A newsletter for the Columbia University community on year 2000 issues

Since the initial distribution of the compliance tool kit for Columbia Departments, many efforts have been made in working towards Year 2000 compliancy—but much remains to be done.

Highlights include the establishment of a Columbia University Year 2000 Project Office in late summer/early fall and the beginning of a systematic sweep of departmental systems with this goal: to keep all Columbia University functions 100% operational past January, 2000.

Columbia University’s Year 2000 Project Director is David Newman, who is supported by the following team members: David Roe, Niyazi Bodur, Fred Trickey, Anne Jacobs, Rebecca DeWeese, Brian Graham, Fred Cole, and a number of consultants and students.

YEAR 2000 READINESS

There are multiple tracks associated with Columbia University’s Year 2000 Project. In this issue, we profile three key areas:

Morningside Campus: Facilities Management Services is broken down into two areas for Year 2000 purposes: Information Technology (IT) Systems and Building Management Systems. In the IT Systems area, the facilities staff are proceeding with necessary upgrades. Items currently being considered in the Building Management System area include elevator operability and energy availability. Power Assessment Projects are underway on both the Health Sciences and the Morningside campuses with a current focus on power management issues.

Morningside Campus:  Administrative Information Services (AIS) has completed internal programming revisions to the major administrative information applications. The technical staff is now entering an intensive testing phase of all systems. Test environments have been set up for the mainframe applications (financial and personnel, etc.) and for the client/server systems (accounts payable, FFE, etc.).

Some applications have already been tested and AIS has also successfully moved several of them into a Year 2000 date-simulated environment. The department is working closely with user offices to ensure that all critical business functions and applications will be thoroughly tested.

The Office of Communications Services is also testing its systems. The phone is Year 2000 compliant and has been successfully tested on one of the switches, and will be tested on the others in the next few months.

Health Sciences Division:  The Year 2000 project office has been working closely with departments to create an inventory of equipment, software, and applications in the areas of business systems and research labs. Combined with an aggressive effort to collect Year 2000 compliance data from vendors, we are creating a database that will allow our departments to assess and ultimately to remedy Year 2000 problems that are identified.

Following a comprehensive review of central systems at Health Sciences, covering a wide array of hardware, software and applications, we are proceeding with remediation and testing in a time frame that is expected to address all identified Year 2000 problems.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY YEAR 2000 PROJECT PROFILE

Columbia University has been actively working on the Year 2000 issue since 1996. Columbia University’s Year 2000 Project Office was established in late September 1998 as part of an effort to assist, coordinate, and plan Year 2000 compliance efforts throughout the University. Columbia’s systems include a wide variety of platforms and environments, and can be summarized briefly as: 

Central Systems – computer systems developed, maintained, and managed by large IT support organizations such as AIS, AcIS, and Facilities management.

Departmental Systems – computer systems implemented in administrative and academic departments, schools, laboratories, and centers, not managed by central IT organizations.

Embedded Devices – pieces of equipment ranging from elevators to sophisticated laboratory devices, which contain processors and controllers integral to their function.

The Year 2000 Project Office is working actively in all the above areas. Specifically for departmental systems, we have published a process and supporting documentation to guide departments through their Year 2000 effort. The process is risk-driven and activity-based, and enables the user to achieve key milestones in the Year 2000 compliance effort.

The Year 2000 Project Team is partnering with departments either directly or through work shops and follow-up to assist them in achieving Year 2000 compliance. As such, we are engaged in a massive outreach to departments in our effort to “spread the word” and help enable the University to function problem-free into the 21st Century.

INFORMATION SHARING / RESOURCES

Coming Soon on this Columbia site:

• Year 2000 Information Project Manual
• Testing and Contingency Plan Guidelines

Department of Education´s Website

Check out the Department of Education´s Chief Financial and Chief Information Office FAQs page and Special Projects page for information on:

• Department of Education´s progress and date standard format
• Federal Resources including Year 2000

• Best Practices
• Information Directory
• Computing Crisis: An Assesment Guide
• Memoranda and Progress Reports

• Department of Education´s Year 2000 Strategy Risk Assessment and Contingency Plan Guidance
• Guidance and Compliancy Testing/Validation
• And much more!

YEAR 2000 WORKSHOPS FOR UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENTS

The University Year 2000 Project Team has worked directly with many departments and offices in the University that rely heavily on technology to perform key functions. However, all divisions, departments, and offices in the University must do risk-based reviews to determine whether Year 2000 problems exist in order to solve those problems or document that there are none.

Departments not yet involved in Year 2000 process work with the project team will be asked to send a coordinator to one of four workshops to be held in January. The letters announcing specific dates will be sent out soon.

These workshops will present the steps in the University Year 2000 project approach, introduce the common reporting forms being used by all units, and outline the assistance available from the University Year 2000 project team to help departments and other units in achieving and verifying Year 2000 readiness.

YEAR 2000 PROJECT MILESTONES

Functions Identified — Analyze all activities performed within the department.

Component Inventory — Log all hardware, software, suppliers, embedded devices, etc.

Components Assessed — Components evaluated for Year 2000 compliance.

Renovation/Test Plans — Work plans and schedule complete.

Renovation Completed — All required remediation/replacement/coding is complete.

Testing Completed — Year 2000 compliancy is established and is ready for implementation.

Contingency Plan — Preparation for possible Year 2000 failures.