Reinventing the EnterpriseAnthony J. Aniello

(see Reinventing, page 2)

JANUARY / FEBRUARY 1996Volume 12 Number 1

FEATURES

3 Student Reporting Datain the Information Warehouse

5 Today’s Successful Enterprise:Making a Leap of Faith

6 Reengineering the University’sProcurement Process

8 Relationships with the Outside World

DEPARTMENTS

4 Here’s AISS

10 Hot Lines: “Goodbye PROFS,Hello AdMail”

NEWS FROM ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION SYSTEMS & SERVICES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

world economy in the last de-cade or so, and the requirementto function differently to becompetitive in that new worldenvironment. It was fueled byincredibly rapid advances incommunications and informa-tion management technologiesthat effectively removed thebarriers of geography, language,

time, currency valuation, andto some extent even culture.Today most organizations haveto be competitive on an inter-national basis to survive. Whilethe business world has beenthe leading edge of this revolu-tion, government and certainlyhigher education are already

here is a revolution under-way in the world today.It’s broader and more far-reaching than any previ-ous revolution. It literally

involves and affects everyoneon the planet. It is a revolutionenabled by technology but notcontrolled by it. It was bornwith the emergence of a true

t

way things work. PresidentStukel recognized this by pub-licly stating that his primaryobjectives for the administra-tive areas of the Universityover the next three to fiveyears are minimizing or elimi-nating the use of paper andreengineering and streamliningbusiness processes.

While this challenge ap-plies to the academic as well asthe business and administra-tive endeavors of our institu-tion, in this newsletter we con-fine ourselves to discussing thelatter areas. An enormous ef-fort is already under way todeal with issues such as adapt-ing instruction to delivery overthe Internet, the use of multi-media technologies in teachingand research, and many otherissues directly affecting theacademic missions of the insti-tution. These will be reportedand discussed in other forums.

So how do we “reinvent”ourselves? We have to startwith a critical evaluation ofwhat we are doing and why weare doing it. We may be doingthings we shouldn’t, or notdoing things we should. Nextwe must select one or two criti-cal processes at a time and re-design them to minimize timeand effort and maximize effi-ciency and accuracy. We needto take advantage of what tech-nology allows us to do and freeour human resources to do thethings technology still can’t

Reinventing

(continued from page 1)involved, and this involvementis beginning to accelerate dra-matically. We all have to changehow we do business, how weoperate. This is what I mean by“reinventing the enterprise.”

We have all heard of termslike reengineering, streamlin-ing and downsizing. Certainlywe’ve seen the results of theseefforts as companies of all sizeshave eliminated millions ofjobs in the last few years, inorder to become more efficientand remain competitive. Thoseorganizations that have done agood job of planning for andmanaging change have beenquite successful. Those thathaven’t planned and managedfor change well, or haven’ttried at all, are suffering if notceasing to exist.

The University is not im-mune to these pressures. For usto remain a premier institu-tion, we have to change theway we do business. We haveto reinvent ourselves. We haveto reduce the cost of opera-tions, reduce the bureaucracy,increase our flexibility, becomeadept at quickly adapting tochange, and redirect as muchfinancial resource as possible toour primary missions of teach-ing, research, and public ser-vice. We have to change the

handle. We must recognizethat for the most part the Uni-versity is an integrated enter-prise. What happens in oneplace affects others like ripplesin a pond. Even though wecan’t change, or even analyze,everything at once, we need toassess the effects of changesoutside their area of immediateimpact as we progress on ourjourney.

Reinventing the way theUniversity operates is not anoptional exercise. It is a must.It must also be done relativelyquickly by University stan-dards. All the major processesneed to be reengineered in thenext three to five years if weare to retain our status as a topflight, leading edge institution.

This is a daunting task, par-ticularly in an institution likeours which is not used to rapidchange. But we must learn howto deal with it. We have, infact, been learning how to dealwith change for several yearsnow. The new student systemsat UIC and UIUC, current ef-forts to redo the Universitypersonnel system, introductionof electronic forms, and elec-tronic budget submission areexamples of positive responseto change. But now the pacehas to pick up considerably.Our ability to act and react hasto become more timely.

We are seeing the begin-ning of this new phase of activ-ity with the initiation of aproject under the auspices ofthe Office of Business Affairs toreengineer the University’sprocurement processes. Thisbroad-based and ambitiouseffort is aimed at revampinghow we do procurement fromstart to finish, including thefinancial aspects and relation-ships with vendors. The projectwill be described in more detailin one of our articles, featuringan interview with Dick Margison,the Associate Vice President forBusiness and Finance.

Other articles will covertopics such as reduction in theuse of paper and the power andflexibility that can becomeavailable to colleges and de-partments through direct, easyaccess to data and communica-tions. I hope you find theminformative and thought pro-voking. The prospect of changecan be cause for great excite-ment or great fear. I hope youembrace the excitement pre-sented by the possibilities, andthat any fears will be replacedby knowledge and a willing,positive attitude.

Anthony J. Aniello is AssociateVice President of AISS.

