Explorer, Saturn, ESV, Swimming

Fr Nov 10, 2006

Dropped off Christopher's Ford Explorer for ABS issue with rear back wheel.

Attended IBM's demo of their SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) offering. Better than Microsoft's earlier this week.

Reserved SAP class, SCM230 SNP, for Bruce Gavett.

Mo Nov 13, 2006

Met with Rick and Wendy to discuss interfaces (SOX) and the need to define a small number of procedures for handling errors. We use the Error Cockpit and SM35 specifically but need to determine if there are others. Diana will update the error portion of the SOX documentation and added the error handling procedure name to a column on the list of SAP interfaces she maintains. Lynne's team will write specific procedures - specifically for AR/AP as she feels the Journal error handling procedure is in good shape.

Awarded Diana a Round-of-Applause level WOW award ($100) for her work on SOX documentation.

Sent link for online Planview training to COE management.

Th Nov 16, 2006

In Fast Forward class this past Wed noon thru Friday. On vacation next week.

Mo Dec 4, 2006

Completed two monthly meetings with the Super Users last week where I reviewed the Oct 06 survey and 2007 plans.

Christopher having issues with roommates. Cable has been turned off due to non-payment.

We Dec 13, 2006

Sent out performance ratings recommendations for the Voyager technical team to COE management. Created Fast Forward meeting charter for Super User Network monthly meeting. For CR 2895 regarding Planview templates, spoke with Agustin and presented summary of recommended options to Bret - waiting on reply.

Christopher was late to an exam (Bible, his Professor had suddenly changed the exam from 9:30a to 8:00a). Carol and I prayed about this and when Christopher arrived in Charlotte (having been at home over the weekend), the professor gave him all the time he needed to complete! Great answer to prayer and praise to God. Christopher called this morning to say he had scored an unbelievable "B" in pre-Calculus - not his favorite subject! We both were very excited about this great accomplishment.

Amanda had a great swim meet last night - 5 events. She probably swam the best of this season. No more events until January.

Stephanie invited Ryan for supper the other night and it was good having him over. He is currently studying HVAC at Forsyth Tech and also working a Subway. Carol is encouraging her to bring him over more often so that we can get to know him better.

Carol and I purchased a new ESV Bible for her last weekend. CBC is transitioning to the version and plans to purchase pew Bibles in this translation for use beginning 2007. We noticed last Sunday that pastor had also purchased a new ESV Bible for himself and began using it from the pulpit.

This will be a busy weekend. We have a Christmas party at Don Lamonds house on Friday night; our Bible Fellowship class is having its Christmas Party on Saturday at the Magnolia Room at Wake Forest; and Beverly Amack, the swim coach, is having a Christmas gathering at her house this weekend also I think.

Th Dec 28, 2006

Saw the rings of Saturn through Stephanie's telescope for the first time tonight! Viewed the moon's craters last night.

The family enjoyed probably one of the best Christmas holidays ever. Both Ryan and Heather were able to spend some of the Christmas holidays with us. Also, George and Phyllis, though George was very weak, was able to come over Christmas Day afternoon to eat dinner with us.

Mo Jan 8, 2007

Jenny died today (see blog).

We Jan 17, 2007

I met this morning with Mitch Jones, Nick Gilley, and Agustin Fiorito to discuss Project Advance and its designated department # of 11231. The issue we needed to review was whether this was the proper dept# since the owner of this department is Doug Wilhelm. Based on the above comments that roll-up reporting is used primarily for the purposes of identifying business area demand, and that IT reporting is not being done to their understanding by dept# but rather by project, we agreed that we should continue with the existing dept#.

Also, since Voyager SAP covers a number of business areas, we should continue to select existing IT dept#'s based on the source of the demand for the project, e.g., 11226 "IT Demand Finance - Harrison Porter" should be used for finance-demanded projects, 11229 "IT Demand Sales - Rick Ford" should be used for sales-demanded projects, etc. Where there was demand from a number of business areas, we could either assign the primary business area, or the general 11202 "IT Business Solutions". This would be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Discussed becoming a Planview Power User with Agustin. We agreed to set up two work sessions a week with him over the next three weeks (also with Ed Bartz) to dive deep into Planview. I set up six 2-hr training sessions.

Met with Marsha Cagle and Nicki to discuss my new role of being a coordinator of facility moves - specifically how the movement and renaming of printers affects SAP. They agreed to send a list of printer moves and dates to me to review with the team.

RJR - Marchy Gras, Conference Swim Meet, Transports

Thursday.

Attended the IT Leadership meeting. Topics presented included an update of the IT year-end budget (we hit our marks), an overview of Planview v9 that will be implemented about mid-year with many new usability features, an new software package to manage forums (chat rooms) centered around various topics, and an update on the High Performance Culture's next event in March called "Marchy Gras!"

Left work earlier to attend Amanda's conference swim meet at American Hebrew Academy. Amanda was in two events - the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke. She won her butterfly heat by 6 seconds better than her personal best! She also did a great job with the backstroke and again set a personal best time!

Returned back to work at 6:45p to do transports and finished up about 7:30p.

RJR - Birthdays, Super User Reviews, Prioritization

Attended breakfast this morning with Don Lamonds and all those in IT whose birthday is in February. Lots of people have birthdays this month! We paired up and shared some information about ourselves with our partner, who later introduced us to the group.

Added some columns to the Super Users list to associate business processes with each SU. I set up meetings today with each of the process team leads to assign a business process to each of their Super Users. Worked on this most of the day.

Attended the Supply Chain Operations (SCO) prioritization meeting. In general, there's not enough resources to complete items as quickly as the business desires. The process teams are trying to determine the extent of the gap so a request for additional resources can be made.

RJR - Super Users Reviews, Jeff, Lewis, Planview Training

With Operations preparing to announce a mass job shift/elimination this week, COE phone support could escalate significantly. We need to identify a core group of very active Super Users to help spread support through the organization to lessen the workload of the COE.

Held Jeff Berry's performance review yesterday with Jay.

Attended Planview Power User training (5 of 6) this morning. Discussed lifecycle notifications; financial plan - baseline, actuals, latest estimate; month-end processing - copying to latest estimate version, post labor, lock month; Progress tab.

Held Lewis Ward's performance review this afternoon with Lynne.

RJR - Snow, Tcodes, SAP Training, Sheila

Snowed today. Very little on roads though. Carol and I chuckled in that CBC closed for the day, yet there was no snow accumulation at all on the roads!

Completed updating the RICE Master with Duty Drawback RICE objects. Also added to the RICE Master a new tab requested by Audit named "TCodes". This will inventory all custom SAP transaction codes.

Lisa Dawson has moved into a new job within Database Marketing and needs to learn SAP requisitions, budget reporting, and materials. I have arranged for Karen Giddens, a Super User in that area, to train her.

Jay and I gave Sheila Boone her performance review.

Aruba Confirmations

Called the travel agency and confirmed the rooms once again in Aruba. My confirmation indicated that Carol and I had double beds in our room and we had requested a king. She confirmed that her master confirmation had the king. In addition, I ask that she change the request for a "higher floor" to a floor around the 7th floor instead.

Also call USAirways to confirm our flights. They confirmed all flights with the only exception being that a scheduled departure time from Aruba back home had been rescheduled to about 30 minutes later than indicated previously.