Janet B. Morgan

DIRECTOR, ERP AND CRM SYSTEMS, UDIT

“So, you probably don’t really know what I do, which is probably part of our goal. I support the university's main administrative systems for the end user, which is you and everyone on this campus. Part of our goal is to support those systems in such a way that they work for them, and you maybe don’t even notice them. You won’t know anything at all about the systems I support if we’re doing our job well. We don’t always succeed at that but we really try. We don’t want to receive too many help desk tickets from people who can’t enroll or apply, or encounter some issue in one of those 30,000 tasks that we do with our administrative systems. 

The work itself is intriguing - it may not sound intriguing to others. To people who work in my profession, everyday is a new problem, or 20, they’re all different. For instance, today the payroll manager called me and the W-2’s are due tomorrow and things are not going well, so I have to put on my W-2 hat and I have a list of 3 problems I have to solve in a very short time.

I’ve worked in this administrative system for a dozen years, maybe more. I’ve been at UD for 25 years. I had worked the early part of my career in this same job for different companies. I took a few years off to raise my children. It seemed I was so busy with volunteer work at school I might as well be working. In the 90s companies actually advertised in the newspaper. I saw a UD announcement of the open position, I was fortunate and I was selected. It wasn’t the same software but I’ve been working on these same administrative systems for the last 25 years (it’s the same functionality).

In ‘98 you couldn’t view a pay stub online, you didn’t enter leave online. I don’t know that grades were entered online. We’ve added literally hundreds of features. Runway is where you go if your department needs to order a new laptop…that system did not exist when I started. Those papers would travel from office to office to office in routing envelopes. 

The work is still interesting, a riddle, an enigma, a puzzle every day. I was a key implementer for our primary administrative system, Banner, that’s by definition my product I guess.  The people with whom I work, on my team, in the offices I support, I have good relationships with them. Very dedicated themselves, very appreciative of any assistance I can render to them…I have a wonderful group of people to work with.

I’ve only been in my role as a supervisor for, I guess, 3 ½  years now, so I’ve had a long time to observe how supervisors treat their people, and I know what's important, or what was important to me. And I think number 1 is to be supportive in every way. Not just professionally, or technically, but in appreciation, praise, and assistance…I try to be considerate or cognizant of their skills and strengths too. Not all team members have the same strengths. I try to help them find a way to shine by helping them with the tasks to which they are assigned. If they encounter difficulty I try to help them find a way around it. I’ve been here 25 years, I have a lot of institutional knowledge and I won’t be here forever so I try to share that. I try to avoid mistakes I’ve observed in my own career, give them autonomy, independence, power where appropriate. 

I have to say that I don’t stop and think about the common good; I guess my philosophy is to do what I perceive to be my job to the best of my ability, and I guess part of that is to meet the needs of my customers. I view the people who use our system as customers, whether students, or people who work in administrative offices. I don’t have much interaction with students directly. I’m there to support them in the background and support the people who do actually interact with the students. I try to solve the problems in our systems so they can do their jobs.”