About the Illustrations:Cover: symbolic abstraction of therevolutionary changes occurring in thebusiness world today.

Page 3: digitization of student data,modeled by Jolie Wernette-Horn.

Page 5: leaping executive, gamely modeledby Stephen Mey.

The Integrated Circuit (TIC) is an employee publicationof the University of Illinois Office of Administrative InformationSystems and Services (AISS). The University of Illinois is anaffirmative action, equal opportunity institution. Mention ofmanufacturers and trade names does not imply endorsement.

TIC is published bimonthly by the AISS Publications Officefor members of the University of Illinois administrativecomputing community. Items are solicited from all campusoffices using administrative computing services. Submitquestions and comments to: Editor, The Integrated Circuit,50 Gerty Drive, MC-673; Champaign, Illinois 61820;or to jhathawa@uiuc.edu.

Associate Publications Editor Terry TedrowEditor, Distribution, Mailing Jack HathawayAsst. Publications Ed., Designer Renice WernetteEditorial Assistant Mary WalstromPhotographs (p. 4) Mercer Photography (UIUC)

Michelle Ciulla (UIC)Illustrations Renice Wernette

Editorial Office 50 Gerty Drive, MC-673Champaign, Illinois 61820(217) 333-5457Internet: jhathawa@uiuc.eduPROFS ID: IMIXJDH

2 The Integrated Circuit

ince our last Warehouseupdate article in the July/August 1995 TIC, we’vebeen busy with the Infor-mation Warehouse effort.

Now we want to let you in onthe latest Warehouse activitiesat both campuses.

UIUCOne important and eagerlyawaited piece of the Warehouseis U of I Direct student report-ing data. Colleges and adminis-trative offices will soon be ableto write their own U of I Directreports from this data.

Early in 1995, after exten-sive meetings with clients whoused the earlier student data-base, the Warehouse team tookU of I Direct student data storedon the mainframe, and used itto create several U of I Directreporting tables. Through theyear these clients helped us testand refine the tables, using SASon the mainframe as a report-ing tool. This work is ongoing.

More recently a small groupof college office clients begantesting a new retrieval methodfor reporting from the U of IDirect reporting tables. Thisfeature is now available at thepersonal computer level (DOS/Windows). A beta version hasbeen created for Macintosh,and we are looking for a fewtesters. To use the new retrievalmethod you must install acommunications program onyour workstation, allowing youto connect to the U of I Directreporting tables in the Infor-

The final piece of U of I Di-rect student data for the Infor-mation Warehouse will be arepository with a description ofall the individual elementsfrom which the student data iscompiled. We will completethis project in cooperation withthe UIUC Office of Admissionsand Records.

UICAt Chicago, we made an addi-tion to the existing studentdata environment. The currentIntegrated Student InformationSystems (ISIS) DB2 extractswere our first Warehouse effort.Implemented several years ago,ISIS supports many of the stu-dent information reportingneeds of the UIC campus com-munity. In late October a copyof the ISIS DB2 extracts wasmade available on a Ware-house server.

This copy includes everytable in the existing ISIS ex-

sStudent Reporting Data in the Information WarehousePete Asick

tracts. We did this to give userstime to familiarize themselveswith a new environment with-out encountering new data aswell. The Warehouse serverversion is created on the sameschedule as that of the main-frame system.

As with the U of I Directeffort, communications soft-ware is required to allow Win-dows-based machines to con-nect to the Warehousedatabase.

We’ve received suggestionsfor several changes to the ISISwarehouse, the most popularbeing to improve the timeli-ness of the data. That sugges-tion was followed by requeststo make all active registrationterms available. Clients havealso asked that more informa-tion from the ISIS on-line envi-ronment reside in the Ware-house. We will make theseenhancements to ISIS on theWarehouse server, and willcontinue to provide updates inTIC as to our progress.

Pete Asick is an AssistantDirector in AISS EnterpriseServer Technologies at Chicago.

mation Warehouse. UsingMicrosoft Query 1.0 withinExcel 5.0, you can query thetables and retrieve data. Thereare two advantages to retriev-ing data in this manner. Notonly do many campus officesalready have the software, us-ing this tool you don’t need toknow how to write compli-cated programming code toextract the data. Using basicdesktop “point and click,” anextract of data can be retrievedand manipulated.

Plans for the U of I Directstudent data portion of the In-formation Warehouse are infull swing. Campus offices willhave a new mailing view (aview is a subset of fields fromdifferent tables brought to-gether for a specific type of in-formation retrieval) to createmailing labels, or communicatewith their students via e-mail.In the meantime, testing con-tinues on the main reportingtables. Changes or revisions tothese tables will be presentedin releases scheduled to occurat regular, short intervals. Thiswill allow us to keep youinformed about what isbeing worked on and itspriority, and to help usbetter utilize our re-sources.

By midterm, an-other new view, al-lowing college officesto work with theirown student data byterm and course,should be ready. Bythe same time, we alsohope to have all thereporting tables in pro-duction and ready for alarger group of testers.

