This newsletter has been created to keep you up-to-date on activities of the California State University (CSU) related to the State Controller's Office (SCO) 21^st Century Project and is scheduled for distribution on a bimonthly basis. Please forward this newsletter to other individuals who may have interest in the SCO 21^st Century Project and related activities of the CSU. Individuals may subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter by sending an e-mail to 21questions@calstate.edu. Please send any questions, comments, suggested topics for upcoming editions of the newsletter, or other feedback regarding the communication of activities related to the project to 21questions@calstate.edu.

• Don Scheppmann, SCO Chief of the Personnel and Payroll Services Division, presented a SCO project overview and status update to the CMS Executive Committee (EC) on July 17, 2007. Don emphasized the restructured project approach consisting of two waves versus four, and shared the updated dates for the CSU go-live, including August 2009 for the pilot campus, and October 2009 for the remainder of the system.

• The SCO 21^st Century Project Team continues to work with SAP on issues related to concurrent employment (a situation where an employee holds more than one position). The SCO 21^st Century Project Team has made the decision to maintain the legacy system for the processing of post conversion retroactivity due to limitations involving conversion of historical data into SAP. Retroactive transactions will be processed in the legacy system for transactions effective prior to the go-live date.

The following activities have been completed or are currently underway:

• SCO Project Planning Meetings: Representatives from the CSU/SCO 21^st Century Project Management Team attended project planning and review meetings with the SCO 21^st Century Project Team during July 24 – 26, 2007. Discussion topics included:
  • The SCO high-level design model for payroll processing, including retroactivity, and concurrent employment
  • An overview of SAP capabilities and draft information regarding SCO configuration
  • A data conversion strategy overview
  • A follow-up on action items and issues from the CSU Workshop in December 2006
  • An introduction of draft CSU business process documents
  • A high-level SCO project plan for the CSU, including the revised approach with two waves
  • General project planning

The SCO and CSU/SCO 21^st Century Project Management Teams are in the process of consolidating and summarizing the notes and follow-up activities generated from the SCO Project Planning meetings.

• Communication Plan: The Change Management and Communication Team has formulated a Communication Plan for the project to identify stakeholder communication needs and methods of communicating to these stakeholders. The plan is currently in review with the CSU/SCO 21^st Century Project Management Team.
• Campus Coordinator Appointments: The appointment of a CSU/SCO 21^st Century Project Campus Coordinator for each campus is anticipated within the next two months. The Campus Coordinator will assist with the successful transition to the new SCO SAP software. The designated individual will act as the central point of contact for the campus for project related activities. At a minimum, the Campus Coordinator is expected to participate in scheduled monthly teleconference calls with the Project Campus Liaison.
• Data Warehouse: The Data & Reporting/Data Warehouse Team is finalizing a strategy for gathering the business requirements for the systemwide data warehouse and will be soliciting campus input during the months of October and November.
• Project Updates: Members of the CSU/SCO 21^st Century Project Team and the SCO 21^st Century Project Team provided project updates at the annual CSU Benefits and Payroll conference. 

The following documents are recent and/or upcoming postings to the CSU/SCO 21st Century Project website:

• CSU Design Overview: A draft CSU design overview document, summarizing key activities and issues, was recently posted to the project website.
• Project Plan Updates: The CSU/SCO 21^st Century Project Plan was updated based on the revised SCO Project Plan and has been posted to the project website.
• Webcasts: The CSU/SCO 21^st Century Project Team conducted two webcasts on July 23, 2007 and August 16, 2007. The webcast presentations were designed to walk through the various aspects of the project, such as; high-level goals, deliverables, impacts, assumptions, organization, timeline, and accomplishments-to-date. The webcast presentation can be accessed from the project website. The questions and answers from the webcasts will be added to the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page accessible via the project website.

Many of the documents on the project website are password protected. To obtain the password, please send a request to 21questions@calstate.edu.

Be sure to check out the CSU/SCO 21^st Century Project list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) which is maintained on the project website. If you have any questions that you would like to see included in the FAQ list, please send them to 21questions@calstate.edu.

Ideas, comments, questions? Have news or other items you would like to see addressed in the next newsletter? If so, send an e-mail to 21questions@calstate.edu. We will attempt to address submissions that may be of interest to the CSU community. Please note that we may not be able to address all submissions.