Overview

Background

ASTA is the project and resource planning tool used within IS Applications, Student and Academic Services (SACs), Service Excellence Programme (SEP) PMO and soon to expand out to Distance Learning at Scale (DLAS) within LTW. This business critical tool is used to record and monitor effort required to deliver projects or to support business as usual services. The data held in ASTA is used to both support transparency of project and service costs and inform decisions for forward planning of team workloads.

The software is supplied by 3^rd party supplier, Elecosoft, and was last updated in 2017. This now requires to be upgraded from version 13 to version 14. Please note version v14 is not the latest version (e.g. v15) however the supplier has advised the business team, due to bug issues encountered within the latest version that their recommendation is to upgrade to v14.This is to bring the software in line with the latest support release and also to deliver bug fixes and enhancements to functionality. 

Scope

The priority of the project is to upgrade the ASTA Powerproject software from version v13 to v14.

The Timesheet application currently on version 6.0.02 and the supplier has confirmed that this does not require to be upgraded. The project will have to ensure the Timesheet application works and user acceptance testing will be required following the upgrade of Powerproject software to v14.0.03. It is important to note that the current version used v13 is end of life by end of October 2019.

The project will have to renew server environments both Test and Live, as current infrastructure for SQL 2008 is now End of Life with Windows Server 2008 will be nearing end of life by January 2020. The project team will work with supplier to implement changes to bring in line with supplier recommendations. 

Option to have an automated client rollout will be reviewed.

Deemed out of scope

This project will not be covering any change or move to SaaS Cloud Solution, currently ASTA Timesheet has not been tested by Elecosoft in the cloud and as this is crucial to the management of projects we could not move to the Cloud without this software being tested and available.

No upgrade to timesheet required as there is no new version of timesheet to upgrade to.

Objectives / Deliverables

Benefits

• ASTA service on supported infrastructure within the University’s estate.
• Application version at a level within vendor support.
• Utilise any new functionality being available in this version of the software
• Automated client rollout - reduce time spent on installation

Success Criteria

• Following the upgrade all existing functionality is maintained and operates successfully
• All new features of the upgraded product also function correctly
• No impact on recent performance enhancements following upgrade and move to new supported infrastructure.

Project Milestones