New version of PeopleSoft to debut later this month

A new and improved PeopleSoft system will be unveiled this month, full of changes that should make life easier for faculty, staff, and students.

“There are big benefits to the new system,” says Registrar Jeffrey von Munkwitz-Smith. “The terminology is better, it’s easier to navigate, and I think it will make planning and data gathering easier.

PeopleSoft Version 9.0 is expected to be active by Monday, Oct. 13. Its release comes almost exactly seven years after the system debuted at UConn in October 2001, with registration and student records. It was later expanded to other departments and more have been added since, but this is the first major upgrade to the system since 2002.

Among the major changes, he says, is a “Faculty Center” web page with links to enrollment and grading that makes it much easier for professors to do their work. The current system requires a series of clicks to enter grades or review class rosters. PeopleSoft 9.0 also lets faculty send e-mails to individual students, the entire class and advisees, or subsets of each. And, he says, it allows faculty access to much more information.

Work is also underway to make it possible for instructors to upload grades from HuskyCT or from spreadsheets. This function is expected to be ready in time for grade submission in December.

For students, there is a “Student Center” which, among other things, allows students to track their progress toward a degree and, if they notice a course they’re missing, they can click on the specific course and will be able to go into the registration function to sign up.

Students also will be able to grab an enrollment ‘shopping cart,’ and load it with the courses they want. The carts are also accessible to academic advisors, who can see what the students are choosing. This should facilitate discussion when they meet, von Munkwitz-Smith says.