Completion Report

Project Summary:

. 

The objectives were as follows:

1. To migrate the SAGE application to ColdFusion 9
2. To update supporting technical documentation for the migrated application

The deliverables for the project were:

1. A migrated version of SAGE in DEV, TEST and LIVE
2. Updated technical and support documentation

All of the objectives were met and the deliverables achieved.

Analysis of Resource Usage:

Staff Usage Estimate: 40 days

Staff Usage Actual: 75 days

Staff Usage Variance: 88%

Other Resource Estimate: 0 days

Other Resource Actual: 0 days

Other Resource Variance: 0%

Explanation for variance:

Effort

The estimated effort for this project was 40 days. This figure was based on the models of CF9 upgrade projects done in 2011-12. The effort for each task was taken from the CF9 Migration Task List prepared in 2011, with additional effort added for project management, etc. The final figure for effort was 75 days. The variance acroos the different teams can be seen in the following table:

The overall increase of 35 days was reported and approved on five occasions. These respectively sought an additional 12, 6, 6, 4 and 7 days (i.e. 35 days). The first one was during the initial analysis stage and sought extra effort to cover the work that had been identified on changing the security model on SAGE as it had been using CCD - use of which is to be discontinued. The second increase was for additional work (on the build stage) related to the same issues as identified under the first increase. The next increase was required after the first round of user testing. This highlighted a couple of issues round adding and saving 'Vacancies' to the application. The two subsequent increases were required after the upgraded application had been put into LIVE - the first was for 'browse' access in SAGE Admin, and the second one was for access to SAGE Admin for student helpers - a category that was not clear in the initial analysis work.

It is obvious, with an overall increase in effort of 88%, that the initial estimate was hopeful. The largest proportion of the overall increase is for work undertaken by Development Services - the main reason for this was the additional development work that was required once the system analysis has 'uncovered' the need to make changes to the security access model on the application because of its existing interface with CCD. This work was not covered in the estimates predicated on the past models of CF9 migrations, and threw up the later issues that were reported post-deployment and that were mainly round access. The extra effort for Project Services and Applications Management is directly related to this with the extended timescale and changes being made to the LIVE application after the initial deployment.

Milestones

The milestones for the project were adjusted (and approved) on three occasions - first, after User Testing was delayed and threw up issues around saving 'Vacancies'; then, twice after the migrated application was deployed into LIVE and different, new problems were identified by users in Careers. One lengthy delay was attributable to the problems Careers staff had with access to TEST services. Getting fixes into LIVE after the deployment has also led to some delays as the Development Services staff working on the original migration are now assigned to other projects, and this project has had to wait until they can fit things in. However, once available, the fixes have been worked on very quickly.

Key Learning Points:

The obvious lesson learned is that applications using CCD will require more development work than those that do not. However, most of the CF9 migrations were done 2-3 years ago, so this lesson may not be too relevant for this type of work. There is a list of applications that use CCD and this is now down to only a few.

One other implication from the access issues round SAGE Admin is that the business analysis for the project to replace SAGE (which is being discussed for mid-2014) will need to encompass all the types of access, via single sign-on, as there are student users who have some degree of admin access to assist Careers staff with adding and maintaining some types of records.

Finally, a small but pertinent lesson - especially with more project work planned for Careers - is that access to EASE TEST needs to be straightened out for Careers staff and student helpers so that testing can be carried out more efficiently.

Outstanding issues:

.There are no outstanding issues.