Step 2 - Evaluate Risk and Assess Criticality

No-risk categories - or who cares?

Some processors and processes will present no problems for the year 2000. For instance, some equipment may keep time of day or day of week information but not actual dates or years. Some software may have already been made compliant by the vendor. All you need to do in such instances is to verify that this is the case.

Desktop applications, such as Excel spreadsheets, may print with date errors, but the appropriate response, may be 'who cares?' Such errors can be corrected by manual input or ignored - everyone will know that it is not really 1900.

High-risk categories - or we care!

If your department depends on any system or program that supports important departmental functions or research projects - or any other critical processes, these must be evaluated.

Again, we are not talking about centrally maintained systems or processes, but those that are unique to your department, such as applications on the desktop or on other computers that maintain date-based records for your department or prepare input data for central systems.

What to keep in mind as you take your inventory

As you begin your inventory and find a problem, keep the following questions in mind - although you don't need to answer them definitively until Step 3.

How critical is the specific process and must the date problem be fixed or replaced to maintain department functions?

Must the date problem be fixed before 2000? Or it can safely be deferred until after Jan 1, 2000 without affecting the functioning of my department?

Can I replace this old program or donate that clunky piece of hardware to the ITS Town.Gown Program? (This might be a great time to do that major cleanup you've been putting off!)

The following sections provide specific suggestions for evaluating hardware, software, data, and other potential problems.

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