The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
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REPORT OF THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES & PROJECTS COMMITTEE

17.11.2 Mandate The Information Technology Services and Projects Committee shall advise and make recommendations to the Board on Information Technology Services and Projects issues.

On behalf of all of the 2019 ITSP Committee members we would like to wish everyone a very Happy 100th Birthday to the Institute.

The 2019 ITSP Committee of the Board has held three meetings so far this year on April 8, June 28, and September 23, 2019, our last meeting is scheduled for December 9, 2019. At our first meeting, we identified our top 2019 priority projects that the ITSP Committee would be working on in collaboration with the PIPSC Informatics team. The ITSP Committee would like to thank Director of Informatics Mr. Allen Iverson for all of his support and working collaboration since joining the Institute in 2018 and all of our staff resources to the ITSP Committee.

The list of top priority projects that the ITSP Committee proposed and was approved by the Board of Directors at the April 2019 Board meeting. The ITSP Committee and Informatics staff has been working on most of these projects and were started in 2018 and 2019 and are part of the overall PIPSC Operational and Optimization Plan.

Some of our projects have been on the wish list of many of our PIPSC members for many years. The ITSP Committee from past years and Informatics staff has been laying the foundation and ground work. The Institute is celebrating 100 years and we definitely are on the right track with our IT Informatics staff and all of the enhancements and improvements that is happening within PIPSC and will take us deep into the 21st Century with new technology.

Here is the list of the top priority projects for 2019 ITSP Committee:

  1. Community Platform
    • Do & Don'ts for G Suites usage released during 2019
  2. Concur & Cvent – (Claim/Travel application)
  3. Grievance Tracking System
  4. ITSP Communication and Training Strategy
    • Reporting back to Regions
      • advertising the mandate of the committee
    • Regional Councils / Steward Councils
      • ask for time on agenda if selected to attend
    • AC and WGC
      • User member education
      • how to open tickets
      • how to ask PIPSC for services/tools
      • FAQ for the different services
  5. Video Conference – Virtual Meetings
    • G Suite tools to better connect PIPSC to its members
  6. ITSP Logo for identification and reports

As you can see the 2019 ITSP Committee has been very busy creating supporting “How-To Documents” and a video for our members to use as they transition to and start using the Google G Suit of applications. Informatics is also building a new IT corner or digital services web page under “Member Tools” on the PIPSC website where these documents and video will be available. The new IT corner will also be a location for any and all PIPSC IT related information for our members and staff.

The ITSP committee continues to be engaged in the testing and a really good back and forth conversation around the new SAP Concur-Cvent Claims Expense system for staff and PIPSC members. After the training/demo at our June ITSP meeting all of the ITSP Committee members received full instructions and a temporary login accounts for the new SAP Concur system. The committee conducted full testing and received compensation reimbursement from PIPSC Finance for our ITSP Committee meetings and all other expense claims that the ITSP members would submit as part of the testing. Each of the committee members did their test from either the online website or the SAP Concur Smartphone Application (APP). The ITSP Committee provided feedback on the new SAP Concur application. The SAP Concur Expense is an all-in-one expense solution that replaces the mishmash of paper receipts, Excel spreadsheets, and online forms that PIPSC members have had to deal with over the years. It will let our members too easily:

  • Use your PC or smartphone to quickly fill in and submit expense claims
  • Take photos of your receipts using your smartphone
  • Itemize expenses
  • Calculate mileage reimbursement using a map tool
  • Claim expenses with pre-populated rates
  • Handle expense reporting for another employee as delegated
  • Capture receipts electronically and email to your account
  • Electronically approve expense reports and return unapproved reports for resubmission

PIPSC staff did a phased rollout of the new SAP Concur Expense software from June to August 2019 with the ITSP Committee, Finance Committee and PIPSC Ottawa staff. Informatics has also stated a phased rollout of the new Cvent NCR Conference Centre room booking with the NCR Ottawa Admin’s and Reception. Over the remainder of 2019, PIPSC will introduce the new SAP Concur and new Cvent software to manage events, travel, and expenses in a step-by-step rollout with plenty of members and staff and with lots of training along the way. Informatics has built the deployment plan to ease everyone into the new solutions and make the changes manageable. They will release modules of functionality to selected groups in measured steps, building up to full deployment of the entire solution by the end of 2019-2020.There will be plenty of training as we go live and online training videos available on demand. This approach will also give us the opportunity to adjust as needed before deploying the next phase. After all we don’t want a Phoenix type roll-out. Presentations of the new SAP Concur are also being done at some Regional Steward Councils and will be launched at the BC/Yukon Regional Steward Council in October 2019.

All delegates that attend the PIPSC 100th 2019 AGM meeting will be invited to try out the new SAP Concur expense APP or online version. Training, Instructions and a demo will be provided during the AGM. The delegates will also see a full demo of the new Cvent meeting, travel module that will be rolled out in 2019-2020.

Another new item that all delegates to the PIPSC 100th 2019 AGM meeting will be able to use is a new PIPSC AGM APP. Developed by Informatics staff, a new AGM APP will be launched this year and will include all the information that the delegates will need or can access quickly and easily while attending the PIPSC 100th 2019 AGM

I personally would like to thank the 2019 ITSP Committee members, Karim Chaggani, Todd McCoy, Dean Corda, Thomas Kay, Hugo Landry and Jason Rioux, also the ITSP friend of the Committee Neb Radivojevic, thank you all for your support. I would also like to say thank you Linda Gauthier for her past support and our new ITSP staff resource this year Leah Shaw, also Allen Iverson and to all of the PIPSC Informatics staff. I would also like to thank Charles Jaimet, Gordon Ellerton from Informatics, Didier Paultre from Finance and Dennis Britt from Corporate Services for the support and collaboration with the ongoing Concur-Cvent project.

 

In Solidarity,

 

Greg Scriver

ITSP Committee Chair