Workstations for Critical Staff

Charles E. Frazier, Vice Provost for Information Technology

Almost everyone knows by now that July 1, 2004 is the “go- live” date to switch major UF business systems (Finance, Human Resources, and Payroll) to the new PeopleSoft Web-based, integrated systems. This changeover will affect every college, department, and office at the university.

The PeopleSoft systems, including the gateway to these systems (the myUFL portal) are sophisticated, modern software. So, from the IT side of the house, I write to urge all those who have not already done so to assess your critical office workstations, and to upgrade any that are below the minimum hardware and software requirements needed for satisfactory performance with the PeopleSoft systems. Critical staff includes both staff who will use PeopleSoft systems to do their work as well as faculty who use the portal to submit grades, run class rolls, etc.

As a quick rule of thumb, users dependent on workstations that are more than four years old will likely be severely limited in or unable to carry out at least some important job duties. In addition, department system administrators and technical staff should evaluate the unit’s workstations in light of the browser and hardware requirements posted on the myUFL portal at http://my.ufl.edu .

Every department benefits from having its staff equipped to perform their job duties as efficiently as possible. Providing these staff members with modern workstations-including current software, adequate speed and capacity-will help ease the transition to the new systems. It will at the very least allow staff to focus on learning and converting to the new processes, rather than being distracted by computer problems.