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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​2017-18 Technology Solutions Accomplishments Report

A Message from Vice President/Chief Information Officer Paul Czarapata

Paul CzarapataOne would be hard-pressed to find an initiative of any size without having technology as a major component. In higher education, technology is driving almost all major initiatives such as competency based education, analytics everywhere, and the push to reinvent credentials all the while as business and industry requires our system to provide individuals with the skills necessary for the future of work. As the world changes, higher education must change with it or be left in the dust of progress. While it is imperative we keep core infrastructure and traditional systems at the state of the art, the System Office Technology Solutions department focuses much time identifying, embracing, and implementing new technologies that directly support the vision of KCTCS as the nation’s premiere community and technical college system. KCTCS will have many opportunities to adopt, replace, and refresh academic and administrative technologies as they become available over the coming years, particularly those that are student facing.

The achievements noted in this report serve as a reminder of the passion for excellence, commitment to service, and spirit of innovation within this department and technology staff across the system. I am blessed to have a great group of people to work with who have leading edge ideas and the intestinal fortitude to see them through. I am proud to present our 2017-2018 accomplishments report.

Sincerely,

Signature  

Paul B. Czarapata
Vice President/Chief Information Officer
Kentucky Community & Technical College System

Who We Are

KCTCS System Office Technology Solutions is a modern service provider that strives to be the trusted advisor for and champion of technology-based solutions for our students, faculty, and staff of 16 Colleges at more than 70 locations. We are comprised of a dedicated team of employees and an extended network of contracted third-party partners that give us the flexibility and agility to expertly plan and execute strategic technology. Technology based solutions extend well beyond the traditional boundaries of classic Information Technology (IT) departments and require deeper understanding of and integration with core the business processes and operations. Our strategic partnerships with best-of-breed technology providers allow us to provide round-the-clock technology solutions and services to our students, faculty, and staff, while simultaneously extending our reach to provide cutting edge technology leadership in the fast paced digital age.

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+ Organizational Structure

Leadership and Communications

  • System Initiative Supp​ort
  • College Communications and Visits
  • Strategic Technology Projects

Student Systems

  • Student Information System
  • Learning Management System
  • Student Support Systems

Human Resources/Payroll System

  • Employee Self-Service System
  • Human Resources/Payroll Information System

Financials System

  • Financials, Contracts, and Budgeting Systems

End User Support

  • Training
  • Application Administration/Security
  • Technology Solutions Help Desk

Infrastructure

  • Network Design
  • Performance Management
  • Firewall Management

Employee Intranet

  • Internal Web Management
  • Web Development, Support
  • Content Management

Data Warehousing

  • Business Intelligence
  • Decision Support System
  • Reporting​

Email, Messaging, and Skype

  • Electronic Mail
  • Phone
  • Instant Messaging
  • Video Conferencing
  • Emergency Notification

Fire Rescue

  • Fire Training Records Sytem
  • Fire Training Reporting Services

Library Services

  • Library Resource Discovery and Access
  • Library Enterprise System
  • Library Administration and Management Tools

Security Management

  • Security Education/Prevention
  • Incident Response Coordination
  • Sensitive Data Management
  • Proactive Technology Assessment
  • Identity Management

System Office Technology Support

  • Hardware
  • Software
  • Mobile Device Support

+ Vision, Mission, Values

Vision

To be the trusted advisor for and the champion of solutions that make the best use of available and emerging technologies for the world-class system of community colleges educating Kentucky's globally competitive workforce.​

Mission Statement

Technology Solutions provides secure, reliable, and integrated technology solutions in alignment with academic and administrative goals, while delivering excellence in customer service.

In support of this mission, we will:

  • Partner with the KCTCS community to understand the technology needs of faculty, staff, and students.
  • Provide leadership, planning, and training for the effective and strategic use of emerging technologies.
  • Demonstrate technical and operational excellence through a commitment to professionalism and continuous improvement.

Values

  • Trust, respect and open communication within the department and KCTCS community.
  • A focus on the needs of the technology user while providing excellent customer service and support.
  • Innovative, flexible, best-in-class technologies that enhance user experiences.
  • Inclusion and engagement of all constituent groups in planning, prioritization and acquisition of technological solutions.
  • Continuous improvement in practices, processes, and resources.

+ Guiding Principles

Ensure alignment with KCTCS Strategic and Business Plans.

Goal 1.1 - Technology Solutions will develop and refine unit strategic goals that are consistent with the KCTCS Strategic Plan.

Commitment to providing excellent technology education, training, sharing best practices, and communications.

Goal 2.1 - Promote technology awareness, utilization, and communications.

Goal 2.2 - Increase technology training offerings and opportunities.

Goal 2.3 - Ensure appropriate IT competencies via well-designed workforce and comprehensive professional development plans

Identify, implement, and embrace innovative technologies that incorporate universal design principles, accessibility, and ease of use to support the teaching/learning process and student success.

Goal 3.1 - Provide compatible, universally accessible, and responsive applications, platforms, and resources

Goal 3.2 - Assist in developing and/or reestablishing sustainable technology refresh plans.

Provide a robust/secure technology infrastructure that leverages economies of scale with a commitment to best business and industry practices.

Goal 4.1 - Deliver ubiquitous technological connectivity for the entire college system with equitable and accessible standards.

Goal 4.2 -Provide demonstrable backup and recovery of mission-critical technology systems

Goal 4.3 - Mitigate threats to the KCTCS technical/physical infrastructure.

Advocate for and provide analytical tools that leverage robust/centralized data sets enabling data driven decision making for all users.

Goal 5.1 - Inventory, research, and prioritize existing analytical tools within KCTCS and provide adequate training and education accordingly.

Goal 5.2 - Cultivate a culture that supports the use of data to leverage information as an asset, improve efficiency, and student outcomes while developing an understanding of the benefits of data driven decision making across the system.

Our Highlights

Dr. Paul Czarapata Receives Premier 100 Technology Leader Award

Paul Receiving his awardIn 2017, Dr. Paul Czarapata, Vice President of Technology, was honored as a recipient of the Premier 100 Technology Leader Award. Computerworld, the leading IT media brand dedicated to being the voice of business technology, revealed the 2017 Computerworld Premier 100 Technology Leaders. One hundred leaders from technology and business are being acknowledged by Computerworld for their exceptional technology leadership and innovative approaches to business challenges. More information can be found in the official press release.

