UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — LionPATH will undergo a system upgrade in July 2019, the LionPATH Development and Maintenance Organization (LDMO) has announced.
Reason for the upgrade
The LDMO will be incorporating the newest version of Oracle's PeopleSoft application so that LionPATH is running on a current, fully supported version of the software. The upgrade also will bring improvements to the navigation and appearance to enhance system ease-of-use.
To prepare for the upgrade, the LDMO is conducting a thorough review of LionPATH’s many components, including thousands of data queries and hundreds of system customizations, to make sure all data and processes transfer smoothly to the new version of the software.
Timeline of LionPATH upgrade
The LDMO has established the following timeline based on input from the LionPATH governance committee, which is comprised of representatives from various functional offices across the University:
— Present to February 2019: The LDMO will perform practice upgrades in testing environments.
— March 2019 to May 2019: Key administrative offices will conduct User Acceptance Testing to confirm that all tasks and business processes perform correctly in test versions of the upgraded software.
— March 2019 to July 7, 2019: The LDMO will implement a freeze on requested system changes in order to allow focused attention on the upgrade preparation. During this time, the LDMO will conduct only emergency fixes.
— June 2019: The LDMO will make corrections identified during User Acceptance Testing.
— July 2019: The LDMO will take LionPATH offline from July 4 through July 7 to perform the system upgrade.
LionPATH users who work in key administrative offices may be asked to participate in system testing to prepare for the upgrade. However, no new training is expected for core business processes.
For the other systems that connect with LionPATH, no data changes are expected; however, end-to-end testing will be conducted to ensure that all processes continue to work smoothly. The LMDO will contact interface owners with whom they currently work to schedule such testing.
Upgrade preparations
In order to focus on the preparations, changes to the current version of the system will be suspended effective March 15, 2019. The deadline for submitting enhancement requests is Dec. 31, 2018. While the LDMO is continuing to accept such requests, most will be put on hold until after the July upgrade. More information about submitting enhancement requests is available on the LionPATH Support website.
The LMDO will release more updates leading up to July 2019 that also will be posted on the LionPATH Support website. For questions, contact the LDMO at lionpath@psu.edu.
LionPATH was the first enterprise system to be implemented by the Enterprise Project Management Office. The second enterprise system, WorkLion, the University’s human resource and payroll system, launched in December 2017. The University’s third enterprise system, SIMBA, will replace the current IBIS system and is scheduled to launch in July 2020.