Overview

Background

The Finance Process Manager (FPM) component of the eFinancials v5.0 upgrade was installed and tested at v2.4.0.11 during the FIN118 project. Advanced Computer Software Group (the eFinancials supplier) then released FPM v2.4.0.14, which would address FPM penetration testing issues (see below), too close to the agreed deployment to production period (November 2018) for the other tested components of the eFinancials Upgrade.  It was therefore decided at that time, to deploy v2.4.0.11 to production as part of the eFinancials v5.0 upgrade and delay deployment of v2.4.0.14 until after the FIN118 project.

In May 2018, Advanced were provided with a copy of the security Penetration (PEN) Testing that the University had commissioned a 3rd party supplier to undertake on the new version of the eFinancials (v5.0) prior to the Go-Live date.

Within the report, 19 issues were identified with the following severity levels:

• Critical - 2
• High - 3
• Medium - 5
• Low - 7
• Info - 2

In August 2018, Advanced produced an update on the progress of the fixes required for the issues identified within the PEN Test.  By that date, all Critical and High severity issues had already been resolved. However, some of the Medium and Low severity issues identified would require a new version of FPM to be deployed.

It was agreed at that time across the FIN118 Project Team and with Information Security that this FPM module deployment work would therefore be progressed in early 2019 as a stand- alone project. 

The FIN128 project will therefore target deployment of the desired FPM software upgrade, so that FIN118 business requirements supported by FPM can be addressed in 2019.

Scope

Key activities that are within FIN128 scope include:-

• Migration and upgrade of the eFinancials FPM module from the current version (v2.4.0.11) to v2.4.0.16
• Initial installation and partial acceptance testing of FPM v2.4.0.15 by early March, so that any significant issues with FPM development releases since v2.4.0.111 can be identified, prior to installation of the v2.4.0.16 release
• System Testing of all existing interfaces to the FPM module, as part of application testing
• User Acceptance Testing (UAT) of v2.4.0.16 changes and FPM-specific bugs identified during post Go-Live testing of eFinancials v5.0
• To resolve any significant (Critical or High priority) defects identified during Testing
• Re-pointing any FPM-specific module interfaces, based on the Testing results
• Deployment activities for FPM version v2.4.0.16, assuming that Deployment Sign-off  Review has been completed
• Communications plan development for FPM stakeholders. and
• Project Closure activities

Out of Scope

Activities that are not within FIN128 project scope include:

• Any system development or testing activities associated with JBOSS applications
• Single Sign On (SSO) development for eFinancials
• Migration and upgrade activities for other eFinancials application modules
• System or UAT testing of non-FPM related components of eFinancials, and
• To develop any additional FPM functionality during FIN128, aside from that provided in FPM release v2.4.0.16
• Installation and testing  of critical (showstopper) defects associated with FPM v2.4.0.16, that then require an additional version of FPM to be released for resolution

Objectives & Deliverables

A summary of key objectives and associated deliverables is given in the table below:-

Benefits

Benefits realised by delivery of FIN128 include:

• Finance Process Manager (FPM) will be on an  initial version (v2.4.0.15),  that provides effective mitigation against several  medium and low priority security issues identified during 3rd-party penetration testing of eFinancials v5.0 in 2018;
• Initial acceptance testing of FPM v2.4.0.15 should support early identification of software regression issues prior to installation of v2.4.0.16;
• FPM v2.4.0.16 should address issues identified with v2.4.0.11 by the Finance team, since eFinancials Go-live in November 2018;
• FPM users will use the latest version  supported by the supplier (Advanced), so further large FPM upgrades are not anticipated during FY 2019/20;
• v2.4.0.16 of FPM should also enable users to deal more effectively with supplier names which contain unsupported characters, and
• Support costs for the overarching eFinancials software suite should be reduced, as FPM (currently at v2.4.0.11) is not aligned fully with the latest version of eFinancials (v5.0)

Success Criteria

The main success criteria include:-

• Users can access the FPM application using the managed desktop either via Java Webstart or another browser (IE, Firefox, Chrome)
• The functionality and performance of FPM v2.4.0.16 is at least as good as the current FPM v2.4.0.11. (Benchmarking timings for as-is key finance processes will be referenced by Finance).
• The FPM application and current system interfaces provide current functionality
• FPM-related reports from BI universes also return the same data
• Any FIN128 project work performed by Advanced is delivered within budget, and
• That there is minimum downtime at go-live.
• Current production performance benchmarks for FPM are maintained after go-live

Project Milestones

(Please copy and paste from Milestones log)