January / February 1996 3

4 The Integrated Circuit

Here’s AISS

4 The Integrated Circuit

Lisa FerrisLisa is a Personnel Assistant inAISS Administration and Plan-ning/Human Resources at UIUC.Before coming to AISS in Octo-ber 1994, she worked for fouryears at Personnel Services.

Lisa’s responsibilities in-clude processing documentsfor academic, non-academic,and student appointments.Other responsibilities may in-volve salary surveys or specialprojects for Assistant VicePresident Thom Brown.

When not at work, Lisakeeps very busy with her twochildren Tasha, 11, and Caleb,5, who always have her goingin different directions. Otherfavorite pastimes include bowl-ing, horseback riding, volley-ball, softball, reading, andmeeting new people.

Mark WrightMark is an Information Tech-nology Consultant for AISSClient Support Services at UIC.Before coming to AISS, heworked as a network managerand general computer consult-ant for the UIC Department ofOphthalmology in the Collegeof Medicine.

At AISS, Mark’s primaryconsulting focus is the UICCollege of Medicine and someof its departments, includingMedicine, Genetics, Ophthal-mology, Otolaryngology, andSurgical Oncology. He has al-ready received Microsoft Profes-sional Product Specialist certifi-cation, and is on track toobtain Microsoft Systems Engi-neer certification.

Outside the office, Mark’sinterests include outdoor ac-tivities such as hiking, camp-ing, and especially golf. He alsoenjoys reading fiction, nonfic-tion, newspapers, and maga-zines. His and his wife’s great-est joy is their daughter Lainie,born in March 1995.

Troye KauffmanTroye came to AISS in 1987after receiving his B.S. in Com-puter Science from UIUC. He isnow working on his thesis foran M.S. in Computer Science,and hopes to complete the de-gree before the century and hisadvisor’s patience run out.

His work at AISS startedwith system and applicationsupport, which gave him li-cense to dabble with DB2, MVSbatch, VSAM, SNA networking,ACF2, and several other prod-ucts he hopes nobody remem-bers that he knows anythingabout. Working with PCs fromthe ancient days (when peopleactually loaded software from5.25" floppies), he has lookedforward to every improvementin PC technology. These dayshe works on the integration oftechnology across platforms,and various Enterprise ServerTechnologies group (EST)projects.

When not at work, Troye isbusy having fun with his wifeHerlinda and their two chil-dren, son Andrew, 9, anddaughter Micaela, 7; scouting(as a Webelos leader and ascout leader trainer); and mak-ing home improvements (yes –propeller heads can lay ceramictile, put up drywall, and installsiding).

Hagit ItzkowitzHagit joined AISS at Urbana in1993 as a Research Programmerin the Interoperability andConnectivity (InterCon) group.

Hagit earned her B.Sc. inElectrical Engineering from theTechnion, Israel Institute ofTechnology in 1986. Followingthat she worked for the Elec-tronics Systems Division of theIsraeli Air Force as a Researchand Development engineer andproject manager, and attainedthe military rank of captain.More recently she was em-ployed as a senior systems sus-taining engineer at Elonex Inc.,in Silicon Valley, CA.

At AISS, Hagit works as anetwork client administrator.Already a Microsoft Profes-sional Product Specialist, she isnow pursuing Microsoft Sys-tem Engineer certification.

Hagit’s husband Alex is anassistant professor in Electricaland Computer Engineering. Inher spare time, Hagit createsartwork collages. She is alsofond of traveling all over theworld, and scuba diving occa-sionally in tropical waters.

January / February 1996 5

t procedures, and business pro-cesses with a critical eye, andcontinually ask the question“why do we do this?” It meansaccepting the challenges thatcome with change. You wouldbe surprised at the number oflaws, external agency policiesand procedures, and executivemandates, some created yearsago, that directly influencewhat we do and how we mustdo it. It seems clear to me thatone of the keys to truly rein-venting the enterprise is get-ting external agencies to workwith us to streamline businessprocesses. Everyone must rec-ognize that orchestratingchange externally is infinitelymore difficult than doing sointernally, where we havemore control over our businesspractices. Nonetheless, wemust remain firm in our re-solve to do what’s necessary tochange the external processesthat influence our business.

A successful business re-quires a firm commitment, atthe highest levels within theenterprise, to streamline exist-ing business processes as muchas possible. We can do manythings today to improve our lotin life. We’ve all heard Presi-dent Stukel talk about reducingthe amount of paper that flowsthrough our institution. Con-sider that the cost of paper hasrisen by 60 percent during thepast year, and this fact aloneshould motivate us to auto-mate our business processes. Aswe examine paper-dependentprocesses we also have an op-portunity to examine the whyand how of those processes.Did you ever track the paperprocesses within your own of-fice and try to determine justhow many people touch adocument as it toils its waythrough the system? I thinkyou’d be surprised how manypeople are involved and how

few of them add any value tothe process. Each person whotouches your document addscost to it – the question is, dothey offset this cost by addingvalue to the pro-cess? It’s nodifferentat theenter-priselevel.Many ofour proce-dures have beenin place for years,and it’s time to re-view and ascertaintheir value.

