Position available: System trainer

This is a one-year temporary position to develop, deliver and improve training on PeopleSoft student records, Astra Schedule, and various applications for the University community. Additional responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Work in partnership with Academic Support Resources (ASR) units and business analysts to ensure functions meet business needs, and stay current with modifications and patches.


• Serve as the helpdesk expert on PeopleSoft student records, Astra Schedule, and ASR developed applications and processes.


• Provide second tier PeopleSoft student records technical support for staff working in ASR, other Student Administration units, including system campus staff.


• Work with student records Key Contacts to identify needs of end users.

If you know of anyone who may be interested, please urge them to apply via the University employment website. More information can be found here.

Annual SA Key Contact Update

Over the last two weeks, the Student Administration/SA Key Contacts were asked to review and update their college and departmental listings - and we've had a 75% response rate! Up-to-date information is vital, as the SA Key Contact listings are used as the focal point for distributing training news and material to our college and departmental users and for verifying Access Request Forms (ARF's). SA Key Contacts will also play a key role in the upcoming 9.0 upgrade, so ensuring this information is current will aid that process.

The SR Training and Support Team is grateful for your great participation in this update!

Upcoming Trainings & Opportunities - July & August 2014

Student Data Inquiry
Available any time via online training through ULearn

Student Data Update
Available any time via online training through ULearn

Program/Plan Process
Thursday, July 24, 10 a.m.-12 noon
Wednesday, August 27, 10 a.m.-12 noon

Registration
Thursday, July 17, 10 a.m.-12 noon
Wednesday, August 13, 10 a.m.-12 noon

Electronic Course Scheduling (ECS)
Wednesday, July 9, 9 a.m.-12 noon
Wednesday, August 6, 9 a.m.-12 noon

For a complete list of upcoming SR trainings and opportunities, and to register for upcoming sessions, please visit ULearn off the UMN Employee Self-Service page.

Using the PeopleSoft lookup

Do you use those little magnifying glasses that are in numerous places on most PeopleSoft pages? These are called lookups. They can be used to locate field values, but there are some tricks to using them effectively.

For example, try finding the Spanish academic plan by simply clicking the lookup button. A search in PeopleSoft will return only the first 300 values. Since there are many more than 300 academic plans out there, clicking only the lookup button will bring you nowhere near the academic plans that start with "S". To narrow the results, do a description search. In the description field, type an uppercase "S" followed by a lowercase "p". The trick with a description search is that it is case sensitive, most often upper followed by lowercase letters. The more letters you are able to add in the description search field, the more refined and shorter the search result list.

The Registration manual: a guide for the Enrollment Request page

Leading up to fall semester, staff who administratively assist students with registration may find themselves using the PeopleSoft Enrollment Request page. Documentation on Enrollment Request, including some related Peoplesoft pages, can be found in our online Registration manual. The manual contains step-by-step instructions for adding, dropping, and swapping classes, backdating enrollment, resolving error messages, and more.

The Registration manual, along with all of our training manuals and quick step guides, can be found on the training team's manuals webpage.

PCAS updates for undergraduate catalog due July 7

The ASR communications team will be working on developing the 2014-16 Twin Cities undergraduate catalog this summer, so it's important for colleges to update their program information (majors, minors, and certificates) in PCAS by Monday, July 7.

If you need additional access, have questions, or require initial PCAS training, please contact the ASR Training Team as srhelp@umn.edu.

Encourage system users to sign up for the ASR Training Update!

As a reminder, the ASR Training Update newsletter is automatically distributed to all student records key contacts. Please pass along news items to systems users in your area who may not get the Training Update or encourage users to get themselves added to the listserv.

Any interested staff members who are not key contacts may be added to the listserv upon request. To be added, users may simply email Kess Knight at knigh161@umn.edu.