James Gibson Wins 2018 Blackboard Catalyst Award for Training and Professional Development

James GibsonJames Gibson, Learning Systems Administrator, has been selected as the winner of the 2018 Blackboard Catalyst Award for Training and Professional Development. This award recognizes those who use Blackboard programs to support and enhance their faculty and staff’s training and professional development. This can include anything from creative learning opportunities to on-the-job training in the newest technologies, and should display an organization-wide dedication to innovative development programs. Gibson joins a select group of people from around the world whose participation has been recognized as a significant and exemplary contribution to the Blackboard Community. He was honored alongside other Blackboard Catalyst Award winners during BbWorld 2018, Blackboard’s annual user conference. More information can be found in the official press release.

Matt Varney, International Presenter and Published Author

Matt VarneyIn May, 2017, Matt, the KCTCS Intranet Administrator, was invited to speak as an international “virtual” presenter at the Intranets 2017 Conference in Sydney, Australia. He delivered a talk via Skype covering KCTCS’s experiences with moving their employee intranet into Office 365 and unveiled the “MyPath” single-sign-on hub solution.

At the Digital Workplace Experience conference in June, 2018, Matt delivered a presentation entitled, “Business as Usual”, which covers the MyPath project and experience with implementing a single sign on hub. More information can be found on the conference website.

In the past year, Matt has published two articles in CMSWire, an online magazine that informs executives of digital customer experience, digital workplace technologies and practices, and the latest on intelligent information management as well as co-wrote an article for Clearbox Inc. The articles he published are:

Technology Solutions Premier Stars

The new Premier Stars program began this past year. Staff are nominated for outstanding work, great customer service, or going above and beyond. Nominees are evaluated on the level of leadership, service and support they provided to the System Office, colleges and/or outside organizations. Every quarter Cabinet members select seven employees to receive the Premier Star Award. Technology Solutions has had 41 nominations and 8 employees win the Premier Star Award. Winners include:

Technology Solutions Premier Stars
  • Amy Coleman
  • Kim Haydon
  • Chun Cummings
  • Ashley Cook
  • Nathaniel Cook
  • Danah Easton
  • Joe Carrus
  • Chris Perry

Excellent Customer Service Acknowledgement

The Technology Solutions Help Desk handles an average of 30,000 tickets from college faculty and staff every year. Staff in Technology Solutions resolve the great majority of these tickets with a 96% customer satisfaction rate. Customer satisfaction is measured by the results of surveys completed by end users at the colleges after a ticket is resolved. The following Technology Solutions staff have been called out for their exceptional customer service.

  • Mike Eslinger
  • Michael Stapleton
  • Chris Quire
  • Lee Jones
  • Judy Keating
  • Ashley Cook
  • Jeremy Adkins
  • Jeremy Miller
  • Tammy Johnson

Tech Summits

Our Stats

Support

Technology Solutions Help Desk

Solved 39,216 tickets from faculty and staff

chat

Skype for Business

  • 59,000 hours spent in Skype Meetings
  • 3 million Skype Instant Messages sent
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MyPath

Over 1 million connected sessions for students and employees per month

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Email

  • 149 million emails received
  • 15 million emails sent
  • 47.42 TB data stored in email (the equivilent of 725 tons of floppy disks would be needed to store this data, these floppy disks would stretch across the state of Kentucky and back 2.5x)
  • 275 million Spam/Malware blocked
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Azure AD SSO Sign-ins

Since the introduction of MyPath and the SSO integrated applications Azure AD SSO sign-ins have increased to an average of 2 million per day

email

Training & Communication

  • Over 40 training sessions and 9 Tech Summits reaching over 1300 employees
  • Average 2400 views a month on the Training & Learning Center impacting over 780 employees on average each month
  • Over 9000 views a month on the Technology Communication Center
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Blackboard

Over 9 million logins and 1.1 million assessments submitted

Completed Projects

+ Ensure alignment with KCTCS Strategic and Business Plans.

President’s Accomplishments Tracking

​Working closely with the President’s Office, the Intranet Team developed and implemented a system for tracking the accomplishments of President Box and measuring them against the defined strategic goals.  The report is displayed in a web-based format for the Board of Regents review.

+ Commitment to providing excellent technology education, training, sharing best practices, and communications.

Intranet Communications and Awareness

​Implementing, supporting, and promoting a strong platform for communications among the internal workforce at KCTCS is one of the primary drivers for the intranet team. Working with colleges and departments, the team implemented technology to help employees communicate, collaborate, and intelligently manage their work products. This was accomplished through ten new “InfoCenters” or mini portals for an array of functional areas, new spaces for policy and procedures, and enhanced local intranet presences so that each college can share and build an internal community with employees. Additionally, the Technology Communications Center (TCC) was improved ton include custom communication templates and user interface to accommodate employee needs, helping them stay up to date on new functionality, maintenance, and trainings.

Rebranded Security Alerts and Notifications

​Security alerts are extremely important to help increase user awareness around suspected and known threats circulating at colleges. A new format and branding was created for the security alerts to capture the attention of end users when informing them of current threats and phishing emails.

System Office Phishing Awareness Exercise

​In order to increase accountability and user awareness of phishing emails, Technology Solutions delivered a custom tailored phishing email to System Office staff in order to get an idea of how many users can identify a phishing email versus how many require further awareness and training. A comprehensive training was conducted for users who failed the exercise.

Information Security Presentation

​Technology Solutions personnel from various areas were invited to present information security content with the Nursing Program participants in the System Office in order to teach security awareness and the impact of vulnerabilities to our colleges.

Cybersecurity Breakfast

​October is Cybersecurity month and each year, Technology Solutions sponsors an event at the system office to bring awareness. Vice President Paul Czarapata and Justin Hall from Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions (CBTS) presented and shared insights into cybersecurity. ​Mitigating security risks is crucial to protecting KCTCS information and information technology and initiatives like this have assisted KCTCS Technology Solutions in maintaining a breach free environment.

