Project History
Work has been ongoing for the SIS Project since 2018. Below are some key past project milestones.
Procurement
The procurement process for the SIS Project is ongoing. Below are key milestones in the procurement process.
Request for Proposal and Conference Room Pilots
A Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued in Spring 2020, inviting vendors to bid to provide UC San Diego with their student information system solution. It contained questions designed to capture what we need to know to assess the capability of their software, contract terms and conditions, around 200 detailed questions, and Conference Room Pilot (CRP) scripts with detailed business scenarios.
Understanding and insight from business process landscape and mapping sessions were used to create these materials. For the SIS Project and other ESR projects, the ability of each vendor to execute crucial processes and meet the needs of our students is critical, as is total cost.
Vendors sent us their RFP responses, which were scored by the SIS Project and procurement teams. Next were the virtual CRP sessions, held November 2020 through January 2021, when finalists spent two weeks each showing exactly how their software would meet our needs. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from across the university participated and scored with the project team and technical experts on how well the software handled our real-life scenarios.
First Request for Proposal Closed without Award
After a rigorous and inclusive one-year process of proposal, review, consideration, and discussion, the initial RFP for a new student information system was closed without award.
RFP for Vendor Partner Released
On October 18, 2021, a second RFP was released, seeking a vendor to partner with UC San Diego to create a student information system able to meet the needs of the university at the time.
Second RFP Closed without Award
After more than six months of proposal, review, consideration and discussion, the RFP for a student information system development partnership has been closed without award.
- Read the announcement regarding the closing of the second RFP without award.
- Read additional information about the closing of the second RFP.
Contract Awarded
After four years, three RFPs and much consideration and discussion, the contract for a new student information system has been awarded to invenioLSI, SAP’s North American distributor for their Student Lifecycle Management (SLcM) product.
Understanding Our Business Processes
Project team members and SMEs have done a considerable amount of work in understanding and documenting what we do and why we do it. They worked together to understand our business process landscape, analyze and map processes, and envision an ideal state where system limitations to not dictate process.
Business Process Landscape
Our process inventory is an effort to clearly document the business processes that keep our university running and the business process landscape captures and categorizes all of our process areas and documents them in generic terms that are easy to understand.
Business Process Analysis
Process mapping is a collaborative activity during which SMEs share steps involved in a process, why they’re important, who's involved, and what the effects are. Process mapping not only helps us understand what we do currently and why we do it, but where we can improve in the future.
Process Analysis by the Numbers
- 117 processes identified
- 67 processes selected for deep dive
- 200+ Current State discovery sessions
- 170+ process maps created in Promapp
- 233 SMEs participated
Ideal State Development
During ideal state development sessions, SMEs from across the University gathered to define system agnostic ideal state processes. Creating an ideal state moves the project one step closer to collectively defining detailed requirements for a future student information system.
Understanding the User Experience
The SIS Project is the most comprehensive so far in its pre-implementation discovery work. The more work we do upfront, the easier it will be to implement a new student information system.
The Fall 2019 Experience Analysis and Design project combined qualitative and quantitative research in order to holistically understand a student, staff or faculty university experience. The learning from this project has informed, and will continue to inform, the choices made for the SIS Project.