Technology affords theopportunity, in a controlledenvironment, to examine ourexisting business processes andautomate, consolidate,or eliminate stepswherever possible.Sometimes this requireschanges to existing policy andprocedures, and we must beprepared to make those kindsof changes as well.

Over time such changeswill redefine the roles and re-sponsibilities of our clericaland support staff. Tomorrow’sknowledge worker will relymore and more on an intelli-gent workstation with informa-tion systems and productivitytools to help people do theirjobs. Increasingly data will beaccessible via this workstation,allowing sophisticated ad hocdata analysis. As our depen-dency on automated systemsgrows, we must become moreproficient in using technologyto meet business process re-quirements. A critical successfactor here is our ability to de-velop training programs thatwill help faculty and staff makethe transition to the electronicbusiness environment.

Today’s Successful Enterprise: Making a Leap of FaithDoug Wolfersberger

echnology certainly hasdone its part in making usrethink “how” we run ourbusiness.

Running a successfulbusiness requires vision – avision of where we would likeour business to be in one tofive years. Clearly the Univer-sity is a huge enterprise and wemust be prepared to examineevery aspect of its business pro-cess if we expect to meet thefinancial challenges that lieahead. Our goal is to create themost efficient processes pos-sible to support the University’smission – instruction, research,and public service.

What are the competitivefactors we must deal with, andhow are they projected to in-fluence the way we must dobusiness in the future? Do weproject an increase or decreasein State funding support? Whatchanges do we project in theFederal budget situation (pro-viding Congress decides to passanother budget) that wouldaffect research grant fundingsignificantly? Are student en-rollments projected to increaseor decrease, and how wouldsuch changes effect instruc-tional processes at the threecampuses? Are staffing levelsprojected to increase or de-crease? These are but a few ofthe questions the Universitymust ask itself, and be heldaccountable for answering.

Those answers will helpform a “vision statement,” orguide for reinventing the enter-prise and positioning it to meetthe challenges of the future.The vision statement then be-comes our roadmap for meet-ing those challenges.

Running a successful busi-ness means having the courageto examine existing policies,

The Departmental Adminis-tration System (DAS) applica-tions and associated electronicforms are examples of what liesahead. Given the right level ofcommitment it becomes easyto envision an all-electronicUniversity – electronic forms tohandle new appointments andpersonnel changes for existingstaff; direct deposit for payrolland other cash disbursements;electronic ordering systemsthat support internal and ex-ternal service providers; on-linereport management systemsthat deliver formatted reportsdirectly to your desktop; and ofcourse communication serviceslike electronic mail and elec-tronic data interchange (EDI).It’s all just around the corner.

Doug Wolfersberger is AssistantVice President of AISS College andDepartment Business Services.

“OReengineering the University’s Procurement ProcessTerry Tedrow

ne of my top priorities asPresident is the stream-lining of our administra-tion and a reduction inour bureaucracy. . . .

we have initiated a ProcurementReengineering project that willresult in both service enhance-ments and cost savings. Thepurpose of the project is toreexamine and redesign theprocess through which depart-ments and individuals at allthree campuses requisition,purchase, receive, and pay forgoods and services.”

– James J. StukelUniversity of Illinois President

The Procurement Reengineeringproject is a critical Universityinitiative, according to Associ-ate Vice President for Businessand Finance, Richard Margison.The University’s procurementprocess is very labor-intensiveand paper-intensive, heavilyburdened with a high volumeof small-dollar transactions.University administration iscommitted to making thechanges necessary to substan-tially improve our procure-ment services, and to invest inthe technologies requiredto make the processmore efficient andcost effective.

Getting startedTo make the reengineering

project a reality, the Universityis working in partnership withthe consulting firm of Coopers &Lybrand, which has conductedsimilar reengineering projectsat Yale and Carnegie-MellonUniversities, among others.Their approach to process re-engineering is based on a meth-odology that takes into accountthe needs of a multicampusuniversity such as ours. Suchan approach is designed to:

• Focus on implementation –the University will not real-ize any benefits unless itimplements changes. There-fore they will move quicklythrough the analysis of thecurrent process and into theredesign and implementa-tion planning.

• Obtain user feedback –solutions must be based onclearly identified user needs.Direct input from the usersis necessary to determinetheir needs, so the rede-signed process addressestheir greatest concerns.

• Integrate representativesfrom all three campuses, tocreate a single project team– the University’s procure-ment process will be struc-tured as one project withmultiple components.

• Work within the environ-ment dictated by the Stateof Illinois – the State imposesa vast array of controls andregulations upon the Uni-versity. The redesign projectmust work within the con-fines of such mandates.

The first thing the consult-ants did was to develop a pro-cess map, illustrating the pro-curement process at all threecampuses. This map providesinformation about each process,including costs, time, delays,and errors, and help the rede-sign team develop ideas forimprovements. Some of the in-formation the consultants ex-tracted from the map included:

• Touch time – the typicalnumber of minutes an em-ployee spends actuallyworking on a transaction.Combined with salary infor-mation, touch time can in-dicate the cost of each step,and of the process itself.

