To: Finance Staff, MOU Leads, University Business Managers
From: Connect Carolina Team
We’d like to call your attention to an important message going soon about an upcoming outage of ConnectCarolina. The message is being sent to the Business Managers, RASG, and Res_Info listservs. We are also posting notices on the ConnectCarolina landing page (the page you see when you go to connectcarolina.unc.edu), the home page of ConnectCarolina, and the ccinfo.unc.edu website. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.
Upcoming ConnectCarolina Outage
The Student Administration applications of ConnectCarolina are being upgraded and the upgrade requires an outage of all parts of ConnectCarolina: Student Administration, Finance, HR/Payroll administrative and self-service applications. The outage will be:
Friday, October 20, 2017 at 5:00 p.m. through
Monday, October 23, 2017 at approximately 7:00 a.m.
You will not be able to sign in to ConnectCarolina during these times.
TIM and Viewing Paychecks
- Faculty, staff and student employees will not be able to use the Self-Service functions such as View Paycheck during the outage.
- The TIM system will be available, but you will not be able to access it using the link in ConnectCarolina. If you need to use TIM during the outage, go to https://unctim.unc.edu/wfc/logon.
ePro Ordering
- ePro orders cannot be placed or changed during the outage since they are part of the ConnectCarolina Finance system.
- Airgas orders after 5:00 p.m. on Friday, 10/20 can be placed by emailing the ANWMorrisvilleAdministration@airgas.com which is routed to Teresa Suggs (919-544-3772 ext. 311) or Jason Newhouse (919-544-3772 ext. 312). Airgas will handle the orders over the outage period and work through the technical process after Connect Carolina is back up and running.
Benefits Enrollment
The ConnectCarolina outage will occur during the annual benefits enrollment period. Even though ConnectCarolina will not be available for the weekend, you will still be able to enroll in benefits. When you click on the green button to sign into ConnectCarolina, the system will show you a message containing an alternate link for accessing the benefits enrollment website.
Other Systems That Will Be Affected
Reporting
- InfoPorte and SAS Visual Analytics reports will be available during the outage weekend, with data current as of Thursday, Oct 19. On Monday morning, October 23, you will see all transactions processed through Friday, Oct 20.
- The ConnectCarolina reporting instance (accessed using the Ad Hoc Reporting (RPT) menu option) will not be available and will be down an additional day, coming back up Tuesday, October 24.
HR Systems
Companion systems such as PeopleAdmin, LawLogix and BenefitsFocus will be available, but they will not be able to pull information from or send information to ConnectCarolina until the upgrade is complete.
- Position creations and updates approved and executed in ConnectCarolina after noon on Friday, October 20 will not be available in PeopleAdmin until Monday, October 23.
- New hires, terminations and department changes executed in ConnectCarolina after 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 19 will not be available in LawLogix until Monday, October 23.
- New hires and terminations executed in ConnectCarolina after 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 19 will not be available in BenefitsFocus until Monday, October 23.
Finance Systems
These companion systems will not be available during the outage:
- Web Travel
- P-Card
- Unit Accounting System (UAS)
- Vendor Invoice Submission Page (VISP)
- Customer Billing Management (CBM) and Bill Presentation
Student Administration Systems
These companion systems will not be available during the outage:
- UNC Online Applications for admissions (Summer School, Nursing, Part-time Studies, etc.)
- TouchNet (students and third party proxies cannot pay bills; applicants cannot pay enrollment deposits)
- Third Party Proxy Creation and Access
Student Actions
Students will not be able to access or use ConnectCarolina during this outage for any student action such as viewing class schedules or updating personal information.
Onyen and Personal Data Management Systems
The Campus Directory will be available during the upgrade. The following Onyen and Personal Data Management systems will be unavailable during the outage:
- Onyen and Guest ID creation
- Emergency Contact updates
- Alert Carolina updates
- Online Directory updates
Other Systems
These additional systems are not available during this outage:
- Affiliate Request
- PID Create
- PID Inquiry
- Friday Center Applications (CPPSReg, PDEPReg, CEU, FCCPS)
Changes you may see after the outage
There are no changes to Finance and HR/Payroll applications. Most changes in Student Administration applications are under the covers but the look and feel of some screens has changed to improve accessibility. These include:
- a more muted color palette,
- some fields are center aligned
- longer field descriptions and
- a wider screen layout.
Navigation and links will not change.
Why are we upgrading Student Administration applications?
- The software upgrade will enable ConnectCarolina to take advantage of new software features in the future. For example, one of the changes we expect to implement in 2018 is a new look and feel that is simple to use, reduces clicks and translates to any mobile device.
- The upgrade ensures UNC will be able to receive continuing vendor support for ConnectCarolina.
- The updates reduce accessibility barriers that make it difficult for many people with disabilities to use ConnectCarolina.
For Questions or Problems
Contact the Service Desk at 919-962-HELP or help.unc.edu. For more information on the outage and changes you can expect (if you work with Student Administration), go to ccinfo/student-administration