Campus Visits

​ Over the last several months, staff from many areas within Technology Solutions conducted college visits.  The visits included presentations on functionality within PeopleSoft, DSS (Decision Support System), Intranet, SharePoint, and future projects as well as listening sessions to solicit feedback from our colleges on their technology needs. These visits allow our staff to develop more personal relationships with college staff and gives us a much better sense of their pain points and how we can help address those. Our staff also assisted with the Express Enrollments at Bluegrass and Somerset.  Campus visits were conducted as follows:

  • February 2017 - Hopkinsville
  • March and July 2017 -  Maysville
  • June 2017 - Somerset 
  • August 2017 - Southeast
  • August 2017 - Hazard
  • September 2017 - Ashland
  • October 2017 - Jefferson
  • December 2017 - Elizabethtown
  • March 2018 - Ashland
  • April 2018 - Somerset
  • May 2018 - Owensboro
  • May and June 2018 - Bluegrass
  • June 2018 - Jefferson

Technology Trainings

​Over the last 18 months, many trainings have been offered in person and via Skype. These trainings focused on the use of PeopleSoft Campus Solutions (PS) as well as training for the KCTCS Board of Regents. These trainings have allowed our staff and others to have a better understanding and increased knowledge of the tools available how to utilize them. Trainings included:

1/10/17 – Skype Webinar with Southeast on PS Student Groups with Student Services

2/8/17 – Hopkinsville PS Application Training

2/21/17 – Skype Webinar with Henderson on Schedule of Classes for new division assistants

2/22/17 – Skype Webinar with Elizabethtown Student Financials Training

2/28/17 – Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) Mini Session at HEUG (Higher Education User Group) Alliance Conference

3/7/17 – Skype Webinar with West Kentucky Admissions Training for Fire and Rescue

3/23/17 – Maysville PS Training

3/29/17 – PS Training with Hopkinsville at System Office

4/12/17 – Skype with Jefferson and Henderson Workforce Schedule of Classes Webinar

4/26/17 – Skype PS Upgrade Webinar

5/17/17 – Skype PS Upgrade Webinar

6/8/17 – iPad and iAnnotate Training with Board of Regents

6/19/17 – Skype PS Upgrade Webinar

6/20/17 – Skype New Online Application Webinar

6/21/17 – Skype PS Upgrade Webinar

6/23/17 – Skype New Online Application Webinar

6/26/17 - Skype New Online Application Webinar

6/27/17 – Skype PS Upgrade Webinar

6/28/17 - Skype New Online Application Webinar

6/30/17 – Skype PS Upgrade Webinar

8/4/17 – Southeast (Harlan Convention Center) VSB; Faculty Advising PS Training; Advisor Notes

8/10/17 – Skype PS Upgrade Webinar

8/15/17 – Skype with Jefferson Workforce Training

8/22/17 – Board Training on iPad and iAnnotate

8/29/17 – PS Overview with System Office Staff

8/30/17 – Skype with West Kentucky Workforce Session

9/27/17 – Skype PS Training for new Dual Credit panels

10/2/17 – Skype with Southcentral Assigning Advisors in PS Manually and Batch

10/13/17 – Skype with Southeast Faculty/Advising Session VSB and Faculty/Advisor Center in PeopleSoft

11/3/17 – Training with Transfer Peer Team on Student Groups in PS

11/8/17 – PS overview with new system registrar

11/28/17 – Skype with Hazard Learn on Demand Schedule of Classes

4/18/18 – Admission Officers and Registrars PS Training at System Office

4/20/18 – Skype with Owensboro PS Block Enroll

5/17/18 – New Regent iPad training overview

5/18/18 – PS Application Training at Owensboro

5/21/18 – Advising Academy at System Office – Advisor Notes, VSB, Advising

6/5/18 – PS Admissions Overview at Bluegrass

6/12/18 – Skype with Owensboro Application/ACT Score Query process

6/20/18 – Skype Workforce Credit Hour Correction Training

6/20/18 – Skype with Admission/Registrars on End of Term Processing

Technology Summits

​Technology Solutions teamed up with the KCTCS Office for Professional Development and Innovation (OPDI) to offer regional training summits. These summits highlighted technology tools and systems designed to improve the way we work, to increase services to our students, and to keep our employees in step with innovative technology development. The KCTCS Technology Summits provide hands on training and education with over 30 sessions covering tools such as SharePoint Online, Decision Support System (DSS), OneDrive, PeopleSoft, Starfish, Visual Schedule Builder, Radius, Skype for Business, Office 365, OneNote, Windows 10, Outlook, and more. Representatives from Microsoft and Dell are also onsite highlighting the latest IT gadgets and devices. By end of the 2017 academic year, Technology Solutions had held summits at all 16 colleges and the System Office. From 2017 through June, 2018, Technology Solutions conducted nine Technology Summits, training more than 650 KCTCS faculty and staff:

3/31/2017 – Elizabethtown

4/7/2017 – Jefferson

4/21 2017 – Owensboro

5/9/2017 – Southcentral

9/15/2017 – Ashland

9/22/2017 – Henderson

11/3/ 2017 – West Kentucky

4/13/2018 – Southeast

4/25/2018 – System Office

Collaborate Ultra Training Modules

In order to assist faculty in utilizing Collaborate Ultra, a web conferencing tool in Blackboard Learning Management System (LMS), training modules were developed and expanded to include modular self-paced training for both students and faculty.

Migration of PeopleSoft Student Administration Training Materials

More than 75 PeopleSoft training guides and tutorials were migrated to the Training and Learning Center (TLC) in order to provide efficiencies in tagging, filtering, searching, editing/updating, and managing materials.

Training Staff to Make Workforce Class Credit Corrections

​ Workforce variable credit courses were identified with incorrect credit hours for three previous semesters. These errors needed to be corrected by the end of the 2018 fiscal year. Updated training materials were developed and training was delivered to colleges in order to assist in providing the proper steps to correct the issues and understanding procedures that must be followed in order to prevent errors in the future.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Educate

​ Amazon Web Services (AWS) Educate is an educational program designed to encourage learning about cloud computing systems and services by making it easier for students to experiment with AWS in their classes. Technology Solutions setup the integration between AWS Educate and Blackboard Learning Management System. This integration provides additional training and educational resources to students.

Upgrade of Conference Room

​ A System Office conference room was updated with new technology to improve the user experience for all attendees of online meetings and trainings.

Training and Learning Center (TLC) Enhancements

​ The TLC now has more training areas and a consistent look and feel across all areas. These training materials are indexed and cross referenced, which allows employees to easily find training meeting their search criteria. Within this new model mechanisms for content owners to share training with different audiences (and securely where needed) was added.

Professional Development (PD) Tracking

​ In order to provide state of the art education to our students, KCTCS must ensure that our Faculty & Staff are themselves staying current on Professional Development. This year the Professional Development tracking system was implemented so that all KCTCS employees can view KCTCS training opportunities and track external PD events they have attended throughout the course of the year. This tracking system will allow for better PD reporting for employees, unveiling trends and/or gaps in needs. This information will help KCTCS stay competitive.