• Lag time – the time betweenprocess steps, when no oneis working on a transaction.Examples include sitting inan “in box” and waiting foradditional information. Lagtime can both increase costsand reduce customer satis-faction.

• Value-added analysis – dis-tinguishes between activi-ties that add value from acustomer perspective, andthose that do not. By elimi-nating non value-addedactivities, process costs canbe reduced and customerservice enhanced.

As they looked into thecurrent procurement process,Coopers & Lybrand consultantsdiscovered that not all the ef-fort and cost associated withprocurement occur in the cen-tral administrative departments,and that much work is con-ducted within the academicdepartments. Most Universitydepartments have “shadowsystems” in place, to gain ac-cess to process and budgetinginformation. Some of thesesystems are fully automated,some fully manual, and othersa mix of both. But all have re-quired the investment of con-siderable time and effort –adding further cost to theoverall procurementprocess.

6 The Integrated Circuit

Work Distribution SurveySo to get a broader picture ofthe time and costs expendedthroughout the University,Coopers & Lybrand sent out aWork Distribution survey to anumber of administrative andacademic departments, askingpeople involved in the processhow much time they spent onprocurement-related activities.Combined with average salaryinformation, such a survey pro-vides a comprehensive view ofhow people spend their time,how much the overall processcosts, and where a new processmight bring about savings andservice improvements.

Next, the consultants metwith people within the depart-ments, who are closely involvedin procuring goods and ser-vices – faculty, administrators,business managers, clerks, andsecretaries. The purpose of thesemeetings was to understandprocurement from the customerperspective, including:

• what they like about thecurrent process

• what they don’t like aboutthe current process

• what their experiences havebeen

• their functional require-ments for a new process

• their suggestions for im-provement

Not surprisingly, there wasa broad and deep consensusthat the process should bechanged.

Project ManagementThe Procurement Reengineeringproject is guided by a ProjectSteering Committee of Univer-sity and campus officials chairedby Vice President for Businessand Finance, Craig Bazzani.This committee is responsiblefor establishing the overallgoals of the project, addressingkey policy issues, reviewing thenew process design, and sup-porting its implementation.

A Procurement Redesignteam, consisting of staff fromour three campuses, has alsobeen formed. All operationsspecialists, the redesign teamhas experience in various aspectsof the procurement process.The team’s responsibility, withguidance from Coopers &Lybrand, is to design and engi-neer the new process as well asthe organizational structure andtechnology that will support it.

How and when?The Procurement Reengineeringproject will be executed in threephases. Phase 1 involved theassessment, just described, ofthe current process, includingtechnology, internal controls,and organization (staff deploy-ment and skill sets). This phaseis complete.

Phase 2, which began dur-ing January ‘96, will focus onthe actual design, integratinginnovative practices employedat corporations and other uni-versities, the capabilities of en-abling technologies, and im-provement efforts already underway on the three campuses.The Procurement Redesignteam is now at work to developa design and implementationplan for the improved procure-ment process. It is estimatedthis phase will be completed inthree months.

Phase 3 will be the actualimplementation of the rede-signed process, introducing itand its supporting technology,policies, and organizationacross the University’s threecampuses.

ConclusionMargison believes the Procure-ment Reengineering projectwill change more than just theprocurement process. Theproject will affect not only howwe buy and pay for material, itwill establish a University-wide,process-oriented model for howwe conduct all our future busi-ness. This is important not sim-ply as a business issue, but as anacademic one as well. PresidentStukel perhaps put it best whenhe said we must improve theway we conduct our business sothat our real mission “– teach-ing, research, and public ser-vice – can gain a greater por-tion of our time, attention, andfunding.”

Terry Tedrow is AssociatePublications Editor in AISSPublication Services.

Note: Some of the informationin this article was taken fromdocuments prepared by theconsulting firm of Coopers& Lybrand.

January / February 1996 7

f Student InformationThe University exchanges in-formation electronically withthe U.S. Department of Educa-tion. Students who need finan-cial aid can apply to the De-partment of Education, whichsends data pertaining to poten-tial or current U of I studentsback to our financial aid office.The University then sends cor-rections (if needed) back to theDepartment of Education,which in turn sends us a re-vised application.

Currently data between theU of I and the Department ofEducation is exchanged elec-tronically over the IBM Infor-mation Network (IBMIN).However, the Department ofEducation is converting fromIBMIN to General Electric In-formation Services (GEIS). Inanticipation of this change, theUniversity has established aconnection to GEIS and is test-ing its data exchange procedures.

Testing organizations func-tion somewhat like clearing-houses, providing data on nu-merous students to numerousinstitutions. The AmericanCollege Testing (ACT), Scholas-tic Aptitude Test (SAT), Veteri-nary Aptitude Test (VAT), andGraduate Record Examination(GRE) agencies send tapes re-porting test scores of all stu-dents who want their scoresreported to the University ofIllinois. If the student thenapplies for admission, or is al-ready a University student, thetesting information becomespart of that student’s Univer-sity admission and placementrecord.

