Any contract or agreement 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. (from Procedure 1, Secretariat, University of Waterloo)

Notification of Software Purchases

Currently, requisitioners who are ordering software in Unit4 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. With the WatProcure eProcurement system implementation, similar features/functionality will be applied to ensure software purchases receive the appropriate pre-approvals prior to purchase.

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

Related articles