University of Southern California

Since 2006, when the administrative Portal was first introduced, USC added a variety of new portlets and developed new Portals under the secure access umbrella of the original project. Today the administration department uses the portals on a daily basis. Introduction of Apache Jetspeed driven Portals resulted in significant improvements in the speed and accuracy of information processing.

Country

United States

Challenge

For frequently occurring tasks, such as grant administration, the University's administrative staff needs to access a large number of separate systems. Each system requires a separate log-on and utilizes different ways to navigate to the required information and input fields.
Dealing with the resulting complexity is resource intensive and increases the chance of errors and omissions.

Solution
USC chose to integrate its back-office functions while protecting existing investments and maintaining control and security. The university deployed an Intranet Portal based on Apache Jetspeed providing access to university research, administration and financial systems through a web-enabled architecture.
Later releases added further integration within and outside the organizational boundaries as well as integration with USC's standardized Federated Identity system for highly secure user authentication and authorization.

Key functionalities of the portal include:

- Self Registration
- Login and Password - Single Sign On
- Profile and Sponsored Projects
- Delegation for Research Assistants
- Labor Distribution
- Certificaiton of percent of effort
- Salary Transfers
- Management tools (system alerts, reminder emails, reports)