We are working with ACTon a pilot project in which theagency collects applications forundergraduate admission andforwards them to the indicatedinstitutions. The data is en-crypted and transmitted to usdaily via FTP, where it is re-ceived, decrypted, and madeavailable to our Office of Ad-missions and Records.

Relationships with the Outside WorldLarry Smith

or an organization to havea meaningful existencetoday, it must interactwith the rest of the world.The way those interactionsare managed affects how

the organization is viewed bythe world, and how successfulthe organization is in extend-ing its influence. Efficientmanagement of those interac-tions means devoting fewerresources to support them, andchanneling more to the organi-zation’s mission instead. Rein-venting the enterprise influ-ences both the relationshipsand the means of supportingthem.

At one time, organizationsexchanged information bysending paper documents backand forth, with subsequentmanual processing. In someinstances this is still true, butin many others processing hasbecome more efficient by in-corporating some form of elec-tronic data interchange (EDI).

EDI is an evolving technol-ogy, and the University is us-ing a number of types of EDI inits relationships with the out-side world.

Clearinghouses are an ex-ample of how the world out-side the University is beingrestructured. For instance, theNational Student Loan Clear-ing House collects informationregarding whether a person isstill a student, and providesthis information to financialinstitutions holding outstand-ing student loans, when theinstitutions wish to check thestatus of those loans.

The University used to sup-ply this information to the Illi-nois Student Assistance Com-mission (ISAC), while otherlenders forwarded individualrequests for status verificationto the Office of Admissionsand Records. The informationis now extracted and fed elec-tronically via TransmissionControl Protocol/Internet Pro-tocol (TCP/IP) File TransferProtocol (FTP) to the clearing-house, which responds to allsuch requests for information.

8 The Integrated Circuit

Library ResourcesThe University Library receivesdaily updates of newly cata-loged bibliographic data viaFTP from the Online ComputerLibrary Center (OCLC). Thisinformation is loaded intoILLINET Online, the electroniccatalog shared by 45 librariesstatewide, to facilitate libraryresource sharing.

Payroll ProcessingOn the financial side, the Uni-versity dispatches vastamounts of machine-readabledata to state and federal gov-ernment agencies. For ex-ample, we send tapes of ac-counts payable data to theState of Illinois Central Man-agement Services (CMS) for thestate payment process. Tapes ofpayroll data for staff paid fromstate funds go to the State ofIllinois Comptroller’s Office forits payroll preparation.

We send W-2 tax withhold-ing information on tape to theInternal Revenue Service.

In the distant past (but dur-ing my career), there was nodirect deposit of payroll checks.Subsequently, the Universityput direct deposit informationon tape and sent it to a limitednumber of local banks.

Today the direct deposit ofemployee payroll checks paidfrom local University funds isaccomplished via the NationalAutomated Clearing HouseAssociation (NACHA). The Uni-versity transmits payroll datavia the IBMIN to a NACHAclearinghouse, which can for-ward appropriate informationand dollars to any NACHAbank nationwide.

Check information for pay-roll and accounts payable forUIC and UIUC is sent to BankOne in Springfield via theIBMIN. Bank One uses the in-formation to authenticatechecks returned to it for pay-ment. It also returns status in-formation to the University viathe IBMIN. We place this infor-mation in our Report Manage-ment System for reference byuser payroll and accountingoffices.

Another type of informa-tion the University exchangeselectronically has to do withemployee voluntary deductionamounts for 403(b) accountswith Fidelity Investments. Thisinformation is forwarded toFidelity via the IBMIN.

Accounts ReceivableCustomers can mail paymentsfor University accounts receiv-able directly to Bank One. Thebank deposits the funds to Uni-versity accounts and forwardsremittance information elec-tronically via remote job entry(RJE). Routing these paymentsdirectly to the bank is moreefficient, and results in a sig-nificant dollar benefit for theUniversity.

Delinquent accounts receiv-able information is sent toCMS via tape, for its “offsetreceivables” process of identify-ing people or institutions whoare being paid by one stateagency, while delinquent intheir obligation to anotherstate agency.

Sending data via tapes oncerepresented a great step for-ward, but is now considered adated technique as we look formore and better methods ofsending information on-line.

PurchasingAISS and the Office of BusinessAffairs are investigating thefeasibility of receiving elec-tronic invoices from FederalExpress, possibly using the EDIX12 (a standard EDI generalbusiness transaction set) for-mat over the IBMIN, or a sim-pler format via FTP. In eithercase, the format would be con-verted for input into an existingPurchasing payment process.

As the University continuesto update itself technologicallyin its business processes, thenature and type of support forthese relationships will con-tinue to change. We anticipatethat a common interest withoutside organizations, combinedwith concerted reengineeringefforts, will move us forward insupporting these relationshipsin timely and cost-effective ways.

Larry Smith is Director ofSystems Integration in AISSEnterprise Server Technologies.

