Overview
Background
The Timetabling service is delivered via a number of applications and interfaces. There are a number of applications that are delivered by our third party supplier (Scientia Ltd). Scientia release upgrades to the core applications each year. The 3.11 upgrade will affect the following applications:
- Enterprise Timetabler
- Enterprise Course Planner / Reference Data Manager
- Enterprise Authorisation Manager ( Authorisation database will not change)
- Enterprise Datasync
- Enterprise Portal
- Syllabus Plus (Classic)
- Reporting Database (RDB)
- Scientia Enterprise reporting ( structure of reporting database will remain compatible with 3.2 and 3.10, all views will still be viewable)
The Vendor has not supplied a detailed implementation plan which has resulted in reduced confidence that the upgrade can be completed on-time and within budget, and a lack of clarity as to what the benefits of the upgrade will be.
The project team will create a beta timetabling environment and carry out an initial upgrade on a this beta environment. This will have two benefits. It will allow the timetabling unit to assess the suitability of the upgrade while work on TTU007 continues in DEV. It will allow development technology to develop an implementation plan to be used to upgrade DEV, TEST, LIVE and TRN.
The project will enage Scientia as consultants to assist with this initial stage. The business will fund one day of consultancy from Scientia over the course of the upgrade of the beta environment and writing of the implementation plan. The time will be spent as required by development technology either to effect the upgrade or to QA the implementation plan.
Scope
The scope of the project is limited to assessing the potential impact of the upgraded applications on the existing Timetabling service, once this is known, a decision will be made as to whether or not to roll out the upgrade applications to the live environment. Ideally the upgraded applications will have limited negative impact on the service (or definite positive benefits) in which the upgrade will proceed to through all environments.
For avoidance of doubt, the following items are not within the scope of this project:
- Core architectural changes such as new hardware, replication technology, operating system, middleware.
- Any change to the disaster recovery or resilience solutions or service levels for the Timetabling service.
- Load testing of the Enterprise Applications
- Any upgrades or changes to the Web Applications (Web Timetables, Web Room Booking)
Objectives
No | Description | Prioirity |
| Stage 1 | ||
O1 | Ensure that the upgrade is fit for purpose, checking that changes to applications or infrastructure including downstream systems are not negatively impacted. | M |
D1 | Review the release notes for the upgrade to, analyse the impact on the existing timetabling service infrastructure and create a test plan for the upgraded software. | M |
D2 | Carry out a standalone non production environment installation, testing the features as well as carrying out regression testing - this will be limited to Enterprise Applications, Hot Image, SDB, RDB and UoE Views | M |
| D3 | Deliver an implementation plan, to be reviewed by Scientia, allowing the upgrade of the DEV, TEST, LIVE and TRN environments. | M |
| D4 | Make a recommendation whether or not to proceed or not with the upgrade in the DEV, TEST, LIVE and TRN environments | |
| Stage 2 | M | |
| O2 | Deliver the upgraded software into each of the environments ensuring that a consistent set of environments is left at the end of the project. | HD |
| D4 | Upgrade and check Dev | HD |
| D5 | Upgrade and check Test | HD |
| D6 | Upgrade and check Live | HD |
| D7 | Upgrade and check TRN | HD |
| O3 | Prepare training material for any adopted new features | D |
| D8 | Training manuals and testing material ( to be delivered by timetabling unit) | D |
Benefits
The main benefit of adopting the upgraded software is the continued support of the third party supplier Scientia. Typically when operating an older version of the software bug fixes will not be considered and any fixes will typically require an update, Scientia do not traditionally support patching and back porting of fixes.
The secondary benefits in this particular upgrade are the introduction of some new features:
- Offline Enterprise Timetabler is made available and allows the use of Enterprise tools in an offline capacity, which was previously limited to the older desktop application (Syllabus Plus Classic)
- Large scale data changes reduced, the datasync module has been improved to allow quicker refreshes of information into Enterprise Timetabler. The benefit is yet to be proved but any reduction in refresh times would be greatly beneficial to the 300 users of Enterprise.
Success Criteria
For the project to be deemed a success only Stage 1 has to be completed. Additional criteria will add value to the business but may not be delivered if the upgrade poses a danger to the existing timetabling service:
Stage 1
- Fully assess the impact of the upgrade on the timetabling service and make a clear recommendation about whether or not to proceed with the upgrade
Stage 2
- Delivery of the software into all of the environments ensuring a consistent configuration between environments is maintained
- Continued successful operation of operational processes after upgrade