BroncoDirect/PeopleSoft NewsThis is the third edition of the PeopleSoft/BroncoDirect Newsletter, and its second academic year.
In a continued effort to enhance services to employees, Payroll Services is implementing the first phase of employee self-service through BroncoDirect and PeopleSoft. eProfile Self Service enables employees to access and maintain personal information and expedite changes online. In the initial rollout, employees will be able to update their addresses, phone numbers, and emergency contacts. The rollout is expected to occur in late Fall, 2007 – stay tuned for an announcement.
The demand for many courses is so high that finding an open seat can be a real challenge. A new application from I&IT Web Development, cleverly called "Find Open Seats," will make this task easier. After logging in with your BroncoName and BroncoPassword, you can specify up to eight different classes to be tracked. When a class becomes open, the application will send an email to your Cal Poly Pomona email address, and can be set to send a notice to an additional email address and/or text messages to one or two cell phone numbers. A notification log keeps track of the messages that have been sent.
Find Open Seats is available at https://win.webdev.csupomona.edu/openseats/. It will be fully operational by the beginning of regular Winter Quarter registration on October 29, but you can visit it now to see its features. The application was written with students in mind, but can be used by anyone with a BroncoName and BroncoPassword. Give it a try!
Many faculty members and Open University (OU) students are frustrated by the time it takes for them to merge into the fast line (get into Blackboard to retrieve course materials). The speed bump is the fact that OU students are registered in a very manual way. You’d think that would be easy to fix, wouldn’t you? Well, it’s not so easy. Our sister campus, CSU Northridge spend in excess of a half million dollars solving this problem. We don’t have $500K, so we’re looking to piggyback on their approach, which requires molding it to the Cal Poly way. The Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, and I&IT staffs are working hard to create a plan, our goal being to have a detailed plan by the end of fall quarter. We hope to be ready to register OU students online in the spring quarter.
A modification of the advisee search function is in the works. We know that the search returns too many students and requires you to hunt through the list, guessing or investigating until you find the student you’re trying to help. The information you get isn’t very useful (blank, blank, USA) and the information you want isn’t there (major, class level)! It’s not an easy fix, but our goal is to have it completed in early 2008.
The implementation of the updated Degree Audit and Transfer Credit Reports has been completed successfully for all undergraduate majors, and these reports are available online through BroncoDirect. The Registrar's Office has provided online tools through their website for students and advisors to communicate any questions or concerns regarding individual reports.
This is a significant step forward for the campus in its efforts to meet the advising needs of students and reflects a number of years dedicated work by many of our campus constituents, including the Registrar's Office, Undergraduate Studies, I&IT, and the academic colleges.
In August the new Student Center feature in PeopleSoft was quietly rolled out to students. We hoped that some of them would find it on their BroncoDirect student role page, use it, and provide feedback. The Student Center is a one-stop web page where students can access all of the BroncoDirect functionality they need for advisement, registration, etc.
Soon, all students will be sent an email formally introducing the Student Center. The email will highlight the features and encourage students to access items via the Student Center. The Student Center will continue to be an alternative to the “old way” until tutorials have been created to introduce the Student Center to both students and their advisors. We’ll let you know when the tutorials are available.
There’s a little blue Tell Us What You Think link on each BroncoDirect page (top center). The link will take you to a quick satisfaction survey – answer a few questions, give a little advice. We look forward to hearing from you.
Now it’s your turn! Do you have a question about PeopleSoft/BroncoDirect? About any of the stories we’ve featured in the newsletter? Well, “Ask The Experts” and they will answer! Check out the questions and answers we’ve already added to our FAQ website. While you’re there you just select your category, enter your question and leave the rest to the experts. You’ll get a personal response, and your question and answer will be added to the FAQ to help others.
Last updated October 17, 2007
