The latest New Core Meet the Team interview comes from Adrian Hassell, IT Workstream Lead for the New Core Programme.
What is your role on New Core?
I am the IT Workstream Lead for the Programme. This involves overseeing all aspects of University IT delivery for New Core, and bringing the technical aspects of the system delivery through all stages of release and launch.
We have a number of different teams in the IT Workstream, covering Architecture, Security, Data, Integrations, Business Intelligence, Testing, and Service Release.
What were you doing before joining New Core?
Prior to joining New Core, I had spent a number of years as IT Manager for the College of Social Sciences. This was a very different role from working in New Core, working closely with academic and professional staff supporting teaching, research and administration, and running a number of School IT teams.
What has been your focus over the past few weeks/months?
This has been many and varied, as in short, whatever has needed to be done has been focused upon! We are in the midst of full testing for the HR and Payroll aspects of the system, and for the Finance side, building a complex number of integrations to other University services and preparing these for testing. Inevitably running many processes and integrations for the first time can throw out defects that we need to swiftly turn around and resolve, before moving on to further testing. In parallel with this, a significant piece of work is underway to integrate New Core Fusion and Worktribe data into the University’s research and reporting data landscape. Finally, work is well underway preparing the system and services for launch, and planning the decommissioning of the systems that New Core will replace.
What are you most looking forward to in the new system?
After a number of years’ work on the Programme, go-live will naturally be a significant milestone and an achievement for all those who have played a part. One aspect that I look forward to, is that go-live won’t be the end of what New Core will deliver, and that there is huge capability in the system as well as regular upgrades going forwards to allow further enhancements and new processes to be released in the future. Self-service access to many parts of the system is something that will benefit staff all across the University.