+ Identify, implement, and embrace innovative technologies that incorporate universal design principles, accessibility, and ease of use to support the teaching/learning process and student success.

Blackboard (Bb) Learn Upgrade

​ KCTCS implemented the latest Bb release, which includes a new theme that provides a more modern look and feel for mobile users. Most importantly, the updated Bb Learn theme significantly increases the responsiveness of the interface for small devices. The theme also incorporates elements from the new Blackboard design language including color, fonts, and spacing, for greater consistency between Blackboard Learn, Collaborate Ultra, and the Blackboard app. New functionality and bug fixes were implemented with the upgrade and updates have been applied regularly to ensure the system is maintained.

Blackboard Learn Projects

  • ​ The integration between Qwickly and Blackboard Learning Management System was upgraded to take advantage of a new assessment tool, Jot, allows instructors to create assignments with diagrams, charts, maps and more for students to write on directly in Blackboard.
  • Blackboard ALLY, a tool to make LMS digital content more accessible for students with disabilities, was implemented this year. It provides students with accessible alternative formats such as audio and electronic braille as well as delivers guidance to instructors to improve accessibility of their course content.
  • Primo, the subscription-based library resources system, was integrated with Blackboard Learn so that library resources could be accessed through Blackboard without the need to leave the Learning Management System. 
  • Technology Solutions completed an integration between Software Secure and Blackboard Learn. Software Secure provides technological solutions for exam proctoring. Software Secure offers scalable authentication and security, institutions can deliver exams anytime and anywhere. 
  • Technology Solutions completed an integration between Pearson Direct and Blackboard Learn Integration to allow instructors and students to log into Blackboard and click a link to access their Pearson resources without the need for the user to create a new account, create a course, or to log in a second time.

SA-1 Security Request Form

​ The SA-1 form facilitates access requests to PeopleSoft Campus Solutions. The new online process does away with paper forms and includes a workflow with digital signature approvals so college staff don't have to track people down for signatures, which was especially difficult in the past because forms would have to be mailed back and forth between campuses. The new SA-1 form utilizes technology to make the process easier, faster, and still meet the rigorous requirements of our auditors.

Technology Solutions Help Desk Migration

​ The Technology Solutions Help Desk responds to roughly 28,000 requests from colleges each year. The help desk software we use was discontinued in December. A new help desk tool was developed and customized for our needs and a seamless transition to the new tool took place in early November, 2017, providing end users with no loss of service or functionality. The help desk facilitates better communication and customer service from the system office to the colleges.

External Facing Website Content Management System (CMS) Upgrade

​ KCTCS implemented a new web content management system in order to increase usability for college web personnel, providing a better online presence for our current, prospective, and alumni students. This project also re-architected the web infrastructure to provide higher availability of production systems, as well as, introduced a failover mechanism that allows a fully functioning website rather than no page, or a "We are experience problems page". Finally, this re-architecture saves approximately $60,000/year in infrastructure expenses.

Seamless Experiences Among All Technology Systems

​ Within the digital workplace, we take a user-centric approach to connect employees organically with the technology within the flow of their work. With an emphasis on process standardization for our colleges, we have implemented solutions that support this approach.

Team Sites – Technology Solutions implemented nearly one hundred secure collaboration spaces to help teams securely do their job their way, while providing a common approach and back-end management for the information used.

Data Collection – Technology Solutions provided the colleges secure locations to store data collected for business-critical processes. Students interface with forms on the public web and that data is delivered to secure storage. The Business Owner can view and work with data in familiar location that is available 24/7.

MyPath and Single Sign On (SSO) Project

​ Technology Solutions developed a single sign on hub for both students and employees, which allows users to securely connect and sign into all of our major enterprise systems and solutions from one place. They only have to log in once when accessing MyPath, then all of the technology solutions they may need to securely access during their day are available with the click of a button. MyPath and SSO simplifies authentication, decreases login issues, increases security, and efficiency. Most technology systems that KCTCS supports has been or will be integrated with SSO and also with MyPath.

Fire Commission Training System Hosting Migration

​The KYFTS (Kentucky Firefighter Training System) is a records management system responsible for maintaining statewide training and certification records for all firefighters in the state. The system was migrated to a sustainable, robust cloud platform with an improved database infrastructure. Availability and reliability of this system is vital not only to the mission of the KY Fire Commission, but ultimately to all the fire departments and the communities they serve.

Amicus Attorney Legal Management Software Hosting

​ Technology Solutions, in conjunction with the Office of General Counsel (OGC), recently implemented software to manage the abundance of documents the Office of General Counsel is responsible for. The Amicus Attorney suite is tailored for legal firm management and creates a digital alternative for filing management. The utilization of Amicus promotes productivity and collaboration by maintaining files in a centralized digital platform, offering easy access to our legal staff and allows users to exchange documentation, task deadlines and much more.

Library Services Enhancement Projects

​ In order to improve subscription resources for off-campus students and faculty and reduce costs, the proxy servers for each college's libraries' subscriptions to electronic journal content and streaming media content was consolidated into one single virtual machine in a commercial data center rather than 16 locally supported servers. This change also integrated with single-sign on, allowing users to have a consistent user experience and allowing Technology Solutions to provide better support and service to colleges.

Additionally, Ex Libris, the system that gives KCTCS students and faculty access to subscription-based resources, rolled out a new user interface that is responsive, mobile-friendly, and easier to use than the one it replaces. Technology Solutions worked to customize the new user interfaces for each college to include local branding and emphasis on local physical collections and local e-resource subscriptions.

This year, Ex Libris Cloud Services migrated the Voyager system to a new server in a different commercial data center. Technology Solutions coordinated the database migration not only for KCTCS, but also for Midway University, and Lexmark. This migration will allow for central coordination of library eResource subscriptions, extend the availability of resources, and give KCTCS a substantial cost savings.      

PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Upgrade

​ Campus Solutions 9.2 is a low impact, high return upgrade that addressed the key imperatives of the modern campus: a modern user experience, flexible functionality and a product lifecycle platform that enables institutions to better manage system maintenance costs and provide more options for how users interact with our system, integrating mobile responsiveness. Technology Solutions implemented this complex upgrade over the course of 10 months and worked with end users on adoption of this upgrade. Since its roll out, Technology Solutions continues to maintain the system with the latest updates and patches.

PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Enhancement Projects

  • Technology Solutions worked with the National Student Clearing House to automate the processing of orders for KCTCS transcripts. This new automated processing frees up staff resources in the Records areas to focus on other important work, serving students. KCTCS also worked with the National Student Clearing House to address a change to the reporting credential levels for diplomas.
  • Additionally, the Kentucky Department of Education provides assessment data and state IDs of students that the high schools have identified as enrolled or intending to enroll. KCTCS has developed a process to load files and update test scores and state IDs in PeopleSoft, automating the process of loading test scores to free up resources to perform other tasks.
  • Brainfuse provides live, one-to-one tutoring over the Internet. In order to provide better service to students, a new interface was built to separate students by home college in the Brainfuse system.
  • In order to take advantage of new and enhanced functionality with payment plan processing, Technology Solutions implemented the new Nelnet Business Enterprise Solution. This system is Payment Card Industry compliant and is a much more secure method of accepting credit card payments online.
  • Embedded credentials are certificates or diplomas that are part of a larger degree program. Technology Solutions worked to provide a method to award embedded credentials in batch to ease the workload of college personnel. This has helped KCTCS increase the number of credentials awarded to students.
  • In accordance with Kentucky Department of Library and Archives (KDLA), KCTCS must have approved electronic images of permanent documents in order to shred hard copies. KCTCS worked with OnBase, our electronic records vendor, to automate retention rules in order to accommodate the requirements from KDLA and to keep our storage prices down.
  • Technology Solutions modified the existing 25% residency customizations to allow for policy changes.
  • In spring, 2018, sub plans for general and occupational studies were retired. A massive program/plan stack batch update was needed to address this change.  Many hours were spent re-coding the student information system to ensure all data was valid.
  • Technology Solutions made improvements to the automated process, which assesses distance learning class fees. Additional requirements to the process were needed for fall, 2017. These changes will continue to allow this process to be applied automatically without the intervention of staff, allowing them to focus on other important work, serving students.
  • Withdrawal initiation dates are used in Return of the Title IV calculations in compliance with A-133 audit of federal financial aid funding. The online withdrawal form captures each request and every step of the approval process, creating an electronic audit trail of events to be used in calculation of Title IV returns. This new form helps colleges not accidentally over-award students and be penalized down the road for it.
  • The U.S. Department of Education requires colleges to disclose to students information for any financial aid eligible program. KCTCS developed a batch process that generates an email to all students tailored to their individual academic major, providing information about the program's length, completion rates, cost, the percentage of students who take out loans, and when available, employment rates.
  • Technology Solutions also worked with the financial aid office to review and revise Right to Cancel Notification Process as well as the Return to Title IV student communications and work lists to help the central processing staff streamline the process and improve efficiency.
  • KCTCS further enhanced the custom reporting tables and auditing queries to ensure any possible students requiring a Return to Title IV are not overlooked. This change provided staff with better tools to address Return to Title IV reporting requirements.
  • Technology Solutions also revised the loan calculation eligibility process for the online loan request forms to provide more up to date information. KCTCS also created the 2019 repackaging equations to streamline the batch repackaging processing.
  • Technology Solutions also worked with the financial aid office to make changes to the communication and checklist process to incorporate the new Regent checklist and discontinue old checklists.
  • Kentucky state government, through House Bill 206, requires KCTCS to offer Dual Credit Scholarships for high school students. Technology Solutions worked with the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority (KHEAA) to exchange data files at various transaction points. KCTCS developed processes to capture dual credit eligible courses, identify dual credit students and courses, and assess accordingly.
  • The Work Ready Kentucky Scholarship helps Kentuckians who have not yet earned an associate's degree afford an industry-recognized certificate or diploma. Technology Solutions developed processes to administer Work Ready Scholarship within KCTCS Student Information System.        
  •  Campus Solutions technical team works closely with BlackBoard Student Services to enhance integration with Smartview to provide additional student information in an efficient output so help desk staff can better assist students.
  • Changes to our Assessment and Placement policy required data to be created, reviewed, or updated. Score changes and new tests were entered. Requisite Conditions (part of the Requisite Checking process) was updated accordingly. Maintains proper assessment and placement of students into appropriate classes.
  • There are thousands of organizations within PeopleSoft that are used for recording education information for students. Regular review and data cleanup makes it easier and quicker for students and employees to record educational experiences into PeopleSoft.
  • Service Indicators are used within PeopleSoft to identify students who should be prevented from enrolling, have failed to pay their KCTCS bills, have Financial Aid issues, or may have other statuses/situations. The upgrade to PeopleSoft required that all service indicators be reviewed and updated as necessary so they would work and display correctly within Student Self Service. This update helped maintain a clear, easy to understand user experience for students when using Student Self Service.

PeopleSoft Financials Upgrade

​ PeopleSoft Financials went through a complete infrastructure and system upgrade. This major upgrade saw the implementation of the Fluid interface that will be the groundwork for mobile device usage and compatibility. The infrastructure upgrade provides enhancements, utilizing updated business processing and technologies, which provide improved functionality and user experience. Since its roll out, Technology Solutions continues to maintain the system with the latest updates and patches. Additionally, a database reorganization in order to maintain a fine-tuned database system structure, creating a smaller database footprint, increased performance, and improved system stability.

