With just seven months until Penn State adopts new Penn State ID numbers (PSU IDs) as the primary identifier of students, faculty and staff, University colleges, departments and campuses are steadily working to prepare their areas for the changeover. In May, Penn State offices began developing action plans to help their areas make a smooth transition from Social Security numbers (SSNs) to PSU IDs this winter. A key item in these plans, is testing the conversion of data that will need to be retained for continued office use after January 1.
To facilitate this process, offices can now use a new Web-based SSN Conversion Utility provided by Administrative Information Systems, a unit of Information Technology Services (ITS). The Utility is available at https://psucidr.ais.psu.edu to every faculty and staff member with a Penn State Access Account. It will be used in December to convert SSNs in local data files to the new PSU IDs. Only those files that need to be retained online after January 1 must be converted. According to SSN Project Team members, any office with this type of data should begin using the Utility now to test their conversion early and ensure that SSNs in their local files match SSN records in the University's central systems (ISIS and IBIS). Matching SSNs indicate that corresponding PSU IDs will be assigned at conversion time.
"It is critical to plan now for modifying local business processes and forms and testing the conversion of local data," said Kathy Plavko, SSN Project manager. "This will ensure that offices are ready for the full-scale conversion effort that begins December 19 with the University's central business and student systems." Faculty and staff who have questions about their office's conversion efforts should contact their unit's local SSN contact, added Plavko.
For more information about the SSN Conversion Utility, visit the SSN Project Web site at http://ais.its.psu.edu/SSN and look for the SSN Web Conversion Utility Overview PowerPoint slideshow and SSN Web Conversion Utility Step-by-Step guide. Also new at the Web site, is the official SSN Project timeline of events and The Top Ten Things You Should Know About the SSN Project