FIS BULLETIN Number 10

SPECIAL FISCAL CLOSE EDITION

Announcements | Calendar | Status | T&T-Q&A | Training | Inside Peek |Odds & Ends

July 3, 1997

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

GENERAL:

FISCAL YEAR-END CLOSING: Here's a brief synopsis of Fiscal Close deadlines. The entire schedule of fiscal closing deadlines can be found on the web at: http://www.ucsc.edu/ucsc/banner-manual/FISQA/yearendclose.htm.

ACQUISITIONS:

Remember that any documents entered for fiscal year 98 that attempt to adjust encumbrances created in fiscal year 97 will NOT POST until after the Encumbrance Roll process on July 19. FIS will allow you to complete and approve these documents, but posting will reset their status to INCOMPLETE when it fails to find the encumbrance. Once the roll happens, the encumbrances will exist in fiscal year 98, and your documents will be able to adjust them. (Hint-- you may just need to change the transaction date on your document to June 30.)

BANNER REPORTS: None

OTHER FIS/BANNER ITEMS:

FISCAL CLOSING PROCESSING SCHEDULE: Banner FIS fiscal close processing is now underway. Due to heavy batch transaction processing and the need to validate that these processes ran correctly, access to Banner FIS will be restricted at times throughout July and August. In order to minimize the impact on on-line activity, all of the heavy processes are scheduled to take place on weekends. The schedule of these days/times is below. We will publish reminders as the dates get closer, and inform you promptly if there are any changes.

Please note that in addition to the fiscal close processes themselves, a large number of year-end reports will be produced for the next day or two after each process. This may have an adverse impact on system response time. We appreciate your patience and cooperation as we move through this critical time period. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Monique Leduc at x5133 or mleduc@cats.

CALENDAR OF FIS / BANNER EVENTS

Please note that period close-related dates are subject to change.

FISCAL YEAR END FINANCIAL LEDGERS SCHEDULE:
The planned schedule for production of June and July 1997 ledgers is as follows:

FIS STATUS

FISCAL CLOSING PROCESS: As of July 1, Banner FIS fiscal close procedures are officially underway. From now until July 12, the emphasis is on completing fiscal year 97 documents and running exception reports to identify any anomalies that need to be cleaned up before the carry-forward processes (or "rolls") begin on Saturday, July 12.

INVENTORIAL EQUIPMENT DATA CONVERSION: This process is in the final stages of testing, and will be implemented into Banner FIS very soon. Having campus fixed asset data in FIS will greatly benefit the Equipment Administration office in Materiel Management.

REPORT PRODUCTION COORDINATION: Work on report and processing production coordination has been put on hold during Fiscal Close Processing.

THE "STEALTH" AVAILABLE BALANCE QUERY FORM PROJECT: Work on this project has been put on hold to focus on the fiscal closing project. The comments from user-testers are being incorporated into enhancing user documentation. We hope to resume work on this project in August and to make it available to users by the end of August.

TIPS & TRICKS / QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

TIPS & TRICKS: None submitted over the past month

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: None submitted over the past month
________________________
Questions or problems regarding the Banner system can be directed to:
Acquisitions, Accounts Payable - Karsen Jones kjones@cats
Ledger Reports, Fiscal Closing - Vicki Gutzwiller vickig@cats
Banner Security, Access, Other - Monique Leduc mleduc@cats

INSIDER'S PEEK AT FIS

JUNE 4, 1997: CHRONOLOGY OF A CRISES

(Or "Applying What Was Learned From Insider's Peeks 1 - 3")

Earlier this month, we all suffered through a condition which is known as "System Down," which translated into Bannerslug terms means "FIS isn't working." (To the Bannerland Front and Back Offices and the Ride Operators, it meant "Panic in the streets.") For close to two days - most of June 3 and virtually all of June 4 - we were unable to provide service to FIS users. Needless to say no one was pleased with the amount of time it took to restore service.

Having had time to analyze the situation and our reaction to it (There's nothing like going through a full-scale crisis for the first time), as you might guess, we've been able to learn quite a bit from the experience - all things which we'll use to good ends. It all began, as you might recall ("Shall we descend back into the abyss"), with a power outage on the morning of June 3. This was originally thought to be the cause of the problems experienced the next day when we thought we had a faulty disk drive. (The system software was returning all sorts of scary disk error messages, after all). In retrospect, it turns out that this was a complication that diverted our attention from the real problem.