PeopleSoft Financials Enhancement Projects

  • Technology Solutions setup chart field security in all modules to accommodate new requirements to only allow certain values at system office, and restrict usage to colleges. Implementation of automated chart field security will now only allow correct entries at the initial entry, providing more comprehensive and responsive processing and efficiencies.        
  • KCTCS recently implemented changes for new processing, new allocation model, and performance based funding. The new custom budget module modifications allow for more transparency with how budget dollars are allocated and used by the colleges and the system office. Modifications for performance based funding are critical to meet state regulations and laws enacted for all universities and colleges in Kentucky.
  • Technology Solutions, Procure to Pay, and Accounting are vital to the system accountability and vitality and allow new-year processing to work smoothly. Together they implemented the end of year processing.
  • Review and analysis of performance issues with Campus Solution Online Admissions Application process and Financials Shibboleth login. Performance of the student online admissions application is critical to the success of KCTCS and our students.  Technology Solutions in conjunction with our hosting provider Sierra-Cedar and our software vendor Oracle/PeopleSoft worked extensively to improve performance.
  • Technology Solutions implemented a 1099 fix for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) year 2017 tax filing season. IRS tax regulations related to vendor 1099 payment reporting is a vital regulatory component for Business Services and KCTCS.  The annual task of applying, testing, and processing 1099s is a key component in ensuring that KCTCS adheres to all IRS requirements and can accurately produce the required federal reporting.           
  • People Soft Financials implemented Google Analytics in order to provide insight into real-time usage without relying on surveys that can sometime provide incomplete data. The data available shows what modules of the system are in use and also allows unused areas to be disabled.  Technology Solutions is now also able to determine the type of browsers being used for all users accessing the system, thus allowing staff to focus, prioritize, and test on valid platforms.
  • In conjunction with the multi-factor authentication in other PeopleSoft systems, Financials masked the banking information in the expenses module. Banking information is a critical security component for Technology Solutions and KCTCS. This implementation is critical to securing our system data and ensuring we limit access to points of potential exposure.       
  • Technology Solutions decommissioned the System Enterprise Search (SES) and replaced it with Elastic Search (ES) in order to provide a reduced storage requirement, reduced costs, additional search capabilities, increased performance, and improved system stability. 
  • Technology Solutions made changes to the expense report business process and system setup to streamline processing, improve user experience, and increase system efficiencies.
  • Managed Services migrated its current authentication system to a Windows-based Active Directory system, and are completing several other associated policy changes to strengthen security for KCTCS and our associated secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) and file transfer protocol (FTP) accounts. The security enhancements will give KCTCS more control over password management while reducing risk of unauthorized system access. 
  • Crystal reports were no longer supported with the new version of PeopleSoft. As a result, all reports and output documents are being converted to Business Intelligence Publisher.

Human Capital Management (HCM) Tools Upgrade

​ HCM completed a PeopleSoft upgrade. This latest PeopleTools version provided several enhancements for mobile users including delivery of the latest Fluid interface and a cleaner responsive design. The upgrade allows all pillars (Financials, HCM, and Campus Solutions) to be on the same PeopleTools version so that the new Elastic Search functionality could be implemented which provides significant cost savings for KCTCS. The upgrade provides better employee usability, consistency across all applications, and a responsive user experience on mobile devices. PeopleSoft has announced that they will continue to deploy additional Fluid Self-Service pages in the future and early adoption of this technology will better position KCTCS to use this functionality. Since its roll out, Technology Solutions continues to maintain the system with the latest updates and patches.

Human Capital Management (HCM) Enhancement Projects

  • A modification to the Time and Absence module was implemented to allow managers to be notified when a self-service Time and Absence approval has not been approved in a timely manner (2 days). This significantly cuts down on Payroll processing errors and ensures data quality and correctness. Modification was made to improve efficiency and timeliness of time and absence entry and approval.
  • The original PPE (Performance Planning and Evaluation) process in PeopleSoft was implemented by consultants who were instructed to adapt our paper form into the ePerformance framework in PeopleSoft. The result was a cumbersome, heavily customized product that was negatively perceived by employees and supervisors. Working with Human Resources and Cabinet team members, the new PPE form uses delivered PeopleSoft functionality to provide a more streamlined approach that is easier to use, more intuitive, and provides enhanced and useful reporting capabilities for our Human Resource departments.
  •  Based on feedback from our college visits and internal discussions, Technology Solutions restructured the Open Enrollment process to provide a simpler user experience. Employee feedback was solicited and several confusing steps were modified by either combining steps and automating enrollment on the back end, or modifying descriptions and plan configuration to provide better explanation to the employee as they completed the process. The functional area reported significantly fewer calls this year during the Open Enrollment process. Simplifying the Open Enrollment process makes a necessary employee task more tolerable by providing a positive user experience.

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) 12 C Version Upgrade Project

​ OBIEE is our design and presentation tool for the Decision Support System (DSS). This 12C version upgrade was a major upgrade changing some significant underlying concepts, and is prompting the need for us to employ a new security model. Staying within a normal upgrade path ensures support contracts are within parameters.  This tool houses the dashboards and reports created by/for System Office and all Colleges.

Civitas Illume Persistence Prediction Application

​ The Civitas Illume Persistence Prediction product has been developed incrementally with KCTCS. It now offers over 270 predictive elements and has the capability to create student lists for action and email capability. The Illume data has been validated and officially launched. The focus is now on integrating Starfish and Blackboard Learn data into the Illume product to enhance predictive elements. This tool provides insight into areas and students that prospectively need attention.

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) Refresh - Phase I

​ Hardware for SCCM servers statewide was retired in December 2017. Configuration Manager allows software, operating systems, and security configurations to be delivered across the enterprise using automation. This application saves college technology personnel thousands of hours per year over the manual alternatives. Technology Solutions evaluated the server design and developed upgraded the infrastructure for Configuration Manager to a modern system that will carry KCTCS into the future of the application. By redesigning how the infrastructure was deployed previously, KCTCS was able to realize a cost savings of $300,000.

+ Provide a robust/secure technology infrastructure that leverages economies of scale with a commitment to best business and industry practices.

Enterprise Infrastructure Upgrades

​ Technology Solutions continued to assist colleges with wireless and local network and firewall infrastructure upgrades and communication builds based on the utilization reports of the college and their required supporting needs for applications and new programs. KCTCS assisted the following colleges with these infrastructure upgrades: Jefferson, Maysville, Somerset, Owensboro, and Southeast.

Analyzing Voice Services Cost Reduction

​ Technology Solutions reviewed new industry models for voice cloud services for KCTCS colleges in order to increase services and reduce cost for these services which would include management of the phone, long distance, voice mail, and voice features. By keeping our current voice services, KCTCS gets to keep features and services below pricing models for new industry models. KCTCS pays less for services than the market rate, making for a total monthly savings of $42,350.00 or $508,200.00 a year.

New Website Failover

​ When a website goes down, the failover is now configured for each website independently so that users are redirected to a fully functioning copy of the website rather than an outage page. This provides geo-redundant high availability of all 27 KCTCS public websites, ensuring the website can continue to function from different physical infrastructure and internet providers. It can also help each website continue to function if invalid or corrupt content is published into production.

Provide Real-time Monitoring of Each Colleges’ Back up Power Supplies

​ In order to cut the mean time to repair (MTTR) by more than 30%, Technology Solutions implemented the ability of real-time monitoring to confirm power at each college location when there has been a report of a network outage. This change means that colleges no longer have to wait for a college technician to travel to the campus to verify power before dispatching the carrier to the site to begin the repairs needed to reestablish the network connectivity. 

