SGB puts new online allocations management system on hold

Technical difficulties have delayed a new Student Government Board program designed to make… Technical difficulties have delayed a new Student Government Board program designed to make allocations for student organizations paperless.

Charlie Shull, SGB president, said the new online program, Symplicity’s Student Group Management System, will not be up and running until March.

Shull started working on the Symplicity project when he was a member of last year’s board, and although no official start date was announced, the program was supposed to begin at the start of the spring semester.

A technical problem delayed starting the program, which is run through Symplicity, a software company.

Engineers employed by Symplicity, and trained in the Student Group Management System, attempted to enter all Pitt students’ names and PeopleSoft numbers through a mass upload. But Shull said the single upload was unsuccessful.

The new program might have encountered the problem because Pitt uses students’ PeopleSoft numbers as a type of social security number, he said. The engineers will now have to manually type each name and PeopleSoft number of about 34,000 people individually.

This delay will not cost Pitt any additional money because the engineers are working on contract through the Student Organization Resource Center, and the added time is a part of the operation costs, Shull said.

When it’s ready for use, the Student Group Management System will be a new device for organizations during the allocations process.

Student groups’ presidents or business managers log into their accounts, instead of going to SORC in person, to request money. The new system will allow groups to monitor and track their requests during all stages of the allocations process.

Shull said once the transition has been made, the program will allow allocations submissions to go paperless.

“It saves thousands upon thousands of pages of paper a year,” Shull said.

Shull said the new system is a continuation of the former board’s initiatives to make the campus paper-free.

The system, when working properly, will allow each Pitt student to sign in with his or her username and password, Shull said. He said the web page will have public calendars with events posted for students to look at.

Students who are involved in groups could look up the name of their group in the search engine and “join” it.

Once accepted into their specific student group, they have access to the private calendar, updated by a person in their group.

Group members also will have access to automatic updates from their organization through Facebook or text messages, Shull said.

He said the forums available through the system will encourage communication between organizations, which will help build relationships between them.

The system gives SGB, the allocations committee and other groups a chance to create rosters and send e-mails to individuals, possibly making it easier for groups to communicate within themselves, as well.

Shull plans to have the Board and allocations members go through training by the time students come back from spring break in March. Both SGB and Symplicity will offer training sessions to student groups.

SGB plans to contact groups’ presidents, vice presidents and business managers through its contact lists, as well as SORC.

Shull said he is taking a “cautious approach” to the transition because it is a completely new way of going about allocations requests.

As president of SGB, Shull will have increased access to the system, but it will also be managed by the administration, the business manager for student life and allocations, Shull said.