What is Business Continuity Planning?
Business Continuity Planning helps an organization respond to the impact of an emergency event or unplanned interruption to normal operations, and be able to continue to provide a minimum acceptable level of service during and in the immediate aftermath of such an event.
We continuously face different types and sizes of emergencies that interrupt our normal business operations. Emergencies can vary from earthquakes to fires to power outages to flooding, or a pandemic, like the H1N1 virus. They can also be more localized events, like a fallen tree or mud slide, prohibiting us from accessing a road or building. Even the failure of a hard drive, which keeps one employee from doing their work, can affect many who rely on the continuance of the processes performed by that employee.
In order to maintain the university's mission of teaching, research and service, it is our goal to resume critical business functions as soon as possible during and after an emergency, even if in reduced mode. Some departments, like the Fire Department or those within Physical Plant, may be expected to not only continue their services, but to expand them during these times.
In 2007, the UC Office of the President announced a major continuity planning initiative for the ten UC campuses and the five UC medical centers known as the Restarting UC Business Continuity Planning Program. UCReady was developed to support campus planning efforts.
What is UCReady?
To create and store a business continuity plan, we use a web-based department planning tool, UCReady, an easy-to-use program that asks detailed questions about your department"s operations and the resources needed to perform them. Once a department has answered the questions in UCReady, their plan is created. The plan can also include emergency preparedness documents, evacuation plans, contact lists, and process documents, all to help you ensure safety, smooth communication, and continuity of operations with your faculty, staff and students. Every business continuity plan also includes "action items", which make up an essential "to do" list of things that can be done, starting now, to make your unit more prepared.
Training
Departments are invited to attend UCReady Information and Plan Building sessions which are scheduled throughout the academic year, in order to assist your unit or department in creating a plan. To register online for these important sessions, please visit the UCSC Events Manager.
How to start a plan:
1) Login to the ITS CruzID Manager website, https://cruzid.ucsc.edu and follow the instructions for setting up a Gold password, unless you already have one.
2) Login to UCReady, https://us.ready.kuali.org/ucsc Select UC Santa Cruz from the drop-down list.
3) At the CruzID authentication page, login with your Gold password.
4) Next, you are invited to begin your plan; select the "Begin or Edit Your Plan" link at the bottom of this page.
5) At the next page, select the "Create New Plan" red button. After entering the department information requested, select the "Create a New Plan" button at the bottom of the page.
6) Next, select the beige-shaded "Add/Remove User" link and add users, giving each user either "view access" or "full access" to your plan;
7) When complete, select "Update Plan Users". and then the "Back" button.
Congratulations! You've successfully started a plan and should now navigate through each of the five plan building steps, that are displayed in blue at the top of each page . Don't agonize over any questions you can't answer; make note of them and move on. Also be aware that you don't need to fill in every field in order to complete a plan. Do the best you can to address your department's critical functions and the key resources necessary to perform them; build a credible list of action items. You can mark your plan "Complete" when you feel you have made your best effort at addressing each pertinent step in UCReady, knowing that you will be required to review your plan at least annually, and can make edits to it at any time.
Good luck and happy planning!
Questions?
Please contact:
Rosemary Anderson
Business Continuity Planner
(831) 459-3828
ucready@ucsc.edu