Planning & Budgets

Organizational Change at MSU

Michigan State University is a constantly changing institution and any changes made to official university organizations must be managed and tracked. Since organizational change is a complex process that involves numerous systems and moving pieces across many areas including HR, Finance, and Information Technology, the University utilizes the Organization of Interest (OOI) application, which serves as the official system of record for all organizations (commonly referred to as departments) at MSU.

OOI migrates organization changes to other University systems by way of managed interfaces to ensure all organization changes are consistent within all of the University’s business systems (i.e., the Kuali Finance System-KFS, the HR/Payroll System-SAP, the Common Unit Code system-D03, and the Student Information System-SIS). Additionally, within the application and the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW), OOI provides displays of various information and reporting relationships between organizations.

Institutional Research (IR) is the business owner of OOI.

Applicability
Organization Information Managed Within OOI
Requesting an Organization Change
Using OOI Data
OOI HRD Courses
OOI Contact Information

Applicability

This information relates solely to the OOI application, organization change as it pertains to OOI, OOI data in the EDW, and how these data can be used. This information does not apply to things such as the naming of buildings, roads, or other physical University facilities. For information regarding the naming for these entities, please see the University naming website.

Information on these pages also does not apply to the names of academic majors, specializations, degrees or certificates. Nor do these guidelines apply to the names of entities in the University’s appointment system.

Furthermore, this information is in no way intended to supersede the Academic Governance process. For information on how to go about creating, merging, moving, splitting, placing a moratorium on, or changing the name of an academic program and/or degree-granting college/unit, please follow the Academic Governance process.

It is also important to note that OOI is not an org chart and has no impact on the official university org chart. It is simply a view of the various reporting structures. Even though names of positions may be included as names of entities in OOI, they are not related to any particular person or position.

Organization Information Managed Within OOI

As the official system of record for all organizations, OOI manages and tracks the following data:

• The 8-character organization code and the 15-character organization structure code (which contains the 2-character Major Administrative Unit code and 3-character department code, formally referred to as the Common Unit Code);
• Organization type (Vice Presidents-VPs, Major Administrative Units-MAUs, U1s to U7s). U1s are the lowest level for an officially recognized university unit;
• Organization name;
• Whether the organization can hire people into it, have accounts associated with it, and/or a budget;
• Organization locator information such as payroll delivery and physical address and phone number;
• The name of the organization manager; and
• Reporting relationships

Requesting an Organization Change

Before requesting an organization change, please refer to the Pre-Planning Information and Change Process and Annual Calendar link above on the left for pre-planning information, comprehensive organization change guidelines, information regarding timeframes, timelines, approvals, and information on the most frequently requested types of changes such as:

• Changing the name of an MAU or U1
• Changing the organization manager (while this appears in KFS, OOI holds the information and the change must be made there, which will be reflected in KFS)
• Changing a payroll or physical address
• Creating a new U1
• Closing/ending an existing U1
• Moving an existing U1

If an organization is seeking to make any of the above listed changes as a part of a larger organizational restructuring, is looking to create U2s, create or close an MAU, or any other changes not listed, please see the Contact Information below to contact staff in IR responsible for the OOI application.

Furthermore, please be sure to see the Important Links for HR/Payroll and Finance link above for information that may help answer questions regarding the change process as it relates to HR/Payroll and Finance.

Using OOI Data

Data stored within OOI can be accessed through Cognos reports or the MSUEDW. For additional information, please see the OOI Data and Cognos Reports link above on the left.

OOI HRD Courses

There are two courses available on OOI once a semester; one focusing on the change policy and process and one focusing on OOI data in the EDW.

• Organization of Interest (OOI): The Organizational Change Policy and Process
• Organization of interest (OOI): Using Org Data for Reporting

Additional information, including dates and times, may be found on the Spartans Learn website.

Contact Information

For general inquiries or to request an org change, please e-mail orgchng@msu.edu

For questions units may have regarding organization change or the organization change process, please contact Dee McKay at mckay@msu.edu or (517) 355-4619.

For questions regarding OOI data in the EDW, historical mapping, and OOI Cognos reports, please contact Irene Weber at weberi@msu.edu or (517) 884-0098.