriate action taken on the SSINFO side.