Hereby a quick update on the OCS implementation:

After 3 weeks, we now entered the final week of intensive technical testing.  Almost all modules technical and aspects of the software have now been tested successfully by our technical team: Various fixes and improvements have been made, and by the end of the week the system will function as we had planned it to!

The next phase is the ‘User Acceptance Testing‘, an extensive testing focused more on details and user friendliness. This testing will start May 18^th , last for 4 weeks and be done mainly by a representative group of actual users from various parts of our organization, simulating actual processes, payments etc.

These so-called ‘Key Business Users’ will first receive a refreshment OCS/Agresso training next week, so that they are fully prepared.  If you are one of them, you should already have received an invite for both the training as the testing and a confirmation will follow later this week.

Finally I like to report good progress on the development of our time sheet module;  Time Sheets are a very essential part of the OCS implementation, since all our cost allocations will rely on it. We therefor redesigned the timesheets and procedures to make them even more user friendly and less time consuming, so that it will be even easier and faster for you to use.  Since it is such an important module, we also decided to do additional testing on it and implement it in steps; The first small group of volunteers can already start using the time sheets in June and help us to completely fine tune it, before the rest of you  follow (July).

Much more about those Time sheets and the rest of OCS, by the time of next month’s update!

Till then!
Kind regards
Misja

Find out more about OCS generally at: http://ilri-ocs.wikispaces.com/

And you can always ask your questions and share your suggestions to: askILRIOCS@cgiar.org or start a discussion at the bottom of the on the FAQ page.

(This post echoes the message sent to all staff by Misja Brandenburg on 4 May 2015).