UA Accounting Design Document

This project subsumes the current UA Austen-based accounting system (reconciliation, billing, expiration, account creation, reporting) into an enterprise-wide system that will offer access to this data for user and account validation, and should also streamline and greatly simplify data processing. Management, Client Services and others will be able to access this data via various clients. This project also will allow expansion of our current namespace to a seven-digit user population for authentication and authorization by internal-to-University as well as external users.

Goals

• Move all accounting-related functions off VMS
• Stop creating and shipping flat files between computers (whether encrypted or not) and use a client/ server database model
• Direct loading of INFORMIX DB from UNISYS (HEPPS, SDB, etc.)
• Move billing functions to the Business Office
• Give C&CI and other C&C units secure clients to search and view sensitive data rather than the current (C&CI) model of root access for account administration
• Use web-based clients when possible
• Move current Li validation service to a commercial database accessed by ODBC clients
• Enable large communities of people with access to University online resources an entree
• Allow access to relevant databases via LDAP

Functions to be replicated in reengineered system

• Student validation processing
• Faculty/Staff validation processing
• Clinician validation processing
• Auxilliary account validation processing
• Other Li functions
  • Email forwarding (@u)
  • Securid information repository
• Expiring UA accounts
• Reconciling UA accounts
• Tracking UA account usage
• Billing UA account usage
• Reporting UA account usage
• Class list generation
• Resource adding on UA systems for specific classes

Functions to be examined (and possibly retired) for reengineered system

• Day 1 and Day 10 class processing
• "Scrubbing" CUF records
• Quarterly processing
• Current quarterly reports
• Maintain a list of visiting scholars (with accounts) who have no US social security number (C&CI)
• Maintain working list of external budgets (C&CI)

Functions new to reengineered system

• Client creation for external-to-University administrators to add and delete identity and authentication information and set expiration flags for external users
• Management of very large name spaces, perhaps a million people, in which most users would never actually have an account on UCS computers but would be known principals for authorization/ authentication purposes
• LDAP access from a variety of clients
• UNISYS validation (possible)
• LDAP staffdir/studentdir (possible)

Current clients and flat files likely to be retired

• who (Austen)
• validate (daffy/red)
• fvf.info (Austen flat file)
• svf.info (Austen flat file)
• exps (Austen utility)
• charges (Austen utility)

New clients requested or envisioned

• Clinician data entry
• Auxilliary validation data entry
• External clients for external administrators
• Web validate (done)
• Web who (done)
• Web renew (done)
• Web new (close)
• Easy student-to-staff or staff-to-student status change
• Client to generate unused uids
• User-driven reporting
• Many other clients for C&CI to be determined
• Other clients for external users

Phases

• Sequence of pilot projects
• External Clients -- pilot
• Extending namespace
• External Clients
• Expiration
• Billing
• Reporting

People involved

• Internal
• Affiliated