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Institute Business Systems

Institute Business Systems (IBS) Group

Ronald Kong, Associate Chief Information Officer

The Institute Business Systems (IBS) group within IMSS provides technical support for Caltech's administrative information systems. These include Office 365 (email and other tools), financial systems, human resources systems, student systems, facilities management systems, fundraising systems, business intelligence, and the underlying infrastructure that supports these applications, including system administration, database administration, server virtualization, storage, as well as cloud infrastructure services.

The work we do generally falls into the following categories: strategic system development and implementation, maintenance and production support, and systems infrastructure.

Strategic Projects

Strategic projects are planned efforts to create new business capabilities or enhance functionality. IBS and the administrative departments work jointly to plan and prioritize all strategic projects to ensure that we provide the most business value possible. In this way, a strategic plan is developed to meet the business objectives for each administrative department. The most common objectives include regulatory compliance, protection of the Institute's confidential data, improving information exchange with the academic divisions, and improving administrative efficiency.

Maintenance and Production Support

Maintenance Projects:

IBS implements large-scale projects to ensure continued operations of the systems that we support. These include existing system upgrades, larger scale patching projects, and efforts to replace aging systems, without the intention of creating new business capabilities or enhancing functionality. These efforts are typically initiated via recommendations from vendors or as a result of issues encountered with aging systems.

Production Support:

Users initiate a request by opening a ticket in Caltech Help, and IBS team members work to address these requests. These tickets can be requests to correct defects and malfunctions, requests to make minor enhancements, or requests for training in how to correctly use and operate the system.

For Production Support, send an email to Caltech Help Ticket System.

Division Services and Special Projects

Division Services and Special Projects group executes large and complex projects for the campus that require a full resource commitment over multiple years. They also provide dedicated support to the academic divisions in their use of IMSS administrative systems.

For more information, send an email to IMSS Division Services and Special Projects.

Financial Systems

Financial Systems supports the financial systems used by the offices of Financial Services, Research Administration, Facilities, Advancement and Alumni Relations, and other administrative organizations across campus. These applications collectively capture and report on the information required to effectively manage Caltech‘s operations. The major systems supported by the Financial Systems Group include the Oracle E-Business suite, AiM for facilities management, Advance for AAR, the Caltech data warehouse, as well as many other systems.

For more information, send an email to IMSS IBS Financial Systems.

People Systems

People Systems (PSG) supports the systems used by the offices of Human Resources and Student Affairs. The major systems supported by PSG include the Oracle E-Business suite, Exeter Student Systems suite, REGIS, CashNet, Kronos, Windstar, and the Caltech data warehouse.

Oracle‘s Human Capital Management system enables HR and Payroll professionals to proactively manage "people" data and payroll requirements that demand compliant and accurate financial controls. The Exeter Student suite provides Student Affairs professionals with the IT tools that complement and enhance the Caltech student experience: Financial Aid, Athletics, Mail Services, and more. PSG provides business systems analysis and software development to support these systems and to build and implement new applications.

For more information, send an email to IMSS IBS People Systems.


Project Management Office

IBS Project Management Office (IBS PMO) supports the IBS organization as a whole. It is responsible for the processes and procedures that allow IBS to perform its work effectively and to be successful in its mission of providing administrative applications to the campus.

Key Performance goals

  • Establishing best practices for software development and ensuring that they are applied consistently throughout IBS.
  • Develop and maintain methodology and management tools for projects, multi-project status reporting, change management tools and procedures, software development standards, quality control standards and procedures, and the promotion of competency.
  • Study industry-wide software project management standards and applies them as appropriate to the IBS organization.
  • Provides services in the areas of project management, test coordination, and documentation.

For more information, send an email to IMSS IBS Project Management Office.