Any contract or agreement which includes purchase of equipment or services with potential to impact UW's IT infrastructure must have prior endorsement of the Associate Provost IST before an agreement or contract can be executed. (from Procedure 1, Secretariat, University of Waterloo)

Notification of Software Purchases

Before the implementation of Unit4, when software was ordered on the old electronic requisition form, the Requisitioner received a popup notification to confirm that they were aware of the requirements under Procedure 1 relative to software purchases. With the transition to Unit4, this notification was no longer occurring.

Effective January 26, 2021, Requisitioners who are ordering software in Unit4 will now receive an email notification to remind them of Procedure 1 so they can reach out to the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the required approval if they have not already done so.

Email notification sent to purchasers

The following notification is sent to everyone who uses a software account to make a purchase in Unit4: 

Your requisition is being processed. Please Note: Per UW Procedure 1, any contract or agreement (excluding Research) which includes IT equipment or services with potential to impact the University's IT infrastructure, requires access to administrative information systems, stores or processes personal information, or is subject to IT accessibility requirements, must also be approved by the Chief Information Officer (CIO). If Procedure 1 is applicable to your purchase below, or if you have questions, please contact the CIO at ist-cp@lists.uwaterloo.ca

Software purchases requiring CIO approval

As per Procedure 1, software purchases requiring CIO approval include those that meet any of the following parameters: 

• potential to impact UW's IT infrastructure

• requires access to administrative information systems

• stores or processes personal information

• subject to accessibility requirements

• subject to Financial Systems Assessment Committee (FSAC) approval (e.g. e-commerce).  

• subject to information risk assessment. (Please refer to the Information Risk Assessment website for more information on When to engage an Information Risk Assessment)

Examples of purchases that would be included are:

• A new online system that needs the list of registered students

• A registration system involving payment of fees

Examples of purchases not requiring CIO approval:

• Most desktop applications

• Adobe Acrobat

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