Faculty entering mid-term grades and students preparing to register will notice some changes to Joe’SS thanks to a recent upgrade to a new version of the “self-service” PeopleSoft Student Administration System.

Although the online screens look nice, the changes are more than cosmetic. The upgrade to version 8.9 stabilizes many of the problems in the older version and provides improved user navigation.

“UMR is one of the first universities to go live outside of a beta testing site,” says Laura Stoll, UMR registrar and upgrade project manager. “We began the upgrade process in July 2005 and completed it on our go-live date, Jan. 17.”

Improved navigation is the biggest benefit to the upgraded system, Stoll says, but new added features include “Student Center” and “Faculty Center” pages. These portal-like pages contain a person’s most frequently accessed information as well as easy links to other pages.

The upgrade project is a joint effort of the registrar’s, cashier’s and admissions offices working with University of Missouri System AITS programmers and CedarCrestone consultants.

Stoll says it was a significant undertaking.

“Oracle (owners of PeopleSoft) purchased 100 T-shirts and I gave them away to people involved with the project, both here and in Columbia. Of the 100, I gave away 92. That’s a lot of people working together, which is also the theme of the T-shirt.”

In addition to the PeopleSoft upgrade, the registrar’s office also installed a new version of its degree audit program and Resource 25. The degree audit program provides an interactive, easier-to-read audit report and Resource 25 is room-scheduling program that interfaces with PeopleSoft.

“Eventually we hope to make the Resource 25 webviewer available online so people can easily request classrooms that have the features they need,” Stoll says.