April 2022 Agenda
Meeting Date: April 26, 2022
Time: 2:30-4:00 pm
Location: Zoom
Remote Attendance: Andy Maverick, Craig Woolley, Rudy Hirschheim, Sandi Gillilan, Jonathan Levesque, Jacqueline Bach, Stephen Beck, Matthew LaBorde, Tommy Smith, Kappie Mumphrey, Chad Brackin, Julie Perkins, Peter Trentacoste, Melanie Thornton
Absent: Alex Basse, Bret Collier
Presenters: Katie Bouey, Sumit Jain, Robin Ethridge
Others: Susan Crochet, Ric Simmons, Fred Piazza, Stephen Heyward, David Alexander
Opening
1. Administrative Announcements
2. Executive ITGC Updates [CIO]
Action
3. Approval of the Minutes from the Meeting held on March 30, 2022
Information/Discussion
4. PM-36 Draft Policy & Standards [Sumit Jain]
5. Data Governance Subcommittee Charter - DRAFT [Chair]
6. Data Warehouse/Snowflake [Robin Ethridge]
7. Workday Student Project Update [CIO]
8. Call Center Software [CIO]
9. Destiny 1 [Kappie Mumphrey]
10. ITS ITGC Project List/Teams Telephony [Katie Bouey]
Wrap-Up
11. Information sharing/Announcements [All]
12. Suggested agenda items for future meetings, including ITS topics of interest [All]
13. Next steps/Follow-up items [Chair]
April 2022 Minutes
1. Administrative Announcements
The CIO announced that ITS is conducting its annual customer satisfaction survey and encouraged Council members to participate and to forward the notification to staff for a wide range of feedback.
2. Meeting Minutes Approval
March Council meeting minutes were approved with no revision. Motion to approve by Tommy Smith; Second by Rudy Hirschheim.
3. PM-36 Draft Policy & Standards
Sumit Jain, ITS, gave an overview of Policy Statement 124 on Data Management. He discussed Data Handling, Data Storage, and processes and procedures related to Data Privacy. Sumit discussed related policy standards, including the need to establish a Data Governance Subcommittee under the purview of the IT Governance framework. He also gave an overview of the three data classifications from a security perspective: confidential data, private data, and public data. He discussed having an inventory of assets, who needs to authorize access to private and confidential data, and making sure users are aware of their responsibilities as it relates to handling of data. Sumit briefly discussed third-party agreements and contracts as they relate to data, as well as data disposal. He also discussed approved data storage locations, approved secure sharing methods, as well as insecure sharing and storage methods. He briefly discussed encryption of data, as well as backup and recovery. Sumit also gave an overview of data collection standards, including the need for consent language. There was a brief discussion concerning data collection from employees and applicants.
4. Data Governance Subcommittee Charter
The Chair gave an overview of the Data Governance Subcommittee charter. She discussed the two-tiered framework of a strategic steering committee coupled with an operational committee. She discussed the scope of the framework including the four areas of Policies and Standards, Data Integrity and Quality, Privacy, Compliance, and Security, and Architecture and Integration. She also discussed guiding principles including data recognized as an institutional asset, access to accurate and timely data, transparency and accountability, and promoting a culture of innovative thinking. There was a brief discussion concerning the system-wide adoption of Workday Student and how it would affect the LSU A&M Data Governance Subcommittee. The Chair also briefly discussed the executive sponsors as well as establishment and authority. She also gave an overview of the Data Governance Steering Committee as well as the Data Governance Operational Committee, including their respective charges, responsibilities, and membership compositions. There was a brief discussion concerning the need to include the Office of Research and Development on the subcommittee’s membership. There was also a brief discussion concerning the relationship between the Data Governance Steering Committee and the IT Governance Council. The Chair stated that the charter would be shared with the Provost and CFO in May.
