On Wednesday, April 26, 2017, a kickoff was held for the Concur Phase 0 Pilot. It was a great opportunity for those who were able to attend to get together and really made clear how many people it has taken to bring us to this point in the project. Whether you were able to make it or not, thank you for helping us get here!*

*See below for detailed thanks to the Project Team!

This pilot release marks the first time any Cornell traveler will use Concur, making this the most formative phase of this rollout to date. It’s been a long road to get here, stretching back to 2014.

The kickoff culminated two years of work that began in December 2014, with a Process Streamlining project that highlighted that the travel process needs improvement.

The Discovery Project started in June 2015, and information was re-presented to the Executive Sponsor Group in October 2015. In November 2015, 40% of Cornell units responding to President Garrett’s memo about administrative burden cited travel as an area that needed improvement. (Add to that the fact that we are currently getting by with a 13-year-old, homegrown travel reimbursement system that is no longer technologically sustainable and must be replaced.)

In December 2015, a comprehensive RFP was issued, followed by demos in March 2016. The recommendation to implement Concur was reviewed and approved by the IT Governance Council early April 2016, and implementation work began on July 1, 2016.

Status as of kickoff

The week before the kickoff gathering, individuals in Phase 0 received a peek at what was expected. The email talked about what a unique opportunity this pilot is to assess and fine-tune the system, our materials, and communications before Concur is released university-wide. This “pre-pilot assessment” can be a very powerful way to shape the experiences and perceptions for future users of Concur, but, the message noted, “with great power comes great responsibility.”

Cornell was given a system in mid-October of last year, called our “pre-production instance.” Over the next six months, the team set up configurations, business rules, workflows, and connections to other systems like Workday for people data and KFS for GL data, and tried them out. There were no separate development or test systems.

Travel data, we learned, is live; there is no such thing as “test” travel data. In the pre-production instance, travel booking data was real. And because it was real, testing was always incomplete–we could not finalize a booking because that would actually purchase a real ticket. This made it impossible to do an end-to-end test of the product in a fully integrated way.

The assistance of Phase 0 participants will allow better “shakedown” in the production environment than was possible in pre-production. During this phase, participants will be performing a pre-pilot assessment, which is different from using a system in a fully stabilized mode. It’s inevitable that there will be hiccups and unexpected behavior. The project team hopes for everyone’s patience, persistence, and discretion as we work through issues as they arise, because they will arise, and having everyone alongside as problems are worked out is how we all can get most quickly to the travel experience we all are hoping for, and that the university community deserves.

What’s next

Phase 0 will now continue until the end of May. Phase 1 will be a rollout to others in your units: Division of Financial Affairs, Cornell Information Technologies, Alumni Affairs & Development, School of Industrial & Labor Relations; and the departments of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Neurobiology & Behavior. We expect these roll-outs will take until the end of the summer months. By that time you will have helped us prepare the application for broader use across campus.

We and the vendors are working to provide you with the best experience possible under the circumstances, and please remember that whatever challenges you may face and help solve will benefit colleagues who come after you.

Resources available to you

Do you have questions or want to learn more about Concur? These resources are available to help!

The Training and Guides section of this website.

The Concur group in Cornell Yammer.

Write to concur-support@cornell.edu.

One last thing…

There are a limited number of water bottles, drawstring bags, RFID-secure card cases, and Concur pens available. While supplies last, anyone in the Phase 0 Pilot who was not able to attend the kickoff can request one of the big (non-pen) items and will receive it, plus a pen.

Just write to concur-support@cornell.edu and let us know where you are, and whether you’d like a bottle, bag, or case.

*A special thank you to the project team!

Core Leadership Team
Stephanie Herrick (Project Manager)
Dan Dwyer (Project Director)
Robin Yager (Functional Lead)
Sherry Wilson (Business Analyst)
Kris Alise (Testing and Quality Assurance)
Sherry Guernsey (Subject Matter Expert)
Tami Hastings (System Administrator)
Tammy Babcock (Project Coordinator)

Communications & Campus Readiness
Jamie Parris, Matt Klein, Steve Jackson, Scott Burroughs
Plus: Chris Bennett, Cathy Salino, Jay Porter, Scott Otey, Kathy Sheils, Natasha Aumick

Tech Team
Daniela Balmus, Chad Bower, Jay Hulslander, Sandy Eccleston, Chris Grippin, Nancy Kimble, Sarah Christen, Chad Hagstrom, Derek Messie

Steering Committee
Harper Watters, Kim Yeoh, Tom Romantic, Wil Stringer, Barb Naylor, Avery August

Gerald Hector, Executive Sponsor

…and everyone else who has contributed!