A Message to Colleges

CCC Technology Center Shuts Down QA Environment and Releases New PILOT (Beta) Environment for OpenCCCApply

July 16, 2015

On Wednesday, July 22, 2015, at 9:00 AM PST, the CCC Technology Center will shut down and retire the OpenCCCApply QA environment and replace it with a new testing environment called PILOT. The new PILOT site will be available to colleges beginning Thursday, July 23 at 9:00 AM PST. 

This change only pertains to the QA testing environment. No changes will be made to the Production environment (including student applications, downloads and staff tools).  The PILOT site will launch fully functional and fully loaded, with all of your existing QA test data, artifacts, user accounts, and other QA Administrator settings, in tact. 

The new PILOT environment will contain production-level code for the following OpenCCCApply applications:

• • • OpenCCC Student Account System

    • CCCApply Standard & International Applications

    • Board of Governor’s (BOG) Fee Waiver Application

    • CCCApply Administrator

    • CCC Report Center

What does this change mean for colleges?

Colleges that have already adopted OpenCCCApply, as well as those who are in-progress, will always have access to a beta environment that mirrors Production code for testing and implementation.

The CCCApply support team will work with the colleges who are in-progress implementing OpenCCCApply now to ensure they've updated all QA URLs to the new PILOT URLs immediately to avoid delay to their projects.  All artifacts, such as email rules, rule messages, supplemental question XML files, will be migrated to the new site for you. Staff and Administrator User accounts will not change and users will be able to log in to the staff tools on the PILOT site with their existing authenticated SSO credentials.  

What WILL NOT Change?

The URLs you are currently using to access the QA Administrator and Report Center WILL NOT CHANGE for the new PILOT environment. Staff will continue to Sign In to the Administrator and Report Center using their existing QA User account credentials. All existing QA Administrator settings and artifacts, as well as any Ad Hoc or custom views and reports in the QA Report Center, will be migrated over to the new PILOT environment automatically. The entire process should be seamless for college users.  

NOTE:  If you encounter any problems accessing the new PILOT Administrator or Report Center using your existing QA URLs, please visit the new CCCApply College Support site www.ccctechnology.info and navigate to the CCCApply System Alerts category for FAQs, or to submit a request for technical support.

What WILL Change?

On Thursday, July 23, all former QA application and download URL addresses will change to the new PILOT URLs, as specified below.  In addition, new Terms of Use and Support Level Agreements (SLA) will go into effect for the new OpenCCCApply PILOT environment for all California Community Colleges. 

Remember:  NO changes have been made to the student-facing (Production) CCCApply applications, staff tools, or download servers. 
 

CCCApply Applications URLs

Remember to include your college's MIS code to the end of each application URL. (See below for an example of how Butte College will update their CCCApply application URL to the new PILOT URL.)

Terms of Use

Lou - do we want to take this opportunity to define some Terms for use and support of the new PILOT site?  Do we offer support to colleges that have already deployed to OpenCCCApply and no longer implementing (using the PILOT site for setting up and testing)?

Contact Us

For questions related to the QA > PILOT site cutover transition, please contact Patty Donohue, Project Manager, pdonohue@ccctechcenter.org.

For 24/7 online documentation and support, visit www.ccctechnology.info > CCCApply System Alerts   

CCCApply System Alerts Post

Title:  CCC Technology Center Releases New PILOT Test Environment for OpenCCCApply;  Existing QA Site Reaches End of Life

Post:  On July 23, 2015, a new OpenCCCApply test environment will retire and colleges live on OpenCCCApply will no longer have access to the OpenCCCApply QA environment. Colleges should transition seamlessly to the new PILOT environment, including all college test artifacts and user accounts. The process of migrating users from QA to the new PILOT test environment is available on the CCCApply Project Site > Development.  

CCCApply Category Page Posts

TBD

FAQs for GS Site

• • Question: “I am trying to test a new email rule for CCCApply and I can’t access the QA Administrator site.  I’m getting the following error message:  XYZ.  Is there a problem with the site?
    
    Answer:  On Wednesday, July 22, 2015, the OpenCCCApply QA environment will retire and will be taken off-line.  On Thursday, July 23, 2015, colleges will be directed to the new PILOT environment for the student applications, Administrator & Report Center.  
    
    For more information about the new OpenCCCApply PILOT cutover process and timeline, see A Message to Colleges…”  

PILOT Environment Benefits:

• • Will match Production after a new Production release

  • Will be used to demonstrate upcoming release features and functionality prior to a release to Production

  • Secure, stable environment for testing and onboarding new colleges

  • ?  Load