January / February 1996 9

eHot Lines: Goodbye PROFS, Hello AdMailJonathan Budil

very new year bringschange. At AISS one ofthe biggest changes for1996 is the approachingretirement of the PROFS

e-mail system. We have alreadybegun phasing out our central-ized e-mail service. Many ofour clients are aware of this,but the reasons behind themove may not be clear. Simplyput, feature-rich LAN-based e-mail alternatives to PROFS arebecoming more popular acrosscampus, not to mention thelong-standing campuswide e-mail services that are availableto all faculty and staff and onwhich many clients have al-ready obtained accounts. Inview of these two factors, it isno longer cost-effective forAISS to continue providingwhat has become a redundante-mail service. However, thisdoes not mean we intend toabandon our clients who havecome to depend on PROFS.Rather, AISS will give its clientsthe option of having e-mailaccounts on a transitionalUNIX server, which will runfor a full year after PROFS isdiscontinued, giving our cli-ents time to find a new e-mailsystem that suits their needs.We’ve named this new system“AdMail”. AISS will offer train-ing and support for AdMail sothat clients will find the changefrom PROFS easy and even wel-come, since it will be accompa-nied by a friendlier interfaceand a richer set of features.

What Is AdMail?“AdMail” stands for “Adminis-trative Mail,” and will be partof the new server’s Internethostname: admail.aiss.uiuc.edu.

Unlike PROFS, which was pro-prietary software running onan IBM mainframe, AdMail isbased on an open standard cli-ent/server architecture. Such asystem is already in widespreaduse across the U of I campusesand the Internet. The AdMailserver will support both PostOffice Protocol (POP) andInternet Message Access Proto-col (IMAP) client software. Theseprotocols are also offered onthe mail servers run by theComputing and Communica-tions Services Office (CCSO) atUIUC, and the Academic DataNetwork (ADN) at UIC, whichmeans that when AdMail goesaway after June 30, 1997, AISSclients will already know howto use the client software forother e-mail options on campus.

Jargon-WatchNow just in case any of youfind terminology like client/server, open standard, POP, orIMAP to be more confusingthan helpful, let’s take a mo-ment to review these terms.

The client/server architectureis something that anyone whouses a DAS application has ex-perienced. Basically, such sys-tems have a back-end, theserver, which is usually a re-mote machine that stores allthe data and provides the ap-propriate clients access to it.The client software is designedto give users a friendlier way tointeract with the data. The cli-ent runs on the user’s localworkstation, and accesses thedata on the remote serveracross a network such as theInternet.

Next question: what hap-pens when a client/server ar-chitecture is based on an openstandard? Well, look at the

World Wide Web – a variety ofdifferent server packages areavailable, along with an evengreater number of Web clientsoftware tools from which tochoose (Mosaic, Netscape, etc.).Yet for the most part, you canuse any Web browser to viewany Web site. While it is truethat certain pages look betterusing some browsers as op-posed to others, the basic com-patibility still exists. An openstandard with respect to e-mailmeans that it is a protocol every-one can use freely, or for whichanyone may write accompany-ing software to comply with it.As a consequence, one maychoose from a great variety ofe-mail software clients. Thisfreedom of choice is in contrastto the old PROFS system, inwhich the client and the serverwere rolled into one and usershad to take what they got.

The primary difference be-tween Post Office Protocol(POP) and Internet MessageAccess Protocol (IMAP) is thatPOP requires the client (thesoftware) to download andstore messages on your localworkstation, whereas IMAPkeeps all messages on the server.So why do most UNIX mailservers offer both protocols?Because different users havedifferent needs. IMAP is goodfor users who read their mailfrom a variety of workstations(home, work, on the road,etc.). Since all the mail is kepton the server, IMAP users haveaccess to all new messages plusany previously read notes thatthey filed or kept. A personusing a POP client can read hisor her mail from any location,but the retrieved mail is avail-able only from the location atwhich it was first read. SomePOP mail client software givesyou the option of leaving mailon the server, but this can still

create confusion for the noviceuser, who could occasionallyend up with multiple copies ofthe same note. The simplestsolution for those who readtheir e-mail from more thanone computer is to use anIMAP client. The IMAP clientAISS will be providing is calledPine, and will be accessible viatelnet and from our modemdial-ups.

While IMAP may appeal tousers on the move, POP mailclients offer advantages as well.The most popular POP clienton campus is Eudora, a com-mercial software package thatis available for Windows andMacintosh. Here are some ofthe many things Eudora letsyou do:

• view and edit multiple mes-sages simultaneously

• copy and paste text fromone window to another

• filter mail by sender, sub-ject, or body text, to arrivein specific folders

• sort the order of messagesaccording to sender, sub-ject, date, or priority

• search all your messages inall your folders for a singletext string

• check spelling in your mes-sages before you send them

• attach Windows or Macfiles to your mail for trans-fer across the Internet

• use ph, the U of I on-linestudent/staff directory

Thanks to a special agree-ment between the vendor andthe University, faculty and staffmay obtain Eudora softwareand documentation at no cost

10 The Integrated Circuit

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from either CCSO or the ADN.Pine documentation is alsoavailable. While users are notlimited to either Eudora orPine for their interface needs,the level of support you willreceive for these two productsranks considerably higher thanwhat we might be able to mus-ter for another product possi-bly unknown and unfamiliarto the staff of the various cam-pus help desks.