Provide Real-time Monitoring of Each Colleges’ Network

​ Technology Solutions implemented the ability of real-time monitoring to confirm utilization of network connectivity and trends to prevent possible disruptions in service. By incorporating real time analytics for trouble shooting and predictive analytics in support of future needs of the college system, KCTCS will be able to offer students better customer service. By utilizing current server infrastructure at the colleges and the enterprise software license already purchased by a college four years ago for a single college use, KCTCS was able to defer cost for this project to just man hours for implementation.

New Vulnerability Scanning Solutions

​ KCTCS recently partnered with the Information Security Office at the University of Texas at Austin which provided free web assessment vulnerability scans against public Internet Protocol facing devices, per the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) Top 10 Most Critical Web Application Security Risks. KCTCS also partnered with the Department of Homeland Security and receives complimentary vulnerability scan assessments through their National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Cyber Hygiene scan assessment. This assessment uses the Nessus Vulnerability Scanner to determine potential threats facing a given scanned device on our public facing Network.  These solutions will help to reduce the likelihood of threats against our network landscape.

+ Advocate for and provide analytical tools that leverage robust/centralized data sets enabling data driven decision making for all users.

Intranet Data Analysis

​ Technology Solutions worked closely with the Office or Research and Policy Analysis (ORPA) to provide an intranet site where employees can review dashboards of organizational data. This gives employees easy access to information to view trends and make informed decisions. In addition to this InfoCenter, the Intranet team worked on a key project this year to learn more about usage and trends of audiences on MyPath and across the Intranet. MyPath data allows KCTCS to see most used systems from this entry point and how we are increasing momentum for future communication sharing within this location. Through this data collection, we can continue to provide our audiences best in class experiences with their digital interactions with us.

Information Sharing and Process Automation

​ A fundamental benefit of a comprehensive digital workplace such as Office 365 is how the platform allows for better management of and structural organization to documents, as well as ease of information sharing for business owners to information in real time.  Technology Solutions continues to work with groups to enhance document organization and implement more automation through forms and workflows. This information is captured from business processes so that authorized employees can make decisions. Some examples include Strategic Needs Analysis Budget Form, Virtual Private Network and Public IP Address Tracking, Building Security Badge Requests, and Board of Regents Election Applications. The decision makers not only get more reliable and consistent information, but they also start to expect more from other processes and work streams in the digital workplace.

Decision Support System Projects

  • KCTCS worked with our vendor partner to load Starfish data into the Decision Support System (DSS). Starfish is a retention system and this data in conjunction with other data sources provides insights for student engagement, progress, and results as well as tracks instructor activity with students. 
  • The Decision Support System team finished a project to import the Blackboard Learning Management System (LMS) data into the DSS on a daily basis and is the source data for the DSS Blackboard Reports and the System Office Distance Learning dashboards.  The LMS data directly measures student engagement and provides our only systemic source of intermediate student progress. KCTCS is in the process of moving our Blackboard and Starfish data to Civitas Illume where it will be incorporated with PeopleSoft Student Data to enhance our student prediction capability. 
  • Technology Solutions worked with our vendor partner to import Student Services Call Center and Technology Solutions service ticket data into DSS. Having historical records of student and customer tickets not only meets the obligations of the Kentucky University Records Retention Policy, but also allows for more flexible reporting design. 
  • Financial Aid data from the Regent System is now being loaded into DSS on a nightly basis. In order to measure activity and identify discrepancies in federal aid application data, a dashboard was created.
  • Reports were developed to combine direct revenue with workforce generated tuition revenue. Waivers satisfying bills are offset against the tuition. As more emphasis is being placed on for credit courses it is important to extract workforce tuition from general tuition so financial results can be tallied for workforce activities. 
  • The Decision Support System team developed a report comparing Full Time Equivalent (FTE) students to Full Paying Equivalent (FPE) students. This report illustrates the effect of waivers in estimating revenue from headcount and specifically highlights dual credit waivers effect on using the traditional FTE calculation and on tuition generation. Additionally, a companion report was also developed to list courses that didn't generate tuition because the college set them up incorrectly. 
  • Colleges have an immediate need to be able to recreate the enrollment count for each day in the past. For years, staff manually recorded daily counts for the next year's comparison. These numbers can't be reproduced using the summarized enrollment table due to history changes. As a result, enrollment snapshots in the Decision Support System (DSS) were created now offers data to be able to do year to date comparisons. 
  • Fiscal Operations Report and Application to Participate (FISAP) report development is being transitioned to the Decision Support system from PeopleSoft so that it can incorporate Regent financial aid data. This change was made because the expected storage of information in Regent Software is better managed using the DSS system. 
  • The System Office  Student Services group contracted with Blackboard Student Services to perform a fall 2018 outreach service for five colleges. Working in collaboration with student services, extract files were developed and populated for all colleges. These extracts were loaded into a Radius software communication plan. These custom tailored data extracts aid in choosing the most likely candidates for outreach efforts. Communicating with the right student groupings maximize our outreach dollar spend. 
  • Subscriptions to eResource collections were analyzed to gather data to inform decisions that will help KCTCS maximize the value of eResource content, which has been considerably invested in. KCTCS partnered with ProQuest to deliver a findings report and proposal to optimize the mix and quality of subscriptions, assuring that they align with curricular and instructional needs, identify cost savings that can be reallocated to the libraries' other strategic needs, improve access to eResources, and simplify eResource management tasks 
  • The Decision Support System team developed a report that identifies classes students are enrolled in that don't meet a direct degree requirement and may be ineligible for financial aid or may add unnecessary hours to their record. Colleges can use this report to identify students and provide advising and intervention. 
  • The Decision Support System team designed extract, transform, and load (ETL) procedures that consume spreadsheets from the colleges to create the appropriate records for each college program designated for Gainful Employment (GE) reporting. This report is then used by web services to populate a webpage required by the federal government that discloses information related to careers, salary, and job outlook for the programs they offer. This process has produced tremendous labor savings over the manual process of clipping and pasting each programs results data for each college. 
  • The Decision Support System team worked with the ORPA in order to meet reporting requirements for the Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE) and for KCTCS leadership. The team has worked on many different data elements that feed into Performance Based Funding, strategic planning, diversity plans, CPE data files, college and system office dashboards, and the board book. DSS processing reduces manual intervention and results in consistent, reliable data that is easier to maintain and distribute.

Looking Forward: 2019


Department of Justice Partnership

Technology Solutions has worked with colleges to provide classroom space and technology to interconnect classes for up to 30 students at identified KCTCS locations. This allows the Department of Justice to offer real time, remote law enforcement training to local police agencies in order to help reduce cost to departments for travel during these tough economic times for Kentucky.