5. Data Warehouse/Snowflake
Robin Ethridge, ITS, gave an update on the Data Warehouse Project. She discussed the business focus, the technology focus, business intelligence, and myths regarding the purpose of a data warehouse. She stated that mainframe processes and capabilities do not lend themselves to supporting the modern expectations of a data warehouse. She gave a brief overview of the enterprise data repository, including data generation, data flow, data storage, data curation, and data access. She shared with the Council an architectural diagram of the technical infrastructure. She stated that on premise data sources including historical finance, Human Resources (HR), and current Student Information System (SIS), as well as non-mainframe application databases will be replicated into the data warehouse along with cloud-hosted data sources. Raw data will be staged in the platform and then processes will be put into place to transform it into a consumable format that complies with data definitions that the Data Governance group will have developed. She shared that the data stored in the physical data warehouse will be accessible by reporting and analytical tools, and different reporting tools and channels would be made available to different types of users including general lay persons, data developers, IT programmers, and data scientists.
Robin shared that Snowflake was chosen as the data warehouse solution and it is a software as a service solution currently hosted in the Microsoft Azure Cloud. She listed the major technology objectives of the data warehouse solution, including the need for a physical, centralized, scalable, high-performing platform for staging, integrating, and hosting data optimized for data analytics, being able to provide access to data securely, efficiently, and quickly in a form easy to analyze for business analysts and other data professionals, as well as being able to securely publish data to analytical and visualization tools for decision makers. She shared that Snowflake could be used by all eligible LSU institutions. She also shared that Snowflake is cloud platform agnostic and has an affordable billing and pricing model by lending itself to paying by use. She listed other benefits including scalable compute architecture, business continuity, and storage optimized for analysis rather than operations. She shared that Snowflake provides an open architecture allowing standard BI tools. She also shared that data can be pushed to Workday Prism for access from Workday reporting. Robin discussed security for Snowflake including Single Sign On (SSO), robust access controls, encryption at rest and in transit, and IP-based restrictions if needed. She shared that the data platform and security are already in place, and that EIS data marts and mainframe SIS data replication is complete. She also shared that Workday extracts are in progress and reporting tools are being tested. There was a brief discussion concerning the level of mainframe data that has been replicated, as well as needs from an integration standpoint. There was also a discussion concerning the timeline of the pilot exploration, its contract, and participation by other LSU institutions. Robin discussed potential next steps including data governance, a data catalog, and training on tools and data, metrics, and dashboards. There was a brief discussion about the implementation timeline, as well as a discussion on how to prioritize which systems to integrate next.
6. Workday Student Project Update
The CIO gave a brief update on the Workday Student Project. He shared that the program governance model and the change governance model were approved by the Executive Committee, with the change governance process going into effect on May 1st. He also shared that participants from all four LSU institutions are finishing up a five-week intensive discovery session with Workday, and he informed the Council that Workday would be on LSU A&M’s campus in June to begin the planning workshops. He stated that an advisory group has been formed consisting of members from LSU and four other institutions that are going live with Workday and shared that the group meets monthly to discuss pain points and other issues.
7. Call Center Software
The CIO stated that ITS has been working with the 27 groups on campus that run call centers to acquire a third-party solution to address the gap in functionality that the Teams adoption cannot provide. He informed the Council that two final vendors have been identified. He shared that LSU Online would be first to go live with the chosen solution by June 1st, with other call centers able to join later.
8. Destiny 1
Kappie Mumphrey gave a brief overview of Destiny 1, a replacement registration system for Continuing Education that will allow students to choose a course, register and pay for it, and take the class. She stated that they are targeting late summer to go live and are currently in the discovery process.
9. PMO Update/Teams Telephony
Katie Bouey gave an update on the Teams Telephony project and shared pictures of the available Teams compatible phones and their respective prices and features. She also shared a picture of available headsets and their prices. She also shared that AT&T would be able to port over LSU’s 17,000 phone numbers on May 3rd at 10PM. Katie also stated that ITS is in the process of working on the e-911 implementation to ensure that the university is compliant with Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act. She informed the Council that the CIO will be presenting the Teams Telephony project to 8 or 9 early adopters at the Union on May 11th. Katie also gave a brief update on the Identity Access Management (IAM) project, stating that the project team is currently working with two different MSAs on requirements gathering. Sumit Jain added that person identity aspect and account management aspect are being worked through.