Kuali Communities Overview

As an introduction to the Kuali Financial System (KFS) and its documentation, it is important that you understand how KFS is a part of a larger community.

The KFS is a higher-education, community-source software project that is merely a spoke in the wheel of the larger Kuali Community. The Kuali Community is the hub of a wheel of a growing number of communities, each of which are made up of people and functions. Together they are creating a comprehensive suite of open, modular and distributed administrative software systems that combine the proven functionality of legacy applications with the ease and universality of online services. The Kuali Foundation serves all of these communities and assumes specific responsibilities related to keeping the wheel in motion.

Each individual community shares a similar organizational structure and some modular functionality while its components stand alone to perform unique functions. All of these communities are designed for seamless integration with each other, yet each project is made up of modules that provide a variety of implementation combinations to suit any Carnegie-class institution's unique business needs.

Kuali communities overview

Community	Name	Personnel	Functions
Kuali Community	Kuali Foundation (KF)	Board of Directors, Partner Institutions, Commercial Affiliates, Technical Council	Collaboration infrastructure, copyright holding, licensing, resource planning, licensing, documentation, bug tracking, legal services, user support
Financial Community	Kuali Financial System (KFS)	Project Board, Project Management, Functional Council, Development Teams, Subject Matter Experts	Financial transactions, General Ledger, Chart of Accounts, Pre-Disbursement Processing, Contracts & Grants, Vendor, Purchasing/Accounts Payable, Labor Distribution, Effort Certification, Budget Construction, Accounts Receivable, Capital Assets Management, Travel, Entertainment and Moving.
Research Community	Kuali Coeus ( KC )	Project Board, Project Management, Functional Council, Development Teams, Subject Matter Experts	Proposal development, budget development, routing form, grants.gov integration, institutional review board (IRB) / human subjects, awards, conflict of interest
Kuali Infrastructure Community	Kuali Rice (KR)	Development Team	Kuali Nervous System (KNS), Kuali Service Bus (KSB), Kuali Enterprise Notification (KEN), Kuali Enterprise Workflow (KEW), Kuali Identify Management (KIM), Kuali Rapid Application Development (KRAD)
Human Resources Community	Kuali Human Resources (KHR)	Project Board, Project Management, Functional Council, Development Teams, Subject Matter Experts	Time Attendance and Leave Management, Bio/Demo Data, Position Management, HR Data, Additional Compensation, Employee Self-Service, Benefits and Payroll and Faculty Reporting and Analytics.
Student Community	Kuali Student (KS)	Project Board, Project Management, Functional Council, Development Teams, Subject Matter Experts	Curriculum Management, Enrollment, Student Academic Planning, Student Accounts, Program (Degree) Audit, Financial Aid, Scheduling and Admissions.

The following list provides a brief description of groups that support the larger Kuali community:

• Kuali Foundation (KF): Employs staff to coordinate partner efforts and to manage and protect the Foundation's intellectual property. The Kuali Foundation manages a growing portfolio of enterprise software applications for colleges and universities. A lightweight Foundation staff coordinates the activities of Foundation members for critical software development and coordination activities such as source code control, release engineering, packaging, documentation, project management, software testing and quality assurance, conference planning, and educating and assisting members of the Kuali Partners Program.

• Kuali Commercial Affiliates (KCA): A designation provided to commercial affiliates who become part of the Kuali Partners Program to provide for-fee guidance, support, implementation, and integration services related to the Kuali software. Affiliates hold no ownership of Kuali intellectual property, but are full KPP participants. Affiliates may provide packaged versions of Kuali that provide value for installation or integration beyond the basic Kuali software. Affiliates may also offer other types of training, documentation, or hosting services.

• Kuali Technical Council (KTC): Sets development standards and processes, ensures compliance with established standards and procedures among contributors. Responsible to the Kuali Foundation Board for the technical success of the project, the KTC is an operationally representative group of technical leaders who work with project managers and other operational leadership. The Council implements sustainable practices that ensure software quality by achieving an effective balance between sound architecture and the meeting of project deadlines and functional requirements.

• Project Boards: Provide management and oversight of the business and affairs of projects, including management of assets and resource allocation. The Board of Directors for a Kuali community project establishes and maintains the coordination processes needed to support the development and release of the Kuali software. Further, the project boards act as a 'court of final appeal' for discussions, work groups, and collaborative member activities of the project.

• Functional Councils: Provide overall project guidance related to the identification and prioritization of business practices and functional requirements developed by each software application project. Comprised of senior administrators from core Kuali institutions, members serve as primary functional subject matter experts who communicate functional specifications to development teams.