As we informed you (correctly), the disk drive was replaced by a Sun Microsystems Service Technician around noon on Tuesday. Relieved, the system was brought back to life. To cast aside any remaining doubt, it was decided to run a few quick FIS processes to test the system ("Aw, nothing could go wrong, but just in case..."). Running a relatively simple process that has been run many times over the life of FIS promptly brought the system to its knees, again (someone mentioned, "it's working slower than a slug"). Everyone safely concluded that the disk was not the problem (Yes indeed, rocket scientist material are we). Much theorizing and headbanging (not necessarily in that order) took place throughout the afternoon. In an effort to isolate the problem, the CATS-ADS programmer-analysts and database administrators methodically and painstakingly recounted every minute detail of what occurred with the processes that went badly while the CATS - Computer Systems Operations waded through DINKY system information. By late afternoon, it was determined that the problem might be related to UNIX system-level software (I'll spare you the details which could fill up the next 20 installments of the FIS Bulletin) that had been installed over the past weekend. This software had been in general use in many other computing operations around the world for a couple of years and was tested here prior to installation. It had even been running on INKY (where the data warehouse resides) for some time. SCT had also given its blessing to the software.

Since it was about 5:00 pm, and it would have been impossible to bring up the system any earlier than about 8:00 pm, it was decided that a limited amount of time would be allotted to try to identify the problem with the new piece of software. A deadline was established whereby if a solution was not found by 7:00 pm, the old version of system software would be reinstalled from backup tapes. (By the way, have you backed up your computer lately?). At 7:00 pm, a solution appeared close at hand, but there wasn't enough certainty that it would work, so the old system was restored by the CATS-CSO and CATS-ADS folks (Yes, the folks working on it got home just in time to see Letterman).

Meanwhile, the FIS user-analysts had been encouraged (rousted?) at home to come in early to test the reinstated system before making it available to FIS Users (Testing has a way of calming the jitters, at least for us). As you know the tests went successfully, and the system was made available at 9:01 am on Thursday morning.

By the way, in the end, it turned out that the system upgrade "activated" a bug in an FIS program that had laid in wait for just such as upgrade (It's alive! It's alive!). In any event, it was found and dutifully exterminated and that took care of that. Needless to say, many things were learned from this experience. 1. We could have probably handled things better. At the least, been a bit more organized and focused. 2. We needed to develop a plan for dealing with system down situations in order to restore system service as quickly as possible. 3. We needed to develop a more effective means of communicating information between the different parties involved - CATS-ADS, CATS-CSO, FIS, and CATS-IRC. 4. We needed to time installations of upgraded software so as to minimize any potential problems, even if the software has been in general release for a long time and it has been tested.

Shortly after the, ahem, incident, members of CATS-ADS, CATS-CSO, and FIS met to develop a plan for dealing with "system down" situations. As a result of this meeting, a contingency plan was drafted and agreed to by all parties. Criteria have also been developed to assist in making decisions as to what approaches to take to try to restore service. Because there are so many elements involved in making FIS run - Banner software, Oracle databases, Sun Solaris UNIX operating system software, and a myriad array of computing and networking hardware - coordination of information is critical to solving serious system problems. As a result, specific people within each group have been designated as information coordinators who are responsible for keeping all those involved informed, including CATS-IRC which will coordinate with FIS to provide users with information updates during "system down" situations.

Also agreed upon were contingency plans to deal with problems involving system upgrades. The plan includes a clear timeframe for trying to resolve problems and a deadline for restoring the operation of the production system.

We are now more assured that in the event of another system down situation, we can restore system operation in a prompt fashion (We know it will work - we had to use it last week...successfully I might add). Our hope is that the down time logged last month is a record that will never be surpassed. As our spokeslug likes to remind us "Slow and steady is the way to go, except for when the system is down."

In the next issue:
It's Fiscal Closing and I Don't Know What to Write - Editor's Choice Month

ODDS & ENDS

FIS / BANNER:

There are some new menus in FIS Banner. On July 1, the Nat Sci Stockroom went live with the Stores Inventory module of FIS. Many new forms have been added to menus used by the Nat Sci Stockroom Staff.

REQUEST FOR FEEDBACK ISSUES: None

Contributors: Kirk Lew, Monique Leduc, Karsen Jones, Laura Martin
Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. Please direct them to the Editors, Monique Leduc mleduc@cats or Kirk Lew kllew@cats

Financial Affairs | Accounting Offices | Campus Controller | FIS

Comments to: controller@ucsc.edu - Maintained by FIS, Updated