Business Continuity Impact Analysis System Guidelines

To enter the system, log into the Annual Report, and click on the last button, entitled Business Continuity.

Before you enter!! ….. Department heads need to consider their operational processes and functions, and choose the most important , mission-critical of these processes for entry into the business continuity system.

Note: Not all processes or functions need to be entered into the system.

After you have chosen your most important functions, you will need to have the following data ready to enter into the system:

Allowable Downtime – The maximum amount of time this function can be unavailable (measured in hours, days and/or weeks)

Groups Impacted – Indicate all of the constituent groups that would be impacted if this function was not available: Administrators, Alumni, Faculty, Parents, Public, Regulatory, Staff, Students, Vendors, or Other

Rank – Assign a rank to each function. If you enter five functions, you’ll need to rank these functions from 1 through 5. If you do not rank them, the system will rank them for you, based upon allowable downtime (see above).

Essential Services– Which of the following University services are required for your department to perform this function?

You will have ability to select whether access to this service is required on-campus or if the function could be performed if remote access to the service was available (e.g. from home or another location).

Selecting building access implies that all basic utilities such as water and electricity are available in the building.

In the example above, the Degree Verifications function, from the Registrar’s Office is described. This function is provided to many groups of people, including employers who want to verify that an applicant has received a degree from the University of Scranton, and faculty members who need to write letters of recommendation for former students. Below is a listing of the business continuity data entered for the Degree Verifications function:

Example Function: Degree Verifications

Description: Verify degrees and certificates awarded by the University

Downtime: 3 Days

Rank: 1 (because this is the only function entered so far)
Groups Impacted: Administrators, Alumni, Faculty, Other (e.g. employers), Regulatory (i.e. regulatory agencies), Staff and Students

Essential Services: 

1. Banner (with a note that the staff would also need access to pre-Banner degree data which is stored on optical disks. Both on-campus and remote access to Banner are selected because of the needed access to the disks.)
2. Building Access (St. Thomas Hall is selected from the pull-down list of buildings. The Registrar’s office and pre-Banner optical disks are stored in St. Thomas.)
3. Email (with a note that email is needed to receive and respond to requests for degree verification)
4. Telephone Service (with notes that access to Voice mail is needed to receive phone-based requests, and FAX capability is needed to receive and respond to requests.)
5. my.scranton Portal (with a note indicating that the portal is needed for Banner access)