Amy Shaiman helps move Miami to Banner 9
By Cathy McVey, information technology services
Amy Shaiman
As an active Banner evangelist, Amy Shaiman, HRIS analyst, is enthusiastic about the powerful software package and the current project that will move Miami to version 9. Shaiman takes a big picture view of this two-year effort. “Banner touches all faculty, staff and students. It’s important for everyone to know what’s going on behind the scenes,” she claims.
So what led Shaiman to become such a strong Banner advocate? Her engagement is driven by a desire to provide superior service and fueled by the fact that HR and payroll are “very, very reliant on Banner.” It was a natural next step to seek out the larger Banner community. Attending the annual Ellucian* Live conference provided face-to-face opportunities to engage with other HR professionals from Banner schools.
“We are all facing significant changes,” is the message that Shaiman brought home from last month’s conference. Globally, all Banner schools are facing a hard deadline. Banner 8 will no longer be supported as of December 2018. That means no bug fixes, no updates to tax tables, no financial aid regulation updates. Functionally, Banner 8 will be unusable.
Not only are we required to make the move to Banner 9, the new version is written in a new platform – Banner XE – making this change more complicated than past updates. “In some ways this is an implementation of a new ERP,” explains Shaiman. “The sheer size of the effort is driving the need for all Banner users to engage.”
ERP=Enterprise resource planning, a business process management software.
The fact that this project is so large and far-reaching means it cannot be just another IT project. Thirty Miami people from a variety of offices are participating in one or more project teams. Of that total, 12 are IT services staff and 18 are non-IT staff. “Every main administrative office has a representative on one or more of the teams,” points out Shaiman. “I strongly encourage Banner users to identify their project rep and use them as a source for news and updates.”
“I appreciate the opportunity to work with colleagues. It can be fun to work together, solving problems,” Shaiman says of her active role in the project.
You can follow Shaiman’s suggestion and keep yourself informed by reaching out to any project team member or by following the news on the Miami Charts a Course for Banner 9 blog.
Shaiman’s involvement in the Ellucian Live community includes presenting at the last two conferences. Also, she is a member of the Banner Human Resources Customer Advisory Board, is a Banner HR eCommunities captain, and received one of the Excellence in Community Building and Support of Peers and Colleagues awards this year.
* Ellucian is Banner’s parent company
