Project Café

System Training to Resume September 15

September 5, 2008

Training registration has begun for people who have been assigned specific roles in the new system. Those individuals received emails this week with course recommendations and registration links. All others will be able to register for training beginning September 9, with the first demo sessions scheduled for September 15. More information, including registration links for all users, will be published on September 9.

September InfoEd Training Available

September 2, 2008

New research staff and those who missed training earlier will now be able to attend training for InfoEd proposal and award tracking as well as for Cognos Reporting.

See the InfoEd Training page.

New Go-live Date: December 2008

August 6, 2008

As announced by the Enterprise Systems Executive Committee (ESEC), Project Café will not launch the new financial system in September. Instead, the transition will take place in early December. In the meantime, the University will continue to use CUFS.  

See our full announcement.

If you are enrolled in training, please see our Training Cancellation announcement.

NewsBrief #4 Now Available

July 18, 2008

NewsBrief #4 features:

- The NUPortal: Your Entry to the New Financial System
- COA Crosswalk Update
- Training Reminder: Demos
- SNUPER Replacement Info Session

See our NewsBrief and Newsletter archive.

NewsBrief #3 Now Available

June 19, 2008

NewsBrief #3 features:

- Coming Soon to a Business Office Near You...
- Transition Workshop Materials
- System Training
- What Classes Should You Take?
- Training and Roles
- Training Registration
- Who Can Help?

See our NewsBrief and Newsletter archive.

New Functional Manager

June 17, 2008

Project Cafe is pleased to announce that Alan Garbarino has joined us as Functional Applications Manager. Alan has extensive PeopleSoft Financials experience gained in both functional and technical capacities at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where he has worked since 1994. Acting Functional Manager David Kolodziejski will remain on board to help ease Alan's transition through go-live and stabilization. Please join us in welcoming Alan to Northwestern and Project Café!

Training Registration Open

June 3, 2008

Online registration through the HRIS eDevelopment tool is now open. Find more information on our Training home page.

NewsBrief #2 Now Available

April 21, 2008

We have retired the Project Café newsletter so as to bring you more targeted information over the next several months leading up to our September go-live. NewsBrief #2 features:

- Moving from Phase 3 to Phase 4
- Transition Workshops Continue
- CUFS-to-PeopleSoft Crosswalk
- Training 411
- Top 10 Things You Can Do to Prepare for Go-live

See our NewsBrief and Newsletter archive.

CUFS-to-PeopleSoft Crosswalk

April 2, 2008

Now you can find your new PeopleSoft chart strings by entering your CUFS numbers into our new Chart of Accounts Crosswalk tool. You can also find an instructional job aid, a quick reference guide about the new Chart of Accounts, and a file of all CUFS values mapped to date on our Chart of Accounts Gateway page, located at http://cafe.northwestern.edu/coa.

NewsBrief #1: Transition Workshops

December 19, 2007

Project Café, along with our process owners, will be presenting a series of workshops starting in January. These introductory seminars on both campuses will put all the changes to policy, procedure, and organization structure into context prior to hands-on training, which begins in July. We strongly suggest that anyone who will be using the new systems attend. See our Transition Workshops page for more information. For specific dates, see Transition Workshop Dates.

Tenth Issue of Project Café Newsletter

October 11, 2007

The October 2007 issue (PDF) of the Project Café newsletter features:

  • an article about what to expect during the coming year, and how you can begin to prepare, as we count down to the launch of the new financial system in September 2008
  • former Director Jeff Mundt's farewell message
  • updates from our Training, Reporting, Functional, and Technical teams.

See all newsletters.

Proposal Development Status Update

September 12, 2007

The Enterprise Systems Executive Committee (ESEC), after considering input from Project Café and our business owners in the Office for Sponsored Research, has decided to modify the scope and delay the timing of the InfoEd Proposal Development rollout. See our full announcement.

Project Café Leadership Transition

September 5, 2007

Project Café Director Jeff Mundt will be stepping down at the end of September to pursue external opportunities. Jason Schober will assume the role of Project Director. See our full announcement.

InfoEd Proposal Tracking and SPIN are now live!

July 17, 2007

Northwestern University and Project Café announce the launch of the first two modules of InfoEd, Northwestern's new software system for managing sponsored research. SPIN and Proposal Tracking are now available for use. To learn more about InfoEd and its benefits, see our full announcement.

About Project Café

As announced by President Bienen in early 2004, Northwestern is undertaking a major initiative to replace its current financial management system (CUFS) with a more robust, easier to use system that will support the University for many years. As part of this process, we will be implementing an enterprise grants management system, the first portion of which is scheduled to launch in July 2007, as well as several other third-party applications.

This initiative, Project Café, is significant for faculty and staff because it will impact the way Northwestern conducts its business in areas like grants management, expenditure tracking, budget analysis, and purchasing.

For more information, see About the Project.