• Before you opt for a new software solution, please review your business processes, if you need help and advice from Change Projects they provide a ‘Guide on the Side’ service.
• Consider all potential stakeholders involved in the process under review and ensure they are kept informed. For example Academic Registry for student related processes, HR for staff etc. 

• Create a requirements document listing essential and desirable features
• Check if there is another similar software package already being used at LU which would meet the majority of your requirements. You can contact Business Partnering to review options (see stage 3)
• Review your business case ensuring it is robust enough to justify the University providing another software solution
• Ensure your request has senior management support (Operations Manager or Professional Services Head). They will be asked to approve this request before we can investigate it further.
• Ensure you have budget approval for the purchase, implementation and annual subscription.
• Consider what data will you be sharing with the software supplier. Are you sharing any personal data with the supplier?  Why are you sharing this data?  Do you have consent to share this data? Have you produced a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA)?
• Contact the relevant Data Steward for any potential data sharing

• Complete a ‘Software as a Service request form’ 
• A member of the team will review, discuss and validate your request with you. 
• Business Partnering will identify and make the case to obtain approval for any addtional IT resources required via the relevant boards and committes. 

Data sharing considerations and responsibilities

• Review data sharing requirements with your appropriate Data Co-ordinator and undertake a data risk assessment for approval from the appropriate Data Steward.

Procurement

• You will need to speak to Procurement if the total contract value (or nominal 4 years if contract length unknown) is greater than £50,000 or if you are not following University Procurement Guidelines and the solution will cost more than £10,000. 

IT security checks

• Business Partnering will work with ITS colleagues to review the security and architecture of the proposed solution. We will contact the supplier of the SaaS and ask them a number of questions.

• You will need to ensure:
  • The relevant Data Steward(s) have approved your DPIA
  • Your Senior Leadership Team representative has approved the proposal and accepting any associated risks 
  • Procurement have approved your purchasing strategy (if over £10k)
• Business Partnering will seek final approval from IT Services Senior Leadership Team

Yes.

This process is largely dependant on how long the supplier takes to respond to our security questions. To speed things up, we suggest you consider your data sharing responsibilities at the very start. The average time to obtain approval from the relevant stakeholders of this process is two months.

Only if it needs to be a project and therefore either needs ITS Resources to implement, is considered hight risk or has a high cost to implement.