New Enterprise Ticketing System

​ In order to better serve staff and instructors, an enterprise help desk system will be implemented that will allow for easy ticket submission, quick response, and better communication. Having an enterprise ticketing system would allow better workflow and escalation of tickets between colleges and the system office. It would also allow better customer service to be provided, provide valuable analytics about workloads and resource allocation, and be extremely cost effective.

Academic Requirement Reports Sync

​ Determine if we could use the synchronization flag to update the academic requirement reports based on changes to the student's record.  This would allow the reports to always be up to date rather than running at the end of term or ad hoc requests. This would allow the advising reports to always be up to date for staff and students. 

Visual Schedule Builder Upgrade

​ Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) is a tool that provides an interactive, visual representation of potential class schedules for students as they identify the courses they hope to enroll in and allows them to enroll in the schedule they select. VSB 4.0 was rolled out in 2016 to students and we continue to upgrade its functionality. In 2017, Technology Solutions rolled out the newest version of VSB, which allows advisors to assist students with developing their schedule. Advisors can create a schedule and send it to a student who can then enroll. This allows advisors to directly help students during the process of creating schedules, driving students towards classes that meet requirements for their programs of study.  The newest components of Visual Schedule Builder will allow advisors to better tailor schedules for students and assist in the enrollment process.

Student Transfer Data Exchange

​ KCTCS has Memorandums of Understanding with several 4 year public/private institutions to provide semi-annual data on prospective transfers. Data is currently being exchanged through an outdated and cumbersome file transfer system. Technology Solutions will be working to move this data exchange from the current system to SharePoint, allowing easier external access for the participating institutions and the ability for Chancellor's office staff to manage.

PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Enhancement Projects

  • Technology Solutions is in development of processes to combine Learn by Term and Learn on Demand data for integration of PeopleSoft data to Learning Management System. Due to complexities on how KCTCS has implemented Campus Solutions to accommodate 16 colleges in a centralized system, KCTCS was unable to use PeopleSoft's Student Administration Integration Pack (SAIP) to automate integration.
  • The Campus Solutions team is working to develop a process to import transfer coursework for former KCTCS students from National Student Clearinghouse.  These former KCTCS students attended other colleges and universities after leaving KCTCS and may have enough transfer hours to now earn a KCTCS degree.  Changes are underway to start importing transfer data for this Reverse Transfer Initiative beginning fall 2018.   
  • Technology Solutions is also working to develop processes to export alumni data from KCTCS for Alumni Finder and import updated data from Alumni Finder to KCTCS in order to improve and facilitate alumni communications.
  • Seven colleges are piloting new advising notes functionality in spring and fall of 2018. Appropriately advising students is key to student success. This tool will improve the communication between students and advisors and allow records staff to see any notes regarding advisement. Once the pilot completes and any necessary changes are made, advising notes will be rolled out to all 16 colleges.
  • Kentucky Virtual University (KYVU) Interface will undergo enhancements to enable data updates in the KYVU system which will alleviate the need for faculty and staff to update data in that system.
  • AcademicWorks online scholarship management platform introduces a single scholarship website for institutions, making it easy for administrators to promote all available scholarships on campus to the entire student population and provides students with personalized views of scholarships they qualify for. Technology Solutions is developing an integration between the KCTCS student information system and AcademicWorks to minimize the time it takes to complete applications and improves the quality and accuracy of data on each application.

PeopleSoft Financials Enhancement Projects

​ The Financials team will be reviewing current processing of interfaces in order to develop a more efficient procedure and reconciliation.

  • A new process is being developed to transfer files from Sierra-Cedar, our vendor partner for PeopleSoft hosting, to secured shared directory. This new process and control will limit potential file corruption, as well as fully secure and automate significant parts of payment processing. 
  • A new journal upload interface is being developed to utilize the latest technologies and standards, allowing for uniform technologies and consistencies in the system.
  • The Financials team is in develop of a custom Approval Workflow Engine (AWE) prototype to potentially implement the automation of paper/form processes. The prototype is the first step in evaluating the viability of automating several processes within KCTCS and eliminating current form/paper processes while allowing for greater visibility, tracking, and accountability. 
  • Technology Solutions is implementing the Supplier Onboarding Portal in PeopleSoft Financials. In combination with Business Services, the development of the new Supplier Onboarding Portal will provide improved supplier entry tracking, approval processing, and other efficiencies.
  • Financials is working to add fiscal year history to the Budget Module to allow for historical data to be retained. The Custom Budget Module is a key component of the Financials People System, providing integrated budgeting processing and critical reporting for the entire system. Adding fiscal year history capability will provide enhanced usability and functionality.
  • Technology Solutions is working on modifications to Budget Module Reports in order to add description to Salary Savings Report to show when multiple employees are paid from the same position number in a pay period. The Salary Savings Report is a budget forecasting tool that shows open budgeted positions and current fiscal year expenditures.

Relocate and Upgrade the Enterprise Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Servers.

​ KCTCS has three servers used for Public Key Infrastructure in VMWare at the System Office. In order to remove all servers from the System Office, this project will upgrade the infrastructure critical to KCTCS network security and make it more redundant. These servers provide the certificates required to operate a secure wired and wireless network infrastructure.

Expand Alienvault Environment and Sniffing Capability

​ KCTCS will dedicate servers to improve internet security. These servers will be used for sniffing and monitoring purposes to gain better visibility into traffic anomalies and potential threats.

Class and Program Costing

​ The Decision Support System (DSS) team has designed extract, transform, and load (ETL) procedures to create fiscal year (FY) tables of classes delivered and their associated instructional salary & benefits, tuition generated, and waivers applied. This information provides for a gross margin calculation per class and also provides detail on instructor utilization and the effect of waivers on class profitability. The next step is to create a full costing scenario for field of study/programs.

Board of Regent (BOR) Voting Pages

​ Technology Solutions is developing pages to manage voting rosters for the BOR Elections. In the past, this process was handled primarily by passing around spreadsheets of active employees generated by System Office Human Resource (HR) to be transmitted to an external vendor who oversees the process. The PeopleSoft process will allow certification of voting rosters using live HR data and tracking signoff by each business unit.  By implementing the certification of voting rosters within PeopleSoft, we can better manage the flow of info information between the System Office and the colleges. This solution also provides an audit trail of who has reviewed and certified the voting rosters, ensures accuracy of data that is transmitted to our external vendor, secures the information to only those that need to review it, and makes the entire process more efficient.