Project title

Student Records System (SR2)

Submitter’s name, title, and contact information

Arun Pasricha
Anita Cotter
Andrew Wissmiller
John Cramer

Names of project leader(s) and team members

Project Leader
Arun Pasricha

Assistant Project Leaders

Dan Mihaljevich, Gail Johnson

Team members

Project Sponsors and Planning

Anita Cotter, Tom Lifka, Janina Montero, Edith Celestine, Larry Inks, Dan
Mihaljevich, Cathy Lindstrom, Kathleen Copenhaver, Nick Reddingius, Kathleen
O’Kane, Karen Melick, Jack Ewart, Andrew Wissmiller, Jim Davis, Gail Johnson and
Bonnie Allen

Student Records/SRDB Core Technical and Business Team – A combination of staff

from both the Registrar’s Office and AIS
Dan Mihaljevich, Francisco DeGuzman, Mark Apodaca, Shefali Naik, Martin
Bjel, Farideh Sigari, Edgar Pacho, Nomik Baboomian, Fisher Kuo, Howard Lee, Donny
Morada, Randy Cirilo, Val Romero, John DePaul, Srinivas Pratavadi, Edris Khestoo, Jean
Chao, Mike Costelloe, Praveen Dugar, Larry Inks, Cynthia Summerville, Danny Fajatin,
Thanisorn Boonyasetha, Sue Hsieh, Grahame Elder, Carol Steinberg, Shruti Sharma,
John Cramer, Santhana Srinivasan, Marietta Nieto, William Shelby, William Childers,
Kajal Phabiani, Prakash Hegde, Mra Tun, and Ann Holms.

Major Supporting Roles

1) The multitude of users and campus wide departments who stepped up to the daunting
challenge of making changes to their systems and testing in order to be compatible
with the new Student Records system and the new RO Database (SRDB)
2) The SR2 project could not have completed without the critical support and assistance
of almost every team within Administrative Information Systems (AIS) including;
 Student Applications;
o Distributed Technologies
 o Admissions
o Financial Aid
o Billings and Receivable (BAR)
 Systems Programming
 Distributed Platforms and Network Support
 Database Administration
 Production Support, Storage Management, Access Services and Job
Scheduling and Operations
 Payroll/Personnel
 Middleware Services
 QDB/Campus Data Warehouse
 AIS Administration

A summary paragraph that highlights the significance of the project

(about 100 words)

The Student Records rewrite project (SR2) was perhaps the largest administrative IT
project ever undertaken at UCLA. Since the Student Record system is used by or
interfaces with almost every other system on campus, this rewrite required almost every
administrative unit and academic department to make changes to their respective systems.
The previous Student Records system (SR1) had been in use for over 30 years, so this
rewrite, to the new Student Records system (SR2), was a foundational change for the
campus. This was the first time that a full scale development team was assembled across
departmental lines with team members from the RO and AIS. This unprecedented
experiment in resource allocation helped to elevate this initiative to the campus level. In
addition, all users of the Student Records system, the Student Records reporting data
warehouse (SRDB) and the primary interface students use to access their student records
(URSA) had to make their own adjustments and changes to support SR2, and to that end,
this was truly a campus-wide collaborative effort.

A project description (not to exceed 5 pages), including relevant URLs

 Design, model and rationalize a brand new relational database consisting of over
250 DB2 tables to replace the legacy VSAM file structure of the existing Student
records systems
 Architect and implement a three tiered design separating the presentation, Data,
and business logic layers to position the system for future growth and
technological upgrades
 Implemented common DB I/O routines and common modules used for batch and
online to simplify maintenance, reusability and reliability of business functions.
 Convert millions of student records from the legacy VSAM file structure to the
new relational database of over 200 tables
  Completely revamp over 200 user interface screens to add enhanced functionality
and to connect it to the new database. All user interfaces were brought under the
On-line architecture (Z system) to facilitate connection to Web Services
 Completely revamp all batch process to add functionality and to connect to the
new database
 Exported all data to the Registrar’s Office DB (SRDB) for handling campus wide
and UCOP reporting and other ad hoc reporting requirements.
 Development of a new server based transcript system.
 Rewrite of over 300 FOCUS/COBOL based reports to a new reporting system
running off of SRDB.
 Rewrite of Registrar’s Student Records Web (SRWeb) as a means to deliver
transcripts, reports and other student data to the campus.
 Every campus web application, report and process using student data had to be
retrofitted for the new systems (SR2/SRDB).
 Integration with the primary student web interface to Student Records (URSA)
 A new Mainframe with upgraded software to facilitate enhanced distributed
processing directly to DB2 or via by leveraging the business logic contained
within the CICs User Interface
 The creation of a Development environment (including a user test environment)
separate from the Maintenance environment so that both can be done
simultaneously

The technology utilized in the project

Mainframe: COBOL/DB2/CICS/Web Services

SRDB: Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting System, .Net

The timeframe of implementation

Seven years of planning, building, and practicing

Objective customer satisfaction data (not to exceed 2 pages)

The project was lead by the customer; it was tested by the customer, and approved for
implementation by the customer. It was implemented in a weekend with nary an
interruption in service.