Universities face unique vulnerabilities when faced with major disruptions like natural disasters or health epidemics. While Emergency Response Plans protect life and secure facilities, Business Continuity Plans(BCPs) allows departments to continue or rapidly resume mission critical functions. Through continuity planning, we can all help maintain the operations of our individual departments and the University as a whole.
CSU has a subscription to Kuali Ready, an online continuity planning tool. This tool produces departmental continuity plans that can be used by any type of department. These plans increase CSUCI's ability to continue operating in the face of disruptive events.
Overall planning comes from campus management. However, the components of any BCP's come from individual departments.
Each Plan Must Consider
- PLANNING PERSONNEL: Who in your department is responsible for coordinating the planning process?
- IDENTIFYING ESSENTIAL FUNCTION: What is your department's essential function and who is responsible for keeping this updated?
- IDENTIFY PRIMARY FUNCTIONS, then determine their priority, how long you could operate without this function, who is dependent upon this function and what departments have function upon which YOUR DEPARTMENT depends?
- DELEGATION OF AUTHORITY: What is the line of authority in your department, what limitations on delegation exist? This is often listed by Position/title.
- FACILITIES: Identify ALL of your department's facilities and their essential functions. This is vitally important if you would have to temporarily move operations to another location.
- PERSONNEL AND FUNCTION: What essential functions do your department's staff perform and is telecommuting or on-line teaching a possibility?
- VITAL RECORDS MANAGEMENT: List your department's vital records, where and how they are kept and who is responsible for their update and/or back up. Consider off-site and/or cloud locations.
- COMMUNICATIONS: Determine how everyone in your department will communicate. Include various ways to plan for a variety of disruptions and include times for business hours and off hours.
- SERVICE PROVIDERS: What services do you currently have that are provided by an outside contractor? How will these services be continued during disasters and are their alternates available?
- NOTIFICATION: Who do you want to be notified during disasters? Make sure these groups are included in the Campus Business Continuity Plan.
- CONTINUITY STAFF: For situations up to 30 DAYS, your department may only be able to provide essential function. Determine which individuals are responsible for maintaining or resuming essential functions. Depending on the situation, these individuals may have to report to an alternate location.
BEGIN THIS PROCESS IMMEDIATELY! Don't wait for a disaster to strike before you set up your department's continuity plan.
Administrator Log On for Business Continuity Plan