PUM 19 Completed, But What is a PUM Anyway?
You may have heard references to PUMs and not known what that meant. PUMs, or Peoplesoft Update Managers, are necessary updates to PeopleSoft that happen quarterly and are similar to other cyclical work within the Office of the Registrar, and others that use the software. The Office of the Registrar just completed PUM 19, after beginning work on January 19th and going into production on March 21st. Since the SIS 9.2 upgrade the office has worked through PUMs 12 to 19.
PUMs, like all work with PeopleSoft, are not solely an RO initiative, and their impacts may affect other areas of DEM. All SIS modules could potentially be impacted by the updates or new functionality that is included in each PUM. For RO-specific content, Cheryl Wise was the project manager, Priya Sachithanandam was the business analyst, Dale Redmond and Maria Peters were the developers, and technical and functional team members across the office helped with the effort as well, especially for testing. The RO also collaborated extensively with DoIT to develop a schedule to implement PUM updates in each environment.
The RO knows that PUMs are a big effort, especially in regards to testing, and the entire office and division come together to make these necessary updates happen. Over the past several updates the RO-team has settled into a steady process for accomplishing these updates, and every time one is completed the process becomes more efficient and effective.
There is still more work to do to improve the process and establish an approach for PUMs 20, 21 and 22, as well as for investigating and implementing new functionality. As plans are made for the FY22 project portfolio, the RO will work more on honing this process and considerations will be given to timing of the next updates and approaches to new functionality that teams have expressed interest in.