Page 11 - CAO 25th Ann Coffee Table Book

We embarked on the design and development of an IT “refresh system” to replace the CAO system, which with its many enhancements over the years had served us well since 2008. Testing of the system was scheduled for 15 January, 2019. This ‘refresh system’ on which we had spent over R50M would eventually form the base-system for the current CAS project. The “Refresh System” would function on a technologically more modern and advanced platform to the CAO system that was in use.
After many years of uncertainty regarding the role, if any, that the CAO would play in the Department of Higher Education and Training’s proposed national Central Applications Service (CAS), the department’s officials and legal representatives sat down with the CAO’s negotiating team of George van der Ross and Adv. Daryl Newton. After many days and hours of to-ing and fro-ing two draft Agreements were ready for final acceptance, a Collaboration Agreement and an Operational Agreement with eight annexures covering timelines, Financial Implications of Human resources, Assets, Liabilities, Secondments, Financial obligations prior to transfer of the Applications Management System. After a further two years of negotiations the final two Agreements were signed in December of 2020.
We revamped our CAO website and at the start of 2019 we published our first e-book of our hard-copy annual Handbook at the same time that we launched a more streamlined online application portal. At various points during the year we commenced with the online supporting documents uploads and online Change- of-Minds. These three measures; online application, online documents uploads and online Change of Minds completely changed the work processes of the CAO operations.
CAO WORKSHOPS WITH INSTITUTIONAL USERS
User Group Meeting, Breakaway Session, 2023
CEO - George van der Ross at User Group Meeting, 2023
User Group Meeting, Plenary, 2023
KZN Registrars Meeting (under COVID restrictions), 2022
UKZN Staff Training on CAO System, Westville Campus, 2022
User Group Meeting - Facilitated by Palashika, 2019
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