IT Announcements

Revised Software Procurement Process for UA Employees Seeking to Purchase Software

November 17, 2023

This revised software procurement process will simplify and improve our current manual review methods. This effort works to streamline operations, enhance cost-efficiency, ensure regulatory compliance, and elevate management of our software solutions across the board.

Why It Matters: 

  • The current method of requesting software waivers is inefficient, time consuming, and does not provide the user with any visibility on the status of their request. 
  • Regulatory compliance and oversight, and cybersecurity threats require us to have more visibility on vendor management within the UA system. 

Expectations: Improvements in workflow, review processes, and visibility in vendor information will ensure we have met compliance requirements as well as managed and balanced our workload. 

How will it work? This replaces the current manual process of requesting a waiver and emailing multiple groups for review.

  • When a university employee would like to purchase software, a request will be made via the new form. 
  • The form needs to be filled out for ALL software intended for use on UA owned devices, or that handles UA data. This includes open source, freeware, SaaS, paid subscriptions, bulk licensing, etc. 
  • Once the request is approved, the user (and designees) will receive an email that they can move forward with procurement or download. 

Timeline: 

November 21st, 2023 - Shared Business Office Pilot Process

  • Business units are assisting with testing the system to identify efficiency challenges 
  • There will be ongoing evaluation of this process and new form, and feedback is welcomed. 

December 4th, 2023 - Optional System-wide Pilot process

  • A link will be provided in the next update and will outline the details on how to use this new process. 
  • Webinar details will be announced to provide time for Q&A. 
  • There will be ongoing evaluation of this process and new form, and feedback is welcomed. 

January 8th, 2023 - Required Use

  • Additional resources will be made available in the coming weeks as part of the implementation process. 

Thank you to UA Procurement, UA Finance, campus leadership, and all three campus IT representatives for their invaluable help and support for designing this new process.