Some of you may like thesound of Eudora’s features, andyou may read almost all ofyour e-mail at your office, butwhat if you’d also like to checkyour mail from home using thePine IMAP client from one ofthe campus modem dial-ups?Fortunately, POP and IMAP arenot mutually exclusive. Theyare like masks your e-mailwears: what’s underneath re-mains the same. Nothing pre-vents you from using Pine athome and Eudora at the office.Just remember that messagesyou store in Pine’s personalfolders will not be accessiblewhen you switch to Eudora.Also, unless you have config-

ured Eudora to leave mail onthe server, the simple act ofchecking your in-box withEudora will remove the mes-sages found there, makingthem inaccessible via Pine.However, if you read a messagein Pine and just leave it in yourin-box, you can download andfile it later using Eudora. Ad-mittedly, the use of multiple e-mail software clients can beconfusing initially, but with alittle practice you can get thehang of it.

AISS will offer training ses-sions for Pine and Eudora dur-ing the upcoming months,with the schedules to be an-nounced in the near future. Itwould be a good idea right nowfor you to encourage all whosend you e-mail to use your phaliases as the address. Your phalias points to whatever yourcurrent e-mail account is. Rightnow, if your primary e-mailaccount is PROFS, then that’swhere your ph alias is probablypointing to. When PROFS isdiscontinued after June 30,1996, the ph entries can beupdated again to link to what-ever new e-mail system eachclient has adopted.

If you already have an e-mail account on campus thatyou prefer using, then there isno reason for you to obtainone on AdMail. In fact, someof our clients had e-mail ac-counts long before they ac-quired a PROFS account, and tothem the PROFS account wasan unwelcome addition be-cause they then had to checktwo accounts to get all theirmail. A few users got the cleveridea of getting their mail for-warded to their favorite ac-count, only to discover that inmost cases, PROFS mail can notbe automatically forwarded.Unwilling PROFS users did notalways have the option of clos-ing their accounts, because cer-tain mainframe applicationscurrently require users to havePROFS accounts for full func-tionality. Now that PROFS isbeing decommissioned, a mas-sive effort to modify other ap-plications that communicatedwith PROFS is almost complete.These modifications will makeit possible for mainframe appli-

cations to send messages toAdMail or any other e-mailsystem that uses SMTP, theInternet’s Simple Mail TransferProtocol.

I hope you’ve found thisbrief preview of the e-mailchanges AISS has in store forthis year to be helpful. Ourgoal at AISS is to ensure thatour clients make a smoothtransition to another e-mailsystem once we cease to be acampus e-mail provider. Thoseof you who have already madea switch from PROFS will notrequire a new e-mail account;for example, AISS internallyuses Microsoft Mail and Sched-ule Plus, and we will not bechanging over because we con-verted from PROFS last year.We encourage any departmentthat thinks a similar solutionwould work for them to imple-ment it. AISS will aid those in-dividuals and groups who ei-ther cannot or elect not to takeon the tasks of in-house e-mailadministration, in taking thefirst steps toward the broadercampus e-mail standard.

Jonathan Budil is a Help Deskconsultant at Urbana.

January / February 1996 11

12 The Integrated Circuit

AISS Quick Reference

AISS Help Desk, UIC: 996-4806 AISS Help Desk, UIUC: 333-3102

University Office of AISSAssociate Vice President: Anthony J. Aniello .......................................... 244-4522

Computer and Network OperationsAssistant Vice President: Rich Meyer ...................................................... 996-8870Facility Management Director: Mary Ellen Gaughan ................................ 996-5506Capacity Management Director: David Skopec ........................................ 996-8905Operations Director: Brian Mack ............................................................. 996-5075

Administration and PlanningAssistant Vice President: Thom Brown ................................................... 333-6349Business Operations: Connie Walsh ........................................................ 333-4802Billing: Jim Hudson .................................................................................. 333-6395

College and Department Business ServicesAssistant Vice President: Doug Wolfersberger ....................................... 244-4522Client Support Services Director UIUC: Steve Stuart-Doig ..................... 244-1608Client Support Services Director UIC: Mark Askren ................................ 413-7741Client/Server Development Director: Scott McCartney ........................... 333-5459

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Enterprise Server TechnologiesAssistant Vice President: Jack McManus ................................................ 244-4522Server Development Director: Margaret Krol .......................................... 333-6392Systems Integration Director: Larry Smith .............................................. 333-0936Access Technologies Director: Richard Montanelli ................................. 333-6288Library Systems Assistant Director: Cathy Salika ................................... 333-4896

Public “Dial-up” AccessAdministrative Computer Services Via Phone LineUIC: .......................................................................................................... 996-8812UIUC: ........................................................................................................ 333-4372

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